Fabian Escalante

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

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.

A not so minor correction. Scott wanted to investigate a possible foreign conspiracy but was ORDERED to stop by the higher-ups at Langley. Same thing happened with the FBI in Mexico City.

The official CIA line was not that Castro did it. It was that Oswald was a lone nut. That became the "party line" for the Washington establishment: LBJ, FBI, CIA.

John, you missed the real question however. Not whether Scott was a truth-teller (I feel he was) but whether Underwood was a truth-teller about what he claimed Scott told him.

Edited December 16, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Pat Speer]

John wrote:

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.

A not so minor correction. Scott wanted to investigate a possible foreign conspiracy but was ORDERER to stop by the higher-ups at Langley.

The official CIA line was not that Castro did it. It was that Oswald was a lone nut. That became the "party line" for the Washington establishment: LBJ, FBI, CIA.

John, you missed the real question however. Not whether Scott was a truth-teller (I feel he was) but whether Underwood was a truth-teller about what he claimed Scott told him.

Anyone interested in Win Scott and the CIA's attitude towards his book should read this memo, available over on Rex Bradford's website. http://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/cia/...10314_0001a.htm

History Matters Archive - 00/00/ [104-10419-10314] COMMENTS ON CHAPTER XXI OF WINFIELD SCOTT'S MANUSCRIPT (DRAFT) 'IT CAME TO LITTLE', pg

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

John wrote:

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.

A not so minor correction. Scott wanted to investigate a possible foreign conspiracy but was ORDERED to stop by the higher-ups at Langley. Same thing happened with the FBI in Mexico City.

Not entirely accurate, Tim. Yes, Helms did put the brakes on certain aspects of the MC investigation, but was it to preclude the truth of Castro's complicity being discovered [why would Helms wish to prevent THAT?], or because further scrutiny would disclose the wafer-thin credibility of key CIA "witnesses" like Alvarado? Please recall that this was the chap offered up by Dave Phillips as being credible, earnest, etc., whereas it became apparent within days that he was a xxxx, with his own intelligence background. If you were Helms, which reason would have motivated you to truncate an investigation?

And, let's face it, Helms couldn't have been too pleased to see a photo of the MC "mystery man" floated about, for several reasons. Not only was it the wrong man, which made his beloved Agency look like sad sacks at best, forgers of spurious evidence at worst, but that photo's dissemination would endanger the operational security of the surveillance program that spewed out the bogus photo. It would also invite scrutiny of who was running the program, and draw the DFS into that scrutiny. Helms and the Agency could glean no benefit from it becoming known that it collaborated with the DFS on such programs.

The official CIA line was not that Castro did it. It was that Oswald was a lone nut. That became the "party line" for the Washington establishment: LBJ, FBI, CIA.

Yet this so called blanket party-line didn't preclude CIA from continuing to float red herrings like Gilberto Policarpo, et al, about whom I think you've now learned something more salient than you had to offer us in the past year.

Recall also that it wasn't the State Department that told Ambassador Mann to cool his jets on the investigation, but that Helms pressured Alexis Johnson into ensuring Mann did so. So, rather than it being a "party-line" on backing off the investigation, it was a tune that Helms called and insisted that others also dance to it. What did CIA have to hide about the charade in Mexico City, Tim?

John, you missed the real question however. Not whether Scott was a truth-teller (I feel he was) but whether Underwood was a truth-teller about what he claimed Scott told him.

Quite so. However, this issue, like many others you dredge up as though suffering amnesia, has already been dealt with herein repeatedly. Underwood demonstrably did not tell the ARRB the truth, at least certainly not the same "truth" he had told a "researcher" helping Sy Hersh, who forwarded the data to the ARRB. When asked by the ARRB in an informal interview about his "notes," Underwood first denied all recollection of any such notes. When shown the "notes" submitted to the ARRB by the Hersh "researcher", Underwood admitted that the notations on White House stationery weren't made contemporaneously, but were "reconstructed from memory" nearly 30 years later, on excess Oval Office stationery, which he stated he had kept an abundance of after leaving his gig there. He subsequently forwarded to ARRB what purported to be contemporaneous notes from his trip, but they mention nothing about Escalante or even the topic of the Kennedy assassination being raised with Scott.

Hence, there is a rather glaring dispartity between what he wrote in '66 and what he wrote in '92-3, with the former being routine and the latter being sexed up, perhaps for personal gain in the event that it could be pawned off as genuine to the "researcher," who claimed Underwood had told several other "sexy" stories which Underwood told the ARRB weren't true. The ARRB invited Underwood to testify under oath, but he didn't make himself available, purportedly due to ill health.

[bTW, I believe the "researcher" in question to have been Gus Russo. Now, either Russo or Underwood was lying, or both were. Given Russo's fabricated Pulitzer nomination, he's hardly a standard-bearer for personal credibility, and Underwood doesn't seem to be either.]

