Commander Juan Almeida and the CIA

[John Simkin]

It seems that no one has told Fidel Castro that his third ranking member of the Council of State for Cuba and his Vice President is a traitor. Here is a picture of him meeting President Rajapaksa today.

[Wim Dankbaar]

It seems that no one has told Fidel Castro that his third ranking member of the Council of State for Cuba and his Vice President is a traitor.

Wrong, Lamar and Thom just enlightened Castro with their book.

Mr. Almeida must be sweating

I'm curiously waiting for Escalante's take on this. Especially as Castro's intel chief at the time.

By the way, impressive media coverage..

http://ultimatesacrificethebook.com/media_appearances

up to the Washington Times (of my friend Joe Goulden) and Fox.

Edited September 23, 2006 by Wim Dankbaar

[Pat Speer]

It seems that no one has told Fidel Castro that his third ranking member of the Council of State for Cuba and his Vice President is a traitor.

Wrong, Lamar and Thom just enlightened Castro with their book.

Mr. Almeida must be sweating

I'm curiously waiting for Escalante's take on this. Especially as Castro's intel chief at the time.

By the way, impressive media coverage..

http://ultimatesacrificethebook.com/media_appearances

up to the Washington Times (of my friend Joe Goulden) and Fox.

I suspect Castro knew about the whole thing...FROM DAY ONE. The United States and its allies have constantly under-estimated Castro and the loyalty he arouses in others. IF the U.S. in fact approached Almeida, or Che, or any other "hero of the revolution" who remained behind in 63, the chances are strong that the man would immediately tell Castro, and that Castro would order him to "play along." If there was a C-Day, and Almeida was supposedly involved, the chances are strong he was stringing us along. Otherwise, he'd have defected or been imprisoned long ago.

[Wim Dankbaar]

I agree, especially with "If there was a C-Day"......................

Wim

[John Simkin]

I must say I have a great deal of difficulty with the idea that Juan Almeida was really involved in this plot against Castro. We are told that Fidel Castro knew he was a traitor since 1990. Yet he has remained in power. In fact, since then he has been promoted and been given awards such as "Hero of the Republic of Cuba" (1998).

As we know Castro’s agents had infiltrated the CIA’s anti-Castro groups. This enabled him to survive the numerous attempts to kill him. The CIA would have tried very hard to turn members of Castro’s government. According to one CIA document, Juan Almeida had been identified as a critic of Castro’s government (see below). This is not unusual in any government. However, it is quite another matter to join a foreign plot to overthrow your leader.

There is no doubt that Almeida was approached by Artime/Quintero to take part in the overthrow of Castro. I even believe that Almeida said he was willing to go along with this plot. However, he did this with the full knowledge of Castro. The main purpose of this was to discover if he had any “real” traitors in his government. This is why Almeida has never been punished for his alleged treachery.

I suspect this is all a CIA plot to destabilize the Castro government (and to discredit Ultimate Sacrifice). As I said earlier, I also think this story is about books and television documentaries that in the next few months will present evidence that senior figures in the CIA were linked to the assassination of JFK.

Anyway, here is a passage from Don Bohning’s book “The Castro Obsession” (pages 222-224). Remember, Bohning was CIA’s AMCARBON-3:

In March and June 1964 the JMWAVE station in Miami dispatched two separate arms caches to Cuba for Cubela as part of the ongoing AMTRUNK operation, which was targeted at military officials. In May Cubela let it be known he wanted a silencer for a Belgian FAL submachine gun as soon as possible. But it first had to be modified and there wasn't time to do it for the June cache. Cubela was subsequently notified that it was not feasible to make a silencer for a FAL. By late 1964 Cubela was increasingly insistent that assassination was a necessary first step in a coup. In a memorandum, Sanchez suggested Cubela be put in touch with Artime. The memo said: "AM/LASH was told and fully understands that the United States Government cannot become involved to any degree in the `first step' of his plan. If he needs support, he realizes he will have to get it elsewhere. FYI: This is where B-1 [Artime] could fit in nicely in giving any support he would request."

The CIA's seven-page November 5 memo to the 303 Committee is essentially a review of the Artime operation until that time and the agency recommendations for the operation, concluding with the recommendation to continue it in conjunction with Cubela. Following the Sierra Aranzazu incident, Artime suspended operations until after President Johnson's victory in the November presidential election. Despite news reports to the contrary, the agency said Artime had "maintained close contact and good relations" with top officials in both Nicaragua and Costa Rica, "where he continues to receive their complete cooperation and support." Enrique Peralta, Guatemala's military president, had invited him to a meeting. "President Robles of Panama has promised Artime his full cooperation and any support he may need," and "President Reid of the Dominican Republic provided Artime a forward operating base in his country. Artime is in the process of surveying the base site." The memo then got to the crux of the matter.

