Did JFK's Inflammatory Orange Bowl Speech and Promises Trigger the JFKA?

[Benjamin Cole]

It was December 29, 1962, mere weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when President JFK appeared in the Orange Bowl in Miami, in the very heart of the roiling and virulently anti-Castro Cuban exile community, to deliver the most inflammatory speech ever given by a US President  regarding Cuba. 

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-miami-the-presentation-the-flag-the-cuban-invasion-brigade

"I want to express my great appreciation to the brigade for making the United States the custodian of this flag. I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana." ---That is JFK's opening sentence of his speech, and he is referring to the Flag of the Cuban Invasion Brigade. 

The Cuban Invasion Brigade carried out the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs operation, in April 1961.

JFK added, "All of you members of the brigade, and members of their families, are following an historic road, one which has been followed by other Cubans in other days, and, indeed, by other patriots of our hemisphere in other years--Juarez, San Martin, Bolivar, O'Higgins--all of whom fought for liberty, many of whom were defeated, many of whom went in exile, and all of whom came home."

There is more--

"For your small brigade is a tangible reaffirmation that the human desire for freedom and independence is essentially unconquerable. Your conduct and valor are proof that although Castro and his fellow dictators may rule nations, they do not rule people; that they may imprison bodies, but they do not imprison spirits; that they may destroy the exercise of liberty, but they cannot eliminate the determination to be free. And by helping to free you, the United States has been given the opportunity to demonstrate once again that all men who fight for freedom are our brothers, and shall be until your country and others are free."

Well, you get the idea. 

This late 1962 speech by JFK raises two questions:

1. JFK was indisputably  breathing fire-and-brimstone down in Miami. Was JFK sincere, or---as with every pol---was he pandering to a crowd? Or even temporarily caught up with the emotions of the moment? How does the undeniable Orange Bowl version of JFK square with later interpretations of the JFK Presidency? 

2. Did the Cuban exile community, related mercs, CIA assets, and the JMWave Miami Station take umbrage at JFK's remarks, and then JFK's perceived lack of follow through? And these Orange Bowl promises were made after JFK was perceived (unfairly in my view) with having yanked the rug out from the BoP op? 

I have pondered if JFK's Orange Bowl speech triggered fresh hopes, that were then dashed by his inactions on Cuba, and that triggered subsequent umbrage taken by the very intense, self-righteous and aggrieved anti-Castro community. 

 

Edited Monday at 08:49 AM by Benjamin Cole

[Kevin Balch]

14 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

It was December 29, 1962, mere weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when President JFK appeared in the Orange Bowl in Miami, in the very heart of the roiling and virulently anti-Castro Cuban exile community, to deliver the most inflammatory speech ever given by a US President  regarding Cuba. 

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-miami-the-presentation-the-flag-the-cuban-invasion-brigade

"I want to express my great appreciation to the brigade for making the United States the custodian of this flag. I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana." ---That is JFK's opening sentence of his speech, and he is referring to the Flag of the Cuban Invasion Brigade. 

The Cuban Invasion Brigade carried out the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs operation, in April 1961.

JFK added, "All of you members of the brigade, and members of their families, are following an historic road, one which has been followed by other Cubans in other days, and, indeed, by other patriots of our hemisphere in other years--Juarez, San Martin, Bolivar, O'Higgins--all of whom fought for liberty, many of whom were defeated, many of whom went in exile, and all of whom came home."

There is more--

"For your small brigade is a tangible reaffirmation that the human desire for freedom and independence is essentially unconquerable. Your conduct and valor are proof that although Castro and his fellow dictators may rule nations, they do not rule people; that they may imprison bodies, but they do not imprison spirits; that they may destroy the exercise of liberty, but they cannot eliminate the determination to be free. And by helping to free you, the United States has been given the opportunity to demonstrate once again that all men who fight for freedom are our brothers, and shall be until your country and others are free."

