This CPA was tasked with trying to kill Castro and may know JFK secrets

[Douglas Caddy]

http://nypost.com/2017/05/02/this-cpa-was-tasked-with-trying-to-kill-castro-and-may-know-jfk-secrets/

[Douglas Caddy]

Robert Morrow has provided this background:

Antonio Veciana was born in Cuba. He worked as an accountant in a Cuban bank owned by Julio Lobo. A strong opponent of Fidel Castro, Veciana established Alpha 66 after the communists gained power in 1959. This anti-Castro group received considerable funding from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Veciana claimed that his CIA contact was an agent named Maurice Bishop. Over the next few years Veciana received $253,000 from Bishop. In 1961 Veciana worked with Bishop on a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. In March 1963, the Alpha 66 group attacked Russian ships docked in Cuba. This was seen as an attempt to undermine the improving relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union that had followed the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Department of State made it clear that this attack did not have the support of President John F. Kennedy.

On 26th March 1963 Alpha 66 attacked another Soviet ship. Members of Alpha 66 held a press conference suggesting the American government supported their actions. Kennedy was furious and ordered that Veciana and other leaders of Alpha 66 should be arrested and placed in a confined area in Florida.

After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Veciana began work for the International Development Agency under the State Department in Bolivia. Although officially an advisor to Bolivian banks, he actually spent most of his time in anti-Communist activities. In 1971 he was again involved in another failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro.

In 1974 Antonio Veciana, was convicted in 1974 in New York of conspiring to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to seven years. In 1976 Veciana was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He told the committee about his relationship with Maurice Bishop. He also claimed that in August, 1963, he saw Bishop and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Veciana admitted that Bishop and the Central Intelligence Agency had organized and funded the Alpha 66 attacks on the Soviet ships docked in Cuba in 1963.

Veciana explained the policy: "It was my case officer, Maurice Bishop, who had the idea to attack the Soviet ships. The intention was to cause trouble between Kennedy and Russia. Bishop believed that Kennedy and Khrushchev had made a secret agreement that the USA would do nothing more to help in the fight against Castro. Bishop felt - he told me many times - that President Kennedy was a man without experience surrounded by a group of young men who were also inexperienced with mistaken ideas on how to manage this country. He said you had to put Kennedy against the wall in order to force him to make decisions that would remove Castro's regime."

Richard Schweiker, a member of the committee, speculated that Bishop was David Atlee Phillips. Schweiker arranged for Veciana and Phillips to be introduced at a meeting of the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers in Reston. Phillips denied knowing Veciana. After the meeting Veciana told Schweiker that Phillips was not the man known to him as Bishop.