"As a result of the publicity Artime received over the past year for his anti-Castro activity and the fact that at present he is considered the strongest of the active Cuban exile groups, an internal dissident group established contact with him and proposed joining forces," the CIA reported. "An emissary from the internal dissident group met with one of Artime's representatives in Europe in early October 1964 and proposed a 'summit' meeting between Artime and their 'top guy' as soon as the latter can travel to Europe, probably between 15 and 30 November 1964."

The CIA memo reported that Artime and his aides had come to the conclusion that the internal dissidents included at least a half-dozen prominent revolutionary figures, among them Efigenio Ameijeiras, Juan Almeida, and Faustino Perez, all of whom were with Castro aboard the Granma when it sailed from Mexico to Cuba in late 1956 to begin the guerrilla campaign against Batista. "Reports from independent sources confirm the discontent of this particular group," the memo reported. "In late 1963 an Agency representative had several meetings with a Cuban officer [Cubela] closely associated with this group who reported their anti-regime feelings and plans for a coup against Castro with the support of this group. It is known that the emissary who established contact with Artime's representative is a confidant of this officer."

In urging continued,support for Artime in light of the Cubela connection, the CIA argued:

"Whereas the incident of the Sierra Aranzazu raised serious doubts about the desirability of continued support to Artime, the contact of Artime by a potentially significant internal dissident group introduces an entirely new dimension to the problem. It is believed that within sixty to ninety days a reasonable evaluation of the potential and plans of the internal group can be made. Therefore, it appears desirable to defer any final decision on support (if any) to Artime until we have the opportunity to evaluate the potential of the internal group. It is assumed that the internal group established contact with Artime because of their belief that his paramilitary capability is based on close relations with the United States. Hence, if Artime is to maintain his attractiveness and continue developing this contact, it is necessary for Artime to maintain a good facade in terms of his paramilitary capability. While we feel it is desirable to give Artime every opportunity to develop an operation with the internal group, we believe the groundwork should be laid for a phase out of support to the paramilitary aspect of the program. Artime will be unhappy with any decision to terminate support regardless of how such a decision is implemented, but we believe a negotiated phase out dovetailed with support to develop the internal operation will reduce the number of problems and best protect the deniability of United States complicity in the operation, provided Artime cooperates."

It recommended:

"a. Artime concentrate on developing the internal operation, maintaining his paramilitary posture to the degree necessary to preserve his attractiveness to the internal group.

b. Support to Artime at approximately the present level be continued for the next sixty to ninety days in order to give Artime an opportunity to develop an operation with the dissident internal group which has sought him out.

c. Should it be considered vital in order to maintain his attractiveness to the internal group and hold his own group together, permit Artime to conduct one raid and plan but not execute at least one more during this period."

The November 5 memo gave no indication how contact between Artime and Cubela might have been contrived to put them together "in such a way that neither of them knew that the contact had been made by the CIA." There also is a discrepancy as to when the initial contact with the Artime group was made. The Church Committee report said "documents in the AM/LASH file establish that in early 1965, the CIA put AM/ LASH in contact with B-1 [Artime], the leader of an anti-Castro group."

The November 5 memo said the contact was made in October 1964. A chronology in the CIA inspector general's 1967 report on assassination plots, said that Artime "received information through Madrid" on August 30, 1964, "that a group of dissident members of the Castro regime desired to establish direct contact" with him. On October 7, 1964, "an Artime associate [Quintero] went to France for a meeting with an intermediary from the dissident group."

Then, on November 13, the CIA chronology cites a contact report of a meeting in Washington with Artime: "Artime agreed to talk to AMLASH1 [Cubela] if it turns out that he is the contact man for the dissident group. Artime thinks that if AMLASH-1 is the chief of the dissident group we can all forget about the operation." Three weeks later, on December 4, a request was prepared "for $6,500 as an extraordinary budget expenditure for the travel of Artime for maintaining contact with the internal dissident group's representative in Europe during November and December 1964. There is no direct indication in the file that the request was approved, but indirect evidence indicates that it was. Artime did travel to Europe and maintained the contacts."