Well, you get the idea. 

This late 1962 speech by JFK raises two questions:

1. JFK was indisputably  breathing fire-and-brimstone down in Miami. Was JFK sincere, or---as with every pol---was he pandering to a crowd? Or even temporarily caught up with the emotions of the moment? How does the undeniable Orange Bowl version of JFK square with later interpretations of the JFK Presidency? 

2. Did the Cuban exile community, related mercs, CIA assets, and the JMWave Miami Station take umbrage at JFK's remarks, and then JFK's perceived lack of follow through? And these Orange Bowl promises were made after JFK was perceived (unfairly in my view) with having yanked the rug out from the BoP op? 

I have pondered if JFK's Orange Bowl speech triggered fresh hopes, that were then dashed by his inactions on Cuba, and that triggered subsequent umbrage taken by the very intense, self-righteous and aggrieved anti-Castro community. 

 

A more pertinent question is, could the speech, coming close on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis where Castro felt betrayed by the Soviets, have motivated Castro or elements in his leadership or intelligence agencies to assassinate JFK?

[W. Niederhut]

4 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

A more pertinent question is, could the speech, coming close on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis where Castro felt betrayed by the Soviets, have motivated Castro or elements in his leadership or intelligence agencies to assassinate JFK?

Castro was quite distraught when he heard the news about JFK's assassination.

In fact, he was remarkably prescient in his declaration that JFK had probably been assassinated by Cold War hawks in the U.S. military industrial complex.

The ludicrous notion that Castro was involved in the JFK assassination has long been consigned to the garbage bin of history.

[Kevin Balch]

35 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Castro was quite distraught when he heard the news about JFK's assassination.

In fact, he was remarkably prescient in his declaration that JFK had probably been assassinated by Cold War hawks in the U.S. military industrial complex.

The ludicrous notion that Castro was involved in the JFK assassination has long been consigned to the garbage bin of history.

According to Castro’s own words and a Marxist who was interviewing him. Even if that’s true, it does not preclude other’s in his government or intelligence agency acting on their own or with other foreign powers.

[W. Niederhut]

58 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

According to Castro’s own words and a Marxist who was interviewing him. Even if that’s true, it does not preclude other’s in his government or intelligence agency acting on their own or with other foreign powers.

No motive.

JFK was the man who, fortunately, prevented the Joint Chiefs from bombing Cuba back to the Stone Age in October of 1962.

We later learned that, at the time, there were 50 Soviet nukes in Cuba trained on U.S. cities.

So, JFK's fundamental humanism saved the entire planet from a nuclear holocaust on my brother's 7th birthday.

 

[Kevin Balch]

7 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

No motive.

JFK was the man who, fortunately, prevented the Joint Chiefs from bombing Cuba back to the Stone Age in October of 1962.

We later learned that, at the time, there were 50 Soviet nukes in Cuba trained on U.S. cities.

So, JFK's fundamental humanism saved the entire planet from a nuclear holocaust on my brother's 7th birthday.

 

What did Castro know about that at the time? All he knew was that the Soviets threw him under the bus and that the sabotage and assassination attempts were continuing.

Edited Monday at 07:48 PM by Kevin Balch

[W. Niederhut]

42 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

What did Castro know about that at the time? All he knew was that the Soviets threw him under the bus and that the sabotage and assassination attempts were continuing.

He knew that JFK was trying to curtail CIA black ops against Cuba, after October of 1962, and that JFK wanted to establish diplomatic relations with Havana.

[Kevin Balch]

Just now, W. Niederhut said:

He knew that JFK was trying to curtail CIA black ops against Cuba, after October of 1962, and that JFK wanted to establish diplomatic relations with Havana.

Based on ...?

[W. Niederhut]

6 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

Based on ...?

Kevin,

    Have you read JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass, or Monika Wiesak's book, America's Last President?

    Two essential classics about JFK history.

