It Was So Obvious

[Anthony Frank]

Two and half months before the assassination, Fidel Castro held a three-hour interview at the Brazilian Embassy in Cuba and warned that “United States leaders” (meaning President Kennedy) “will not be safe” if they give aid to anyone with “plans to eliminate Cuban leaders.”

Castro said he was prepared to “fight them and answer in kind.” In other words, Castro would eliminate President Kennedy if the United States continued to support anti-Castro Cubans and their plans to eliminate Castro.

On September 7, 1963, the day that Castro threatened “United States leaders,” one of his underlings went into action to make it seem like President Kennedy’s assassination would mean Castro had made good on his threat. President Ford’s National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, wrote a memorandum stating that on September 7, 1963, a Cuban official named Rolando Cubela, who was “highly placed in the Castro government,” initiated a meeting with the CIA and claimed that he had a “specific plan” to “foment a coup against Castro.”

CIA documents state that Cubela told the CIA that the only possible way to “effect a coup” against Castro was through an “inside job,” and Cubela was “waiting for a plan of action from the United States Government.”

Cubela wanted “high-level assurances of support for a successful coup.” The high-level assurances, of course, could only come from “U.S. leaders” who “support” a coup against the Castro regime.

Scowcroft wrote that “at Cubela’s instigation,” the CIA “began to support” the coup plan, which included, “as a first step, the assassination of Fidel Castro.”

And while Cubela was instigating CIA support for a coup that would kill Castro, the U.S. Coordinating Committee for Cuban Affairs met on September 12, 1963, and “agreed unanimously that there was a strong likelihood Castro would retaliate in some way against the rash of covert activity in Cuba.”

“Within weeks” of the September 12 meeting, the CIA, under the leadership of KGB officer John McCone, “escalated the level of its covert operations” against Cuba and informed Cubela that the United States “supported” his plans for a coup.

On October 11, 1963, Rolando Cubela, described as “a high level Cuban government official,”  told the CIA that he wanted “a meeting with a senior U.S. official, preferably Robert F. Kennedy, for assurance of ‘moral support’” for his coup plans, which included Castro’s assassination.

On October 29, 1963, fifty-two days after Castro threatened the safety of “United States leaders,” Desmond Fitzgerald, Chief of the CIA’s Special Affairs Staff, met with Cubela and told him that he was the “personal representative” of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Fitzgerald also gave Cubela the task of assassinating Fidel Castro, telling him that “the United States is prepared to render all necessary assistance to any anti-communist Cuban group which succeeds in neutralizing the present Cuban leadership.”  (Neutralize is a CIA code word for kill.)

The meeting took place “despite warnings from certain CIA staffers that the operation was poorly conceived and insecure.”

Two days later, a CIA document stated that if the coup against Castro were going to be “supportable” by the United States, those involved must “neutralize the top echelon of Cuban leadership.”

The document emphasized that “the situation in Cuba at the time of U.S. intervention” must be one in which “Fidel Castro, and possibly Raul Castro, President Dorticos, and Che Guevara” have been “neutralized by the insurgents.” 

A CIA document on “Highly Sensitive Activities” states, “At the very moment President Kennedy was shot in Dallas, a CIA officer was meeting with a Cuban agent in Paris and giving him an assassination device for use against Castro.”  The “Cuban agent” was Rolando Cubela, and prior to November 22, Cubela “spoke repeatedly of the need for an assassination weapon.”

CIA documents state that the Cubela episode began in March 1961 when he and another Cuban allegedly “wanted to defect” and “needed help” in escaping from Cuba, but no such defection took place because “Cuban police were aware” of Cubela’s “intention and plans.”

In August 1962, the CIA decided to use Cubela, the alleged defector, as an asset inside Cuba, but in a meeting with the CIA on August 20, 1962, Cubela “refused to be polygraphed.”

Nine days after refusing to take a lie detector test, Cubela flew back to Havana and “did not leave Cuba” again until September 1963, which resulted in the CIA having “no contact” with him from August 1962 until he initiated a meeting with the CIA on September 7, 1963,  the very day that Fidel Castro threatened to retaliate against U.S. leaders if they gave aid to anyone trying to “eliminate Cuban leaders.”

The CIA finally terminated contact with Cubela in June 1965.

To summarize, then, Cubela claimed that he wanted to defect but never left Cuba, allegedly because the Cuban police knew he was a defector. And even though he was allegedly pegged as a traitor by Cuba, he was still “highly placed in the Castro government.”

