THE ANTI-LATELL REPORT Dr. Latell’s Involution in JFK Assassination Research A RNALDO M. F ERNANDEZ

[Magda Hassan]

THE ANTI-LATELL REPORT
Dr. Latell's Involution in JFK Assassination Research
A RNALDO M. F ERNANDEZ
Abstract
This study demonstrates how former CIA desk analyst and current scholar Dr.
Brian Latell has followed the trodden path of manipulation and deception beneath
intellectual veneer for transfiguring the JFK-assassination conspiracy theory
"Castro did it" into "Castro knew it."
The more "findings" Dr. Latell puts together, the lesser good arguments are
available for explaining why Oswald was missed as a security risk unless the CIA
itself were plotting with Fidel Castro. That's preposterous, but it's the logical
conclusion under of Dr. Lattel's "conspiracy of silence[:] Fidel knew Oswald's
intentions to shoot President Kennedy and did nothing to deter the act." 1
The study provides six key counterarguments against Dr. Lattel's hypothesis:
ï‚· Oswald's contacts with Cuban officials in 1959 were irrelevant
ï‚· The phone calls to Luisa Calderon at the Cuban Commercial Office in
Mexico City the very day of the assassination are not evidence at all for
proving Castro ́s foreknowledge of Oswald
ï‚· Cuban defector Vladimir Rodriguez-Lahera knew nothing useful on Oswald
ï‚· Cuban consul Alfredo Mirabal-Diaz was speaking truth to power before the
House Select Committee on Assassinations
ï‚· FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover did not distort the information given by Castro
to FBI super spy Jack Childs in the mission SOLO 15.
ï‚· The "Jaimanitas story" told by Cuban defector Florentino Aspillaga is
nonsensical and likely untrue
The study also refutes the hypothesis of Major Rolando Cubela as double agent
loyal to Castro and deals with the logic of the JFK assassination research.
Key words: JFK Assassination, conspiracy theory, Lee Harvey Oswald, Fidel
Castro, John F. Kennedy, Rolando Cubela, Mexico City, CIA, FBI, General
Directorate of Intelligence (DGI), Warren Commission (WC), House Select
Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).
1 Latell, Brian: Castro's Secrets, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 247.Introduction
Jim DiEugenio has coined the term Shenonism 2 for the deceitful tactic used by
former NYT investigative reporter Philip Shenon to tell his "secret history of the
Kennedy assassination." 3 Shenon presents old things as new and conveys them to
the reader as important issues that the Warren Commission (WC) should have
known about. That's exactly what Dr. Brian Latell had done for involving Castro in
the JFK death through a "conspiracy of silence" on Oswald. 4
Thusly, Dr. Latell supports the WC Report of a lone gunman who shot a magic
bullet 5 with the oldest CIA backstop: Castro was somehow behind Oswald. That's
exactly what Shenon did. He dug up Mexican writer Elena Garro de Paz's long-ago
debunked story 6 on Oswald at a "twist party" in Mexico City for twisting that party
into the occasion seized by Sylvia Duran allegedly an agent of Castro's General
Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) to put Oswald up to kill Kennedy. 7
Dr. Latell changed the subtitle of his book Castro's Secrets from The CIA and
Cuba's Intelligence Machine (2012) to Cuban Intelligence, the CIA, and the
Assassination of John F. Kennedy (2013). The latter has an additional primary
source: the unpublished memoirs of U.S. Ambassador (1961-63) in Mexico,
Thomas C. Mann, who believed "that the DGI used Oswald's hotel [in Mexico
City] foe intelligence purposes," although no shred of evidence was ever found. 8
Dr. Latell is a senior research associate of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-
American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami (UM). For promoting his
book, he has been using an e-newsletter distributed by ICCAS as The Latell
Report. 9 It's officially intended to analyze "Cuba's contemporary domestic and
foreign policies," but three of the five 2013 issues were devoted to portray Castro
as the evil mastermind who jiggered Oswald for killing Kennedy.
According to Dr. Latell, the "indicators of Cuban regimen deception and
apparent DGI engagement with Oswald have never been properly evaluated:" 10
2 "Philip Shenon's A Cruel and Shocking Act," Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA),
December 4, 2013 [http://www.ctka.net/reviews/shenon.html]
3 Shenon, Philip: A Cruel and Shocking Act, Henry Holt and Co., 2013.
4 See above note 1.
5 Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, United States
Government Printing Office, 1964 [http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/war...n-report/]
6
Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City [aka Lopez Report], House Select Committee on Assassination, 1978, Section
III.C, pp. 206-35.
7
Shenon, Philip: Op. cit., p. 556.
8
Mexico: Questions Raised by the Ambassador Mann File, April 2, 1964, p. 4. NARA Record Number:
1993.07.21.15:25:32:060280 [https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...cId=79875]
9
ICCAS UM Annual Report 2011-2012, pp. 3.4.21 [http://www6.miami.edu/iccas/Items/Annual...11-12.pdf]
10
Latell, Brian: Op. cit., p. xiii.ï‚· The 1959 Oswald's contacts with the Cuban Consulate in Los Angeles were
overlooked by the FBI and the WC
ï‚· The CIA did not inform the WC of Luisa Calderon's November 22,1963
phone conversations
ï‚· DGI defector Vladimir Rodriguez-Lahera's knowledge that Castro had lied
on Oswald apparently was not shared with the WC
ï‚· An incriminating error by Cuban consul Alfredo Mirabal-Diaz before the
House Special Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) went unnoticed
ï‚· FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover submitted to WC a report in June 1964 that
minimized and distorted the meaning of Operation SOLO for acquiring
information from Castro
 DGI defector Florentino Aspillaga ́s story was not publicly revealed until the
first edition of Castro's Secrets (2012)
Latellism is the lightest version of "Castro did it" as "Castro knew it." The latter
approach thrives on claques of people who cannot think logically for many reasons
or will not think logically because they have a fanatical anti-Castro agenda.
Oswald as Person of Interest
Neither the FBI nor the WC overlooked the 1959 Oswald's contacts with the Cuban
consulate in Los Angeles. They were simply irrelevant.
Oswald was released by the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) at Air Station El Toro,
Southern California, on September 11, 1959. 11 Even if he would have been
infatuated with the Castro revolution more than with the Russian language, which
he learned at fast pace by that time, 12 Castro wouldn't have driven him against the
U.S. The dispute between Washington and Havana hasn't publicly erupted yet. On
September 3-4, 1959, U.S. Ambassador Phillip Bonsal talked with Castro about
"serious concerns," but also expressed "the general sympathy with objectives of
Cuban revolution and similarity with many of our own aims and aspirations." 13
The FBI interviewed 26 Marines acquainted with Oswald at El Toro. None of them
directly connected Oswald to Cuban officials. Dr. Latell lets slip "if the WC had
asked Nelson Delgado," but his testimony 14 is far from useful for making the point
of an early Oswald's engagement with the budding Castro ́s foreign intelligence.
