Rendezvous w/Death

[James Richards]

Take one charge made by Mr. Huismann. An unidentified but alleged FSB officer, presented in silhouette,reads from what he says is a secret telegram dated July 18, 1962, sent by the KGB (the FSB's predecessor agency) to the Cubans. The gist of the message allegedly supports former G-2 agent Antulio Ramirez's claim that the KGB contacted him to let him know that Oswald had gone back to the United States, and was therefore ready for some unspecified mission. (quoting from the posted article)

Does anyone know if this Antulio Ramirez is the same man who in 1961 forced a National Airlines Convair pilot at gunpoint to fly to Havana?

James

[Chris Cox]

Take one charge made by Mr. Huismann. An unidentified but alleged FSB officer, presented in silhouette,reads from what he says is a secret telegram dated July 18, 1962, sent by the KGB (the FSB's predecessor agency) to the Cubans. The gist of the message allegedly supports former G-2 agent Antulio Ramirez's claim that the KGB contacted him to let him know that Oswald had gone back to the United States, and was therefore ready for some unspecified mission. (quoting from the posted article)

Does anyone know if this Antulio Ramirez is the same man who in 1961 forced a National Airlines Convair pilot at gunpoint to fly to Havana?

James

One and same, James. NAL pilot was Francis X (Xavier?)Riley. ARO recently verified to me what he wrote is true FWIW with the added story American in his cell was Paul Hughes later removed from cell poss.executed he learned later from peeking at Cuban documents. Documentation found among the docs on LHO by ARO. Ferrell site has the partial manuscript only the relevant points according to final report. My question is did the Cuban trips for HSCA uncover any of this? How about Lopez Report? No, it seems and if they'd bothered to pull on that string they might have unraveled something significant to the investigation- oversight or other?

[John Dolva]

SBS in australia has a series called 'as it happened'. I'm concerned that this is being presented as such to the australian public. As far as I know SBS is a relatively independent broadcaster inclined to present many sides to an issue, so well written notes to them could be beneficial.

http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?progdate=15:07:2006

07:30 pm AS IT HAPPENED - KENNEDY AND CASTRO

John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22nd, 1963 was the murder of the century. Over the intervening 40 years, divergent conspiracy theories surrounding the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, have captured the imagination of people the world over. According to this documentary, for the first time since the Warren commission presented its findings in 1964, facts supporting a new scenario have been uncovered and are presented in the two part documentary, Rendezvous With Death: Kennedy And Castro. After years of in-depth research Wilfried Huismann has succeeded in gathering evidence proving Oswald to be a weapon-for-hire in the ultimate round of a deadly duel between John F. and Robert Kennedy vs. Fidel Castro. This documentary reveals that only a few close aides to JKF and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson were privy to the secret details of the “duel” between Kennedy and Castro. With Huismann's camera running, these top-level historical witnesses reveal what they know: Alexander Haig, Joseph Califano, Sam Halpern – responsible, in 1963, for the top-secret CIA ‘AM-LASH' program aimed at murdering Fidel Castro – as well as FBI supervisor Lawrence Keenan. For the first time in the history of the investigation of the Kennedy assassination, the Mexican secret service DSF – responsible for the tight surveillance maintained on Oswald during his Mexican sojourn – allows access to its archives. Filed under ‘Oswaldo-Kennedy' Huismann and Keenan discover copious material: Surveillance reports, interrogation transcripts and photos. The documentary also reveals how, renowned assassination researcher and member of Huismann's international investigative network, Gus Russo unearthed tape-recorded wire taps from the Cuban embassy in Mexico. (From Germany, in English and Spanish, English subtitles) (Part 1) CC WS

SMS Alert Code: 0520

[William Kelly]

SBS in australia has a series called 'as it happened'. I'm concerned that this is being presented as such to the australian public. As far as I know SBS is a relatively independent broadcaster inclined to present many sides to an issue, so well written notes to them could be beneficial.

