"Unpursued leads"

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Under a subhead titled "Unpursued Leads"

The Church Committee compared the records of the Warren Commission investigation of possible Cuban connections to the JFK murder with the records of the CIA investigation.

What they found led them to state: “their failure to follow significant leads in the Cuban area is surprising. These leads raise significant questions, and there is no evidence the Warren Commission staff was ever provided information which would have allowed it to pursue the leads.”

Additionally, the Church Committee notes that there were solid leads concerning a “Cuban-American” who traveled from Texas to Mexico and then flew to Cuba around the time of the assassination.

From the Church report: “In early December, 1963, even more intriguing information was received by the CIA, and passed almost immediately to the FBI. In the case of the Cuban-American, a follow-up investigation was conducted. Although the information appeared to relate to the President’s assassination and one source alleged the Cuban-American was “involved” in the assassination, the follow-up investigation was not conducted as part of the FBI’s work for the Warren Commission.”

According to the Church Committee, the FBI did investigate the Cuban-American, but did not complete its work before the publication of the Warren Report. Before the FBI terminated the case “it had developed…confusing and incomplete information.”

Among the findings in the FBI report:

· The Cuban-American applied for a US passport in Havana in June 1960.

· He received a passport which was valid until January, 1963, when he would become 23 years old.

· In May, 1962, the Cuban-American requested that Cuban authorities permit him to return to Cuba.

· He did travel to Cuba and spent several weeks there.

· In August, 1962, the Cuban-American married an American woman.

· They split up in August, 1963 because of marital problems.

· His wife characterized him as “pro-Castro.”

· The Cuban-American allegedly had a brother in the Cuban military who was studying in the Soviet Union.

· On November 17, 1963, the Cuban-American attended a gathering at the home of a member of the Tampa, Florida Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

· On November 20, 1963, he obtained a Mexican tourist card in Tampa.

· On November 23, 1963, he crossed the border into Mexico at Nuevo Laredo.

· The FBI concluded that he crossed in a private automobile owned by another person.

· At a December, 1963 FPCC meeting in Tampa , a woman told the group that she had phoned Cuba that morning and was informed that the Cuban-American had arrived safely in Cuba, that he was not working, and that he spent a great deal of time playing dominoes.

It seems that neither the FBI nor the CIA told the Warren Commission about the Cuban-American. The Warren Commission files contain an excerpt of the FBI check on the Cuban-American at the Passport Office, but nothing else.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Mark:

If you have the patience to wade through it, you'll find more on this non-issue here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;hl=policarpo

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Mark:

If you have the patience to wade through it, you'll find more on this non-issue here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;hl=policarpo

Thanks for pointing me toward the discussion. As with most long-winded threads, it ricochets like buckshot but I still found it interesting. That portion of the Church report may be more illustrative of bureaucratic inertia than anything else.