11
Mary Ferrell Chronologies , Vol. 2 (a), p. 19
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...PageId=19]
12
Melanson, Philip H.: Spy Saga, Praeger Pub, 1990, p. 36 [http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/SpySaga.pdf]
Foreign Relations of The United States, 19581960, Volume VI, Cuba, Document 359
[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocu...0v06/d359]
14
On April 16, 1964, at the U.S. Courthouse, Foley Square, New York, taken by Mr. Wesley J. Liebeler, assistant
counsel of the WC. [http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/delgado.htm]
13On the contrary, the only known witness on the spot, Gerald Patrick Hemming,
told Dick Russell in an exclusive interview: "I ran into Oswald in Los Angeles in
1959, when he showed up at the Cuban Consulate. The coordinator of the 26 th of
July Movement [Castro's political group] called me aside and said a Marine officer
had showed up, intimating that he was prepared to desert and go to Cuba to
become a revolutionary. I met with the Marine (...) I thought he was a "penetrator'
[and] I told the 26 th of July leadership to get rid of him." 15
Notwithstanding, Dr. Latell speculates that a DGI file on Oswald was "probably"
opened when he contacted with Cuban officials in L.A. (1959), "transferred" as the
Cuban Consulate closed when the Cuba-U.S. diplomatic relations were severed
(1961), and then filled with "evidence of his militancy [and] conspicuous pro-
Castro activities in New Orleans" (1963).
Peter Dale Scott documented that both CIA and FBI sources reported that "Oswald
was unknown to Cuban Government" when he visited the Cuban Consulate in
Mexico City on September 27, 1963. 16 John Newman demonstrated that the CIA
closely and constantly tracked Oswald since his defection to the USSR in
Halloween 1959. 17 Jim DiEugenio pinned down that in New Orleans, 1963, Oswald
was handing out the run-out 1961 edition of the pamphlet The Crimes against
Cuba, by Corliss Lamont, from which the CIA had ordered 45 copies. 18 And
Jefferson Morley has reported how three CIA teams were watching Oswald all the
way down from Moscow (1960) to Dallas (1963): the Counterintelligence Special
Investigation Group (CI-SIG), the Counterintelligence Operation (CI-OPS), and
the Counter-Espionage unit of the Soviet Russia Division (CE-SR/6). 19
The CIA did certainly have a thick file on Oswald and dealt him with three index
cards. 20 The Covert Operations Desk created the first one on May 25, 1960. 21 The
second one was attached to Oswald's personality file (201-289248), 22 opened on
December 9, 1960. The third one was generated for the Fair Play for Cuba
Committee (FPCC) file (100-300-011) on October 25, 1963. 23
15
Argosy, Vol. 383, No. 3, April 1976 [http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bell...mming.htm]
Scott, Peter D.: Oswald, Mexico, and Deep Politics, Skyhorse Publishing, 2013, p. 33.
17
Newman, John: Oswald and the CIA, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2008 [1995], p. 318.
18
DiEugenio, James: Destiny Betrayed, Skyhorse Publishing, 2012 [1992], p. 219.
19
"The Oswald File: Tales of the Routing Slips," The Washington Post, April 2, 1995,
20
Photocopy of DDO Index Cards on Oswald. NARA Record Number: 1993.07.06.19:04:04:560390
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...cId=57388]
21
After FBI Special Agent John Fain interviewed Oswald's mother and brother about "Funds Transmitted to
Residents of Russia." NARA Record Number: 104-10196-10063
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...cId=38921]
22
NARA Record Number: 104-10067-10200
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...cId=32190]
23
Upon the report by FBI Special Agent Warren De Brueys about Oswald's membership in "the New Orleans
chapter of the FPCC." NARA Record Number: 104-10079-10220
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...cId=41065]
16For having Castro involved in a conspiracy of silence on Oswald, Dr. Latell must
"concoct the dots," whilst a conspiracy of silence inside the Company emerged by
connecting the October 63 cable traffic between the CIA Station in Mexico City
[MEXI] and the CIA Headquarters in Langley [DIR].
MEXI 6453 24 concealed all intel to DIR on Oswald visiting the Cuban diplomatic
compound on September 27, while DIR 74830 25 hid from MEXI all intel about
Oswald's pro Castro activism in Dallas and New Orleans, including his street
scuffle with Cuban exiles on August 9, 1963. DIR actually lowered Oswald's
security profile by quoting as latest info available on him a May 1962 memo
from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow: "Twenty months of realities of life in Soviet
Union had clearly had a maturing effect on Oswald."
DIR 74673 26 went further by excluding Department of State, FBI and Navy from
the intel furnished by MEXI about an eventual contact between Oswald and KGB
officer Valeriy Kostikov at the Soviet Consulate. To cap it all, this cable forwarded
as Oswald's the description given by MEXI of an alleged American spotted at the
Soviet Embassy on October 1, 1963: "Approximately 35 years old, with an athletic
build, about 6 feet tall, with a receding hairline."
A liaison officer of the CIA Counterintelligence (CI) Staff, Jane Roman, signed off
on these cables. More than three decades later, John Newman asked her if this
cable traffic indicated some sort of operational interest in Oswald's file. Roman
flatly answered: "Well, to me, it's indicative of a keen interest in Oswald, held very
closely on the need-to-know basis." 27
The FBI Headquarters also had opened a file (105-82555) 28 and even issued a
FLASH warning on Oswald after the U.S. Embassy in Moscow reported his
defection. However, Oswald returned to the States with his wife and their 4-month-
old daughter on June 13, 1962, thanks to a $435.71 loan from the Department of
State. 29 FBI Special Agent Fain debriefed him in Forth Worth twice. Oswald
"agreed to contact the FBI if at any time any individual made any contact of any
nature under suspicious circumstances with him." 30
24
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/j..._0131a.htm
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/j..._0064a.htm
26
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/j..._0025a.htm
27
On November 2, 1994. Transcribed by Mary Bose and corrected by Jefferson Morley [http://www.history-
matters.com/essays/frameup/WhatJaneRomanSaid/JaneRomanTranscript.htm]
28
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...SetId=1191
29
Mary Ferrell Chronologies , Vol. 2 (b), p. 51.
30
Fain dated his final report on August 30, 1962. See Commission Document (CD) 10, p. 6
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...cId=10411]
25No wonder Oswald "was desirous of seeing an agent of the FBI" after being
arrested for the scuffle with Cuban exiles in New Orleans. Special Agent John
Lester Quigley satisfied such strange desire of a conspicuous pro Castro activist. 31
Like other supporters of "Castro did it," Dr. Latell overlooks that an ex-Marine re-
defector from the USSR is an intelligence bonanza. Neither the CIA nor the FBI
could have missed him as security risk after visiting both the Soviet and the Cuban
diplomatic venues and eventually contacting KGB and DGI officers.