Sanchez, the CIA's AMLASH case officer, met Cubela again in Paris on December 6-7. On December 10 he reported in a memo: "Artime does not know and we do not plan to tell him that we are in direct contact with Cubela [one and one-half lines censored; presumably referring to assassination/coup plot].... Cubela was told and fully understands that U.S. Government cannot become involved to any degree in the 'first step' of his plan. If he needs support, he realizes he will have to get it elsewhere. FYI: This is where Artime could fit in nicely in giving any support Cubela would request." A parenthetical note follows with comment from the investigators, which says:

"Sanchez explained to us that what had happened was that SAS [CIA's Special Affairs Staff] contrived to put Artime and Cubela together in such a way that neither knew that the contact had been engineered by CIA. The thought was that Artime needed a man inside and Cubela wanted a silenced weapon, which CIA was unwilling to furnish to him directly. By putting the two together, Artime might get his man inside and Cubela might get his silenced weapon-from Artime. CIA did not intend to furnish an assassination weapon for Artime, and did not do so."'

Washington obviously considered an internal coup the last-best hope it had of unseating Castro; so much so that by year's end representatives of the CIA, Defense, and State had prepared "A Contingency Plan for a Coup in Cuba" and what the U.S. response would be. They sent it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A December 30, 1964, cover letter signed by Cyrus Vance noted, "Bundy has been advised ... and requested to inform the President of the existence of the plan on a suitable occasion." As foreseen in the plan, the U.S. response would vary depending on whether it had "up to forty-eight hours" advance notice of the coup. If so, it would then send in a "special team" to make a decision on whether to provide support; otherwise "a longer time would be required." The plan laid out the criteria that had to be met for U.S. support:

"(1) Have some power base in the Cuban army or militia in order to survive.

(2) Be prepared to establish a provisional government, however rudimentary, with some sort of public claim to political viability to provide an adequate political basis for covert U.S. action (not required if Soviet troops

were clearly fighting Cuban patriots).

(3) Neutralize the top echelon of Cuban leadership.

(4) Seize and hold significant piece of territory, preferably including Havana, long enough to permit the United States plausibly to extend support and some form of recognition to the provisional government.

The contingency plan emphasized, "The US does not contemplate either a premeditated full scale invasion of Cuba (except in the case of Soviet intervention or the reintroduction of offensive weapons) or the contrivance of a provocation which could be used as a pretext for such action."

Quintero, the MRR representative who made the initial contact with the internal dissidents and was the first to meet with Cubela, said the link began with Alberto Blanco, one of the dissidents on the Cuban embassy staff in Madrid. Quintero said he went to Mallorca to talk with a ship captain about hijacking a passenger liner as Portuguese rebels had done three years earlier with the Santa Maria off the coast of Brazil. When he got back to Madrid from Mallorca, "Cuco" Leon, a former Cuban legislator who was friendly with Somoza, told him "there's a bigger thing here than that... a big comandante in Cuba, they're planning a plot against Cuba." The hijacking plan was canceled "in order not to get any kind of publicity that could hurt the operation with Cubela." The August 30 meeting with Blanco was arranged for Paris, beginning the MRR relationship with the Cubela dissidents.

[Wim Dankbaar]

I suspect this is all a CIA plot to destabilize the Castro government (and to discredit Ultimate Sacrifice).

Agreed, except it is not discrediting Ultimate Sacrifice, it is endorsing it.

Which is no surprise as it completely exonerates the CIA.

Note also that Mr. Waldron has no problem with the CIA's Almeida scenario.

Wim

[John Simkin]

I suspect this is all a CIA plot to destabilize the Castro government (and to discredit Ultimate Sacrifice).

Agreed, except it is not discrediting Ultimate Sacrifice, it is endorsing it.

Which is no surprise as it completely exonerates the CIA.

Note also that Mr. Waldron has no problem with the CIA's Almeida scenario.

What I should have said that it is an attempt to discredit the authors of Ultimate Sacrifice. The same thing is true of Joan Mellen's book "A Farewell to Justice". Who took Angelo Murgado to Mellen? Gerry Hemming. Need I say more.

[John Dolva]

I'm sure you are right in this John and Wim and Pat and others. I would state it differently though. I don't think the intent is so much to destabilise the Cuban government. I think it's a very stable and credible government. The NAM conference of largely third world or 'South' governments and their declarations of support for the Cuban government, by participation and word, indicates a firm coalition of neutrals that by existing, limits Business influence. It's the breaking of this group that at this moment in time that is aimed for.

