The Silent Conspiracy

[Martin Weidmann]

The Cuban and Soviet officials in Mexico City were probably giving LHO the proverbial “runaround.” No one was likely to be willing to stick their neck out for LHO due to the reputation that he reportedly earned with his past behavior in Russia, etc. However, Latell wrote that Cuban intelligence would have had a file on LHO that went back to his days in the Marine Corps. (LHO reportedly contacted the Cubans in Los Angeles back then.) And LHO’s activities in New Orleans during the summer of 1963 most likely drew Cuban intelligence’s attention also. If LHO, while in Mexico City, did in fact threaten to kill JFK, I believe that Cuban intelligence would have been negligent if they didn’t track LHO back to Dallas. If Latell is correct (that Castro was informed of LHO’s threat), I believe that Castro would have at least ordered them to keep track of LHO.

But there is no credible evidence of the involvement of Russia or Cuba in the assassination.

I agree that the evidence suggests LHO acted alone. However,  I believe that the Aspillaga account of the morning of 11/22/63 is credible evidence that the Cubans were at least suspicious and curious about the possibility of an assassination attempt in Dallas.

You seem to be struggling to get anybody to agree with you. Don't you never wonder why that is?

[Charles Collins]

Epstein cites it here: http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/question_oswald.htm

He writes: "On October 18, 1963, according to its own records, the Cuban Foreign Ministry in Havana authorized the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City to issue a transit visa for Lee Harvey Oswald to enter Cuba. It required that Oswald also obtain a visa to enter the Soviet Union."

I believe there's a photo of the letter in the HSCA list of exhibits. It was sent from Havana to the consulate in MC but not to Oswald (he put his New Orleans address on the application).

Added: The letter is here (the date is October 15 so perhaps Epstein is referring to a different letter?): https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=847&tab=page

Note: It doesn't explicitly authorize the visa or deny it either but says that: "I respectfully inform you that in order for us to comply with his request, he must inform us by cable, with prepaid reply, when he has the authorized visa of the Embassy of the U.S.S.R." In any case, this indicates that the application was sent to Havana and not tossed away. Very strange.

If I recall, Oswald never returned any visa application to the Soviets in Mexico City. I think he wanted them to expedite his earlier requests that he had sent to the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Nosenko said that he personally turned down those requests to return. So if the Soviets didn't want him back I can't see them telling the Cubans to give him a transit visa. Without a Soviet visa he wouldn't be given the transit visa.

My guess is yours: bureaucracies shuffling paper. Conspiracists don't like innocent explanations (unless they clear Oswald: curtain rods anyone?) but most things happen without any larger purpose.

In any case, this indicates that the application was sent to Havana and not tossed away. Very strange.

And credible evidence that LHO was not simply dismissed as a nut. He managed to at least get their attention. And since Havana got involved, chances are greater that Castro knew about LHO...

[Charles Collins]

You seem to be struggling to get anybody to agree with you. Don't you never wonder why that is?

No, not at all. We are having a meaningful conversation about the assassination.

However, I do wonder why you continue to attack and have nothing of substance to add to the conversation.

[Martin Weidmann]

No, not at all. We are having a meaningful conversation about the assassination.

However, I do wonder why you continue to attack and have nothing of substance to add to the conversation.

What's with the paranoia?

Does asking questions equal "attack" in your mind?

I am not attacking you. Anybody who reads this thread from the beginning will see that I have only been asking questions which you simply refuse (or perhaps can't) answer. It seems to me that you prefer to only have a conversation with fellow LNs. Perhaps it is a comfort zone thing, could that be? In any event, it says a great deal about you and very little about me.

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

Jack Childs’s Operation SOLO report to the FBI, and a second by the British journalist, about Oswald’s shouted threat to kill Kennedy...  [as he angrily left the Cuban Consulate [sic] in Mexico City]

Charles,

It's interesting to note that FBI informer Morris Childs (FBI informer Jack's brother), posing as an officer of the CPUSA in Moscow on 11/22/63, claimed that late that night, two Russian functionaries or bureaucrats rushed into a meeting Childs was having with some Kremlin officials, blurted out in Russian that Lee Harvey Oswald had just been arrested in Dallas, and that KGB had already determined it had had nothing to do with Oswald's assassinating JFK.

Not knowing that Childs understood Russian, the two functionaries turned to him and told him the same thing ... in perfect English ...

--  MWT 

PS  Oswald's alleged threat to kill JFK occurred at the Cuban embassy, not the consulate.

[Charles Collins]

Charles,

It's interesting to note that FBI informer Morris Childs (FBI informer Jack's brother), posing as an officer of the CPUSA in Moscow on 11/22/63, claimed that late that night, two Russian functionaries or bureaucrats rushed into a meeting Childs was having with some Kremlin officials, blurted out in Russian that Lee Harvey Oswald had just been arrested in Dallas, and that KGB had already determined it had had nothing to do with Oswald's assassinating JFK.

Not knowing that Childs understood Russian, the two functionaries turned to him and told him the same thing ... in perfect English ...

--  MWT 

PS  Oswald's alleged threat to kill JFK occurred at the Cuban embassy, not the consulate.

Oswald's alleged threat to kill JFK occurred at the Cuban embassy, not the consulate.


