William Attwood

[Tim Gratz]

Not sure if I "caught" Pat's last sentence, but he does have a point. The Eisenhower administration effectively handed Cuba over to Castro. So we were not content to live with a "right-wing" dictator.

And of course starting under Eisenhower we went after Trujillo as well.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Not sure if I "caught" Pat's last sentence, but he does have a point.  The Eisenhower administration effectively handed Cuba over to Castro. 

More to the point, left Castro with two choices: to consort with Moscow or watch his people suffer and starve.

So we were not content to live with a "right-wing" dictator.

It's called embracing the inevitable, Tim.  Once a right wing dictator like Batista - who wasn't just installed, but sweet-talked into stepping down and then reinstalled - has outlived his "best before" date, there is no option but to strike an accomodation with the most promising, and/or least odious, candidate to replace him.  Recall that the US government was quite active in supporting Castro, but only once it became clear that his ascent was inevitable.

Recall also, however, that the National Security Council started to ponder killing Castro in record time.  And the first such suggestion that we know of from the written record [J.C. King] surely wasn't the first; merely the first to be entered into the record.  I've read allegations that initial contingency plans to kill Castro surfaced even before he'd marched into Havana, well before anyone knew his true colours or could influence the direction he took.

And of course starting under Eisenhower we went after Trujillo as well.

That's called disposing of a former ally once he's outlived his usefulness.  Ask the Diem brothers, or Manuel Noriega, or Saddam Hussein or his neighbour the Shah.  None were legitimatelty elected; yet all were tolerated - despite their repressive tendencies - until they either outlived their utility to the US policy wonks or threatened to become a greater liability than an asset in US plans.

These are entirely different to the approach taken against Arbenz, or Mossadegh, or Lumumba, or Allende or what is now being played out with Hugo Chavez.  Though legitimately democratically elected, all were earmarked for disposal because of the perceived threat they represented to the interests held by the wealthier citizens of your country, the ones who exercise the real power behind your Oval Office throne.  While I don't insist that others agree, it's my belief that this reflex to dispose of troublesome elected leaders took a sharp turn inward, starting in Dealey Plaza and, emboldened by the success of that operation, elsewhere in US politics.

Who can stand in the way when there's a dollar to be made?     

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[John Simkin]

Well, my point is that Bush II is different from Bush I.

Bush II is no different from other right-wing Republican presidents. One of the myths of Bush's foreign policy is that he is trying to spread democracy to the rest of the world.

Take the example of Uzbekistan. Elections took place in this country in December, 2004. However, opposition parties were not allowed to take part and President Karimov was allowed to maintain his control of Uzbekistan. Not one member of the US administration criticised these elections. On the surface this may seem surprising as Karimov is a former member of the Communist Party. However, Bush does not mind communists when they are his communists.

Uzbekistan is a country with a government that wages war on its citizens. According to the UN report published in 2002 torture in Uzbekistan is “widespread and systemic”. Last year Human Rights Watch produced a book with more than 300 pages of case studies. This included the boiling to death of Muzafar Avazov and Husnidin Alimov.

In May an estimated 700 civilians have been killed while peacefully protesting against Karimov’s government. However, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, announced to the press that Karimov’s troops had opened fire on “Islamic terrorists”. He also urged them to seek democratic government “through peaceful means, not through violence”. Jack Straw, the UK foreign secretary did indeed condemn these attacks on peaceful demonstrators but insisted that: “It’s for the people to decide on a change of regime, not outsiders”. This is the same Jack Straw who helped facilitate regime change in Iraq.

Bush has not been interested in human rights abuses in Uzbekistan. In fact, when the British ambassador in Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, complained about these human rights abuses, Bush put pressure on Blair to sack Murray. This he did and as a result Murray stood against Jack Straw in the recent general election.

Bush not only refuses to condemn Karimov, he helps to prop up his regime. For example, in 2002 the US gave Uzbekistan over $500m in aid, including $120m in military aid and $80 in security aid.

Why is Bush so keen to keep this communist dictator in power? The same reason why he removed Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Oil. The US has troops stationed in Uzbekistan. The reason for this concerns the building of a pipeline to bring central Asia’s hydrocarbons out through Afghanistan to the Arabian sea. Control of Uzbekistan is vital in order to preserve this pipeline. So, as you can see, Bush cares nothing for democracy or human rights.

In 1963 JFK tried to develop an ethical foreign policy. Maybe that is why he was killed.

[Chris Cox]

Tim I don't know why as a journalist you don't take your 15 mins and write gen circulation story with Rove connection. Rove is hot topic and your sidebar would be interesting to readers and historians.

I will get back to Attwood, I agree with you we're digressing.

[Chris Cox]

Now we are getting somewhere. What is the background of repproachment effort?

All read the Communist Threat in Caribbean report of Congress in 1959, not sure of date and title but on web in parts.

The testimonies prove there was genuine effort by USG to install rebels (Castro emerged prominent) revolutionary government, perhaps this was an interim move and it backfired. The testimonies indicate many were uncomfortable with the choice (Eisenhower and Nixon camp) but State Dept was in it like CIA down there and had to take action as Batista was showing wear. It was like the word on street vs the word in Washington. Herb Matthews for instance was briefing incoming/outgoing Ambassadors according to document.

