Antonio Veciana

[John Simkin]

Thought it was worth starting a thread on Antonio Veciana. My page on him is number one at Google. It is therefore important that we get us much as possible onto this page. I will also link this page to this thread on the forum. Veciana is also talking (see Dollan Cannell’s documentary, “638 ways to Kill Fidel Castro” that was on C4 last night).

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q...earch&meta=

Veciana worked as an accountant in a Cuban bank owned by Julio Lobo. A strong opponent of Fidel Castro, Veciana established Alpha 66 after the communists gained power in 1959. This anti-Castro group received considerable funding from the CIA.

Veciana claimed that his CIA contact was an agent named Maurice Bishop. Over the next few years Veciana received $253,000 from Bishop. In 1961 Veciana worked with Bishop on a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro.

In March 1963, the Alpha 66 group attacked Russian ships docked in Cuba. This was seen as an attempt to undermine the improving relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union that had followed the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Department of State made it clear that this attack did not have the support of JFK.

On 26th March 1963 Alpha 66 attacked another Soviet ship. Members of Alpha 66 held a press conference suggesting the American government supported their actions. JFK was furious and ordered that Veciana and other leaders of Alpha 66 should be arrested and placed in a confined area in Florida.

After the assassination of JFK Veciana began work for the International Development Agency under the State Department in Bolivia. Although officially an advisor to Bolivian banks, he actually spent most of his time in anti-Communist activities. In 1971 he was again involved in another failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro.

In 1976 Veciana was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He told the committee about his relationship with Maurice Bishop. He claimed that in August, 1963, he saw Bishop and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Veciana admitted that Bishop and the CIA had organized and funded the Alpha 66 attacks on the Soviet ships docked in Cuba in 1963.

Veciana explained the policy: "It was my case officer, Maurice Bishop, who had the idea to attack the Soviet ships. The intention was to cause trouble between Kennedy and Russia. Bishop believed that Kennedy and Khrushchev had made a secret agreement that the USA would do nothing more to help in the fight against Castro. Bishop felt - he told me many times - that President Kennedy was a man without experience surrounded by a group of young men who were also inexperienced with mistaken ideas on how to manage this country. He said you had to put Kennedy against the wall in order to force him to make decisions that would remove Castro's regime."

Richard Schweiker, a member of the committee, speculated that Bishop was David Atlee Phillips. Schweiker arranged for Veciana and Phillips to be introduced at a meeting of the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers in Reston. Phillips denied knowing Veciana. After the meeting Veciana told Schweiker that Phillips was not the man known to him as Bishop.

Schweiker was unconvinced by this evidence. He found it difficult to believe Phillips would not have known the leader of Alpha 66. Especially as Phillips had been in charge of covert action in Cuba when Alpha 66 was established. Another CIA agent who worked in Cuba during this period, claimed that Phillips used the code name, Maurice Bishop.

David Atlee Phillips testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations on 25th April, 1978. He denied he ever used the name Maurice Bishop. He also insisted that he had never met Veciana.

Soon after testifying Veciana was ambushed on the way home from work. Four shots were fired and one bullet hit him in the head. Veciana survived the attack but afterwards refused to talk about his work with Alpha 66.

In February, 2005, Gerry P. Hemming claimed that it was Jake Esterline and not David Atlee Phillips who was Maurice Bishop, the man who met with Antonio Veciana and Lee Harvey Oswald in August, 1963, in the building that housed the office of Haroldson L. Hunt in Dallas.

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

[John Simkin]

Last night C4 showed Dollan Cannell’s documentary, “638 ways to Kill Fidel Castro”.

Those who were involved in the assassination attempts that were interviewed included E. Howard Hunt, Antonio Veciana, Felix I. Rodriguez, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada.

You can find a video where the director talks about Antonio Veciana:

[Michael Hogan]

Last night C4 showed Dollan Cannell’s documentary, “638 ways to Kill Fidel Castro”.

Those who were involved in the assassination attempts that were interviewed included E. Howard Hunt, Antonio Veciana, Felix I. Rodriguez, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada.