Much less if since September 10, 1963, the FBI in Dallas had reported Oswald as
"subscriber to The Worker, an East Coast communist newspaper, [who] was in
contact with the [FPCC], passed out pamphlets [and] had a plackard (sic) around
his neck reading, "Hands Off Cuba, Viva Fidel'." 32
Even so, FBI Supervisor Marvin Gheesling canceled the FLASH on October 9,
1963. 33 In view of the JFK visit to Texas, the Secret Service couldn't have then
enough intel about Oswald for putting him on the Security Index. Unless there was
a conspiracy of silence not by Castro, but by the CIA and the FBI Oswald
should have never been on the presidential motorcade route in Dallas.
Professor Melanson made clear that "it would be feckless for Cuban intelligence to
employ an assassin so publicly identified with Castro's cause." 34 Dr. Latell suggests
a 1959 DGI file on Oswald even before the DGI creation: 1961 for reckoning
"a fully prime soldier for Fidel" in 1963.
The Calderon's Phone Conversations
The CIA did not inform the WC of Luisa Calderon's November 22, 1963, phone
conversations because as its Office of the Legislative Counsel definitively stated
to HSCA "the overall Calderon discussion is better fiction than professional fact
and analysis." 35 Dr. Latell has recycled it for his non-fiction book.
On November 22, 1963, the CIA center LIENVOY intercepted a phone call 36 at
5:30 pm to the Cuban Commercial Office in Mexico City. The first transcribed line
sparked brouhaha: "HF asks LUISA if she heard the latest news and LUISA, in a
joking tone says, "Yes, of course, I knew almost before KENNEDY'."
31
Commission Exhibit (CE) 826, p. 5. See Testimony of John Lester Quigley
[http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/quigley.htm]
32
CE 826, p. 1, 8
33
House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Admin Folder Q 10 (Oswald File Xerox), p. 12
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...PageId=12]
34
Melanson, Philip H.: Op. cit., p. 22
35
Memorandum dated on February 15, 1979, p. 3 in fine
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...lPageId=3]
36
NARA Record Number: 104-10400-10162
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...ageId=1]It was a mistranslation of her joke in Spanish: "Sí, claro, me enteré casi antes que
Kennedy." The right English version should have been: "Yes, of course, I found
out (or learned about it) almost before KENNEDY'."
Dr. Latell leaves the mistranslation to stand by itself and goes further to cull out
another "incriminating comment about Oswald" from the CIA transcript: "Oh, yes,
he knows Russian well, and also this fellow went with Fidel's forces into the
mountains, or wanted to go, something like that." Dr. Latell forgets that this
comment by the caller [HF] ended thusly: "Who knows how it was." And some
lines above, the CIA transcriber had written down: "LUISA interrupts and asks if it
was a gringo that killed him [Kennedy] and HF says yes."
If that wouldn't be enough for ruling out any foreknowledge, another Calderon's
phone call tapped by LIENVOY at 1:30 pm on the same day 37 and ignored by
Dr. Latell fifty years later puts the issue at rest. According to the CIA transcript,
an "unidentified woman calls LUISA (inside the Cuban Embassy). Caller asks
LUISA if she knows about the news of Kennedy's death. LUISA is surprised" says
it is a lie and asks who? Caller [says] is an attempt in Texas. LUISA further
surprise and again asks if news is official and when did it occur."
Dr. Latell deemed "the mysterious Luisa Calderon" as key witness who "would
confirm what I know believe." What he now believes is an old story broke by the
late British journalist Comer Clark: 38 Castro foreknowledge of Oswald.
On July 9, 1967, Clark flew to Havana for interviewing Castro. His request was
denied, but he reported that an impromptu interview had taken place on a sidewalk
at a pizzeria in front of a cheering crowd. Castro would have told him:
"Yes, I heard of Lee Harvey Oswald's plan to kill President Kennedy. It's possible I
could have saved him. I might have been able to, but I didn't. I never believed the
plan would be put into effect." Castro would have explained that Oswald visited
the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City twice; the last time "he said something like:
"Someone ought to shoot that President Kennedy'. Then Oswald said and this
was exactly how it was reported to me "May be I'll try to do it.' This was less
than two months before the U.S. President was assassinated."
It's implausible that Castro had given an interview about such a sensitive matter
before a crowd outside a pizzeria. "It's a lie from head to toe," Castro replied in an
interview conducted by an HSCA panel in Havana on April 3, 1978. 39 It's just as
hard to swallow that Castro knew Oswald was going to shoot at Kennedy and
chose to remain silent.
37
Transcripts from Cuban Embassy and Cubana Airlines Conversations on 22 Nov 1963, p. 22
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...PageId=22]
38
"Fidel Castro Says He Knew of Oswald Threat to Kill JFK," (National Enquirer, October 15, 1967, pp. 4 f.).
39
HSCA Admin Folder 04 (Interview of Fidel Castro), p. 61
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...91550]Even the Soviet bloc's diplomats in Havana were aware of Castro position on JFK.
On March 31, 1963, for instance, Hungarian Ambassador János Beck reported it to
Budapest: "Among the possible presidents at present, Kennedy is the best". 40
On September 20, President Kennedy authorized William Attwood to contact with
Cuban Ambassador to the U.N. Carlos Lechuga. The first U.S.-Cuba talks on
accommodation took place in a corner of ABC News reporter Lisa Howard's
apartment in Park Avenue (New York). On November 19, while his secret envoy
Jean Daniel was already in talks with Castro, Kennedy was waiting for an agenda
proposal from Castro to "decide what to say [and] what we should do next." 41
Castro has clearly summed up his ethical pragmatism: "Ethics is not a simple
moral issue (...) It produces results." 42 If he would have had foreknowledge of
Oswald's criminal intention, he would have reacted as in 1984 with the worse U.S.
President for him by that time. Castro was advised about an extreme right-wind
conspiracy to kill Ronald Reagan. Castro ordered the DGI to furnish all the
information to the U.S. Security Chief at United Nations, Robert Muller, and the
FBI proceeded to dismantle the plot in North Carolina. 43
Dr. Latell claims that Castro "feared Kennedy" and wanted him dead, because in
Castro's mind, "he was probably acting in self-defense." However, Dr. Latell adds
that Castro warned the Kennedy Brothers and everyone else with an advertising
piece of his "personal bailiwick" before Oswald promised to DGI in Mexico City
"to shoot Kennedy to prove his revolutionary credentials."