[Kevin Balch]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Kevin,

    Have you read JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass, or Monika Wiesak's book, America's Last President?

    Two essential classics about JFK history.

I am currently reading 7 books relating to topics raised in this forum ranging from Mary’s Mosaic to Brothers to Twenty Six Seconds and several others. Plus I am waiting for A Very Private Woman from a local library as a supplement to Mary’s Mosaic.

I’m also reading a biography of William Seward.

You are going to have to cite specific sections in those books.

[Benjamin Cole]

9 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

A more pertinent question is, could the speech, coming close on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis where Castro felt betrayed by the Soviets, have motivated Castro or elements in his leadership or intelligence agencies to assassinate JFK?

KB-

You are justified in hosting reservations and doubts about the true perps of the JFKA.

While some people claim to know what exactly happened on 11/22, down to minute physical details as well as the true perps...in the end, every one of these points remains legitimately debatable. 

And you won't find much reference to JFK's extraordinarily inflammatory and bellicose Orange Bowl speech---vowing regime change in Cuba and installation of the BoP operatives in a new government in Havana---in the books by Douglass and Wiesak. 

That is not their JFK! Yet it is also the historical JFK. 

Those two books are nearly lyrical hagiographies of JFK, presented through a rose-tinted alt-left lens. They are attempts to harness the JFK legacy to certain present-day political biases. 

Douglass, at points, waxes in near-evangelical terms about certain witnesses, and asserts that an LHO double was exfiltrated from near Dealey Plaza on a C-47 military aircraft on 11/22 using a river-wash bed near downtown Dallas. Based on a single witness statement, but Douglass explains the exfiltration as fact. That is typical Douglass.  Another lady said she saw Jack Ruby near the TSBD in the aftermath of the JFKA, and so that is presented as a Truth, with some mystical references to higher powers. And so on.  

Wiesak's presentation of Middle East events is shot through with grotesque historic errors. I wonder who financed her book. 

Back on point, after reading both books, you will no closer to getting to the bottom of the JFKA than otherwise, and possibly misled a bit  by Douglass' book. 

It may be that elites organized the JFKA, as posited by Douglass and many others.

But that is speculative, and it may also be the JFKA was perped out of the JMWave Miami Station, and Cuban exile community---the very same group JFK was robustly demagoguing in the Orange Bowl.

Other serious researchers have built explanations of the JFKA as perped by the Mafia.  

IMHO, it is less likely that Castro operatives in the US perped the JFKA.

My reason for being skeptical of the Castro-JFKA connection are many, but the follow-up siamese-twin RFK1A, and indeed even the Scott Enyart photo negatives heist of 1996, point to a domestic organization with institutional staying power and resources, based in the US. 

However, to give your view fair hearing, it can be said that after several US-based assassination attempts on Castro, some conducted during the JFK presidency, in some regards Castro would have been justified in trying to return the favor. 

If Castro listened to JFK's Orange Bowl late 1962 speech, he heard JFK vow to have Castro removed from office, and likely the island entirely, if not from life itself. 

One can legitimately ponder Castro's reaction to JFK's saber-rattling and bald threats. 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 02:54 AM by Benjamin Cole

[W. Niederhut]

Ben,

     I'm responding to your post in red (below.)

 

Ben Cole wrote:

You are justified in hosting reservations and doubts about the true perps of the JFKA.

While some people claim to know what exactly happened on 11/22, down to minute physical details as well as the true perps...in the end, every one of these points remains legitimately debatable. 

Who are these people, Ben?

While it is relatively easy to debunk the WCR/Lone Nut theory of the JFKA, it is a far more complicated matter to find and place all of the missing pieces of the JFKA jigsaw puzzle, especially since the perpetrators were so diligent about hiding and destroying the evidence (including numerous key witnesses.)

And you won't find much reference to JFK's extraordinarily inflammatory and bellicose Orange Bowl speech---vowing regime change in Cuba and installation of the BoP operatives in a new government in Havana---in the books by Douglass and Wiesak. 