Some stuff on Rodriguez:

http://www.cubadebate.cu/index.php?tpl=esp...echa=2004-09-23

[John Simkin]

Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo, Granma (15th January, 2006)

During a long conversation with the investigator Gaeton Fonzi in Havana, we discovered a story that, given its content, it is worth reproducing. Fonzi is not just any common or garden investigator. He had devoted much of his life to working for various congressional committees, including those responsible for investigations into the covert activities of the CIA and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

A few years ago, and after much effort, Fonzi managed to get a private interview with Antonio Veciana, the same old buddy of Jorge Mas in the "New Orleans group," where the two of them became close friends while fulfilling CIA missions. Veciana had been interrogated by the Grand Jury charged with investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, and years later, had had some drug-related problems; but he vehemently affirmed to Fonzi that these difficulties were nothing more than a "trap" set up by somebody.

"I have a lot of information, but I am keeping that to myself because it is my life insurance," Veciana told Fonzi."

Antonio Veciana Blanch was a public accountant who worked for the Cuban sugar magnate Julio Lobo. He rapidly opposed the Cuban Revolution and, in 1960 was recruited by the CIA in Havana. He received his initial training in an English Language Academy supervised by the U.S. embassy in the Cuban capital. In October 1961, after the failure of a plot he devised to assassination Prime Minister Fidel Castro with a bazooka during an event at the former Presidential Palace, Veciana fled Cuba.

In the interview that he gave to Fonzi he related that, once in Miami, he was looked after by a CIA official who used the pseudonym of Maurice Bishop. Among other tasks, this "Bishop" ordered Veciana to promote the creation of the ALPHA 66 organization.

"Bishop" had frequent contact with Veciana from 1962-1963 in the city of Dallas. Veciana recalled that, at one of those meetings in a public building, he saw Lee Harvey Oswald.

Fonzi noted that various acts of disinformation were organized as part of the operation that cost the life of President Kennedy: one in Dallas, another in Miami and a third in Mexico City. The objective of the disinformation was to manufacture the image of a "revolutionary" Oswald, a "defender of the Cuban Revolution."

Hence the ex-marine was filmed in acts of solidarity with Cuba, demonstrating in a very aggressive manner. But the most daring act of disinformation was effected in Mexico City. There, Lee Harvey Oswald turned up at the Cuban embassy to ask for an entry visa to the island. All of that was filmed from a surveillance post that the CIA had opposite the Cuban embassy, so that it would be documented.

The strange thing is, as Veciana told Fonzi, in one of his contacts with "Bishop" in early 1963, the latter said that he knew that he (Veciana) had a cousin in Cuban Intelligence, who was located at the Cuban embassy in Mexico. "Bishop" stated that if it suited his cousin to work for them in a very specific action, he would pay him whatever he wanted. Veciana commented to Fonzi that he had never spoken of this cousin to "Bishop" and also, at that time, "Bishop" was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and even went directly from the Mexican capital to some contacts in Dallas.

In fact Veciana was the cousin of the wife of the then Cuban consul in Mexico City, Guillermo Ruiz, and in the days following the assassination of Kennedy, that woman was the victim of a recruitment attempt in the same city, with the clear proposition that, once in the United States, she would testify as to Oswald?s "complicity" with the Cuban secret services.

Questioned by Fonzi as to the existence of renewed contacts with "Bishop" after the Dallas homicide, Veciana answered that there had been, particularly in 1971, when he received an order to leave for Bolivia and work in the U.S. embassy in that country, where he would appear as an official for the Agency for International Development (USAID) and should wait for a visit from a known person. Fonzi checked the USAID archives in Washington and found an application form to enter the USAID in the name of Antonio Veciana, handwritten in letters distinct from those of Veciana and unsigned.

The "known person" who contacted him in Bolivia was "Bishop," at that time located in the U.S. embassy in Chile. "Bishop" immediately incorporated him into a team plotting an attempt on the life of President Fidel Castro, who was to visit the South American country.

Fonzi told us that he interviewed Antonio Veciana again, but this time accompanied by a specialist with the aim of composing a photofit of "Maurice Bishop" so as to determine his real identity.

Veciana gave a detailed description and the photofit was made. Fonzi spent weeks trying to identify the character, and one Sunday, suddenly received a call at home from a Republican senator for Pennsylvania for whom he was working at the time, and whom he had consulted on the identity of the man in the drawing.

The senator assured him that the he was absolutely sure that the man using the pseudonym of Maurice Bishop was none other than David Atlee Phillips. He was a veteran CIA officer who was in Havana on a working visit in 1958 as a specialist in psychological warfare, participated in the creation of Operation 40 and later, as part of the same, organized the Radio Swann transmitter. With time, Phillips would become head of the Western Hemisphere Division of the Agency.