Also this and other parts of the Bush sponsored ops to create a body of work that is presented to the world as a set of reasons that Cuba needs change is aimed at the audience that believes the conventional media and doesn't delve deeper. And this is the audience that will hesitate in voicing protest should the Op succeed in creating an atmosphere wherein a military intervention in Cuba becomes reality. It's laying the groundwork for the same kind of lies that is was used to justify the Iraq war. A weapon of mass deception by the corporate fascists in control in centers of 'North' powers.

[Wim Dankbaar]

I'm sure you are right in this John and Wim and Pat and others. I would state it differently though. I don't think the intent is so much to destabilise the Cuban government. I think it's a very stable and credible government. The NAM conference of largely third world or 'South' governments and their declarations of support for the Cuban government, by participation and word, indicates a firm coalition of neutrals that by existing, limits Business influence. It's the breaking of this group that at this moment in time that is aimed for.

Also this and other parts of the Bush sponsored ops to create a body of work that is presented to the world as a set of reasons that Cuba needs change is aimed at the audience that believes the conventional media and doesn't delve deeper. And this is the audience that will hesitate in voicing protest should the Op succeed in creating an atmosphere wherein a military intervention in Cuba becomes reality. It's laying the groundwork for the same kind of lies that is was used to justify the Iraq war. A weapon of mass deception by the corporate fascists in control in centers of 'North' powers.

In this hypothesis of "Bush sponsored ops", are the authors of Ultimate Sacrifice witting or unwitting assets?

Wim

[John Simkin]

Juan Almeida was the only black man appointed to Castro's first government. Other information on Almeida can be found here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKalmeida.htm

I will update it with the way the media responds to this story.

[John Dolva]

A few years ago (2003?) in Geneva, a paper was prepared by representatives of Bush outlining sponsorship of any individual or group who needs funds to create anti Cuba propaganda. Recently this funding was reaffirmed and increased. What I specifically mean by 'bush sponsored ops' are those endeavours that apply for and recieve grants from this fund.

I think the analysis that it is wrong to think that Castro is ignorant of who, or what, Almeida is (or was) is correct, and that his role in government is a reflection of it.

In context: the CIA seeds the notion, and it is adopted by a range of people for different reasons. Money is one incentive. 'Interest Group' politics is another. Ignorance yet another. In time we'll see how things pan out.

[John Simkin]

September 25, 2006

A Regression in Consciousness

Flying Saucers and the Decline of the Left

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

counterpunch.org

http://www.counterpunch.org/

It's as dismal a political landscape as I can remember in thirty years. Yet some discover a silver lining. They find it in the 9/11 conspiracy cult, which I have discussed here in recent weeks. A politically sophisticated leftist in Washington, DC, wrote to thank me for my attack, but added, "To me the most interesting thing (in the US) is how many people are willing to believe that Bush either masterminded it [the 9/11 attacks] or knew in advance and let it happen. If that number or anything close to that is true, that's a huge base of people that are more than deeply cynical about their elected officials. That would be the real news story that the media is missing, and it's a big one."

"I'm not sure I see the silver lining about cynicism re government," I answered. "People used to say the same thing about the JFK conspiracy buffs and disbelief in the Warren Commission. Actually, it seems to demobilize people from useful political activity. I think the nuttishness stems from despair and political infantilism. There's no worthwhile energy to transfer from such kookery. It's like saying some lunatic shouting to himself on a street corner has the capacity to be a great orator. The nearest thing to it all is the Flying Saucer craze. 'Open up the USAF archives!' It's a Jungian thing."

The 9/11-ers, who've insulted me and other radical critics for years as "gatekeepers for the neocons", "CIA agents," and "fearful for their jobs", are wounded when I call them nuts. I've had many e-mails repeating their delirious litanies about NORAD, the collapse of the WTC buildings or the "missile" that really struck the Pentagon. On this last matter, Chuck Spinney, now retired after years of brilliant public service exposing the Pentagon's budgetary outrages, wrote to me that "there ARE pictures taken of plane hitting Pentagon -- they were taken by the surveillance cameras at Pentagon's heliport, which was right next to impact point. I have seen themÖboth stills and moving pictures. I just missed seeing it personally, but the driver of the van I just got out of in South Parking saw it so closely that he could see the terrified faces of passengers in windows. I knew two people who were on the plane. One was ID'd by dental remains found in the Pentagon."

This won't faze the nuts. They're immune to any reality check. Spinney worked for the government ... They switched the dental records ... The Boeing 757 was flown to Nebraska for a rendez-vous with President Bush, who shot the passengers, burned the bodies on the tarmac and gave Spinney's friend's teeth to Dick Cheney to drop through a hole in his trousers amid the debris in the Pentagon, the same way the paleontologists did in the Sussex gravel pit when they faked Piltdown Man. Such fantasists are not the foot soldiers of any movement for constructive social change.