On September 7, 1963, Castro attended a reception at the Brazilian Embassy in
Havana. He talked with Associated Press correspondent Dan Harker, who quoted
Castro saying: "U.S. leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to
eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe". 44
According to Dr. Latell, Castro not only wanted Kennedy death as an act of self
defense, but also broadcasted his intention through Harker to the whole world. In
fact, Kennedy had expressed the same idea on November 1961. After meeting with
reporter Tad Szulc, who noted him "under terrific pressure from advisors (...) to
okay a Castro murder," Kennedy discussed the issue with his aide Richard
Goodwin and remarked: "If we get into that kind of thing, we'll all be targets". 45
40
Cold War History Research Center Budapest [http://www.coldwar.hu]. Document obtained from Magyar
Országos Levéltár (MOL) [Hungarian National Archives] Budapest, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Top Secret
Documents, XIX-J-1-jD; with the support of the Cold War International History Project, Washington D.C.
41
Kornbluh, Peter.: "JFK and Castro," Cigar Aficionado, September - October 1999, pp. 3 ff.
[http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatur..._7300/p/1]
42
Castro, Fidel: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography, Simon and Schuster, 2008, p. 211.
43
"Fidel Castro 'saved' Ronald Reagan's life," The Telegraph, April 13, 2007.
44
"Castro Blasts Raids on Cuba," New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 9, 1963.
45
Mahoney, Richard: JFK: Ordeal in Africa, Oxford University Press, 1983, p.135.Shortly after JFK was killed, Cuban exile Dr. Emilio Nuñez, former diplomat of
the Batista administration (1952-58), enlarged and sharpened Harker's quote: "Let
Kennedy and his brother Robert take care of themselves since they too can be the
victims of an attempt which will cause their death." 46
Ironically, Harker also quoted Castro saying: "Kennedy is the Batista of our time."
Castro started his revolution against Batista dictatorship by attacking the Moncada
Barracks on July 26, 1953. The same day, Batista was attending a regatta festivity
at Varadero Beach. Professor Dr. Antonio de la Cova related that some rebels
insisted on blending in with the spectators and killing Batista there, but Castro
chose to attack the barracks. 47
Castro even disapproved the attempt against Batista by the Student Revolutionary
Directorate on March 13, 1957. He simply reasoned: "It would have been easier to
kill Batista than wage two years of guerrilla war, but it would not have changed the
system" 48 Dr. Latell didn't get it. His approach to Calderon's foreknowledge is the
continuation in peaceful times of the fact-free analysis that determined the CIA
failures in the dirty war against Castro. No wonder Dr. Latell even falls into the
morass of DGI defectors.
AMMUG-1's Knowledge and Ignorance
Dr. Latell's asserts that DGI defector Vladimir Rodriguez-Lahera knew that Castro
had lied on Oswald, but his testimony "apparently was not shared with the WC."
Actually, Rodriguez-Lahera did not have any significant knowledge on the issue.
He defected from DGI in Canada around April 21, 1964, and was codenamed
AMMUG-1. His initial debriefing included "that the only possible fabrication
known by the source was the specific denial by Fidel Castro, on a television
program [November 23, 1963], of any Cuban knowledge of Oswald." 49
Dr. Latell surreptitiously turns the "possible fabrication" into knowledge worthy of
being conveyed to the WC. The day after the assassination, Castro referred to
Oswald thusly: "We never in our life heard of the existence of this person." 50 Dr.
Latell ascertains that AMMUG-1 "was convinced that Fidel had lied" and told it to
"his handlers in May 1964."
46
"John Kennedy and his brother can be victims of an assassination attempt, Castro threatened," El Universal
[Mexico City], November 25, 1963.
47
De la Cova, Antonio: The Moncada Attack, University of South Carolina Press, 2007, pp. 50, 80, 252.
48
CBS, June 10, 1977.
49 Debriefing of AMMUG-1 (The Oswald Case)
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...lPageId=1]
50
Castro, Fidel.: Speech-Comment Concerning the Facts and Consequences of the Tragic Death of President John
F. Kennedy, November 23, 1963 [http://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/FC112363.html]Dr. Latell omits that the handler himself, Harold Swenson, dismissed as irrelevant
the "explanations and comments" given by AMMUG-1: 51
ï‚· I have no personal knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald or his activities
and I do not know that Oswald was an agent of the [DGI] or any other
directorate or department of the Cuban Government
ï‚· I first heard of Oswald after the assassination (...) Personnel in the DGI
first commented about the case, so far as I can recall, one day after
lunch when a group of officers, of whom I was one, were chatting
ï‚· Manuel Vega-Perez previously had been assigned to Mexico in the
Cuban Consulate, where he was the principal intelligence officer of the
DGI. Vega mentioned that Oswald had gone to the Cuban Consulate
two or three times in connection with a visa application during the time
that Vega was in Mexico.
ï‚· I gathered, although I do not know that Vega made any specific
statement to this effect, that Vega personally had seen Oswald. I well
could have reached this conclusion because normally Vega and his
assistant in Mexico for the DGI, Rogelio Rodriguez-Lopez, would see
personas applying for a visa to go to Cuba.
ï‚· This is because DGI officers are charged with expediting the granting
of visas of agents of the DGI. Such agents, on appearing at the
Consulate, use a special phrase to indicate their relationship with the
DGI (I do not know the particular phrase used in every case).
ï‚· The DGI officers at a Consulate interview visa applicants to find out if
they are agents. If the visa applicant does not use one of the indicate
phrases, the DGI officers, instead of granting the visa immediately, tell
the applicant to return in a few days. The officer then notifies Havana
and requests authority for the visa.
ï‚· I cannot recall if Vega even made the statement that he had requested
permission to issue a visa to Oswald, but I feel sure that he would have
done so because Vega has said that Oswald had returned several times
and this would be the usual procedure.
ï‚· I believe that Rogelio Rodriguez-Lopez also would have seen Oswald
because he worked with Vega and also would have screened visa
applicants.
ï‚· I thought that Luis Calderon might have had contact with Oswald
because I learned about 17 March 1964, shortly before I made a trip to
Mexico, that she had been involved with an American in Mexico.
51
See Debriefing of AMMUG-1 (The Oswald Case)ï‚· The information to which I refer was told to me by a DGI case officer
named Norberto Hernandez. I had commented to Hernandez that it
seemed strange that Luisa Calderon was receiving a salary from the
DGI although she apparently did not do any work for the service.
Hernandez told me that hers was a peculiar case and that he himself
believed that she had been recruited in Mexico by the [CIA] although
Manuel Piñeiro, the Head of the DGI, did not agree.
ï‚· As I recall, Hernandez had investigated Luisa Calderon. This was
because, during the time she was in Mexico, the DGI had intercepted a
letter to her by an American who signed his name as Ower (phonetic)
or something similar (...) It could have been Howard or something
different. As I understood the matter, the letter from the American was
a love letter, but indicated that there was a clandestine-professional
relationship between the writer and Luisa Calderon.
ï‚· I also understood from Hernandez that after the interception of the
letter she had been followed and seen in the company of an American. I
do not know if this could have been Oswald.
