Was Cuban hit man Herminio Diaz a second Kennedy assassin

[Chris Newton]

Mark,

Thanks but Google did an even worse hatchet job on that piece than I would have,

[James Richards]

That's really helpful James and I think it is coming together, his pattern would not be all that unfamiliar. At this point two main things stand out to be reconciled, first the CIA report that Diaz Garcia just missed Castro in a shooting attack at the end of 1963 - the report on that would give no suggestion that it was an Agency operation but one never knows. It would demonstrate he was pretty radical though. The second would be how he hooked up with Cuesta in a relatively risky 66 mission, and one that HDG had remarked to associates before hand was another attempt on Castro.

Cuesta was a straight shooter and dedicated revolutionary, so the Cuesta connection is important. Following his capture, Cuesta apparently decided that he might have been set up on the mission and that the Castro forces were waiting on him, he suspected somebody wanted to dispose of him - or possibly Cuesta? It sounds a bit like the Vidal boat mission in 64 that you and I have discussed previously. Independent and possibly a set up.

Larry,

HDG had associated with Cuesta quite often after his arrival. He spent some time in a training camp run by Eloy Menoyo and was participating in missions into Cuba. There are certainly connections between HDG and Rosselli, as well as Rip Robertson.

I think there is very little doubt the Cuesta mission in 1966 was a set up.

BTW, the guy who gave up Vidal to the Cubans was Pedro Diaz Lanz.

[Robert Howard]

Here is what the magazine for people with Inquirin' Minds has to say....Interesting....

Published on: October 25, 2013

by JOHN BLOSSER & ROBERT HARTLEIN, NATIONAL ENQUIRER

LEE HARVEY OSWALD did NOT act alone – and The ENQUIRER can finally name the second gunman who fired the fatal shot at President JOHN F. KENNEDY from the grassy knoll in Dallas 50 years ago!

In a blockbuster exclusive, The ENQUIRER has learned that a Cuban exile with ties to both the Mafia and the CIA confessed to being involved in a conspiracy to kill America’s beloved 35th president.

The startling new evidence was uncovered by re­spected author Anthony Summers, who revealed the assassin’s identity in an update to his classic 1998 book on Kennedy’s slaying, “Not In Your Lifetime.”

According to Summers, the second rifleman was Herminio Diaz, a hired killer who worked for notorious Mafia boss Santo Trafficante Jr. in Cuba. Diaz executed a Cuban police chief in the late 1940s and likely committed 20 murders in his lifetime.

“Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone,” Summers told The ENQUIRER.

“There was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, and the same people who hired Lee Harvey Oswald – whether it was the CIA, the Mafia or Cubans opposed to Fidel Castro – also hired Herminio Diaz.”

Diaz arrived in the U.S. in mid-1963, according to CIA documents, just months be­fore Kennedy was struck down in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22 of that year.

“Diaz was a professional hit man with a record of political assassina­tions,” Summers said.

“He’d also worked for Mafia chief Trafficante as security director of the Hotel Habana Riviera casino in Cuba.

“He was in the country at the right time and was involved in the anti-Castro movement. Many people in that movement thought President Kennedy had betrayed them during the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and had a motive to kill him.

“Frankly, it all adds up.”

According to Summers, Diaz revealed his role in the Kennedy assassination to a friend named Tony Cuesta. The two men were headed to Cuba by boat on an anti-Castro raid in 1966 when Diaz spilled the details on the murder plot.

“Diaz and Cuesta talked on the boat while waiting to land in Cuba,” Summers said.

“During their conversations, Diaz admitted to Cuesta that he’d taken part in Kennedy’s death.”

Diaz was killed in the raid. Afterward, a photo published in a Cuban Communist Party newspaper showed that he was carrying a valid Florida driver’s license and a Social Security card when he died, evidence that he had indeed been in the U.S.

His buddy Cuesta was badly injured in the raid, captured and jailed at Cuba’s infamous La Cabana Prison. While being treated at the jail infirmary, Cuesta confided Diaz’s assassination story to another anti-Castro inmate, Cuban Rein­aldo Martinez. After his release from prison, Martinez fled to Miami, and in 2007 he contacted G. Robert Blakey, who’d served as chief counsel of the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations.

“Martinez thought he was about to die and wanted to set the record straight,” Blakey told The ENQUIRER.