However, at the end of 1993, in the documentary Case Closed, the former chief of Cuban Security, Divisional General (ret) Fabián Escalante, revealed a secret report from one of his agents, which spoke of a meeting between Antonio Veciana and David Phillips in a hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the early 70s.

"Veciana told me," said the Cuban agent, "that he was a CIA agent and it was the CIA that assassinated Kennedy and that senior CIA officials including David Phillips, the official attending to him, were behind it all. Veciana never wanted to give me any details of that affirmation, but recently, I have been able to confirm it, because once when I was in a hotel with Veciana, I heard a conversation that he had with his officer, David Phillips, in which Veciana swore that he would never talk about what happened in Dallas in 1963."

General Escalante guarantees that the source has direct access to Veciana, and was in his total confidence:

"I believe," Escalante affirmed, "that that is very important information because I have to say that, in 1973, when Antonio Veciana was liquidated by the CIA; in other words, when the CIA took him off their books, he received a compensation payment of $300,000."

But there is more. According to Cuban State Security investigations disclosed by General Escalante in the abovementioned documentary, various witnesses quoted by the Warren Commission described two Cubans, one of them black, leaving the Daley Plaza Book Deposit in Dallas, a few minutes after the assassination was effected. In parallel, through secret information and public testimony (the statement by Marita Lorenz, ex-CIA agent to a congressional committee), Cuban Security knew that two days before the assassination various Cubans were in Dallas with weapons and telescopic sights, including Eladio del Valle and Herminio Díaz, two paid killers and expert sharpshooters linked to the Mafia and Batista politics. The physical characteristics of Del Valle and Herminio Díaz matched the descriptions that various witnesses gave to the Warren Commission of the two Cubans seen leaving the building seconds after the president had been assassinated.

The really curious fact is the final fate of both of them: Eladio del Valle was brutally murdered in Miami when Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney initiated his investigation into the Kennedy assassination; Del Valle was chopped into pieces with a machete. Even more interesting was the end of Herminio Díaz, who died near the Havana coast in 1965, when he collided with a patrol boat while trying to infiltrate the island with the mission of assassinating Osvaldo Dortícos and submachine gunning the Riviera Hotel

In order to fulfill the mission on which he was sent, Díaz had to infiltrate the island right in the capital via Monte Barreto in Miramar (where a number of hotels are currently going up) at a time when, because of an incident at the Guantánamo naval base, the Cuban army was on combat alert, and aerial and coastal vigilance was been reinforced to the maximum. In the eyes of experts, and the Cuban Security, the operation was a veritable suicide mission.

The financial organizer and planner of such "a strange mission" was none other than Jorge Mas Canosa.

But the history of the CIA?s links with its Cuban agents and the Kennedy assassination has not only been explored by Fonzi. Many other authors and investigators, and even the film studios that gave origin to the U.S. movies Executive Action and JFK, have covered the subject.

In an article published in The Realist magazine, the investigator Paul Kangas affirms:

"Among other members of the CIA recruited by George Bush for the (Bay of Pigs) invasion) were Frank Sturgis, Howard Hunt, Bernard Baker and Rafael Quintero. On the day that JFK was assassinated, Hunt and some of the subsequent Watergate team were photographed in Dallas, as well as a group of Cubans, one of them with an opened umbrella as a signal, alongside the president?s limousine, right where Kennedy was shot? Hunt and Sturgis fired on JFK from a grassy knoll. They were photographed and seen by 15 witnesses."

On May 7, 1990, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Frank Sturgis acknowledged:

"The reason why we robbed in Watergate was because (Richard) Nixon was interested in stopping the news leaks related to the photos of our role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."

Another of Bush?s recruits for the Bay of Pigs invasion, Rafael Quintero, who was also part of this underworld of organizations and conspiracies against Cuba, stated:

"If I was to tell what I know about Dallas and the Bay of Pigs, it would be the greatest scandal that has ever rocked to nation."

Up to here are certain details of one of the existing theories on the above-mentioned event but, will the whole truth come out some day? Will Antonio Veciana, former member of the "New Orleans group," decide to reveal his "life insurance" or Rafael Quintero, to tell what he knows and thus, "rock the nation?"