We know support to rebels came way back when, in Mexico, with Prio money early as 1957. Granma was a gift. Change was afoot and response from USG was necessary. INRA was the straw but there were other reasons to doubt Castro was our man, defections, arrests and confessions or leaks, Communist threats fresh in our post McCarthy minds, notwithstanding. Eisenhower/Nixon BOP comes on heals as apology for backing wrong guy the way I see it.

Not true that US was last to know about Castro. Paramilitary (lack of better word) were supplying (with a glance away by officials) the rebels all along and informing to officials in this country at same time. During the Roselli thread Tosh mentioned a weapons drop of 1959 that was covered up by FBI. Interest in that faded but it was important, esp. since he is piloting later for Atwood.

Alas, we had Atwood and Howard's pilot here but not anymore. I would like to know what supports were behind this assignment? What are circumstances of this flight, surely there were bells going off in Customs and Mil around these flights. What protections were in place? How secret was this secret in other words?

[John Simkin]

And, as I suspect you know, despite how strongly I felt at the time that it was important for the future of the country that Nixon be re-elected, I would not have even smeared a Democrat candidate to ensure the re-election of Nixon.  In my opinion, morality is needed in politics.  And morality means, among other things, that the ends (even important ends) cannot justify immoral means.

You still use the same tactics. How does this smear help explain Rove's dirty tricks tactics against Wilson.

Indeed.  The Guardian article never stated, by the way, that Rove engaged in "dirty tricks" against Wilson, which is the way you phrased it.  The issue is whether he revealed the name of Wilson's wife as a covert CIA operative, and there is apparently no evidence that he did.

Wilson is a discredited xxxx.  Members are urged to read this piece from the July 13, 2005 "Wall Street Journal":

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110006955

[John Simkin]

John wrote:

William Attwood was of course right about this.

But John Kennedy said:

I look at Cuba, 90 miles off the coast of the United States. In 1957 I was in Havana. I talked to the American Ambassador there. He said that he was the second most powerful man in Cuba, and yet even though Ambassador Smith and Ambassador Gardner, both Republican Ambassadors, both warned of Castro, the Marxist influences around Castro, the Communist influences around Castro, both of them have testified in the last 6 weeks, that in spite of their warnings to the American Government, nothing was done.

Fourth Presidential Debate, New York City, October 21, 1960 (full text available at jfk library web-site).

Kennedy was right!  So were Gardner and Smith.   But Attwood was wrong!  (If Attwood was correct, then Fidel was a xxxx--right, John?  He may or may not be an assassin, but he was clearly a xxxx about when he became a Communist if your position is correct).

This is all about dates. When William Attwood wrote about Castro for Look in 1959 he was not a communist. Attwood, like senior members of the CIA, realised that at this stage Castro was a nationalist and not a communist. They also realized that it was just a matter of time before Batista was overthrown. He was a corrupt military dictator running Cuba on behalf of himself, the Mafia and the large US corporations with considerable investments in the country. Attwood and the CIA thought it was in the best long-term interests of the US to replace Batista with Castro.

However, there were some right-wing extremists like Earl Smith (and apparently Tim) that would rather have someone like Batista in control (Smith was getting a rake-off, what is your excuse Tim). This is the way it has always been. Right-wing American presidents have always felt more comfortable with military dictators than nationalist reformers. It has caused disaster after disaster and has resulted in the Soviet Union and China to take the high moral ground by supporting reformist groups throughout the Third World.

The CIA plan to persuade Castro to become pro-US. This would have been possible after Castro had cleared out the Mafia from Cuba. The Mafia were extremely unpopular in Cuba (mainly because of the way it went against the teachings of the Catholic Church with its policies of creating wide-spread prostitution to cater for the tastes of American tourists). This was a central point of Castro's policy and had gained him the support of the Church.

As Robert has pointed out Eisenhower's policy gave Castro no option. It was either accepting the support of the Soviet Union or mass starvation.

William Attwood was right to say in 1959 that Castro was not a communist. John Kennedy was right in 1960 to say that Castro was a communist.

[John Simkin]

William Attwood was probably JFK's most important foreign policy advisor. He was the man who arranged the negotiations between the JFK administration and Castro in 1963. He wrote about this in his little known book, The Twilight Struggle: Tales of the Cold War (1987). I have therefore decided to post a long extract from this book to explain what was taking place in 1963. I believe this document helps to understand why JFK was assassinated. Take a close look at the last two paragraphs.

On April 21, 1963, McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's national security adviser, wrote a memorandum entitled "Cuban Alternatives" that made the point, heretofore overlooked, that Castro's death would lead to "singularly unpromising" consequences for U.S. policy, since he would almost certainly be succeeded by his brother Raul. And there was little doubt that Raul was far more likely than Fidel to follow the Soviet script to the letter.

Bundy's memorandum also identified three possible alternatives to continuing futile plots and pinpricks indefinitely: (i) forcing "a nonCommunist solution in Cuba by all necessary means"; (ii) insisting on "major but limited ends"; (iii) moving "in the direction of a gradual development of some form of accommodation with Castro."