A year and a half after his claim about wanting to defect, the CIA wanted to use him as an asset inside Cuba, but Cubela refused to take a lie detector test. He then had “no contact” with the CIA until the day that Castro threatened the safety of “United States leaders” if they gave aid to anyone with plans to “eliminate Cuban leaders,” at which time Cubela coincidentally initiated a meeting with the CIA and told them that he had a “specific plan” to “foment a coup against Castro.” He said he wanted “high-level assurances of support” as he waited for a “plan of action from the United States Government” that would result in Castro’s death.

Then, Cubela said he wanted to meet with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, another “United States leader,” so that Cubela could get “moral support” for his plan to assassinate Castro. A CIA official met with Cubela and told him that he was the “personal representative” of Robert F. Kennedy and that the United States would provide “all necessary assistance” to “any anti-communist Cuban group” that would kill Castro. Cubela then spoke repeatedly of needing “an assassination weapon,” and, coincidentally, at the very moment that President Kennedy was killed, a CIA officer was in Paris giving Cubela “an assassination device for use against Castro.”

Cubela, whose CIA code name was AMLASH, was nothing but a provocateur who, from the day Castro threatened the safety of “United States leaders,” enticed the CIA to actively plan Castro’s assassination.

When President Kennedy was assassinated, the assumption was that both Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban Premier Fidel Castro had made good on the threat to retaliate. and President Johnson feared that their involvement in the assassination could lead to “a nuclear war.”

Chief Justice Earl Warren was interviewed in December 1972 and stated that when he went to the White House on November 29, 1963, President Johnson “told me he felt conditions around the world were so bad at the moment that he thought it might even get us into a war; a nuclear war.”

Two hours before going to the White House, Earl Warren met with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, telling him that he “did not believe a Chief Justice should undertake non-judicial duties while sitting on the Supreme Court.”

But when he went to the White House, Johnson told Warren that he had “asked for a report from Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara for an estimate on how many Americans would be killed in a Soviet nuclear attack.”

Johnson was given a figure of 40 million, and the fear of a possible nuclear war caused Warren to “agree to head the inquiry.”

The simple fact is that no matter what the Warren Commission found out, they would abide by their instructions to tell the American public that there was no conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.

When President Johnson called Senator Richard Russell on November 29 to enlist him for the Warren Commission, he told Russell about Chief Justice Warren refusing Bobby Kennedy’s request to serve on a Presidential Commission, stating, “Bobby and them went up to see him today and he turned them down cold and said, ‘No’ . . . . Two hours later I called him and ordered him down here, and he didn’t want to come. I insisted he come.”

Johnson told Senator Russell that Chief Justice Warren “came down here and told me no twice,” and President Johnson pointedly told Russell, “We’ve got to take this out of the arena where they’re testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and chuck us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour.”

Warren met with the Commission staff on January 20, 1964, and a staff memorandum from the meeting states that Warren “discussed the circumstances under which he had accepted the chairmanship of the Commission.” Warren told the staff that “rumors” that were “circulating in this country and overseas” had to be “quenched,” or the rumors “could conceivably lead the country into a war which could cost 40 million lives. No one could refuse to do something which might help to prevent such a possibility.”

President Johnson clearly gave the Warren Commission a “no conspiracy” mandate due to his fear of Soviet and Cuban involvement and the possibility of “a nuclear war,” which explains why the Warren Commission made the case for Oswald being a Lone Assassin.

It’s all in my book. Click the link.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V9JT65Y

[Anthony Frank]

What's not in your book is more telling.

It is perfectly clear in my book that Earl Warren never admitted that the Warren Commission was given a “no conspiracy” mandate.

Earl Warren did admit that President Johnson feared that Soviet and Cuban involvement in the assassination could get the United States into “a nuclear war.”

And Warren never admitted that the Warren Commission thought that Anti-Castro Cubans assassinated President Kennedy. Warren Commission member Gerald Ford, however, is another story.

My book has an entire chapter on anti-Castro Cubans being set up to be the patsies. The first paragraph of Chapter 13 reads:

“Warren Commission member Gerald Ford testified at the closed-door Congressional hearings in 1984 that the Warren Commission was absolutely certain that Cubans assassinated President Kennedy. Ford also testified that the CIA was the source of information that Cubans killed President Kennedy, and a CIA officer clarified that the alleged Cuban assassins to whom Ford was referring were anti-Castro Cuban exiles.”

It’s in my book. Click the link.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V9JT65Y

[Anthony Frank]

More Information from Chapter 13

The CIA, which handled the Warren Commission investigation, focused their attention on anti-Castro Cubans just four days after the assassination, which would be November 26, the day that the FBI “substantially completed” its investigation.