[John Simkin]

Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo, Granma (15th January, 2006)

During a long conversation with the investigator Gaeton Fonzi in Havana, we discovered a story that, given its content, it is worth reproducing. Fonzi is not just any common or garden investigator. He had devoted much of his life to working for various congressional committees, including those responsible for investigations into the covert activities of the CIA and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

A few years ago, and after much effort, Fonzi managed to get a private interview with Antonio Veciana, the same old buddy of Jorge Mas in the "New Orleans group," where the two of them became close friends while fulfilling CIA missions. Veciana had been interrogated by the Grand Jury charged with investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, and years later, had had some drug-related problems; but he vehemently affirmed to Fonzi that these difficulties were nothing more than a "trap" set up by somebody.

"I have a lot of information, but I am keeping that to myself because it is my life insurance," Veciana told Fonzi."

Antonio Veciana Blanch was a public accountant who worked for the Cuban sugar magnate Julio Lobo. He rapidly opposed the Cuban Revolution and, in 1960 was recruited by the CIA in Havana. He received his initial training in an English Language Academy supervised by the U.S. embassy in the Cuban capital. In October 1961, after the failure of a plot he devised to assassination Prime Minister Fidel Castro with a bazooka during an event at the former Presidential Palace, Veciana fled Cuba.

In the interview that he gave to Fonzi he related that, once in Miami, he was looked after by a CIA official who used the pseudonym of Maurice Bishop. Among other tasks, this "Bishop" ordered Veciana to promote the creation of the ALPHA 66 organization.

"Bishop" had frequent contact with Veciana from 1962-1963 in the city of Dallas. Veciana recalled that, at one of those meetings in a public building, he saw Lee Harvey Oswald.

Fonzi noted that various acts of disinformation were organized as part of the operation that cost the life of President Kennedy: one in Dallas, another in Miami and a third in Mexico City. The objective of the disinformation was to manufacture the image of a "revolutionary" Oswald, a "defender of the Cuban Revolution."

Hence the ex-marine was filmed in acts of solidarity with Cuba, demonstrating in a very aggressive manner. But the most daring act of disinformation was effected in Mexico City. There, Lee Harvey Oswald turned up at the Cuban embassy to ask for an entry visa to the island. All of that was filmed from a surveillance post that the CIA had opposite the Cuban embassy, so that it would be documented.

The strange thing is, as Veciana told Fonzi, in one of his contacts with "Bishop" in early 1963, the latter said that he knew that he (Veciana) had a cousin in Cuban Intelligence, who was located at the Cuban embassy in Mexico. "Bishop" stated that if it suited his cousin to work for them in a very specific action, he would pay him whatever he wanted. Veciana commented to Fonzi that he had never spoken of this cousin to "Bishop" and also, at that time, "Bishop" was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and even went directly from the Mexican capital to some contacts in Dallas.

In fact Veciana was the cousin of the wife of the then Cuban consul in Mexico City, Guillermo Ruiz, and in the days following the assassination of Kennedy, that woman was the victim of a recruitment attempt in the same city, with the clear proposition that, once in the United States, she would testify as to Oswald?s "complicity" with the Cuban secret services.

Questioned by Fonzi as to the existence of renewed contacts with "Bishop" after the Dallas homicide, Veciana answered that there had been, particularly in 1971, when he received an order to leave for Bolivia and work in the U.S. embassy in that country, where he would appear as an official for the Agency for International Development (USAID) and should wait for a visit from a known person. Fonzi checked the USAID archives in Washington and found an application form to enter the USAID in the name of Antonio Veciana, handwritten in letters distinct from those of Veciana and unsigned.

The "known person" who contacted him in Bolivia was "Bishop," at that time located in the U.S. embassy in Chile. "Bishop" immediately incorporated him into a team plotting an attempt on the life of President Fidel Castro, who was to visit the South American country.

Fonzi told us that he interviewed Antonio Veciana again, but this time accompanied by a specialist with the aim of composing a photofit of "Maurice Bishop" so as to determine his real identity.

Veciana gave a detailed description and the photofit was made. Fonzi spent weeks trying to identify the character, and one Sunday, suddenly received a call at home from a Republican senator for Pennsylvania for whom he was working at the time, and whom he had consulted on the identity of the man in the drawing.

The senator assured him that the he was absolutely sure that the man using the pseudonym of Maurice Bishop was none other than David Atlee Phillips. He was a veteran CIA officer who was in Havana on a working visit in 1958 as a specialist in psychological warfare, participated in the creation of Operation 40 and later, as part of the same, organized the Radio Swann transmitter. With time, Phillips would become head of the Western Hemisphere Division of the Agency.