Swanson concluded: AMMUG-1 did not have "any significant information." His
guesswork "I gathered, although I do not know;" "I well could have reached this
conclusion," "I cannot recall (...), but I fell sure;" "I believe," "I thought""
turned significant for Dr. Latell because it fits his purpose-built book on Castro's
involvement in the JFK assassination.
More than four decades after being debriefed, AMMUG-1 provided Dr. Latell with
an unheard-of argument: the most routine matters at the Cuban diplomatic venue in
Mexico City were reported directly to Castro. Neither Castro nor any other Head of
Government has time for being informed about ordinary people applying for visas.
What AMMUG-1 thought in 1964 about Calderon and Oswald makes no sense
either. Her presumed American lover who signed "Ower or something similar"
could have been Oscar Cower, who called Rodriguez-Lopez from L.A. on
November 7, 1963. 52 "It could have been Howard" or somebody else, but never
Lee Harvey Oswald, because he would have been detected by the CIA.
Calderon was the secretary of the Commercial Office and the Cuba Desk officer at
the CIA Station, Bob Shaw [Lawrence Baker], had her under tight surveillance at
least since July 19, 1963, when LIENVOY intercepted the phone call from Texas
cattleman Eldon Hensen contacting her to do business with the Castro regimen. 53
52
The CIA tapped this call. See NARA Record Number: 104-10093-10351
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...cId=28001]
53
A CIA agent impersonated a Cuban official and met Hensen, who ended up being arrested by the FBI. See NARA
Record Number: 104-10132-10243 [http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...49131]What AMMUG-1 believed in 1964 about Rodriguez-Lopez and felt sure about
Vega-Perez inevitably falls down like a house of cards. Oswald was not told "to
return in a few days." Unlike "the usual procedure," he came three times on the
same day September 27, 1963 to the Cuban Consulate.
The secretary Sylvia Duran personally took care of Oswald and asked the outgoing
consul Eusebio Azcue-Lopez for help. The latter spoke English and was training
the incoming consul Alfredo Mirabal-Diaz, who didn't, but was also the incoming
"Chief of Intel." 54 Thus, no extra DGI officer was needed for "granting of visas."
AMMUG-1 didn't hear "any specific statement [that Vega-Perez] personally had
seen Oswald," because neither Vega-Perez nor Rodriguez-Lopez were at the spot.
Oswald applied for an in-transit visa to Cuba on his way to Russia. He wished to
travel next Monday, September 30, and to stay in Havana one or two weeks. He
didn't bring photos and left the Cuban Consulate to get them in a commercial
facility. He returned with them and produced some documents for proving his
membership in both the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the Fair Play for
Cuba Committee (FPCC), his previous stay in Russia and his marriage with a
Soviet citizen. Duran made up the form and Oswald signed it in her presence.
Oswald was clearly told that the in-transit visa couldn't be granted before the entry
visa from Russia. He left for the Soviet Consulate and returned saying there wasn't
any problem with the Russian visa. It was denied by the Soviet consul when the
Cubans called to discuss the case. Oswald tried then to have the Cuban visa
granted anyway, and it led to an altercation with Azcue-Lopez, who finally asked
him out of the office. The eyewitnesses were Duran; Mirabal-Diaz, who got the
application from Azcue-Lopez for processing; Antonio Garcia-Lara, who went
downstairs from the Commercial Office as he heard the dispute and saw Oswald
leaving the Consulate; and Commercial Attaché, Guillermo Ruiz, who was going
to the office when Azcue-Lopez asked him since Ruiz spoke better English to
explain the American applicant again why the Cuban visa couldn't be granted. 55
Mirabal-Diaz's Report
Dr. Latell crosses the lines between "the Center chief" and the consul positions for
claiming that an "incriminating error went unnoticed" when Alfredo Mirabal-Diaz,
"inadvertently revealed in 1978 [to HSCA] that in September 1963 he had
informed headquarters about Oswald."
54
HSCA CIA Collection, Reel 13, Folder C
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...cId=52232]
55
TV Documentary ZR RIFLE (1993), Transcription in Cuban Information Archives, Document 0025 [http://cuban-
exile.com/doc_001-025/doc0025.html]Which headquarters? The June 2012 issue of The Latell Report clarifies: "In an
oddly unguarded moment, he admitted that he had prepared a report on Oswald for
DGI headquarters." The latter is a prosthesis implanted by Dr. Latell. In his
testimony before HSCA, 56 Mirabal-Diaz alluded to "report" only once:
"It was my colleague, [Eusebio Azcue-Lopez], who brought all these documents
and all this information to my desk for my report (sic). It is then that I talked with
the Soviet consul, and when I mentioned this to him, he told me that Oswald had in
fact requested a visa for the Soviet Union but that he had been told that it would
take about 4 months to obtain a response, and that is the reason that I included that
information in the footnote that was to be sent to Havana."
Mirabal-Diaz was obviously testifying about his mandatory consular report to the
Cuban Foreign Ministry [known by its acronym in Spanish: MINREX] regarding
the in-transit visa application filed by Oswald on September 27, 1963. Both the
applicant and the consul signed it, and it appears together with the more than
obvious official response from Havana to Mirabal-Diaz: the in-transit visa could
not be granted without an entry visa for the country of destination [URSS]. 57
The CIA itself admitted to HSCA Chief Counsel Richard Sprague that there wasn't
"any evidence that Oswald's contacts with personnel of the Cuban Consulate had
any other motive than to obtain a transit visa for Cuba." 58 Dr. Latell tries to fill the
gap with anti-Castro imagination.
Just as the DGI file on Oswald opened in 1959 at the Cuban Consulate in L.A., Dr.
Latell made-up that "an intelligence officer under consular cover prepared a report
on Oswald" in 1963 at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City. It would have been
"cabled" to DGI Head Manuel "Red Beard" Piñeiro. However, the CIA itself
furnished conclusive evidence of Oswald's consular process: the transcripts 59 of two
calls tapped by LIENVOY on September 27, 1963.
Around 4:05 pm, a female caller from the Cuban Consulate said that a present
American citizen had asked for an in-transit visa en route to the URSS. She wanted
to know whom the American had spoken to at the Soviet Consulate, because he
returned telling her that Soviet official had said there was no problem at all, but he
couldn't identify that official. She explained having sent the American with the
notice that if he gets the entry visa in the Soviet Union, the Cuban visa will be
immediately granted. Her Soviet interlocutor passed the call to another one.
56
On September 18, 1978, accompanied by an interpreter from the State Department. See HSCA Report, Vol. III, p.
173-78 [http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...ageId=177]
57
CE 2564 [http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...ageId=843]
58
Notes for Briefing of Sprague et all, November 24, 1976
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...cId=60888]
59
NARA Record Number: 104-10147-10323, pp. 3 ff.
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...=30409]The female caller introduced herself as Sylvia Duran, from the Cuban Consulate,
and retold the story. The new Soviet official asked for her telephone number and
promised to call back.