“After speaking with him, I believe he was telling the truth. It wasn’t just Lee Harvey Oswald who killed Kennedy. It was a conspiracy, and Herminio Diaz was the second shooter.”

Summers also interviewed Martinez for two days in Miami.

“Martinez had nothing to gain by telling his story, except for setting the record straight,” Summers, who videotaped the interview, told The ENQUIRER.

“He told me he was close to death and was telling the story because, ‘It is the truth – my truth.’”

Kennedy’s brutal slaughter stunned America and prompted his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, to order a thorough investigation of the tragedy. According to the official Warren Commission report on the assassination, Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy.

BUT in the famed Zapruder film that shows the presidential motorcade moving through Dealey Plaza, Kennedy is first hit from behind, where Oswald was located in the Texas School Book Depository.

After that, it appears that Kennedy was hit from the front at an angle which would indicate a shooter located on the “grassy knoll.”

One expert who’s convinced there was a second shooter is world famous medical examiner Cyril H. Wecht, who’s spent decades studying the assassination.

“Based on the available medical, physical and photographic evidence, all of which I’ve exam­ined multiple times, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was carried out by two gunmen – not just Lee Harvey Oswald,” Wecht told The ENQUIRER. According to his analysis, Wecht says two gunmen fired four shots, and one assassin was situated at the front of the motorcade.

“Based on the initial backward trajectory of the president’s head after being impacted by the gunshot blasts, I believe a shooter operated from the right front of the vehicle behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll,” he said.

“Eyewitness accounts corroborate this.”

While the Warren Report discounted that scenario, multiple eyewitnesses told the same story to the congressional committee between 1977 and 1979, according to Blakey.

“At our hearings, there was lots of testimony that a shot was fired from the grassy knoll,” Blakey, also author of the anti-mob RICO act and professor emeritus of law at Notre Dame, told The ENQUIRER.

“I believe there were four shots. The first, second and fourth shots came from the Texas School Book Depository. The third shot came from the grassy knoll.

“The committee had everything but the names of the people involved in the conspiracy. Marti­nez’s story has filled in the last pieces of the puzzle. There were two shooters.”

According to both Summers and Blakey, Marti­nez approached the FBI to tell his story but was told that the assassination investigation was closed.

And Blakey called Summers’ discovery of Diaz’s role in the assassination a “breakthrough of historical importance.”

“Summers’ book deserves to be read and taken seriously by all those who care about truth or justice,” he said.

Summers added: “I completely believe the stories told by Reinaldo Martinez and Tony Cuesta about Herminio Diaz’s role in the assassination of President Kennedy.

“Fifty years after the fact, their information has blown the investigation into the Kennedy assassi­nation wide open!”

Robert: The only problem, if you want to call it that, is this is by no means "new information."

And I say that with all due respect to Anthony Summers...I have a very strong feeling that

the media machine will be in overdrive between today and 11/22/2013....My own response

is does the QD cryptonym come into play?....seems like a logical question

QDBIAS Pedro Diaz Lanz. 104-10061-10115 (and following page), 104-10260-10178, 104-10260-10168. MFF. QDCHAR Marcos Diaz Lanz, brother of Pedro Diaz Lanz. 104-10177-10039, 104-10260-10061 (these identify Lanz's "201" file number as 201-259716), 104-10167-10132 (associates 201 number with QDCHAR).

Note: Herminio Diaz' name pops up on page 10 of the following URL; it is in an Orlando Bosch Villa document....

Edited October 30, 2013 by Robert Howard

[David Boylan]

That's really helpful James and I think it is coming together, his pattern would not be all that unfamiliar. At this point two main things stand out to be reconciled, first the CIA report that Diaz Garcia just missed Castro in a shooting attack at the end of 1963 - the report on that would give no suggestion that it was an Agency operation but one never knows. It would demonstrate he was pretty radical though. The second would be how he hooked up with Cuesta in a relatively risky 66 mission, and one that HDG had remarked to associates before hand was another attempt on Castro.

Cuesta was a straight shooter and dedicated revolutionary, so the Cuesta connection is important. Following his capture, Cuesta apparently decided that he might have been set up on the mission and that the Castro forces were waiting on him, he suspected somebody wanted to dispose of him - or possibly Cuesta? It sounds a bit like the Vidal boat mission in 64 that you and I have discussed previously. Independent and possibly a set up.