Thanks Thomas, that is very interesting. Here  is a quote from Latell’s book that says it was at the consulate. There are also three other items that corroborate the belief of advanced knowledge of Oswald:


Four other sources have confirmed that Fidel and the DGI had advance knowledge of Oswald. Vladimir Rodriguez Lahera, the first important defector from Cuban intelligence—fully trusted by the CIA and used in sensitive operations—told his handlers in May 1964 that Castro had lied. The defector was at DGI headquarters in Havana when news of Kennedy’s death was broadcast. It was there that he heard other officers discussing what they already knew about Oswald.9 Alfredo Mirabal, an intelligence officer under consular cover at Havana’s Mexico City embassy, inadvertently revealed in 1978 that in September 1963 he had informed headquarters about Oswald. Jack Childs, a trusted FBI agent in its highly sensitive Operation SOLO, also provided reliable information proving that Castro knew about Oswald before November 1963. Childs’s undercover work included a meeting with Castro in Havana in May 1964 that is described in chapter seven. Remarkably, Castro revealed to Childs that he had been aware that, while at the Cuban consulate in Mexico City, Oswald had threatened to murder Kennedy. And finally, Florentino Aspillaga, the highest-level, most-decorated officer ever to defect from the DGI, is convinced that Fidel had advance knowledge of the assassination in Dallas. Aspillaga’s story is told throughout the following chapters.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Oswald's alleged threat to kill JFK occurred at the Cuban embassy, not the consulate.


Thanks Thomas, that is very interesting. Here  is a quote from Latell’s book that says it was at the consulate. There are also three other items that corroborate the belief of advanced knowledge of Oswald:


Four other sources have confirmed that Fidel and the DGI had advance knowledge of Oswald. Vladimir Rodriguez Lahera, the first important defector from Cuban intelligence—fully trusted by the CIA and used in sensitive operations—told his handlers in May 1964 that Castro had lied. The defector was at DGI headquarters in Havana when news of Kennedy’s death was broadcast. It was there that he heard other officers discussing what they already knew about Oswald.9 Alfredo Mirabal, an intelligence officer under consular cover at Havana’s Mexico City embassy, inadvertently revealed in 1978 that in September 1963 he had informed headquarters about Oswald. Jack Childs, a trusted FBI agent in its highly sensitive Operation SOLO, also provided reliable information proving that Castro knew about Oswald before November 1963. Childs’s undercover work included a meeting with Castro in Havana in May 1964 that is described in chapter seven. Remarkably, Castro revealed to Childs that he had been aware that, while at the Cuban consulate in Mexico City, Oswald had threatened to murder Kennedy. And finally, Florentino Aspillaga, the highest-level, most-decorated officer ever to defect from the DGI, is convinced that Fidel had advance knowledge of the assassination in Dallas. Aspillaga’s story is told throughout the following chapters.

I don't think that's right, that the alleged threat was made at the Embassy. Not that it matters much but all of this - the encounters with Oswald et cetera - was at the Consulate building. The Consulate building and the Embassy were two different buildings although I think the Consulate was connected to the Embassy (it's not clear).

Duran said she worked at the Consulate, which is where Oswald went for the transit visa, and not the Embassy.  And Eusebio Azcue, who threw Oswald out, was the Cuban Consul not the Cuban Ambassador.

From Silvia Tirado's (nee Duran) testimony:
CORNWELL - At one time you worked for the Cuban Consulate.
TIRADO - Yes.
CORNWELL - Did you in any other way know any of the other employees at the Consulate?
TIRADO - Yes, well I knew Azcue, Eusebio Azcue who was a consul, and uh, Maria Carman Olivari -- she's dead.

And this indicating that people worked at the Embassy or the Consulate (two separate buildings):
CORNWELL - Now, did you know a Teresa Proenza? Was she employed at the Consulate or the Embassy.
TIRADO - The Embassy. She was the Cultural Attache.
CORNWELL - She would have worked in the area marked number four? Is that correct?
TIRADO - Well, yes. But this was, this construction was uh, afterwards. This was the Embassy and the Consulate and building was under construction, constructed. A building.

Rest of her testimony is here: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ../m_j_russ/hscadurn.htm

[Steve M. Galbraith]

In any case, this indicates that the application was sent to Havana and not tossed away. Very strange.

And credible evidence that LHO was not simply dismissed as a nut. He managed to at least get their attention. And since Havana got involved, chances are greater that Castro knew about LHO...

Azcue said that he was not at the consulate when the application was processed and signed off and sent to Havana. The signature on it is was Alfredo Mirabal's who succeeded Azcue as consul. Mirabal was also there at the time of this incident.
He said this in his HSCA testimony:

Senor MIRABAL. ... I would like to state to the members of the committee that in connection with this entire process of the two visits that he made to the consulate, my impression from the very first moment was that it was in fact a provocation. He insisted on the urgency of his need for a visa. He indicated that he was being persecuted. He indicated that he could not stay long in Mexico, that he had an urgent need to travel to Cuba and therefrom to go to the Soviet Union.
On the first day he was not given the visa because he did not fulfill the necessary requirements, requirements that are asked of all individuals who are visa applicants.
On the second time he came to file the application, and yet he insisted that he needed to have it processed rapidly with great urgency. It was because of these demands of his that the argument with Mr. Azcue and with the secretary followed, and in fact during the argument he accused us all of not being true revolutionaries, of not being sensitive to the fact that he was being persecuted.
I must say that from the very beginning I considered this a provocation, and I assured that in the manner in which we handled the case we followed the directives of the Foreign Ministry in the sense that all individuals have to follow certain procedures in order to obtain a visa.

So he thought it was a "provocation" but then signed off on the application? And didn't mention in his notes about his belief that it was some sort of "provocation"? As I said above, it's probably just paper pushing, signing off on things but it's odd that Azcue and Mirabal both thought it was some sort of setup but, at least with Mirabal,  still approved the application.