At 4:26 pm, a caller from the Soviet Consulate asked Sylvia Duran if an American
had been there. She replied that he was still on the spot, and the Soviet official told
her that he wanted to go to the URSS for staying long time with his Russian wife,
but the requested answer from the Soviet Embassy in Washington had not come
yet. The process would last 4 or 5 months.
The caller added the American had showed him a membership letter of a pro Cuba
organization and advised him that the Cuban visa couldn't be granted without the
Russian one, but the Soviet Consulate will proceed in accordance with the rules
and wait for Washington. Duran said that she will make this remark in the Cuban
form for the visa application and that she can't give any letter of recommendation
to the American because he is not known.
On the transcript of this call, the Chief of Station (COS) Win Scott wrote down:
"It's possible to identify? Surprisingly, it wasn't "until 22 November 1963, when
the station initiated a review of all transcripts of telephone calls to the Soviet
Embassy that the station learned that Oswald's call to [it] on 1 October 1963 was in
connection with his request for a visa to the USSR. Because he wanted to travel to
the USSR by way of Cuba, Oswald had also visited the Cuban Embassy." 60
That's the official history given in 1977 by the CIA Inspector General John H.
Waller, who thusly was lying to the HSCA and got involved in a conspiracy of
silence inside the Company, since Scott himself, despite his handwritten question,
included only a contact of "operational interest" with the Soviet Embassy in his
September 1963 report on LIENVOY 61 : "a Russian speaking female" who
identified herself as "a professor from New Orleans". The two Oswald-related
September 27 calls weren't reported, although an American in contact with both the
Soviet and the Cuban Embassies was an ipso facto person of interest.
Scott did mention that Orville Horsfall [Boris Tarasoff] was a "staff agent working
on LIENVOY transcripts". Tarasoff transcribed the October 1 call and wrote down
that the caller "Lee Oswald" was "the same person who phoned a day or so ago and
spoke in broken Russian." Tarasoff realized that "Lee Oswald" was the same caller
who in "terrible, hardly recognizable Russian" had encouraged an unknown Soviet
official to "speak Russian" on September 28. Oswald was reportedly in Mexico
City from September 27 to October 2, but he spoke fluent Russian after staying
more than two and a half years in the URSS.
60
Lopez Report, p. 123 [http://www.history-
matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt_2003/pdf/LopezRpt_2003_4_Reconstruction.pdf]
61
NARA Record Number: 104-10052-10083, p. 4.Oswald married Marina Pusakova in April 1961. At their first encounter, she
thought Oswald came from the Baltic States because his accent was good. He
returned to the States in June 1962 and passed a test given by Peter Gregory, a
Siberia-born Russian teacher at Fort Worth, who found him "capable of being an
interpreter or a translator."
Just after the JFK assassination, the October 1 LIENVOY tapes and a photograph
were allegedly sent from the CIA station in Mexico City to the FBI in Dallas. In a
November 23, 1963 memo to Associate Director Clyde A. Tolson, FBI Director
Assistant for Investigative Work, Alan H. Belmont, was obliged to report that
neither the voice not the photo was Oswald's. 62 After all, the CIA never provided a
photo of Oswald in Mexico City, despite his visits to both the Soviet and the
Cuban diplomatic compounds, which were respectively covered by the photo
surveillance programs LIEMPTY and LIONION.
Oswald's Threat and Castro's Foreknowledge
In 1976 it came to light 63 a plausible version of the old Comer Clark allegation: that
Castro admitted Oswald had uttered a threat to kill Kennedy during his visit to the
Cuban diplomatic compound in Mexico City on September 27, 1963. 64
The primary source was a top secret letter dated on June 17, 1964, by FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover to WC General Counsel J. Lee Rankin. 65 It advised of statements
made by Castro to FBI super spy Jakob "Jack" Childs: "Our people in Mexico gave
us the details in a full report of how he [Oswald] acted (...) Nobody ever goes that
way for a visa. [He] stormed into the embassy, demanded the visa and when it was
refused to him, headed out saying, "I'm going to kill Kennedy for this.'"
Jack and his brother Morris ran the FBI Operation SOLO (1958-77) to infiltrate the
Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The SOLO file more than 6,900 pages in 45
volumes began to be released on August 2011. By January 2012, the SOLO
Mission 15 was declassified. Jack Childs flew from Moscow to "the beach" [Cuba]
on May 20, 1964. He spent ten days there, was able to talk with Castro about the
JFK assassination. Jack Childs reported in essence: "Castro said "I was told this by
my people in the Embassy exactly how he (Oswald) stalked in and walked in and
ran out. That in itself was a suspicious movement, because nobody comes to an
Embassy for a visa (they go to a Consulate)."
62
Baylor University - Poage Library.: Research Papers of John Armstrong, Book 1, Notebook 2, pp. 38-39
"Oswald Reportedly Told Cubans of Plan to Kill JFK," Washington Post, November 13, 1976.
64
Peter Dale Scott addressed the issue in an updated revision of his paper at the 1994 Conference of the Coalition on
Political Assassinations (COPA). His analysis is a kind of Porphyrian tree for displaying the research hypothesis.
See Oswald, Mexico, and Deep Politics, Skyhorse Publishing, 2013, pp. 13-38.
65
WC Document 1359 [https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...cId=11754]
63Castro explained "that when Oswald was refused his visa at the Cuban Embassy in
Mexico City, he acted like a madman and started yelling and shouting on his way
out, "I'm going to kill this bastard. I'm going to kill Kennedy' [Castro]was speaking
on the basis of facts given to him by his embassy personnel, who dealt with
Oswald, and apparently had made a full, detailed report to Castro after President
Kennedy was assassinated." 66
From the "detailed report to Castro," Dr. Latell trimmed the actual time "after
President Kennedy was assassinated" in order to foist "a conspiracy of silence."
Dr. Latell must set back the clock to a pre-assassination report to Castro for
claiming that he was lying on Oswald with the well-known statement the day after
the assassination: "We never in our life heard of the existence of this person."
Jefferson Morley has remarked: "The argument that Castro sanctioned political
assassination is as factually unfounded as the suggestion that [he] was behind
Oswald." 67 Dr. Latell concocts a Castroit Oswald at work in Mexico City with a
Castro prone to react to a CIA assassination plot against him (AM/LASH) in the
western spaghetti manner summed up by Lyndon B. Johnson on TV to Howard K.
Smith: "Kennedy was trying to get Castro, but Castro got to him first." 68
Dr. Latell squares the circle by relocating Oswald's threat from the Embassy as
Castro told Jack Childs to the Consulate, because the latter was the only place
where defector AMMUG-1 guessed some Castro's intelligence officers were in
contact with Oswald. Dr. Latell added they would have given Oswald "plenty of
propaganda and indoctrination" and even dared to wind him up in such a way that
"when he left the consulate and shouted his intent to kill Kennedy, it must have
been as the war cry of a fully primed soldier for Fidel."