However, at the end of 1993, in the documentary Case Closed, the former chief of Cuban Security, Divisional General (ret) Fabián Escalante, revealed a secret report from one of his agents, which spoke of a meeting between Antonio Veciana and David Phillips in a hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the early 70s.

"Veciana told me," said the Cuban agent, "that he was a CIA agent and it was the CIA that assassinated Kennedy and that senior CIA officials including David Phillips, the official attending to him, were behind it all. Veciana never wanted to give me any details of that affirmation, but recently, I have been able to confirm it, because once when I was in a hotel with Veciana, I heard a conversation that he had with his officer, David Phillips, in which Veciana swore that he would never talk about what happened in Dallas in 1963."

General Escalante guarantees that the source has direct access to Veciana, and was in his total confidence:

"I believe," Escalante affirmed, "that that is very important information because I have to say that, in 1973, when Antonio Veciana was liquidated by the CIA; in other words, when the CIA took him off their books, he received a compensation payment of $300,000."

But there is more. According to Cuban State Security investigations disclosed by General Escalante in the abovementioned documentary, various witnesses quoted by the Warren Commission described two Cubans, one of them black, leaving the Daley Plaza Book Deposit in Dallas, a few minutes after the assassination was effected. In parallel, through secret information and public testimony (the statement by Marita Lorenz, ex-CIA agent to a congressional committee), Cuban Security knew that two days before the assassination various Cubans were in Dallas with weapons and telescopic sights, including Eladio del Valle and Herminio Díaz, two paid killers and expert sharpshooters linked to the Mafia and Batista politics. The physical characteristics of Del Valle and Herminio Díaz matched the descriptions that various witnesses gave to the Warren Commission of the two Cubans seen leaving the building seconds after the president had been assassinated.

The really curious fact is the final fate of both of them: Eladio del Valle was brutally murdered in Miami when Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney initiated his investigation into the Kennedy assassination; Del Valle was chopped into pieces with a machete. Even more interesting was the end of Herminio Díaz, who died near the Havana coast in 1965, when he collided with a patrol boat while trying to infiltrate the island with the mission of assassinating Osvaldo Dortícos and submachine gunning the Riviera Hotel

In order to fulfill the mission on which he was sent, Díaz had to infiltrate the island right in the capital via Monte Barreto in Miramar (where a number of hotels are currently going up) at a time when, because of an incident at the Guantánamo naval base, the Cuban army was on combat alert, and aerial and coastal vigilance was been reinforced to the maximum. In the eyes of experts, and the Cuban Security, the operation was a veritable suicide mission.

The financial organizer and planner of such "a strange mission" was none other than Jorge Mas Canosa.

But the history of the CIA?s links with its Cuban agents and the Kennedy assassination has not only been explored by Fonzi. Many other authors and investigators, and even the film studios that gave origin to the U.S. movies Executive Action and JFK, have covered the subject.

In an article published in The Realist magazine, the investigator Paul Kangas affirms:

"Among other members of the CIA recruited by George Bush for the (Bay of Pigs) invasion) were Frank Sturgis, Howard Hunt, Bernard Baker and Rafael Quintero. On the day that JFK was assassinated, Hunt and some of the subsequent Watergate team were photographed in Dallas, as well as a group of Cubans, one of them with an opened umbrella as a signal, alongside the president?s limousine, right where Kennedy was shot? Hunt and Sturgis fired on JFK from a grassy knoll. They were photographed and seen by 15 witnesses."

On May 7, 1990, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Frank Sturgis acknowledged:

"The reason why we robbed in Watergate was because (Richard) Nixon was interested in stopping the news leaks related to the photos of our role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."

Another of Bush?s recruits for the Bay of Pigs invasion, Rafael Quintero, who was also part of this underworld of organizations and conspiracies against Cuba, stated:

"If I was to tell what I know about Dallas and the Bay of Pigs, it would be the greatest scandal that has ever rocked to nation."

Up to here are certain details of one of the existing theories on the above-mentioned event but, will the whole truth come out some day? Will Antonio Veciana, former member of the "New Orleans group," decide to reveal his "life insurance" or Rafael Quintero, to tell what he knows and thus, "rock the nation?"

