Fabian Escalante

[John Simkin]

Fabian Escalante was born in Cuba in 1941. A supporter of Fidel Castro he worked for the country's state security department. Later he became head of Cuba's Counter-Intelligence Unit (1976-1982). In 1978 he agreed to provide information to the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

In 1978 President Jimmy Carter arranged for a group of imprisoned exiles to be released. This included Tony Cuesta who was involved in an attack on Cuba on 29th May, 1966. A member of his team, Herminio Diaz Garcia, was killed during the raid. Cuesta, who always vowed that Castro would never take him alive, attempted suicide by setting off a grenade, which blinded him and blew off his right hand. Cuesta spent a long time in hospital as a result of his serious injuries.

Just before leaving Cuba Cuesta asked to see Escalante. Cuesta told Escalante that he had been involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He also named Herminio Diaz Garcia and Eladio del Valle as being involved in the conspiracy. Cuesta asked Escalante not to make this information "public because I am returning to my family in Miami - and this could be very dangerous."

In 1982 Escalante became a senior official in the Interior Ministry. By this time Escalante was considered to be Cuba's leading authority on the history of CIA activities against his country.

In a Cuban television documentary broadcast on November 26, 1993, Escalante named the gunmen who killed John F. Kennedy as three Chicago mobsters (Lenny Patrick, David Yaras, and Richard Cain), and two Cuban exiles (Eladio del Valle and Herminio Diaz Garcia), but said that many in the CIA and elsewhere knew what was going to happen.

In 1995, Wayne Smith, chief of the Centre for International Policy in Washington, arranged a meeting on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in Nassau, Bahamas. Others in attendance were: Gaeton Fonzi, Dick Russell, Noel Twyman, Anthony Summers, Peter Dale Scott, Jeremy Gunn, John Judge, Andy Kolis, Peter Kornbluh, Mary and Ray LaFontaine, Jim Lesar, John Newman, Alan Rogers, Russ Swickard, Ed Sherry, and Gordon Winslow.

Some high-level Cuban officials attended the conference. This included Fabian Escalante, Carlos Lechuga, a former Cuban diplomat, and Arturo Rodriguez, a State Security official. Escalante revealed details of Cuesta's confession. He also informed the group they had a spy in the anti-Castro community in Miami and knew about the plot to kill JFK.

Fabian Escalante is the author of The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62 (1995) and CIA Targets Fidel: The Secret Assassination Report (1996).

[Tim Gratz]

John, Escalante claimed the confession was in writing. Gordon Winslow demanded to see the document but Escalante refused to produce it.

You cannot, of course, produce a document that does not exist.

I admire your skill in getting people to join the Forum. I am sure you can find Escalante. Why don't you ask him to send you a copy of the confession?

Edited December 14, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

If Cuba had Cuesta's confession why would Escalante not produce it?

Since he did not produce it, the inference is he lied about it.

Gee, I wonder why that might be. . .

Escalante did tell William Turner that DGI had a spy in Manuel Artime's camp in Nicauraga. That I believe.

If so, he knew about the coup and assassination planned for December 1st (per "Ultimate Sacrifice").

Only ONE thing stopped the coup and assassination. Or I should say two or three things. The bullets that destroyed the life of John F. Kennedy, whose brother was planning the coup and the assassination. How fortunate for the regime that Escalante was pledged to protect. Just two ways to explain that. One is that Castro was the luckiest man alive.

Or . . .

Edited December 14, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

Namebase entry for Fabian Escalante.

http://www.namebase.org/main2/Fabian-_28ge...lante-font.html

Bird,K. The Color of Truth. 1998 (198-9)

Escalante,F. The Secret War. 1995 (1)

Furiati,C. ZR Rifle. 1994 (127-40, 150-1)

LaFontaine,R.& M. Oswald Talked. 1996 (317)

Turner,W. Rearview Mirror. 2001 (144, 194, 201, 216, 224-5)

Washington Times 1993-11-28 (A9)

[Pat Speer]

Tim, you might find Eric Hamburg's book (JFK, Nixon, Oliver Stone, and Me) interesting regarding Escalante. It makes it fairly clear that Escalante was co-operating with the researchers purely on his own intitiative, and that he was not given access to the Cuban archives to do this. If Escalante makes reference to files he can not access, it's because there is no FOIA in Cuba. Nevertheless, some documentation somehow made its way into Furiati's ZR Rifle--maybe Escalante employed the Groden technique--including Ruby's passport photo from his visit to Trafficante.

Escalante may be a disinformationist, but, as hard as it will be for you to believe, it seems likely he is not operating with Fidel's blessing.

[Ron Ecker]

Martin Underwood, former advance man for Kennedy and Johnson, confirmed to the ARRB that he met in Mexico City with CIA station chief Win Scott in 1966. Scott told him that a plane arrived in Mexico City from Havana on the morning of 11/22/63, and that one passenger, Fabian Escalante, got off and boarded another plane headed for Dallas.