Dr. Latell exacerbated Oswald's outburst as outcome of DGI tradecraft, although
Castro emphasized that Oswald had made the "suspicious movement" of going for
a visa to the Embassy, instead of the Consulate, and uttered the threat "on his way
out" from the Embassy, not from the Consulate.
Indeed, both the outgoing (Azcue-Lopez) and incoming (Mirabal-Diaz) Cuban
consuls testified before HSCA that they did not hear Oswald threatening Kennedy's
life. 69 Neither did the Mexican employee Duran, who was consistent about it in
both her interview by HSCA 70 and her interrogation by Mexican Police. 71
66
FBI Records: The Vault- SOLO [http://vault.fbi.gov/solo],Part 63, pp. 58 f.
"Assassination in the struggle for power in Cuba," JFKFacts, April 10, 2013
[http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/assass...-in-cuba/]
68
ABC News, June 24, 1976 .
69
HSCA Report, Volume III, pp. 127-58 and173-78, respectively.
70
JFK Exhibit F-440A
[https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archi...eId=74772]
71
NARA 1993-05-17-18.01.09.000020
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...cId=95849]
67John Newman concluded: "Cuban Consulate employees such as Azcue and Duran
claim they heard no such threat, and so it remains a mystery," 72 but the Lopez
Report has deciphered it: the Consulate "was in a separate building from the
Embassy." 73 In 1963, the Cuban diplomatic compound in Mexico City was located
at Francisco Marquez Street (Colonia Condesa) with two main entrances: one to
the Embassy, on the corner of Tacubaya Alley, and the other to the Consulate, on
the corner of Zamora Street. No wonder the CIA surveillance post in a third-floor
apartment across Francisco Marquez Street employed an agent Cesar Rodriguez
Gallegos at one window for photographing the visitors to the Embassy, while
from another window a pulse camera covered those entering the Consulate.
Jack Childs himself reasonably explained to J. Edgar Hoover that "the Cuban
Embassy people must have told Oswald something to the effect that they were
sorry that they did not let Americans into Cuba because the U.S. government
stopped Cubans from letting them in, and that is when Oswald shouted out the
statement about killing President Kennedy."
It goes without saying that Oswald was told to apply anyway for a visa at the
proper place: the Consulate. He must have entered the compound at the corner of
Tacubaya Alley shortly after arriving in Mexico City on September 27, 1963. He
surely didn't have to exit the compound for being around 11:00 am before Silvia
Duran, who will attend him two more times the same day. 74 The consular process is
undoubtedly established by the phone calls tapped by the CIA this very Friday. In
contrast, Dr. Latell has not a shred of evidence of DGI officers indoctrinating and
winding Oswald up for anything.
The Comer Clark allegation seemed implausible because the British journalist
attributed it to an impromptu interview with Castro, surrounding by a cheering
crowd, on a sidewalk at a pizzeria in Havana. To make it worse, Clark's assistant
Nina Gadd claimed later that she gave the information to Clark after getting it from
a friend who was the foreign minister of a Central American country. 75
The HSCA pursued the allegation of foreknowledge since "the substance" of a
story broke by Clark had been independently reported to the U.S. Government by a
highly confidential and reliable source, who happened to be FBI informant Jack
Childs. Unaware of his report beyond the Hoover's summary to Rankin, the HSCA
"did not believe that Oswald voice a threat to Cuban officials" and found the then
unknown FBI reliable source "to be in error in this instance." 76
72
Oswald and the CIA, Skyhorse Publishing, 2008, p. 428.
Lopez Report, pp. 26 f. [http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/h...0025a.htm]
74
Overview of Mexico City Photo Ops with Chronology, NARA 104-10413-10000, p. 27
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...PageId=27].
75
Dorill, Steve: "Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico: New Leads," Lobster, Issue 6, November 1984, p. 16.
76
HSCA Final Report, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979, pp. 122 f.
73In fact, an "absent-minded" American trying to travel illegally to Cuba must have
never passed through the Embassy reception. On January 1964, FBI Special Agent
Nathan L. Ferris was advised by Mexican informants that Elizabeth Mora [almost
certain the American-born Mexican artist Elizabeth Catlett-Mora] had spilled the
beans about a conversation with Cuban Cultural Attaché Teresa Proenza, who
confided to Mora "that Oswald walked in "cold' to the Cuban Embassy and [she]
was the first person he talked to." Proenza didn't speak English and "turned him
over the nearest person higher in rank and who spoke English." She added that
Oswald's had come to the Embassy for "a visa to go to Russia." 77
The Cuban officials at the Embassy weren't obliged to inform Castro about
Oswald's outburst until he made the news on November 22, 1963. The HSCA
provided a logically and circumstantially justified interpretation: "Nothing in the
evidence indicated that the threat should have been taken seriously, if it had
occurred, since Oswald had behaved in an argumentative and obnoxious fashion
during his visit to the Consulate." 78
Without any quantum of proof, Dr. Latell states that "it would have been logical
for [DGI officers] to have stoked Oswald's loathing," but it isn't. The DGI would
have dared to wind Oswald up for killing Kennedy. The DGI would have never
"planted the seed" in an absent-minded American who tried to travel illegally to
Cuba, forgot the photos for the visa, showed a CPUSA credential without making
any previous contact with the Cuban brother party, and blatantly lied about having
no problem with the Russian visa.
Dr. Latell acknowledges there is no "evidence that Oswald remained in contact
with [DGI] after he left Mexico," but surpasses the obstacle with ease: "A call from
Dallas pay booth could have been all that was necessary for the DGI to learn of his
plan." Since Oswald's pocket address book had only Duran's phone number, given
to him because he should inquire later about his visa, Dr. Latell speculates: "I
might have been Luisa Calderon who received Oswald's call" and Oswald only had
to say: "On Friday [November 22, 1963], I'm going to do what I told you."
Jack Childs commented to Hoover that Castro "had nothing to do with the
assassination." WC staffer William Coleman drew the same conclusion after
holding a secret meeting with Castro in 1964. 79 The old sleuth Hoover finalized his
letter to Rankin on Mission SOLO 15 thusly: "No further action is contemplated by
this Bureau." About half a century later, Dr. Latell twisted the alibi furnished by
Jacks Childs into a smoking gun of Castro foreknowledge.
77
NARA Record Number: 124-10003-10386
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...cId=61273]
78
HSCA Final Report, p. 122.
79
"Why Castro met with the Warren Commission," JFKFacts, October 28, 2013
[http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/w...ssion/]The Jaimanitas Story
DGI defector Major Florentino Aspillaga codenamed TOUCHDOWN also
argues Castro "had advance knowledge of the [JFK] assassination." Dr. Latell
heard the story in 2007, but Aspillaga affirms the CIA learned it two decades
before, while debriefing him.