[John Simkin]

Gary Mack, has emailed me with the view that Antonio Veciana was attacked by agents of Castro rather than the CIA. Here is an article that appeared in the Miami Herald (the newspaper that has more CIA assets than any other).

Dan Williams, The Miami Herald (23rd September, 1979)

Antonio Veciana rested Saturday, amid stringent hospital security measures, convinced he was the victim of an assassination attempt by agents of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

A former activist of the Miami-based Alpha 66, a militantly anti-Castro group, Veciana said he thinks the attempt was made with the acquiesence of U.S. officials. The only proof he could offer, however, was that he was warned by FBI agents last October about the possibility of such an attempt on his life.

Veciana was shot from a passing auto Friday night. Miami police are investigating. They will not yet say, however, whether they believe the shooting was politically inspired.

Veciana maintained that a "band of Castro spies" has been permitted to operate in Miami to supply the Cuban government de-tails of anti-Castro activity in South Florida.

He said the attack on him was part of a Castro-inspired campaign which included drug charges that sent him to prison for 18 months several years ago.

Veciana, 50, spoke to reporters, sitting up in his Pan American Hospital bed Saturday. Hospital officials routinely told callers he had been transferred to an unnamed hospital. They insisted on having Veciana's wife, Sira, accompany all visitors to his room.

Like a stage play, the Friday shooting of Veciana repeated a scene played out in Puerto Rico five months ago. In that case, the victimwas not an anti-Castro militant but a sympathizer with attempts to ease tensions between exiles and the Cuban government.

And in the Puerto Rican shooting, the victim died.

In late April, Carlos Muniz, operator of a travel agency that offered trips for exiles to Cuba, was shot to death by attackers who drove up alongside his car and fired .45-caliber bullets into his auto. One struck him in the head and he died.

Friday evening, a brown station wagon pulled up along Veciana's pick-up truck and fired four .45-caliber bullets at him. A slug shattered the side mirror of the truck, and a piece of the bullet struck him in the head, according to Miami police.

Neither Veciana nor those in favor of dialogue by Cuban exiles with the government of Fidel Castro think the shootings are necessarily linked. But both sides expect more attacks.

Bernardo Benes, one of the principal negotiators with the Castro government concerning prisoner re-lease, said, "I don't think the shootings represent increasing terrorism, although there are elements on all sides which want to use violence to force their ideas on others."

But Cuban exile sources in Puerto Rico say attempts to kill Cuban leaders favoring eased tension with the Cuban government will be made this fall. Close associates of Muniz have reportedly fled into hiding in Miami.

"I think the U.S. government is cooperating with Castro police," Veciana said. `"In effect, I have no protection."

[John Simkin]

This is an interesting report that appeared in The Miami Herald on 19th January, 2006.

Miami Herald staff writer Ana Veciana-Suarez pleaded guilty Wednesday to a contempt-of-court charge for not disclosing her father's criminal history during jury selection for a 2003 federal civil trial.

The plea agreement in Miami federal court calls for a $5,000 fine but no jail time. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen T. Brown, who called the offense ''extremely serious,'' must still approve the deal, which was recommended by Veciana-Suarez's lawyer, William Clay, and the U.S. attorney's office.

A sentencing hearing is set for Jan. 26. The violation -- a petty misdemeanor -- carries a maximum of 30 days in jail and/or a fine.

Though it was not part of the deal, Veciana-Suarez voluntarily filed a personal apology with the court.

''I can't begin to express how sorry I am,'' she wrote in a one-page statement.

''I don't want this apology to be misconstrued as an excuse, because there is none,'' Veciana-Suarez said, explaining that she withheld the information during jury selection ``to protect my father and my family.''

``No matter the motives, I know my behavior was inexcusable. I did wrong. There is no one else to blame. I take full responsibility for my actions.''

Miami Herald Executive Editor Tom Fiedler refrained from comment, saying ``It would be inappropriate . . . while the case remains under consideration by the judge.''

In December, Miami federal prosecutors sought a criminal contempt-of-court charge against Veciana-Suarez for allegedly failing to disclose her father's past criminal conviction during the jury-selection process.

Brown ordered Veciana-Suarez, who also writes a Saturday column on family matters, to appear Wednesday for a ''show cause'' hearing to explain why she should not be held in contempt.

The government's petition alleged Veciana-Suarez ''obstructed the administration of justice and disobeyed the court by . . . failing to truthfully respond to inquiries'' before the trial.