The last alternative, which grew out of a January proposal from Bundy to Kennedy about exploring the possibility of communicating with Castro, was then accepted by a new committee, the Special Group, which had assumed responsibility within the White House for reviewing and approving covert actions in Cuba. Sabotage had all but ceased early in 1963. Yet in June-the same month Kennedy delivered his famous speech on making the world "safe for diversity"-a sabotage program designed to "nourish a spirit of resistance and disaffection" was approved in the White House, and thirteen major operations planned for the November 1963 January 1964 period.

What could we-or should we-have been doing instead?

Four realities had to be kept in mind, and weren't:

First, Fidel Castro's one-man revolution was improvised, erratic, whimsical at times, but pervasive - and fueled by passionate popular support. Politically, he was an impetuous radical revolutionary - too undisciplined to be the Communists' satrap but not averse to using them and parts of their doctrine, nor to turning to the Soviet Union for the aid and trade he needed to keep going. His avowal in December 1961 that he'd always been a Marxist was believed by no one who knew him well; but his pride compelled him to say he was neither an opportunist nor some wet-behind-the-ears recent convert to Lenin's teachings.

Second, the revolution he'd set in motion could never be reversed after 1959. To turn the clock back, as the exiles hoped to do, would have meant closing schools and clinics, taking shoes away from children, returning most sugar plantations to absentee landlords, reopening Havana's casinos and notorious brothels and denationalizing expropriated firms whose owners had by now fled. There was just no way. The social and economic transformation of Cuba was too far advanced. Even if the revolution was mismanaged, as it was, the Soviets seemed willing to bail out their protégée indefinitely by buying his sugar above market prices and selling him oil below market prices. As a result, Castro has cost them billions of rubles over the past quarter century; but why should this concern us?

Third, the Cuban exile community, augmented annually by Castro's shrewd policy of letting the disgruntled leave-with one suitcase each created a voting bloc in Florida and some northeastern states that soon carried weight with politicians. Denouncing Castro became a ritual for candidates in certain congressional districts, even though there were more brutal and corrupt dictators then in power all over Latin America.

Fourth, the only identifiable U.S. interests in Cuba were to retain our naval base at Guantanamo Bay (which we have) and to prevent Cuba from becoming a center for Soviet subversion of Latin America.

As it turned out, the Soviets preferred using traditional (and obedient) Communist parties for this purpose, and Castro's forays in the area were such failures that he all but gave up trying to export his revolution in mid-1964, by which time it had become somewhat tarnished by economic failures. Che Guevara, more restless and romantic, carried his revolutionary torch a while longer until his death in the jungles of Bolivia in 1967.

My hunch, buttressed by what I've read and heard, is that by mid 1959 it was too late for us to influence the course or the pace of the Cuban revolution. Castro, like a runaway horse with the bit in his teeth, was going all out. He barely found the time to see our able and generally sympathetic new career ambassador, Philip Bonsal, who replaced two successive pro-Batista political envoys, Arthur Gardner and Earl Smith. Bonsal hadn't given up on Castro in July, as I said earlier, but that was before Cienfuegos's mysterious disappearance, Urrutria's ouster and Matos's arrest and conviction.

In 1958, imaginative diplomacy on our part might have succeeded in persuading Batista to leave (as Marcos was persuaded twenty-eight years later) and allowing the democratic reformists to set up a government while Castro was still in the mountains-a government, backed by the army, in which his 26th of July Movement could play a role but not a commanding one-certainly until elections were held. I was told just such a course of action was proposed in Washington but flatly rejected by Ambassador Smith.

But if Fidel Castro was in fact committed to an anti-American policy, why did he sound so conciliatory in his talk with me? Indeed, why did he even bother to see me? The answer, I think, is that he had not yet turned against us (as he did, understandably, in 1960, when he learned of the Eisenhower Administration's preparations for the Bay of Pigs). He plausibly wanted normal diplomatic and trade relations with us, provided we didn't interfere with his revolutionary programs or even protest-as we did in May 1959 - the seizure of U.S. property without compensation under the new Agrarian Reform Law. Castro was erratic and, as he confessed to me, emotional. It was in character for him to say, "Let us be friends" - and mean it - even while taking economic and political actions in the name of the revolution that were certain to anger us.

My own view today is that our wisest policy would have been to accept the fact that Castro was firmly in control and treat him with benign indifference, letting him know our door was open if he wanted to talk (as I once told Sekou Toure). Harassing or insulting him served no American purpose and was also an unbecoming stance for a great power. After all, we held on to Guantanamo, even though he refused to accept the annual rental payment; we didn't need his sugar, and he was never a threat to our security except in our fevered political rhetoric. The missile crisis was a U.S.-U.S.S.R. stare-down, with Fidel as a bystander, furious when Khrushchev backed off; it was never a Cuban-American crisis. As for the lure of Castroism in Latin America, his efforts in that direction finally fizzled out in Caracas, and Castro turned his attention to agronomy. Look, which had opened a South American bureau in 1963 to cover the expected Fidelista penetration of the continent, closed it down two years later. Absent the specter of Fidelismo, readers of American mass magazines couldn't care less about that part of the world.