Larry,

HDG had associated with Cuesta quite often after his arrival. He spent some time in a training camp run by Eloy Menoyo and was participating in missions into Cuba. There are certainly connections between HDG and Rosselli, as well as Rip Robertson.

I think there is very little doubt the Cuesta mission in 1966 was a set up.

BTW, the guy who gave up Vidal to the Cubans was Pedro Diaz Lanz.

James,

Fascinating. Diaz Lanz was with Carlos Prio and Paulino Sierra when they visited HL Hunt looking for funds. Diazl Lanz was also close to Frank Sturgis. Both Diaz Lanz brothers and Sturgis/Fiorini visited W. Williams at his ranch in Fla in an attempt to get him to fly a mission into Cuba to drop "leaflets."

I still haven't resolved the Sierra/Prio/JGCE initiative. Who were their backers?

[James Richards]

That's really helpful James and I think it is coming together, his pattern would not be all that unfamiliar. At this point two main things stand out to be reconciled, first the CIA report that Diaz Garcia just missed Castro in a shooting attack at the end of 1963 - the report on that would give no suggestion that it was an Agency operation but one never knows. It would demonstrate he was pretty radical though. The second would be how he hooked up with Cuesta in a relatively risky 66 mission, and one that HDG had remarked to associates before hand was another attempt on Castro.

Cuesta was a straight shooter and dedicated revolutionary, so the Cuesta connection is important. Following his capture, Cuesta apparently decided that he might have been set up on the mission and that the Castro forces were waiting on him, he suspected somebody wanted to dispose of him - or possibly Cuesta? It sounds a bit like the Vidal boat mission in 64 that you and I have discussed previously. Independent and possibly a set up.

Larry,

HDG had associated with Cuesta quite often after his arrival. He spent some time in a training camp run by Eloy Menoyo and was participating in missions into Cuba. There are certainly connections between HDG and Rosselli, as well as Rip Robertson.

I think there is very little doubt the Cuesta mission in 1966 was a set up.

BTW, the guy who gave up Vidal to the Cubans was Pedro Diaz Lanz.

James,

Fascinating. Diaz Lanz was with Carlos Prio and Paulino Sierra when they visited HL Hunt looking for funds. Diazl Lanz was also close to Frank Sturgis. Both Diaz Lanz brothers and Sturgis/Fiorini visited W. Williams at his ranch in Fla in an attempt to get him to fly a mission into Cuba to drop "leaflets."

I still haven't resolved the Sierra/Prio/JGCE initiative. Who were their backers?

Hi David.

The JGCE was a very interesting concern. I was told they had some money coming out of Las Vegas which could mean anything. I was also told that Dr. Julio Garceran was fronting money. He of course was mixing with Felipe Vidal and Jerry Buchanan in the weeks leading up to the assassination. ONI man Hal Feeney was also one close with Garceran.

FWIW.

[David Boylan]

James,

The money was supposedly from Jake Lansky or "gamblers from the west". If this was so, then why the visit to Hunt? Also William Trull was helping him out in the beginning. Trull was from the King Ranch. I guess we'll have to read Joan Mellen's book for details about the King Ranch.

I'm still having problems with Burt Mold and John Lechner visiting Carlos Quiroga in Chicago. As has been metioned before, Lechner's name and address is in Richard Nagell's notebook. Obviuously a subject of his investigations.

On a side note, Peter Dale Scott mentioned that he had interviewed Mold and Mold said he was working in a casino in Las Vegas.

[B. A. Copeland]

I have a feeling this article will be "taken in" by everyone who reads it in general, right before the 50th, mainstream, leftist, liberal alike....there will be no fact checking and Tony's important word on the article will go unnoticed once guys like Alex Jones take hold of the article...

If the writers of said article could have easily contacted Summers for clarification and did not, then I find the origins of its publication dubious....Why do that?

Because they aren't interested in the truth, only in selling papers and advertising.

Blakey says he was misquoted too, though it appears they at least talked to him.

There were two or three presentations at the Wecht conference on the media and how journalism has failed the assassination.

Normally such misquotes as those in National Enquirer would go unchallenged, but Tony and Robbyn immediately put out a disclaimer and have periodic updates on their blog and Facebook, so the truth isn't hard to find if you look.