A CIA officer at the CIA’s Miami field station wrote that he contacted a “political contact and Cuban exile leader” and several of his “assets,” telling them, among other things: “Get me all possible data on any Cuban exile you know who disappeared just before or right after the Kennedy murder and has since been missing from Miami under suspicious circumstances.

“Give me a list of all Cuban exiles or Cubano-Americans you consider to be capable of orchestrating the murder of President Kennedy in order to precipitate an armed conflict between Cuba and the USA.

“Give me a list of the richest Cubans in exile; Cubans possessing sufficient personal wealth and the possible inclination to bankroll the murder of President Kennedy.”

The CIA officer wrote, “The above questions levied on my agents were not my own invention but were the results of talk sessions held in the FI [Foreign Intelligence] branch of my Station by our Branch Chief and my fellow case officers.”

Anti-Castro Cubans were suspects in the assassination for good reason. The CIA, under the leadership of Soviet KGB officer John McCone, spent considerable time and effort making the anti-Castro Cubans look like they would have a reason to assassinate President Kennedy.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk wrote a letter to President Kennedy in March 1963, stating he was concerned about “hit and run raids by Cuban exiles,” particularly an “exile attack that caused substantial damage to a Soviet vessel.” CIA officers, of course, had to be intricately involved when their assets attacked and caused “substantial damage” to a “Soviet vessel.”

Secretary Rusk’s letter resulted in President Kennedy having the National Security Council Executive Committee meet on March 29 “to discuss the problem posed by Cuban Refugee groups.” Everyone was given a copy of the Rusk letter to use “as a basis for discussion.”

Three weeks earlier, President Kennedy had “approved” actions taken by “several departments and agencies” to “control the movement of subversives and subversive trainees.” Action was also taken to put “controls on movement of propaganda material,” along with “controls on movement of arms” and “controls on movement of funds.”

The CIA, under the leadership of KGB officer John McCone, specifically “increased its efforts designed to control the movement of persons, arms, and propaganda materials to and from Cuba.”

On March 30, one day after the NSC Executive Committee met to discuss the exile “problem,” law enforcement agencies that dealt with the Cuban exiles were directed to take “vigorous measures to assure that the pertinent laws of the United States are observed.”

Two days later, a CIA cable stated that Cuban exile leaders in Florida had been notified that they were prohibited from “travel outside Dade County,” which resulted in the “exile colony” being in an “uproar” over the travel prohibition. The cable stated that exile reaction “appears universal over this issue” and is clearly “anti-U.S. and anti-Kennedy.”

Specific Cuban exile leaders who were being handled by the CIA were extremely vocal concerning the travel prohibition, stating that the United States “cannot be trusted as an ally” and “has abandoned Cuba.” One exile leader told the FBI “to reserve space for him in local jail” as he has “no intention of accepting travel restriction.”

Another exile leader stated, “Elimination of exile action,” combined with Castro’s “crackdown” on guerilla forces in Cuba, will bring “an end to internal resistance” and ultimately lead to the Cuban people’s “acceptance of Castro.”

Cuban exiles saw the travel restriction as an “alliance” between the United States and the Soviets, and a Cuban exile leader “expressed a general opinion” among Cuban exiles that the United States was “protecting” Castro. Another exile leader stated that “it looks like” the United States is now “against the anti-Castro cause.”

A memorandum to KGB officer and CIA Director John McCone in early April 1963 states that the leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, was resigning because of “no indication from Washington that there is a definite plan for the liberation of Cuba.” The memo to McCone goes on to cite “great and wide-spread pessimism in exile groups” because of “the restrictions imposed upon Cuban exile efforts to defeat Castro.”

McCone himself wrote a Memorandum for the Record on April 11, 1963, stating that the U.S. government and the CIA “more or less disenfranchised ourselves from the Cuban colony in Miami as a result of the Miro Cardona incident.”

On August 10, just a few months after Soviet KGB officer John McCone’s statement about the United States being “disenfranchised” from the Cuban colony in Miami, an anti-Castro Cuban had specific knowledge of plans to assassinate Fidel Castro, but according to a CIA cable, he would not reveal the identity of the individual in Cuba who was organizing Castro’s assassination because, “These Cubans believe that U.S. policy toward Cuba had been so wrong that U. S. govt agencies must be penetrated by traitors.”

Back in November 1962, funds for Cuban exiles were “reduced or cut off,” and “people were instructed to go out and seek employment.”

In January 1963, two months after the Cuban exiles were told to go out and get jobs and three months after the Cuban missile crisis, a group of exiles planned to use “dynamite” to blow up “cars and buildings in NY and Miami” and blame it on Castro, believing it would “compel” the United States to take “action against Cuba.”