To sum up, our national interest was not served by a policy of unremitting hostility any more than it was in the eighties in Nicaragua. It merely isolated us progressively from the Organization of American States and, on the trade embargo, from our European allies, who continued to do business with Cuba. Even the Vatican has kept a papal nuncio in Havana through the years. We have managed to look both surly and scared and, since the Bay of Pigs, vengeful. Europeans often told me we kept slapping at Castro because he'd had the effrontery to thumb his nose at us, just ninety miles from our shores. All we really accomplished was to dispel the myth (to which some Americans still cling) that we are both innocent and omnipotent.

The foregoing considerations made me receptive to some signals I began picking up in September 1963 at the United Nations, where I was assigned to our delegation as special adviser on African affairs. Among my duties were keeping in touch with African delegates and trying to mitigate the effects of our frequent votes in favor of South African or Portuguese positions. (The lawyers who dominated our delegation persisted in viewing the General Assembly as a tidy parliamentary chamber or judicial body, which it certainly wasn't, instead of an unruly political convention where no one ever got nominated and scoring publicity points was the name of the game (along with letting off steam.) Even President Kennedy questioned our almost automatic support of Portugal, something the Pentagon insisted on to safeguard our bases in the Azores. (When I once mentioned to him that backing Portuguese colonialism hurt us in Black Africa, he mused aloud, "The navy keeps saying the Azores are vital to our security. But I bet they'd find an alternative if the Azores disappeared in a tidal wave.")

Anyway, on September 5, I was talking Africa with Lisa Howard, an ABC correspondent, who told me she'd recently interviewed Castro in Havana and was convinced he'd like to restore communications with the U.S. She offered to arrange a social gathering at her apartment where I could meet casually and informally with Carlos Lechuga, Cuba's representative at the U.N.

I told her I'd let her know, on the understanding that she would keep all such contacts confidential in exchange for exclusivity if there should be a story to be told somewhere down the road. But her impression reminded me of something Sekou Toure said to me during the 1962 missile crisis: "I'm sorry for Castro. I think he is a nationalist and a neutralist at heart, whatever he sometimes says. But he had neither the intellectual training nor the ideological experience to understand the Communists. I did-in the trade union movement-so I know how they operate. But Castro is naive and has allowed himself to be used by them. Even so, if you are flexible, I think he can be brought back to a neutralist position."

This could be the moment to be flexible, and in Washington a week later I mentioned the possibility of sounding out Lechuga to Averell Harriman, then an assistant secretary of state. He was intrigued and asked me to do a memo on it. Ken Galbraith, back from India and returning to Harvard, told me Harriman, rather than Stevenson, was the man to see in order to get the president's attention.

On September 17, I ran into Seydou Diallo, Guinea's ambassador to Cuba, in the Delegates' Lounge, and he volunteered the information that Cuba's economy was in a slump and Castro would soon be amenable to some sort of agreement with us. "He is salvageable," he said. "Give him another three months." Other Africans I talked to expressed generally the same view.

That day I wrote a "Memorandum on Cuba," based on the premise that the policy of isolating Cuba not only intensified Castro's desire to cause trouble but froze the United States before the world "in the unattractive posture of a big country trying to bully a small country."

The memo went on:

According to neutral diplomats I have talked to at the U.N., there is reason to believe that Castro is unhappy about his present dependence on the Soviet Union; that he does not enjoy in effect being a satellite; that our trade embargo is hurting him-though not enough to endanger his position; and that he would like to establish some official contact with the United States and would go to some length to obtain normalization of relations with us-even though this would not be welcomed by most of his hard-core Communist entourage ...

All of this may or may not be true. But it would seem that we have something to gain and nothing to lose by finding out whether in fact Castro does want to talk and what concessions he would be prepared to make ...

What I am proposing is a discreet inquiry into neutralizing Cuba on our terms. It is based on the assumption that, short of a change of regime, our principal political objectives in Cuba are: i. The evacuation of all Soviet bloc military personnel. ii. An end to subversive activities by Cuba in Latin America. iii. Adoption by Cuba of a policy of nonalignment.

I suggested the time and place for this inquiry were the current session of the U.N. General Assembly and that, having visited Cuba and talked with Castro in 1959, it would be natural for me to meet informally with Lechuga. If Castro was interested, one thing might lead to another: "For the moment, all I would like is the authority to make contact with Lechuga. We'll see what happens then."

The next day, I showed the memorandum to Stevenson, who liked it. "Unfortunately," he said, "the CIA is still in charge of Cuba." But he offered to take it up with the president. Harriman was in New York on the nineteenth, so I gave him a copy too. He said he was "adventuresome enough" to be interested but urged me to see Bob Kennedy, whose approval would be essential. I called Kennedy and got an appointment to see him on the twenty-fourth.

Meanwhile, Stevenson told me he had talked to the president about the Cuban initiative when he came to New York on the twentieth to address the General Assembly, and got his agreement to go ahead. For some reason, Stevenson was not keen on my seeing Robert Kennedy, but I trusted Harriman's instincts. Bob had been deeply involved in our Cuban relations and would expect to be consulted about this gambit; also, he had his brother's ear as did no one else.