http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?progdate=15:07:2006

07:30 pm AS IT HAPPENED - KENNEDY AND CASTRO

John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22nd, 1963 was the murder of the century. Over the intervening 40 years, divergent conspiracy theories surrounding the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, have captured the imagination of people the world over. According to this documentary, for the first time since the Warren commission presented its findings in 1964, facts supporting a new scenario have been uncovered and are presented in the two part documentary, Rendezvous With Death: Kennedy And Castro. After years of in-depth research Wilfried Huismann has succeeded in gathering evidence proving Oswald to be a weapon-for-hire in the ultimate round of a deadly duel between John F. and Robert Kennedy vs. Fidel Castro. This documentary reveals that only a few close aides to JKF and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson were privy to the secret details of the “duel” between Kennedy and Castro. With Huismann's camera running, these top-level historical witnesses reveal what they know: Alexander Haig, Joseph Califano, Sam Halpern – responsible, in 1963, for the top-secret CIA ‘AM-LASH' program aimed at murdering Fidel Castro – as well as FBI supervisor Lawrence Keenan. For the first time in the history of the investigation of the Kennedy assassination, the Mexican secret service DSF – responsible for the tight surveillance maintained on Oswald during his Mexican sojourn – allows access to its archives. Filed under ‘Oswaldo-Kennedy' Huismann and Keenan discover copious material: Surveillance reports, interrogation transcripts and photos. The documentary also reveals how, renowned assassination researcher and member of Huismann's international investigative network, Gus Russo unearthed tape-recorded wire taps from the Cuban embassy in Mexico. (From Germany, in English and Spanish, English subtitles) (Part 1) CC WS

SMS Alert Code: 0520

JOHN, THANKS FOR THAT NOTE.

AL HAIG, JOE CALIFANO AND SAM HALPERN HOWEVER, ARE NOT HISTORICAL WITNESS, BUT WITTING PARTICIPANTS IN WHITE HOUSE MEETINGS THAT OUTLINED THE CIA COVERT SABATOGE OPERATIONS AGAINST CUBA THAT WERE DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO WHAT HAPPENED AT DEALEY PLAZA. THEIR OPERATIONS AGAINST CUBA AND CASTRO WERE REDIRECTED DOMESTICALLY AGAINST JFK, AND THEY GOT PROMOTIONS, RAISES AND MEDALS FOR THEIR SUCCESSES.

WE WILL PROBABLY GET TO READ THE MEX DSF RECORDS BEFORE WE READ CIA DRE OPS.

BK

[Mark Stapleton]

SBS in australia has a series called 'as it happened'. I'm concerned that this is being presented as such to the australian public. As far as I know SBS is a relatively independent broadcaster inclined to present many sides to an issue, so well written notes to them could be beneficial.

http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?progdate=15:07:2006

07:30 pm AS IT HAPPENED - KENNEDY AND CASTRO

John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22nd, 1963 was the murder of the century. Over the intervening 40 years, divergent conspiracy theories surrounding the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, have captured the imagination of people the world over. According to this documentary, for the first time since the Warren commission presented its findings in 1964, facts supporting a new scenario have been uncovered and are presented in the two part documentary, Rendezvous With Death: Kennedy And Castro. After years of in-depth research Wilfried Huismann has succeeded in gathering evidence proving Oswald to be a weapon-for-hire in the ultimate round of a deadly duel between John F. and Robert Kennedy vs. Fidel Castro. This documentary reveals that only a few close aides to JKF and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson were privy to the secret details of the “duel” between Kennedy and Castro. With Huismann's camera running, these top-level historical witnesses reveal what they know: Alexander Haig, Joseph Califano, Sam Halpern – responsible, in 1963, for the top-secret CIA ‘AM-LASH' program aimed at murdering Fidel Castro – as well as FBI supervisor Lawrence Keenan. For the first time in the history of the investigation of the Kennedy assassination, the Mexican secret service DSF – responsible for the tight surveillance maintained on Oswald during his Mexican sojourn – allows access to its archives. Filed under ‘Oswaldo-Kennedy' Huismann and Keenan discover copious material: Surveillance reports, interrogation transcripts and photos. The documentary also reveals how, renowned assassination researcher and member of Huismann's international investigative network, Gus Russo unearthed tape-recorded wire taps from the Cuban embassy in Mexico. (From Germany, in English and Spanish, English subtitles) (Part 1) CC WS

SMS Alert Code: 0520

Thanks for the heads up, John. So we're going to see it at last eh? (SAT NITE, July 15, 7.30pm, SBS) (Just thought I'd repeat it for the Aussie readers).

After all that's been written on this thread, I'll be very keen to see it but at the risk of prematurely judging it, I'm already inclined to agree with Robert Charles-Dunne's comment way back in post #27, namely that it merely provides employment to "a cottage industry of Castro-did-it flakes and flunkies". RCD has a great turn of phrase.