Moreover, had the Escalante story had the slightest credibility, it would have been passed on by Scott to Langley, and would have been included in his manuscript, which -- as I recall -- mentioned nothing on the topic. Rather odd omission for Scott, whose entire career seemed based upon a meticulous approach to his work. But then, Underwood omitted the self-same details in his contemporaneous notes, so it doesn't take a Mensa member to realize why.

Tim, when one of your contentions has repeatedly been shot down by others, why do you simply wait six months and then refloat it, without any additional details or adornment, as though it hadn't already been shot down months earlier? This seems a recurring mental tic of some sort. The alternative is to assume you make it a habit to pollute the data pool with spurious puffery designed to influence newbies who weren't here the last time your contentions were challenged.

[John Simkin]

In a Cuban television documentary broadcast on November 26, 1993, Escalante said that the JFK plot was far-reaching. He named the triggermen 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. I assume Escalante got this story from his interview with Tony Cuesta.

Any views on this? Does anyone know what any of these five people were doing on the day of the assassination?

[Bruce Cormier]

John, you could probably start threads on all 5 of these individuals. Cain, particularly, must have been a piece of work.

It is attributed to Sam Giancana that Richard Cain (and not Oswald) was firing away on the 6th floor on 11/22.

Richard's younger brother Michael, who readily acknowledges his brother's past, has attempted to establish that there is no evidence supporting this proposition. Among other things, it is said, Cain had no real experience with rifles and was nothing to write home about with handguns either.

It's my recollection that Larry Hancock shares Michael's view. Perhaps Larry could weigh in.

There is no doubt that Cain was a gangster allied with Giancana. There seems little doubt too that he moonlighted as a government informant.

I've been interested recently in Cain's potential involvement in this vis a vis Jack Ruby. With capital punishment the unoffical state sport yesterday, today and tomorrow inTexas -- I've often wondered what motivated Ruby to do what he did. I've read some speculation that Jack wanted to cement his place all time with "the boys", and that Texas' uncontrollable impulse defense offered the prospect of a jail term as short as 5 years. BUT, that defense was not proffered in jack's defense at trial, and he recived a death sentence.

I've also read speculation that Cain was notoriously cruel, with ghastly ways of putting people to death, and that he may have made threats against Ruby's family (in Chicago) to properly motivate Jack. This, of course, appears to be completely without foundation, except for this: eyewitness accounts of Ruby's demeanor in jail in the immediate aftermath of Oswald's shooting. I

read some time ago (where, I forget) that Ruby was uncontrollably agitated in his cell, to the point of apparent desperation, while Oswald's fate was undetermined. When news arrived that Oswald had expired, Jack was immensely relived, returning to his convivial self. I also recall that Jack was visited in his cell by a member of the Dallas outfit. What to make of this, who knows?

[John Geraghty]

I read some time ago (where, I forget) that Ruby was uncontrollably agitated in his cell, to the point of apparent desperation, while Oswald's fate was undetermined. When news arrived that Oswald had expired, Jack was immensely relived, returning to his convivial self. I also recall that Jack was visited in his cell by a member of the Dallas outfit. What to make of this, who knows?

Bruce,

This account appeared in Nigel Turners 'The Men Who Killed Kennedy'. Perhaps someone can recall which officer gave this account.

John

[Vasilios Vazakas]

I would expect from someone like Escalante, a member of Cuba's state security to offer concrete evidence and proofs for his speculation.

1. He names Yaras, Patrick, Cain, Del Valle and Herminio Diaz as the shooters but he does not provide any proof for his claim.

2. You would expect the Cuban security, with all its informants to know the identities of Leopoldo and Angelo, yet in his book 'the Cuba files' says

that Victor Espinoza and Isidoro Borja fit the description of Angelo. I would have expect him to know. If they were good enough to stop Castro's assassination, i am sure they were efficient enough to find out the identities of two lousy Anti-castro Cubans.

3. He claims that the Cuban letters to Oswald were written before the assassination to blame Cuba for the crime, however

two of the letters (Charles & Jorge) are dated before the assassination (10th and 14th November) but the postage stamps were dated 23rd of December if i remember well.

A third, by Lopez is dated 27th November, 1963. The other two are undated. I don't agree with him, i believe the letters were written post-assissination and it was a crude attempt to blame Cuba after the crime. If they had a postage stamp before the 22nd of November, i would agree with him. Anyone can write a letter, date it say 10th of November but send it the 23rd. This does not prove that it was sent the 10th. The important date is the one on the stamp.

4. He insists that Oswqald visited the Cuban embassy, while many researchers believe that Oswald never did and it was an imposter. Again no concrete evidence are presented.