I did tell Lisa to organize her cocktail party, and on the twenty-third Lechuga and I found ourselves talking about Fidel and the revolution in a corner of her apartment. He said Castro had hoped to establish some sort of contact with Kennedy after he became president in 1961, but the Bay of Pigs ended any chance of that, at least for the time being. But Castro had read Kennedy's American University speech in June and had liked its tone. I mentioned my Havana visit in 1959 and Fidel's "Let us be friends" remark in our conversation. Lechuga said another such conversation in Havana could be useful and might be arranged. He expressed irritation at the continuing exile raids and our freezing $33 million in Cuban assets in U.S. banks in July. We agreed the present situation was abnormal and we should keep in touch.

On the twenty-fourth I flew to Washington, gave Bob Kennedy my memo, which he read, and told him of my talk with Lechuga the night before. He said my going to Cuba, as Lechuga had mentioned, was too risky-it was bound to leak-and if nothing came of it the Republicans would call it appeasement and demand a congressional investigation. But he thought the matter was worth pursuing at the U.N. and perhaps even with Castro some place outside Cuba. He said he'd consult with Harriman and McGeorge Bundy.

On the twenty-seventh I met Lechuga in the U.N. Delegates' Lounge-always a good place for discreet encounters because of its noise and confusion-and said it would be difficult for me, in my present capacity as a government official, to accept an invitation to Cuba; however, I was authorized to talk to anyone who came here from Havana. He said he'd pass my message along. Meanwhile, he warned me he'd be making a tough anti-American speech on October 7, but not to take it too seriously.

On October 2, Bundy called to say that Gordon Chase, one of his deputies, would be my White House contact and to keep him informed.

The next day, I lunched with an old friend, Jean Daniel, the editor of the French socialist newsweekly L'Observateur, who said he was going to Washington and then Havana to see Castro, who he had reason to believe would now be receptive to some bold diplomacy from our side. I called Ben Bradlee, then Newsweek's Washington bureau chief, who knew Daniel, and suggested he try to get him an appointment with the president.

On the seventh, Lechuga made his speech, denouncing our trade embargo and the exile raids as warlike acts. It got a lot of applause, even from the moderates, who instinctively sympathized with a small country standing up to a superpower. Stevenson had asked me for a draft of a reply, in which he said that Castro could have peace with all his neighbors if he stopped trying to subvert other nations and taking orders from Moscow and instead started honoring the original democratic pledges of his revolution.

On October 19, a Greek town planner named Doxiades, just back from Havana, dropped in to tell me Castro was sincerely interested in normalizing relations with us.

Two days later Chase called and I told him the ball was still in Lechuga's court.

On the twenty-fourth, the president saw Daniel after Bradlee told him of his forthcoming trip to Cuba. Kennedy blamed our pro-Batista policy in the fifties for "economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation" and added, "We'll have to pay for those sins." But he said the Cuban problem now had a Soviet dimension in that Castro was doing the Kremlin's bidding and acting as its agent in Latin America: "The continuation of our economic blockade depends on his continuation of subversive activities." But as Daniel wrote later, "I could see plainly that John Kennedy had doubts and was seeking a way out."

On the twenty-eighth, Lechuga told me Havana didn't see how formal talks could be useful just now but he'd be glad to continue chatting with me anyway. Lisa Howard had meanwhile been in touch by phone with Castro's personal aide, Major Rene Vallejo. He told her Castro did want to talk personally and privately to us about improving relations and was glad we were ready to listen. She told him about our proposal for a meeting at the U.N., but Vallejo said Castro couldn't leave Cuba just now.

On the thirty-first, Vallejo called her back and said Castro would like a U.S. official to come and see him alone. He appreciated the importance of discretion and therefore offered to send a plane to fly the official to a private airport near Varadero, where no one else would see him. She told him I was the official concerned and would get in touch.

I kept Stevenson informed and also called Chase, who told me on November 4 to come to the White House the next day. There, I briefed him and Bundy on Vallejo's message to Lisa. Bundy said the president was more interested in this Cuban exercise than was the State Department. (I knew he could see the political advantage of possibly weaning Castro away from the Soviet fold.) He asked for a chronological memorandum describing all the exchanges that had taken place since my first talk with Lisa.

On the twelfth, she told me Vallejo had phoned again suggesting I come to Varadero from Key West on an American plane, which was bound to attract less attention than a Cuban plane in Florida. Bundy then called, reiterating that the president favored a preliminary discussion about an agenda, perhaps with Vallejo, at the U.N.-and to call Cuba and tell him so.

During the next four days I tried to reach Vallejo but either the circuit was out or he was. Finally, on the eighteenth, I spoke to him at 2 A.M. and told him the White House position. He said Castro would send instructions to Lechuga to discuss an agenda with me. He spoke fluent English and called me "sir." (Many years later, Castro told me he was listening in on our conversation.)

I reported to Bundy in the morning. He said once an agenda had been agreed upon, the president would want to see me and decide what to say to Castro. He said the president would be making a brief trip to Dallas but otherwise planned to be in Washington.

Meanwhile, in a speech the day before, the president said of Cuba that it had become "a weapon in an effort dictated by external powers to subvert the other American republics. This and this alone divides us. As long as this is true, nothing is possible. Without it, everything is possible." Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who helped in the preparation of this speech, said it was intended to help me by signaling to Castro that normalization was possible if Cuba simply stopped doing the Kremlin's work in Latin America (such as trying to sabotage-vainly, as it turned out-the upcoming Venezuelan elections).