[Rex Bradford]

The name Luisa Calderon appeared in this thread, and is apparently mentioned in the Huismann/Russo film which I have not yet seen. Calderon was a Cuban Embassy employee who was "caught" in a tapped telephone call at 5:30PM on Nov 22, making a statement which has been translated in various ways including "Yes, of course, I knew almost before Kennedy" (see HSCA Final Report, p.122 - http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...absPageId=69190 ).

If LBJ had said this, and "conspiracy buffs" ballooned it into allegations of "foreknowledge," we would be rightly laughed out of the room. But in line with the Castro double-standard, the HSCA took it quite seriously and spent significant effort on this story, trying to determine if Calderon had known about Kennedy's murder in advance. Their investigation culminated in a 6-page writeup in volume 11: http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol11_0250b.htm , which is more space than they gave to many more substantial stories.

It is clear that their zeal was due to in part to Calderon's suspected Cuban intelligence connections, and also Cuban intelligence defector Vladimir Rodriguez Lahere's (AMMUG-1) statement to his CIA handlers in May of 1964 that "Prior to October 1963, Oswald visited the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City on two or three occasions. Before, during and after these visits, Oswald was in contact with Direcion General de Intelligencia (DGI), specifically with Luisa Calderon, Manuel Vega Perez, and Rogelio Rodriguez Lopez" (5 May 1964 debriefing, 104-10125-10049). This defector statement and its veracity or lack thereof is itself an interesting story outside the scope of this post - some of the issues are discussed in the HSCA's 6-page writeup.

But anybody who takes the Calderon affair seriously should be aware of the following:

1. A CIA document released in November 1998 contains a set of transcripts from Nov 22, including the 5:30 call. But it also includes two earlier calls involving Calderon. In the first such call, at 1:30 PM, she expresses repeated surprise upon hearing the news of Kennedy's death (see p.22 of 104- 10404-10426 -> http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...10426_0022a.htm ). This would seem to put the matter to rest, for me anyway. But it gets worse.

2. Later in the same "early" 1:30PM call, the following exchange is transcribed:

Caller: He was shot three times in the face.

Luisa: Perfect.

Gus Russo, in Live by the Sword (p.226), has clearly seen this, because he repeats this portion of the transcript to show what a nasty person Calderon was (Russo: "CIA transcripts of the conversation support the source...... When the caller said that Kennedy was "shot three times in the face," Calderon exclaimed "Perfect!"). I am not here to defend Calderon's honor, only to point out that this very same call contains at its beginning the statements which exonerate Calderon of the whole idiotic foreknowledge business. Russo conflates the two calls into a single "conversation" and omits mention of the exonerating portion. This is not a helpful service to his readers, whoever they may be.

3. I have seen no evidence that the HSCA was made aware of the earlier call(s). It is incredible that such a crack team of investigators wouldn't have thought to ask if any earlier calls existed, though as far as I know the record is silent on any such requests. It is even more incredible, or at least it would be in a better world, that the CIA would not have thought of this themselves. Episodes like this put the CIA in a very bad light, in my opinion, as regards their motives in pushing these Castro-dun-it stories.

4. When the damage was done and the HSCA started to write up their Calderon investigation, then CIA balked about sources and methods and claimed anyway that this was all overblown due to a mistranslation and the real wording in Spanish was not quite so sinister (see letter to Blakey of 15 Feb 1979 - http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...10157_0002a.htm ). Again, nobody said "hey, you might want to look at this other transcript and see what fools you've been made of."

5. While the Warren Commission received some of AMMUG-1's information, apparently they never received any information about Calderon. The story appears to begin with the Rockefeller Commission Executive Director David Belin, a former Warren Commission staffer, asking CIA in April 1975 to draw up some information useful to pursuing the Castro angle. The response included many allegations including the "foreknowledge" call (see 23 May 1975 response in 104-10052-10177). So when on 9 Feb 1979 a CIA review of the HSCA's writeup noted that "No rational mind, tempered by a modicum of maturity, would think this even may have suggested the fore-knowledge of the assassination," I can only say I agree completely so why did you push it in the first place?

For more information, see the relevant segment of an essay I wrote a few years back entitled More Mexico Mysteries - http://www.history-matters.com/essays/fram...Mysteries_3.htm (you have to scroll halfway down this page). I apologize for not yet having online a few of the documents cited above, but they can be supplied upon request and will be online fairly soon.

Rex

Edited July 17, 2006 by Rex Bradford