That is not their JFK! Yet it is also the historical JFK. 

Have you even read Douglass's and Wiesak's excellent books, Ben?

As in the case of Lincoln, and other politicians, it's important to distinguish between their true policy positions and their public pronouncements in politicized contexts.

Lincoln often dissembled about his private opposition to slavery, to avoid alienating slave owners in Border states.  (See The Fiery Trial by Eric Foner.)

Similarly, JFK and RFK were quite familiar with Red Scare paranoia.  

In the case of the Orange Bowl speech, JFK was speaking to a community of Cuban Americans who were enraged about Allen Dulles's botched Bay of Pigs op.  It was political damage control.

Those two books are nearly lyrical hagiographies of JFK, presented through a rose-tinted alt-left lens. They are attempts to harness the JFK legacy to certain present-day political biases. 

Again.  How would you know, if you haven't read the books?

Douglass, at points, waxes in near-evangelical terms about certain witnesses, and asserts that an LHO double was exfiltrated from near Dealey Plaza C-47 on 11/22 using a river-wash bed near downtown Dallas. Based on a single witness statement, but Douglass explains the exfiltration as fact. That is typical Douglass.  Another lady said she saw Jack Ruby near the TSBD in the aftermath of the JFKA, and so that is presented as a Truth, with some mystical references to higher powers. And so on. 

Huh?  That is the most nonsensical misinterpretation of Douglass's profound work I've read anywhere. 

There are theological references to Thomas Merton and Roman Catholicism in Douglass, but their relevance to JFK's geopolitical vision has, obviously, sailed way over your head, Ben.

Douglass does discuss the Wayne January/Redbird data, including January's claim that Oswald had visited Redbird prior to 11/22/63.

Wiesak's presentation of Middle East events is shot through with grotesque historic errors. I wonder who financed her book. 

Which errors are those, Ben?  Specify.

I hope you're not basing your erroneous concepts on the MIC propagandist, Griffith.

Back on point, after reading both books, you will no closer to getting to the bottom of the JFKA than otherwise, and possibly misled a bit  by Douglass' book. 

It may be that elites organized the JFKA, as posited by Douglass and many others.

Complete bunk.  People can learn a great deal about the CIA-suppressed history of JFK from both of these great books.

But that is speculative, and it may also be the JFKA was perped out of the JMWave Miami Station, and Cuban exile community---the very same group JFK was robustly demagoguing in the Orange Bowl.

And did JMWave and the Cubans also handle the sham Bethesda autopsy, the mainstream media narrative, the FBI, the Warren Commission, and the comprehensive cover up of the JFKA?

Other serious researchers have built explanations of the JFKA as perped by the Mafia.  

They were CIA contractors, as Giancana openly admitted.

IMHO, it is less likely that Castro operatives in the US perped the JFKA.

My reason for being skeptical of the Castro-JFKA connection are many, but the follow-up siamese-twin RFK1A, and indeed even the Scott Enyart photo negatives heist of 1996, point to a domestic organization with institutional staying power and resources, based in the US. 

It's called the CIA, Ben. 

However, to give your view fair hearing, it can be said that after several US-based assassination attempts on Castro, some conducted during the JFK presidency, in some regards Castro would have been justified in trying to return the favor. 

If Castro listened to JFK's Orange Bowl late 1962 speech, he heard JFK vow to have Castro removed from office, and likely the island entirely, if not from life itself. 

One can legitimately ponder Castro's reaction to JFK's saber-rattling and bald threats. 

Castro, surely, knew that JFK and Kruschev had negotiated a peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That included agreements to curtail CIA black ops against Cuba.

Castro also knew that JFK had refused TWICE to attack Cuba with the U.S. military-- in April of 1961, and in October of 1962.

He probably interpreted the Orange Bowl speech as political damage control.