Veciana-Suarez was picked as a juror for the October 2003 trial. She and seven others awarded an $8.3 million civil judgment to a fired Brinks' courier. The former employee, Mario Martinez, sued Brinks for ''malicious prosecution'' after he was acquitted of criminal charges in state court that alleged he stole a bag containing $350,000 from the armored car company.

In her apology to the court, Veciana-Suarez said that ``in my heart of hearts, I remained a fair and unbiased juror, as did the other seven who served with me to the best of our abilities.''

But in August 2004, Brown reversed the jury's verdict, ruling in Brinks' favor for an unrelated reason: The magistrate judge said Martinez failed to prove the company was responsible for his arrest and prosecution.

At the same time, the magistrate said he learned that during pretrial questioning under oath, Veciana-Suarez did not disclose her father's drug-trafficking conviction or that she had testified as a witness in his case.

Brown said she didn't raise her hand or speak up when the jury pool was asked such questions.

In his ruling and recent court papers, the magistrate noted that the juror's father, Antonio Veciana, was convicted in 1974 in New York of conspiring to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to seven years. He served time in an Atlanta prison.

[Robert Howard]

Does anyone have the group photo at bottom?

SEE

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/veciana.htm

[Dawn Meredith]

Thought it was worth starting a thread on Antonio Veciana. My page on him is number one at Google. It is therefore important that we get us much as possible onto this page. I will also link this page to this thread on the forum. Veciana is also talking (see Dollan Cannell’s documentary, “638 ways to Kill Fidel Castro” that was on C4 last night).

Veciana claimed that his CIA contact was an agent named Maurice Bishop. Over the next few years Veciana received $253,000 from Bishop. In 1961 Veciana worked with Bishop on a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro.

After the assassination of JFK Veciana began work for the International Development Agency under the State Department in Bolivia. Although officially an advisor to Bolivian banks, he actually spent most of his time in anti-Communist activities. In 1971 he was again involved in another failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro.

In 1976 Veciana was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He told the committee about his relationship with Maurice Bishop. He claimed that in August, 1963, he saw Bishop and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Veciana admitted that Bishop and the CIA had organized and funded the Alpha 66 attacks on the Soviet ships docked in Cuba in 1963.

Richard Schweiker, a member of the committee, speculated that Bishop was David Atlee Phillips. Schweiker arranged for Veciana and Phillips to be introduced at a meeting of the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers in Reston. Phillips denied knowing Veciana. After the meeting Veciana told Schweiker that Phillips was not the man known to him as Bishop.

In February, 2005, Gerry P. Hemming claimed that it was Jake Esterline and not David Atlee Phillips who was Maurice Bishop, the man who met with Antonio Veciana and Lee Harvey Oswald in August, 1963, in the building that housed the office of Haroldson L. Hunt in Dallas.

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

Just one more Gerry Hemming "story". When Gaeton Fonzi met with David Atlee Phillips' family (brother, wife and daughter) and showed each of them the artist's sketch of "Maurice Bishop" they all responded that it was David Phillips. Veciana all but admitted this to Fonzi. And the shot to Veciana's head was a remeinder that the CIA does not like it when one of its covers is blown. (Even tho Veciana SAID this was Castro retaliation it's clear he knows it's CIA).

Do good old Gerry provide a photo of Jake Esterline for comparison?

[Trygve V. Jensen]

Here's a clip with Veciana talking about Bishop meeting Oswald. If of any interest. The clip is really about the claim that Phillips was Bishop.

It is one short interview with Veciana, and another attempt at the end of the clip, but Veciana would not talk anymore.

Is it not Bill O'Reilly commenting here too? The middle-late part about CIA and the HSCA.

[Robert Howard]

Here's a clip with Veciana talking about Bishop meeting Oswald. If of any interest. The clip is really about the claim that Phillips was Bishop.

It is one short interview with Veciana, and another attempt at the end of the clip, but Veciana would not talk anymore.

Is it not Bill O'Reilly commenting here too? The middle-late part about CIA and the HSCA.

One of the lesser known websites that has documents pertaining to the JFK Assassination is the National Security Agency's website. Although I cannot recall which thread here on the Forum contains the information, quite some time ago I posted an excerpt from Bamford's book regarding NSA intercepts from the day of JFK's assassination, which is not the reason for adding to this very old thread, but is worth a mention to interested parties. Recently the following document came to my attention which is on the NSA website.