Daniel saw Castro on November 20 and told him of his meeting with Kennedy. He found the Cuban leader thoughtful and attentive; he had Daniel repeat what Kennedy had said about Batista. "He has come to understand many things over the past few months," Castro concluded, adding, "As a revolutionary, the present situation does not displease me. But as a man and a statesman, it is my duty to indicate what the bases for understanding could be."

They met again on the twenty-second, just as the news of Kennedy's assassination was broadcast. Castro seemed stunned. "Es una mala noticia, " he murmured. "This is bad news. This is a serious matter, an extremely serious matter. There is the end of your mission of peace." And later: "At least Kennedy was an enemy to whom we had become accustomed."

He also predicted to Daniel that the Cubans would be blamed for it, as they were for several days after the murder. What Fidel did not know was that Desmond FitzGerald, a senior CIA official, was on that very day, in Paris, giving Rolando Cubela, whose code name was AM/ LASH, a poison pen with which to kill Castro. There is no evidence that Kennedy knew this either. And indeed, what motive would either of them have in plotting the death of someone they were planning to communicate with?

One thing was clear: Stevenson was right when he told me back in September that "the CIA is in charge of Cuba"; or anyway, acted as if it thought it was, and to hell with the president it was pledged to serve.

After November 22, the Cuban exercise was gradually laid to rest by our side. On the twenty-ninth, I told Lisa, who was seeing Lechuga, that I had no instructions yet to call it off. On December 2, Lechuga confirmed getting a message from Vallejo authorizing him to talk to me "in general terms"-and had I heard anything from Washington? I called Chase and said the next move was up to us.

Two days later, Lechuga approached me in the Delegates' Lounge to say he now had a letter from Fidel himself, instructing him to talk with me about a specific agenda. I called Chase, who replied all policies were now under review and to be patient.

Jean Daniel returned from Cuba that week, convinced that Fidel wanted to reach a modus vivendi with us. I phoned Schlesinger and Chase at the White House and arranged an appointment for Daniel with Bundy.

On the twelfth, I told Lechuga to be patient and that so far as I knew, we weren't closing the door. (Neither of us knew then that it would be six years before we would meet again-in Havana.)

The General Assembly was coming to an end, and the next day I finally had the satisfaction of casting a vote in the Fourth Committee against South Africa on the question of self-determination for Namibia, which was (and still is) illegally occupied by the South Africans.

President Johnson came to New York and lunched with our delegation after reassuring the General Assembly that he'd be carrying on Kennedy's policies. At lunch, he told me he'd read my chronological account of our Cuban initiative "with interest."

And that was it. I was named ambassador to Kenya in January, and during my Washington briefings I saw Chase, who told me there was apparently no desire among the Johnson people to do anything about Cuba in an election year.

On April 7, Johnson did decide to discontinue the CIA-controlled sabotage raids against Cuba, which John McCone, the CIA director, interpreted as giving up our long-standing objective of overthrowing the regime. Later, Johnson was quoted in an interview as saying that when he took office he had discovered that "we had been operating a damned Murder, Inc., in the Caribbean."

What part, if any, our Cuban gambit played in Kennedy's assassination is the kind of question that now seems pointless to raise. While we kept the exercise under wraps (apparently not even the secretary of state was fully apprised), the CIA must have had an inkling of what was happening from phone taps and surveillance of Lechuga. The news could then have trickled down to the frustrated Bay of Pigs veterans still huddled around their CIA case officers, still hoping for another invasion attempt. An accommodation would have dashed these hopes. Many Cuban adventurers like Frank Fiorini, alias Frank Sturgis, who would wind up working the catacombs of Watergate, could easily have been aroused by what Schlesinger has referred to as "a broadside of unknown origin that told Cuban exiles in Miami that `only one development' would return them to their homeland - 'if an inspired Act of God should place in the White House within weeks a Texan known to be a friend of all Latin Americans."'

Aroused enough to help perform the "act"? I don't know and don't care to speculate about it.

[Mark Knight]

Tim Gratz stated:

And I was never a big fan of either Richard Nixon or Richard Helms.

So you worked for the presidential campaign of someone in whom you didn't believe? In a "Gratzian" sort of way, that actually makes sense...in other words, you evidently liked Nixon enough to work for him, but after he was revealed to be the kind of person he really was, you decided you really didn't like him so much anymore. Is that about right?

Shows you to be a man of principle above politics, Tim...NOT!!

Or, to put in in other words, you apparently thought that, compared to the sterling qualities that Nixon exhibited, McGovern's election would be the undoing of America...or would that be Muskie's? Or Wallace's? Oh, excuse me, I overlooked the chronology; Tim was on board with the Nixon campaign before the opposing candidate was selected...right, Tim?

So it could be argued that, even though you weren't a "big fan" of Nixon, you chose to work for his campaign before the opposing candidate had been selected, because you evidently thought that Nixon was a better choice for America...even though, at that point, you couldn't answer the question, "better than WHOM?"

Have I got that right so far? After all, I only have your actions upon which to attempt to explain your thought processes...and your actions do speak much louder than your words, Tim.

"...I was never a big fan of Richard Nixon..."

Your actions prove that to be a less-than-truthful statement, sir...for it's obvious that "1972" contradicts "never" in this instance.