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 02:36 AM by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

23 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

     I'm responding to your post in red (below.)

 

Ben Cole wrote:

You are justified in hosting reservations and doubts about the true perps of the JFKA.

While some people claim to know what exactly happened on 11/22, down to minute physical details as well as the true perps...in the end, every one of these points remains legitimately debatable. 

Who are these people, Ben?

While it is relatively easy to debunk the WCR/Lone Nut theory of the JFKA, it is a far more complicated matter to find and place all of the missing pieces of the JFKA jigsaw puzzle, especially since the perpetrators were so diligent about hiding and destroying the evidence (including numerous key witnesses.)

And you won't find much reference to JFK's extraordinarily inflammatory and bellicose Orange Bowl speech---vowing regime change in Cuba and installation of the BoP operatives in a new government in Havana---in the books by Douglass and Wiesak. 

That is not their JFK! Yet it is also the historical JFK. 

Have you even read Douglass's and Wiesak's excellent books, Ben?

As in the case of Lincoln, and other politicians, it's important to distinguish between their true policy positions and their public pronouncements in politicized contexts.

Lincoln often dissembled about his private opposition to slavery, to avoid alienating slave owners in Border states.  (See The Fiery Trial by Eric Foner.)

Similarly, JFK and RFK were quite familiar with Red Scare paranoia.  

In the case of the Orange Bowl speech, JFK was speaking to a community of Cuban Americans who were enraged about Allen Dulles's botched Bay of Pigs op.  It was political damage control.

Those two books are nearly lyrical hagiographies of JFK, presented through a rose-tinted alt-left lens. They are attempts to harness the JFK legacy to certain present-day political biases. 

Again.  How would you know, if you haven't read the books?

Douglass, at points, waxes in near-evangelical terms about certain witnesses, and asserts that an LHO double was exfiltrated from near Dealey Plaza C-47 on 11/22 using a river-wash bed near downtown Dallas. Based on a single witness statement, but Douglass explains the exfiltration as fact. That is typical Douglass.  Another lady said she saw Jack Ruby near the TSBD in the aftermath of the JFKA, and so that is presented as a Truth, with some mystical references to higher powers. And so on. 

Huh?  That is the most nonsensical misinterpretation of Douglass's profound work I've read anywhere. 

There are theological references to Thomas Merton and Roman Catholicism in Douglass, but their relevance to JFK's geopolitical vision has, obviously, sailed way over your head, Ben.

Douglass does discuss the Wayne January/Redbird data, including January's claim that Oswald had visited Redbird prior to 11/22/63.

Wiesak's presentation of Middle East events is shot through with grotesque historic errors. I wonder who financed her book. 

Which errors are those, Ben?  Specify.

I hope you're not basing your erroneous concepts on the MIC propagandist, Griffith.

Back on point, after reading both books, you will no closer to getting to the bottom of the JFKA than otherwise, and possibly misled a bit  by Douglass' book. 

It may be that elites organized the JFKA, as posited by Douglass and many others.

Complete bunk.  People can learn a great deal about the CIA-suppressed history of JFK from both of these great books.

But that is speculative, and it may also be the JFKA was perped out of the JMWave Miami Station, and Cuban exile community---the very same group JFK was robustly demagoguing in the Orange Bowl.

And did JMWave and the Cubans also handle the sham Bethesda autopsy, the mainstream media narrative, the FBI, the Warren Commission, and the comprehensive cover up of the JFKA?

Other serious researchers have built explanations of the JFKA as perped by the Mafia.  

They were CIA contractors, as Giancana openly admitted.

IMHO, it is less likely that Castro operatives in the US perped the JFKA.

My reason for being skeptical of the Castro-JFKA connection are many, but the follow-up siamese-twin RFK1A, and indeed even the Scott Enyart photo negatives heist of 1996, point to a domestic organization with institutional staying power and resources, based in the US. 