See

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/jfk.shtml

It is dated 11/29/62 and is entitled "Plan for the Execution of Veciana and Estevez."

The context for the word execution seems to be quite literal, and there appears to be no doubt that the Veciana in question is the same Antonio Veciana who was a prominent member of ALPHA-66, Estevez appears to be Geronimo Estevez, a Puerto Rican member of the coordinating committee of Cuban groups in exile.

[John Simkin]

Recently the following document came to my attention which is on the NSA website.

See

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/jfk.shtml

It is dated 11/29/62 and is entitled "Plan for the Execution of Veciana and Estevez."

The context for the word execution seems to be quite literal, and there appears to be no doubt that the Veciana in question is the same Antonio Veciana who was a prominent member of ALPHA-66, Estevez appears to be Geronimo Estevez, a Puerto Rican member of the coordinating committee of Cuban groups in exile.

Operation 40 was about assassinating all Cuban leaders who might have caused problems for the CIA before and after the removal of Fidel Castro.

[William Kelly]

Recently the following document came to my attention which is on the NSA website.

See

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/jfk.shtml

It is dated 11/29/62 and is entitled "Plan for the Execution of Veciana and Estevez."

The context for the word execution seems to be quite literal, and there appears to be no doubt that the Veciana in question is the same Antonio Veciana who was a prominent member of ALPHA-66, Estevez appears to be Geronimo Estevez, a Puerto Rican member of the coordinating committee of Cuban groups in exile.

Operation 40 was about assassinating all Cuban leaders who might have caused problems for the CIA before and after the removal of Fidel Castro.

Robert,

What number is the "Plan for the Execution of Veciana and Estevez" document?

Thanks,

BK

[Christopher Hall]

Thought it was worth starting a thread on Antonio Veciana. My page on him is number one at Google. It is therefore important that we get us much as possible onto this page. I will also link this page to this thread on the forum. Veciana is also talking (see Dollan Cannell’s documentary, “638 ways to Kill Fidel Castro” that was on C4 last night).

Veciana claimed that his CIA contact was an agent named Maurice Bishop. Over the next few years Veciana received $253,000 from Bishop. In 1961 Veciana worked with Bishop on a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro.

After the assassination of JFK Veciana began work for the International Development Agency under the State Department in Bolivia. Although officially an advisor to Bolivian banks, he actually spent most of his time in anti-Communist activities. In 1971 he was again involved in another failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro.

In 1976 Veciana was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He told the committee about his relationship with Maurice Bishop. He claimed that in August, 1963, he saw Bishop and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Veciana admitted that Bishop and the CIA had organized and funded the Alpha 66 attacks on the Soviet ships docked in Cuba in 1963.

Richard Schweiker, a member of the committee, speculated that Bishop was David Atlee Phillips. Schweiker arranged for Veciana and Phillips to be introduced at a meeting of the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers in Reston. Phillips denied knowing Veciana. After the meeting Veciana told Schweiker that Phillips was not the man known to him as Bishop.

In February, 2005, Gerry P. Hemming claimed that it was Jake Esterline and not David Atlee Phillips who was Maurice Bishop, the man who met with Antonio Veciana and Lee Harvey Oswald in August, 1963, in the building that housed the office of Haroldson L. Hunt in Dallas.

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

Just one more Gerry Hemming "story". When Gaeton Fonzi met with David Atlee Phillips' family (brother, wife and daughter) and showed each of them the artist's sketch of "Maurice Bishop" they all responded that it was David Phillips. Veciana all but admitted this to Fonzi. And the shot to Veciana's head was a remeinder that the CIA does not like it when one of its covers is blown. (Even tho Veciana SAID this was Castro retaliation it's clear he knows it's CIA).

Do good old Gerry provide a photo of Jake Esterline for comparison?

I agree that Fonzi covers this material quite well.

I think that, at a minimum, Veciana was involved with the perps of the assassination.

Perhaps he was more involved.

When I was a boy (in the mid to late 1960s) a young man whose last name was Veciana joined our class at the Catholic boys' school I attended..

He said that his family had fled Cuba a few years earlier.

His father was a doctor, but I forget his name.

I don't know whether he was related to Antonio Veciana.

[Robert Howard]

Robert,

What number is the "Plan for the Execution of Veciana and Estevez" document?

Thanks,

BK

It is document number 227, which corresponds to the number of the pdf as well.