And, as I suspect you know, despite how strongly I felt at the time that it was important for the future of the country that Nixon be re-elected, I would not have even smeared a Democrat candidate to ensure the re-election of Nixon. In my opinion, morality is needed in politics. And morality means, among other things, that the ends (even important ends) cannot justify immoral means.

Hmmm..."morality in politics" evidently includes actively campaigning for someone of whom you were "never a big fan"...yep, that sounds like logical behavior to me.

[That was sarcasm, Tim.]

Maybe it's different in your world, Tim; but in MY world, a person of morality does not actively campaign for a candidate of whom they were "never a big fan." Morality dictates that one stand up for principles, not party. So why not just admit that you were a big fan of Nixon during the 1972 campaign, as your actions confirm?

Your actions betray your words, Tim. You certainly must realize that by now.

Edited August 3, 2005 by Mark Knight

[John Simkin]

What part, if any, our Cuban gambit played in Kennedy's assassination is the kind of question that now seems pointless to raise. While we kept the exercise under wraps (apparently not even the secretary of state was fully apprised), the CIA must have had an inkling of what was happening from phone taps and surveillance of Lechuga. The news could then have trickled down to the frustrated Bay of Pigs veterans still huddled around their CIA case officers, still hoping for another invasion attempt. An accommodation would have dashed these hopes. Many Cuban adventurers like Frank Fiorini, alias Frank Sturgis, who would wind up working the catacombs of Watergate, could easily have been aroused by what Schlesinger has referred to as "a broadside of unknown origin that told Cuban exiles in Miami that `only one development' would return them to their homeland - 'if an inspired Act of God should place in the White House within weeks a Texan known to be a friend of all Latin Americans."'

Aroused enough to help perform the "act"? I don't know and don't care to speculate about it.[/color]

This is what I believe really did happened. Why does William Attwood say he does not wish to speculate? I suspect because he was frightened to do so. Attwood died in 1989. His surviving family members are still unwilling to go on record about what he knew about the assassination. Such is the power of those who carried out the “crime of the century”.

[Dawn Meredith]

[This is what I believe really did happened. Why does William Attwood say he does not wish to speculate? I suspect because he was frightened to do so. Attwood died in 1989. His surviving family members are still unwilling to go on record about what he knew about the assassination. Such is the power of those who carried out the “crime of the century”.

[color=blue]

____________________________

Such is STILL the power.

Cuba, CIA, Vietnam, Big Oil...

I wonder if it is possible to even calculate the number of needless deaths-murders- which have occurred since one man dared to live- (and die)- by his own words:

"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war....We shall be prepared if others wish it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just... Confident and unafraid, we labor on-not toward a strategy of annihiliation but toward a strategy of peace"

American University

6/10/63

Dawn

[Pat Speer]

What part, if any, our Cuban gambit played in Kennedy's assassination is the kind of question that now seems pointless to raise. While we kept the exercise under wraps (apparently not even the secretary of state was fully apprised), the CIA must have had an inkling of what was happening from phone taps and surveillance of Lechuga. The news could then have trickled down to the frustrated Bay of Pigs veterans still huddled around their CIA case officers, still hoping for another invasion attempt. An accommodation would have dashed these hopes. Many Cuban adventurers like Frank Fiorini, alias Frank Sturgis, who would wind up working the catacombs of Watergate, could easily have been aroused by what Schlesinger has referred to as "a broadside of unknown origin that told Cuban exiles in Miami that `only one development' would return them to their homeland - 'if an inspired Act of God should place in the White House within weeks a Texan known to be a friend of all Latin Americans."'

Aroused enough to help perform the "act"? I don't know and don't care to speculate about it.[/color]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is what I believe really did happened. Why does William Attwood say he does not wish to speculate? I suspect because he was frightened to do so. Attwood died in 1989. His surviving family members are still unwilling to go on record about what he knew about the assassination. Such is the power of those who carried out the “crime of the century”.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wonder if Attwood would have went ahead and speculated if he knew that the CIA agent with the responsibility of keeping tabs on Lechuga in New York, who would quite likely be the man receiving the transcripts of Lechuga's conversations, was none other tha E. Howard Hunt, covert operations chief for the Domestic Operations Division. Don't know why I didn't point this out earlier.

[John Simkin]

I wonder if Attwood would have went ahead and speculated if he knew that the CIA agent with the responsibility of keeping tabs on Lechuga in New York, who would quite likely be the man receiving the transcripts of Lechuga's conversations, was none other tha E. Howard Hunt, covert operations chief for the Domestic Operations Division.  Don't know why I didn't point this out earlier.

Amazing. Where did you get this information from? This puts Hunt at the very heart of the conspiracy.