Richard Aldrich's book on British intelligence, The Hidden Hand (2002), describes how a report for the Pentagon on declassification recommended that "interesting declassified material" such as information about the JFK assassination "could be released and even posted on the Internet, as a 'diversion,'" and used to "reduce the unrestrained public appetite for 'secrets' by providing good faith distraction material". Aldrich adds, "If investigative journalists and contemporary historians were absorbed with the vexatious, but rather tired, debates over the grassy knoll, they would not be busy probing into areas where they were unwelcome."

By the same token, I'm sure that the Bush gang, and all the conspirators of capital, are delighted at the obsessions of the 9/11 cultists. It's a distraction from the 1,001 real plots of capitalism that demand exposure and political challenge.

"The tendency to occultism is a symptom of regression in consciousness", Adorno wrote in Minima Moralia. "The veiled tendency of society towards disaster lulls its victims in a false revelation, with a hallucinated phenomenon. In vain they hope in its fragmented blatancy to look their total doom in the eye and withstand it ... The offal of the phenomenal world becomes, to sick consciousness, the mundus intelligibilis."

[Wim Dankbaar]

I agree with Cockburn to a high extent.

"No Boeing hit the Pentagon" and "The Twin towers brought down with explosives" are for 9/11 what "Greer shot JFK" and "Badgeman" are in the JFK assassination. Die hard myths.

Wim

[Wim Dankbaar]

I received a response from Fabian Escalante on the allegation about Almeida.

I have also asked him if I may quote him here.

Thus I am in waiting mode.

Wim

[John Simkin]

Lamar Waldron has sent me a copy of his revised book, Ultimate Sacrifice. It will be published next week. As expected he claims that in 1963 Almeida was involved in a plot with Che Guevara to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Eighteen years ago, Thom Hartmann and I began writing a book about the battles of President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F Kennedy, against the Mafia and Fidel Castro. In 2005, using new information from almost two dozen people who worked with John and Robert Kennedy-backed up by thousands of files at the National Archives-we exposed for the first time JFK's top-secret plan to overthrow Castro and invade Cuba on December 1, 1963. "The Plan for a Coup in Cuba" (as it was titled in a memo for the joint Chiefs of Staff) would include a "palace coup" to eliminate Castro, allowing a new Cuban "Provisional Government" to step into the power vacuum. The coup would be supported by a "full-scale invasion" of Cuba by the US military, if necessary.

However, even as JFK's secret plan was nearing its final stage, he had two emissaries making last-ditch attempts to avoid a potentially bloody coup and invasion by trying to jump-start secret negotiations with Fidel Castro. One long-secret November 1963 memo about those negotiations states that "there was a rift between Castro and the (Che) Guevara ... Almeida group on the question of Cuba's future course." Che Guevara is still widely known today, perhaps even more than in 1963. But most people in the United States have never heard of Che's ally against Castro, Juan Almeida, even though in 1963 he wielded more power inside Cuba than Che himself. In some ways, Almeida was the third most powerful official in Cuba in 1963, after Fidel and his brother Raul - and even today, in 2006, the CIA lists Juan Almeida as the third-highest official in the current Cuban government.

In this new edition, we can now reveal for the first time that Almeida wasn't just allied with Che against Castro in November of 1963: Almeida was also allied with President Kennedy. In 1963, Juan Almeida was the powerful Commander of the Cuban Army, one of the most famous heroes of the Revolution - and he was going to lead JFK's "palace coup" against Fidel. Commander Almeida had been in direct contact with John and Robert Kennedy's top Cuban exile aide since May of 1963, and both men would be part of Cuba's new, post-coup Provisional Government. By the morning of November 22, 1963, Almeida had even received a large cash payment authorized by the Kennedys, and the CIA had placed his family under US protection in a foreign country.

The "Plan for a Coup in Cuba" was fully authorized by JFK and personally run by Robert Kennedy. Only about a dozen people in the US government knew the full scope of the plan, all of whom worked for the military or the CIA, or reported directly to Robert. The Kennedys' plan was prepared primarily by the US military, with the CIA playing a major supporting role. Input was also obtained from key officials in a few other agencies, but most of those who worked on the plan knew only about carefully compartmentalized aspects, believing it to be a theoretical exercise in case a Cuban official volunteered to depose Fidel.