It’s in my book. Click the link.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V9JT65Y

(More information on anti-Castro Cubans being set up as the patsies will be in the next post.)

[Anthony Frank]

It would have been relatively easy to manipulate Cuban exiles into using dynamite to blow up “cars and buildings” in New York and Miami. One of the keys to manipulating assets is to let them think that the action they take is their idea. KGB officers inside the CIA could simply let Cuban exiles overhear them say that the real problem is Castro’s inaction and that Castro has simply not given the United States a reason to invade Cuba.

First KGB officer: “It’s been three months since Castro tried to put Soviet missiles in Cuba. I can’t believe Kennedy let that slide without invading Cuba. It would be nice if someone could pull off something big and horrendous inside the United States and work it so that Castro would be blamed for it. The United States would then have to invade Cuba.”

Second KGB officer: “Yes, but it would have to be really big, otherwise, no U.S. invasion.”

Third KGB officer: “Seeing as how the exiles had to go out and get actual jobs, I’m sure they’d be interested in a ‘job’ that would result in Castro being blamed for some horrific action inside the United States. Maybe we should ask them if they’d like a job like that. They’d probably do it for free.”

Fourth KGB officer: “We’d be in big trouble if we told the Cuban exiles to do something like that, but since some of our most loyal exiles are standing a few feet away, listening and smiling, maybe they’ll think of it on their own. I’m sure they can’t hear us, because like I said, whatever they do has to be their own idea. We can’t tell them what to do.”

A CIA Memorandum for the Record states that an anti-Castro Cuban named Dr. Jose La Saga met with a CIA officer from November 7 through November 10, 1963, just two weeks before President Kennedy’s assassination, and according to the CIA, “It was La Saga’s firm position that while President Kennedy was in power, it would be impossible to defeat Castro.”

KGB officers inside the CIA had no problem manipulating anti-Castro Cubans into actively planning President Kennedy’s murder with a hope that Castro would be implicated in the assassination, and the Cuban government took decisive action that would lead the CIA to look for President Kennedy’s killers among the Cuban exiles.

As noted in the previous chapter, a letter from Havana, Cuba on November 29, 1962, almost a year before the assassination, told the recipient of the necessity to “kill President Kennedy” and that it would be a “great success” for Castro.

The intended recipient was also told to “continue demonstrating yourself as anti-Communist, more specifically anti-Castro . . . . You have played your role very well, and you have been successful in completely deceiving the FBI.

The letter telling the intended recipient to “kill President Kennedy” and “continue demonstrating yourself as anti-Communist, more specifically anti-Castro,” means the CIA and the Warren Commission would have been grossly negligent in not looking for President Kennedy’s assassins among the anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

Even more important, on November 26, 1963, a Cuban exile named Tony Cuesta told the FBI that someone had attempted to entice Cuban exiles into assassinating President Kennedy in order to put Vice President Lyndon Johnson into the Presidency. Cuesta was the military leader in the “exile attack” on a “Soviet vessel” back on March 27 in the “waters of the Atlantic.”

Cuesta told the FBI that a few weeks after the March 27 attack, he received an anonymous letter from Texas dated April 18, 1963, stating: “To Tony Cuesta, active, ardent, and audacious Cuban patriot and his group . . . . Only through one development will you Cuban patriots ever live again in your homeland as freemen, responsible, as must be the most capable, for the guidance and welfare of the Cuban people: namely, 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.”

The letter then states that Vice President Johnson, “under present conditions,” cannot help the exiles, but if “an Act of God” would “suddenly elevate him into the top position,” the exiles would get their much-needed support in their efforts to defeat Castro.

It concludes by telling Cuesta, “There are sharks in the waters of the Atlantic. Perhaps one of them, or a group, may free you of the Kennedy-Khrushchev frustrations, which now deny you your right to restore your homeland to control of the Cuban people and their own loyal and rightful rulers.”

The FBI report states that Cuesta told them he thought the letter was “the work of a ‘crackpot’” and “attached no importance to it.” But for some reason, Cuesta “kept it in his possession” for more than seven months and kept the envelope in which the letter had been sent, “postmarked April 18, 1963, Arlington, Texas.” After the assassination, Cuesta “reflected back upon this letter and felt that it might have more significance than he had at first attached to it.”

Tony Cuesta, an anti-Castro Cuban exile carrying out raids against Cuba, presented the FBI with documentation on November 26 that served to definitively implicate anti-Castro Cubans in the assassination. Recall that November 26 was the day that the FBI “substantially completed” its investigation, which means the CIA would be investigating Cuesta’s information.

It’s all in my book. Click the link.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V9JT65Y