[Pat Speer]

I wonder if Attwood would have went ahead and speculated if he knew that the CIA agent with the responsibility of keeping tabs on Lechuga in New York, who would quite likely be the man receiving the transcripts of Lechuga's conversations, was none other tha E. Howard Hunt, covert operations chief for the Domestic Operations Division.  Don't know why I didn't point this out earlier.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Amazing. Where did you get this information from? This puts Hunt at the very heart of the conspiracy.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Last year, when I was reading up on the connections of Barnes and Hunt to the assassination, I spent some time trying to figure out what the "Domestic Operations Division," where they worked in 63, did. I read everything I could get my hands on. While Hunt tries to paint it as a catch-all kind of job in his memoirs, in other books on the CIA the role was made much more clear. The DOD was responsible for recruiting foreign nationals as assets while they are on U.S. soil. This means they specifically targeted U.N. and embassy employees for recruitment. In books on the CIA one also comes across the concept of "compromising" someone in order to recruit them. I suspect this was what was going on in the Duran/Lechuga affair. Because of this, I suspect its possible Oswald did have a fling with Duran, but that he was testing her for Hunt. Of course, Angleton would be involved in any testing of an agent's loyalty. This scenario might explain the so-called Hunt memo. Speculation, of course...

The real role of the DOD, however, is not speculation. On page 221 of the Rockefeller Report it says "Until recently, the agency component with responsibility for developing contacts with foreign nationals was known as the Domestic Operations Division." Hunt's role is confirmed on page 132 of his book Under Cover: "After considerable bureaucratic struggle Barnes established the Domestic Operations Division and appointed me its chief of covert action." He then downplays his job and makes it sound like he was mostly reading and re-writing books. In The Very Best Men, it's mentioned that Hans Tofte was also in the DOD. As Tofte was a close ally of J.C. King's and was one of the original planners for the Guatemalan coup, it seems unlikely that Barnes, Hunt, and Tofte, all veteran men of action who'd planned many a coup and assassination, sat around reading books.

[Tim Gratz]

Mark Knight wrote:

Tim Gratz stated:

And I was never a big fan of either Richard Nixon or Richard Helms.

So you worked for the presidential campaign of someone in whom you didn't believe? In a "Gratzian" sort of way, that actually makes sense...in other words, you evidently liked Nixon enough to work for him, but after he was revealed to be the kind of person he really was, you decided you really didn't like him so much anymore. Is that about right?

Shows you to be a man of principle above politics, Tim...NOT!!

Or, to put in in other words, you apparently thought that, compared to the sterling qualities that Nixon exhibited, McGovern's election would be the undoing of America...or would that be Muskie's? Or Wallace's? Oh, excuse me, I overlooked the chronology; Tim was on board with the Nixon campaign before the opposing candidate was selected...right, Tim?

So it could be argued that, even though you weren't a "big fan" of Nixon, you chose to work for his campaign before the opposing candidate had been selected, because you evidently thought that Nixon was a better choice for America...even though, at that point, you couldn't answer the question, "better than WHOM?"

Have I got that right so far? After all, I only have your actions upon which to attempt to explain your thought processes...and your actions do speak much louder than your words, Tim.

"...I was never a big fan of Richard Nixon..."

Your actions prove that to be a less-than-truthful statement, sir...for it's obvious that "1972" contradicts "never" in this instance.

And, as I suspect you know, despite how strongly I felt at the time that it was important for the future of the country that Nixon be re-elected, I would not have even smeared a Democrat candidate to ensure the re-election of Nixon. In my opinion, morality is needed in politics. And morality means, among other things, that the ends (even important ends) cannot justify immoral means.

Hmmm..."morality in politics" evidently includes actively campaigning for someone of whom you were "never a big fan"...yep, that sounds like logical behavior to me.

[That was sarcasm, Tim.]

Maybe it's different in your world, Tim; but in MY world, a person of morality does not actively campaign for a candidate of whom they were "never a big fan." Morality dictates that one stand up for principles, not party. So why not just admit that you were a big fan of Nixon during the 1972 campaign, as your actions confirm?

Your actions betray your words, Tim. You certainly must realize that by now.

This whole post just shows how ridiculous Knight is.

I supported Ronald Reagan over Richard Nixon in 1968. If I was lukewarm about Nixon because he was not sufficiently conservative, Mark argues it was immoral or hypocritical that I supported Nixon before the Democrats had even selected George Sell-out McGovern. What? I was supposed to think that the Democrats would nominate someone more conservative than Nixon?

But not only is his logic wrong, as is most often the case his FACTS are wrong.

He wrote:

Or, to put in in other words, you apparently thought that, compared to the sterling qualities that Nixon exhibited, McGovern's election would be the undoing of America...or would that be Muskie's? Or Wallace's? Oh, excuse me, I overlooked the chronology; Tim was on board with the Nixon campaign before the opposing candidate was selected...right, Tim?

In 1972, the Democrats nominated George McGovern over six weeks before the GOP nominated Nixon. Interestingly, both conventions were held in Miami Beach.

Mark argues that a person of integrity would never campaign for someone of whom they were not a big fan. I assume he therefore believes that JFK was a man of the lowest possible integrity because not only did he campaign with LBJ but he nominated LBJ to be president should he (JFK) die in office. JFK did so not because he was a "big fan" of LBJ but precisely because he thought it would help secure his own presidency. Was that an immoral act, Mark?

Listen to this, members: Mark has just argued that if you were not a "big fan" of your party's nominee but nevertheless campaign for him or her because in your opinion he or she is far superior to the opposing candidate, you are acting immorally! So all the fans of Howard Dean who campaigned for Sen Kerry over George Bush were immoral?

To call this argument claptrap would be to accord it too much dignity. It is utter nonsense.