And guess what, the truth, the REAL story about these guys, as Larry Hancock has demonstrated here by trying to figure it out - the REAL story is even better than the National Enquirer's sensationalized yellow journalism, I think they call it.

There were two or three presentations at the Wecht conference on the media and how journalism has failed the assassination

On Thursday night in Pittsburgh, the Heinz History Center sponsored a very interesting program on the media and the assassination with a panel that consisted of Jeff Morley, Lisa Pease, Russ Baker, Jerry Policoff, David Talbot and Oliver Stone, and the video of this program should be available on line. Since they had all been loosened up some of the interactions are interesting and what they discuss important, even though it was discussed in a loose and lightweight fashion.

Then on Saturday, Lisa Pease gave a lesson on how everyone must adapt the standards of real journalists and historians - and always check sources and confirm it elsewhere before accepting it, and listed the usual disinformation suspects as ones to beware of - including two - McAdams and Holland, who were there.

So you have muckrakers like National Enquirer that will say anything - dizinfo who will give you propaganda, and then real journalists like Tony Summers and few others who try to keep an open mind, research the hell out of it, interview everybody, confirm everything from first hand sources and report that truth as best you can in a style that people will want to read.

Tony was upset about the wrong photo caption and moved to correct it right away, and I'm sure he will correct any other such mistakes, in fact we can depend on it.

Well said Mr Kelly. Couldn't agree more.

[Gene Kelly]

I second Ken's comment... when Larry and James contribute, one knows the truth is close by. HDG by nature of his associations and avocation seems a person of interest. Everyone in his 'circle' becomes suspect (e.g. handler named Rip, Roselli, obsession with killing Castro, AMMOT's, etc). The only statement that threw me was when Larry mentioned that Cuesta was a "straight shooter" ... pun intended?

[Larry Hancock]

Very good Gene, generally I'm not sharp enough to actually make puns though I do love them. In this case its probably my aging vernacular that is to blame. In this case my usage was simply because it strikes me that Cuesta as well as his long time associate Tony Varona were extremely brave, totally committed to the cause against Castro and never tried to personally capitalize on their military operations - which were quite successful in limited terms and which received coverage in major American magazines such as LIFE and LOOK. Both continued their campaigns as long as they were able but never turned to "terror" attacks and certainly Cuesta never attempted to seek any personal fame or to "shop" what he had head from Diaz Garcia after his release from Cuba. Interestingly enough both he and Varona had been involved in CIA affiliated missions such as the Tejana insertion operation before the Bay of Pigs but apparently neither was recruited into ongoing CIA operations and they pursued their independent actions though and beyond the missile crisis, becoming major media thorns in the side of both the administration in early 1963.

That sort of independent and consistent behavior makes Cuesta quite credible in my view, a "straight shooter" in my terms. And of course the involvement of Diaz Garcia in Dallas would be very consistent with the scenario that I've been describing in my "connecting the dots" blog series, one which involved Cuban exiles who had participated in efforts to kill Castro were turned on JFK - the same scenario which John Roselli actually offered to individuals ranging from Earl Warren to LBJ, (although spun to point to Castro) in a successful effort to preempt the Garrison inquiry before it could gain any traction, especially as Garrisons very early Miami investigations even got started.

[Mathias Baumann]

There's another photograph of Diaz Garcia on this website here: https://www.ecured.cu/Herminio_Díaz_García

[Michael Clark]

1 hour ago, Mathias Baumann said:

There's another photograph of Diaz Garcia on this website here: https://www.ecured.cu/Herminio_Díaz_García

I tried to a insert a link. It did not work.

Edited August 26, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Chris Bennett]

On 10/20/2013 at 3:57 AM, James Richards said:

And another. Acre had been misidentified in the past as Bernard Barker.

Wow, Remegio Arce really does bear a string resemblance to Bernard Barker. Is it possible that Seymour Weitzman actually saw Arce on the grassy knoll instead of Barker, who he later identified?

Chris

[David Boylan]

Looks like Diaz was an early person of interest after the assassination.

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/docid-32197547.pdf

[David Boylan]

ANGEL LEIRO states that the real reason Herminio Diaz Garcia went to Cuba with Cuesta and crew was to contact the underground and make plans for an uprising. The cover story was that it was an assassination plot to kill Fidel and that Cuesta never knew the real reason.

 http://documents.theblackvault.com/.../docid-32333786.pdf

Edited February 11, 2018 by David Boylan