It's called the CIA, Ben. 

However, to give your view fair hearing, it can be said that after several US-based assassination attempts on Castro, some conducted during the JFK presidency, in some regards Castro would have been justified in trying to return the favor. 

If Castro listened to JFK's Orange Bowl late 1962 speech, he heard JFK vow to have Castro removed from office, and likely the island entirely, if not from life itself. 

One can legitimately ponder Castro's reaction to JFK's saber-rattling and bald threats. 

Castro, surely, knew that JFK and Kruschev had negotiated a peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That included agreements to curtail CIA black ops against Cuba.

Castro also knew that JFK had refused TWICE to attack Cuba with the U.S. military-- in April of 1961, and in October of 1962.

He probably interpreted the Orange Bowl speech as political damage control.

 

 

 

WN- I have read the Douglass and Wiesak books.

No need to reiterate my views on those two books.

Edited Tuesday at 02:59 AM by Benjamin Cole

[Robert Morrow]

On 8/12/2024 at 1:37 PM, Kevin Balch said:

According to Castro’s own words and a Marxist who was interviewing him. Even if that’s true, it does not preclude other’s in his government or intelligence agency acting on their own or with other foreign powers.

What other President would be hanging out with a MARXIST JOURNALIST and then send him on a secret reconciliation mission with Fidel Castro?

Ike, Nixon, LBJ, Ford sure wouldn't do anything like that.

I am referring to JFK meeting with prominent journalist Jean Daniel and sending him on a "feeler mission" to Fidel Castro just before the JFK assassination.

Daniel - who I have no reason to doubt - said that Fidel Castro was highly dismayed and concerned about the assassination of JFK. Daniel was with Fidel Castro at the exact moment of the JFK assassination.

Jean Daniel, a "leading French journalist and humanist" died just a few years ago at age 99 in the year 2020 - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/business/media/jean-daniel-dead.html

One of Jean Daniel's GOOD FRIENDS was the journalist Thomas Buchanan who went to Dallas early and got out one of the first books on the JFK assassination.

Thomas Buchanan, straight out of the gate, in my never humble opinion, got close to the ultimate truth on the JFK assassination (I emphasize LBJ Did It more than foreign policy reasons for the JFK assassination):

Thomas Buchanan on who was the biggest threat to Texas oil millionaires: John Kennedy!

            Who, then, was the chief threat to the Dallas oilmen? It must be apparent that their greatest enemy, in their opinion, was the President himself.

          For a large number of the Dallas millionaires, however, oil has ceased to be the major interest which it remains for most of Texas. Typical of these, and most successful, are the Murchisons, John D. and Clinton W., Jr., who were in 1961 reported to have each amassed a private fortune of 150 million dollars, and who jointly owned or directed 100 companies with assets of more than a billion dollars.”

[Thomas C. Buchanan, Who Killed Kennedy, p. 185]

Thomas Buchanan’s views of the JFK assassination from 1964:

            But there was one factor which, in my opinion, was still more explosive than the oilman’s fear of losing their exemption [oil depreciation allowance], or the regional ambitions of the other Dallas leaders. It combined these drives and gave them an emotional expression.

          I believe the murder of the President was provoked, primarily, by fear of the domestic and international consequences of the Moscow pact: the danger of disarmament which would disrupt the industries on which the plotters depended and of an international détente which would, in their view, have threatened the eventual nationalization of their oil investments overseas.

[Thomas C. Buchanan, Who Killed Kennedy, p. 187]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:05 PM by Robert Morrow

[W. Niederhut]

20 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

WN- I have read the Douglass and Wiesak books.

No need to reiterate my views on those two books.

Ben,

   What are your thoughts about Wiesak's analysis on page 200 of America's Last President, and Douglass's analysis on page 337 of JFK and the Unspeakable?

    Based on your glib denigration of these two excellent books as "hagiography," I'm not convinced that you have read, or understood, them.