Unpublished Gaeton Fonzi Essay

[Larry Hancock]

In late 1995, journalist and former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi traveled to Cuba and interviewed Fabian Escalante, the former head of Cuban Counter Intelligence. The interview was part of a planned article for Esquire magazine. Escalante talked with Fonzi for hours about his role protecting Castro, and together they toured a museum devoted to artifacts of assassination plots against the Cuban leader.

The article was never published by Esquire. But, through the generosity of Fonzi's widow Marie, the Mary Ferrell Foundation is now making it available for the first time. It is entitled "And Why, By the Way, is Fidel Castro Still Alive?: The Inside Story of Cuban Intelligence. You will find the article through the link below.

We were happy to have Marie Fonzi speak at last year's JFK Lancer conference in Dallas and even happier that she will be returning to present again this November. She has some fascinating insights into what her husband did while working as one of the few experienced investigators to serve Congressional inquiries - as well as his personal thoughts about the people involved and his inside view of the HSCA practices.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Featured_Unpublished_Fonzi_Essay.html

[Tom Neal]

In late 1995, journalist and former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi traveled to Cuba and interviewed Fabian Escalante, the former head of Cuban Counter Intelligence. The interview was part of a planned article for Esquire magazine. Escalante talked with Fonzi for hours about his role protecting Castro...

Larry, thanks for posting this. I'm going to re-read the entire essay later tonight when I have time, but this paragraph is more than enough to keep Esquire from printing it. Pointing out that Corporate America and The Mob had the same interests, and that our Foreign Policy toward Cuba was based on the interests of Corporations and the personal interests of individuals at CIA.

Although young Fabian Escalante was assigned to the Revolutionary Army's fledgling intelligence unit immediately after Castro took power, he was not, of course, aware of the seeds of assassination plots then being sown. Those seeds didn't originate within the CIA. They sprang from two non-governmental sources: The Organized Crime syndicate, whose ranking members lost a huge amount of income when Castro closed their gambling casinos; and the American corporate bosses who watched hundreds of millions of their investment dollars and property disappear when Castro began his Agrarian Reform and business nationalization programs. The early CIA, led by Eisenhower-appointee Allen Dulles and a brotherhood of uppercrust Ivy League types, was closely aligned by both blood and economic interests to the highest banking and financial powers on Wall Street. Corporate America had a big stake in Batista's Cuba: It owned about 40 percent of Cuba's sugar land, 90 percent of its mines and mineral concessions, almost all its cattle ranches, 80 percent of its utilities and practically all the oil industry. Yet, initially, when Batista's regime began to wobble, the Agency's outlook remained flexible, thinking it could best protect America's corporate interests by hedging its bet and surreptitiously supporting both factions.

[Larry Hancock]

Indeed Tom, I don't think anyone really wants to revisit how big a role both the major corporations and the crime families had in forming Administration policy towards Cuba. It has to be noted that Nixon and some of his personal friends were very much involved in the Casino scene in Cuba, that Meyer Lansky actually brought Roselli down to clean up after a complaint from one of Nixons's buddies and perhaps most importantly that the first assassination attempt against Castro was by crime figures connected to Vegas (even though it went down in New York City) and very likely came from the Lansky/Roselli nexus. Not to mention that when the CIA was first getting started, the people they went to for covert assistance (David Phillips specifically) were the big New York, Texas and La. companies that had been doing business in Cuba.

[Chris Bennett]

The canceled Esquire article is good, but the transcripts make for even better reading.

For instance, I had not known that Escalante claimed Cubela told him in 1978 that he met David Morales in Paris in Sept of 63.