[James Richards]

Martin Underwood, former advance man for Kennedy and Johnson, confirmed to the ARRB that he met in Mexico City with CIA station chief Win Scott in 1966. Scott told him that a plane arrived in Mexico City from Havana on the morning of 11/22/63, and that one passenger, Fabian Escalante, got off and boarded another plane headed for Dallas.

That is interesting Ron. I hadn't heard that before.

Escalante would have been 22 in 1963. Curious indeed.

Escalante and Gaeton Fonzi below.

James

[Tim Gratz]

So it is indeed possible that Escalante was a conspirator!

Is it any wonder that, if he is, he is putting "confessions" into the mouths of people (Cuesta) who cannot defend themselves? But Johh, of course, will accept the word of a man who should himself be considered a suspect.

As I have stated before, when Winslow asked to see the written confession that Cuesta had supposedly signed, Escalante made up excuses and never produced it. (The latter per a phone conference with Mr. Winslow.)

[Ron Ecker]

How much would the signed confession of a blind man be worth? How could you be sure that he even read it?

[Tim Gratz]

A very good point, Ron!

Even if Castro is as innocent as a newborn infant, it would still be in his interest to direct the guilt toward someone else.

[Ron Ecker]

Even if Castro is as innocent as a newborn infant, it would still be in his interest to direct the guilt toward someone else.

And it was still in the CIA's interest in 1966 (as it would be for the next 40 years) to direct the guilt toward someone else.

[Tim Gratz]

So Castro's forces (and Garrison) point at the CIA and the CIA points at Castro while the real assassins are laughing their heads off!

Problem, Ron: 1) the CIA did not do it; and 2) the official CIA line was always Posner's (not Kurtz/Angleton/Gratz).

Blakey and Davis got it (almost) right. I submit the brains behind the operation was Trafficante and not Marcello. Marcello does not seem that smart to me; nor does Giancana. The brains in the Mob belonged to Lansky, Trafficante and Rosselli (IMO).

Waldron and Hartmann are confirming that the primary sponsors were Trafficante, Marcello and Rosselli (but Rosselli was always the "underling" to Giancana and Waldron and Hartmann are technically incorrect in calling Rosselli a "godfather").

********************************

Pat wrote:

Escalante may be a disinformationist, but, as hard as it will be for you to believe, it seems likely he is not operating with Fidel's blessing.

Is it possible that the DGI acted to protect Castro without obtaining Castro prior consent (Cuban version of "plausible deniability")?

Edited December 16, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Ron Ecker]

Problem, Ron: 1) the CIA did not do it

I guess they just watched from Main and Houston. That lets them off the hook.

[Tim Gratz]

Ron, the Madison newspaper once called my father the "double of Charleton Heston" (he was a very good-looking man and he is now approaching ninety). There are look-alikes in this world.

We are not going to indict the institutional CIA on the basis of a photographic look-alike are we?

I admit the possibility of involvement by "rogue" CIA agents, brought in by Rosselli to muddy the waters.

BUT if on the morning of November 22nd high CIA mucky-mucks were meeting with Williams before sending him into Cuba for final preparations for "C-Day" WHY IN THE WORLD would the CIA knock off the Commander-in-Chief on the very eve of the regime change in Cuba? In Morales did this, he was either stupid or working for the wrong side!

If Waldron/Hartman are right, the idea of CIA involvement in the JFK hit is just absurd, even if you find a Richard Helms look-alike in the crowd.

Moreover, if the plotters were using Oswald lookalikes, what is to say they did not find a Robertson look-alike and stand him prominently at that corner? Ever consider that possibility?

Edited December 16, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

Martin Underwood, former advance man for Kennedy and Johnson, confirmed to the ARRB that he met in Mexico City with CIA station chief Win Scott in 1966. Scott told him that a plane arrived in Mexico City from Havana on the morning of 11/22/63, and that one passenger, Fabian Escalante, got off and boarded another plane headed for Dallas.

Why should we believe the testimony of Win Scott? He was part of the CIA group who were trying to set up the Cuban connection to the assassination. It was later revealed that one operation organized by Scott included planting phony documents on a Cuban official that indicated that one of Castro's ministers was a spy. As a result of this conspiracy four Cuban officials were convicted of treason.

I don't think this Escalante story would have been in Scott's memoirs. Scott retired in 1969 and set up a company in Mexico City called Diversified Corporate Services. He also wrote a book about his time in the FBI, OSS and the CIA. He completed the manuscript, It Came To Late, and made plans to discuss the contents of the book with CIA director, Richard Helms, in Washington on 30th April, 1971.

Winston Scott died on 26th April, 1971. No autopsy was performed, and a postmortem suggested he had suffered a heart attack.

Winston Scott's son Michael told Dick Russell that James Angleton took away his father's manuscript. Angleton also confiscated three large cartons of files including a tape-recording of the voice of Lee Harvey Oswald. Michael Scott was also told by a CIA source that his father had not died from natural causes.

Michael Scott eventually got his father's manuscript back from the CIA. However, 150 pages were missing. Chapters 13 to 16 were deleted in their entirety. In fact, everything about his life after 1947 had been removed on grounds of national security.