After 25 years and 13 medals in the DGI, Aspillaga defected from his third-rate
post in Bratislava [Slovakia] to Vienna in early June 1987. The COS in Vienna,
James Olson, judged him as a "let's cut a deal kind of guy." 80 In return for handing
over documents stolen from the DGI Station in Prague and being squeezed by CIA
debriefers, Aspillaga got a deluxe package of resettlement in the U.S.
He furnished the key information that, if not all, most of the Cubans recruits by the
CIA from 1960 onward were double agents working for Castro. That's enough for
putting at rest the LBJ western spaghetti approach to JFK assassination. Instead of
an idle move for getting Kennedy first, Castro dodged the attempts to kill him by
penetrating both the CIA and the Cuban exile with agents who told him right back
what his enemies were up to. He would have never risked everything to gain
nothing else than a successor at the White House who offered no promise of more
favorable U.S. policies toward Cuba.
Aspillaga s revelations were profusely reported, except "the Jaimanitas story."
During a June 1988 radio interview with WQBA anchorman Tomas Regalado in
Miami, Aspillaga referred to Castro 69 times, but not even once to Kennedy. 81
Aspillaga also bit his tongue when Georgie Anne Geyer interviewed him in
Washington, on April 14, 1988, for her book about "the untold story" of Castro. 82
And the CIA didn't bring him to the Assassination Records Review Board
(ARRB), although one of its experts, Dr. Michael Kurtz, Professor of History at
Southeastern Louisiana University, was still asking for digging around "the so-
called Cuban connection." 83
The ARRB was created by law 1992 for speedily declassifying the assassination
records. More than four million pages were released, but not a single one from
Aspillaga. Twenty years after his debriefing, Aspillaga let slip an anecdote la carte
for Dr. Latell's book on Castro's secrets.
On November 22, 1963, the hardly 16 year old Aspillaga was busy monitoring CIA
communications from a listening post at Jaimanitas, a small beach town alongside
to Marina Hemingway and near Castro's main residence, dubbed as Point Zero,
seven miles to the west of Havana down town.
80
Olson, James: Fair Play, Potomac Books, 2006, pp. 241 f.
In Spanish [http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espi...llaga.pdf]
82
Geyer, G.A.: Guerrilla Prince, Little, Brown and Company, 1991.
83
Testimony of Michael Kurtz, New Orleans, June 28, 1995 [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/arrb/index28.htm]
81Around 9:30 am (EST) the teenage counterintelligence rookie received the order
"to stop all CIA work" and redirect the antennas "toward Texas." He must report
back "if anything important occurs." A few hours later, he "began hearing
broadcasts on amateur radio bands about the shooting of President Kennedy in
Dallas." Aspillaga drew the conclusion that "Castro knew."
The "Jaimanitas story" is a suspicious narrative about electronic intelligence
(ELINT) used to learn "anything important" that would be instantly available as
breaking news. The radio amateurs allegedly heard by Aspillaga were at most
chattering on what the media have already reported.
On November 18, 2013, Dr. Latell was the main speaker of the lecture "Castro and
the Kennedy Assassination" at the ICCAS. He feels sure about "Aspillaga's most
sensational revelation" because he had read it in both the English and Spanish
versions of Aspillaga's unpublished memoirs. Dr. Latell did not realize that a
source (talking) is a source (writing in English) is a source (writing in Spanish).
A confirmation was at hand just by requesting Aspillaga's debriefing under the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but Dr. Latell abstained from applying to a
DGI defector the Reagan Rule "Trust, but verify." Ironically the CIA chose to
engage in a conspiracy of silence instead of taking the road to clarification. The
Agency Release Panel responded to a FOIA request by a third party on June 28,
2013, that "the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence" of
JFK-related records in Aspillaga's debriefing.
Neither Aspillaga nor TOUCHDOWN brings any result by searching one after
another, or both, at the National Archives web site. 84 By entering "JFK
Assassination" in the search box, the first relevant result would be "About JFK
Assassination Records Collection." 85 By clicking on it, then on "JFK Assassination
Records Collection Database", and finally on "Standard Search", a "Kennedy
Assassination Collection Simple Search Form" appears. After entering the terms
"Aspillaga" (first line) OR "Touchdown" (second line), no hit will be retrieved.
However, if the sequence is repeated for the DGI defector Vladimir Rodriguez-
Lahera [AMMUG-1], 9 hits will be retrieved, one of them "Withheld."
Aspillaga, "the most valuable [DGI] officer ever to change sides," is not to be
found at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), where
"approximately 1,100 documents are located in [its] protected collection and will
be released in 2017 unless the CIA appeals to the President," according to Delores
Nelson, Chief of the Public Information Programs Division at the CIA. 86
84
http://www.archives.gov/
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/about.html
86
JFKcountercoup, March 21, 2010 [http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2010/...ssination-
records.html]
85Dr Latell covers up the real problem what the CIA knew about Oswald by
posing what Castro knew about an imaginary Oswald who "felt a compelling need
to help protect the bearded man he worshiped."
The Riddle of AM/LASH
Dr. Latell also poses the neither logically nor circumstantially justified retaliation
hypothesis that Senator Robert Morgan (D / N.C.) put forward at the Church
Committee (CC): "JFK was assassinated by Fidel Castro or someone under his
influence in retaliation for our efforts to assassinate him [and] this fellow [Major
Rolando Cubela] was nothing but a double agent." 87
The CIA Operation AM/LASH began on March 9, 1961, by recruiting Cubela in
Mexico City, but turned into a plot to kill Castro. On July 16, 1976, the State
Security Department reported to Castro that "counterrevolutionary inmate" Cubela
was the CIA agent AMLASH who had surfaced at CC.
Before CC, the CIA moved to transfigure Cubela into a double agent, even a
provocateur, as part of its cover-up after the JFK assassination by deflecting the
attention to Castro. A 1973 watch list per reference 88 described Cubela as DGI
agent to hide the CIA shortcoming of having recruit a heavy-drinking, big mouth,
too close to insanity, third-range Castro official who would unwittingly provide a
double agent equivalent service to DGI.
On March 1, 1966, the Cuban official newspaper Granma broke the news that
Cubela and Major Ramon Guin had been arrested "due to counterrevolutionary
activities in connection with the CIA." The coverage followed with a communiqué
of the Interior Ministry (MININT): "The traitors Cubela and Guin were plotting an
attempt against Fidel" (March 5), the announcement of their confession (March 8),
the trial (March 9 and 10), and the sentence (March 11). 89
On March 9, Castro made public his letter asking the prosecutor Jorge Serguera for
sparing the life of the defendants because "the revolution is strong and there is
nothing to fear." The same day Castro "burned" DGI officer Juan Felaifel as "the
Cuban agent who infiltrated the CIA" in 1963 and came back "three years later
with dramatic revelations." Felaifel had "disappeared" off the Cuban coast during
an infiltration mission on February 24, 1966, and reappeared as prosecutor witness
at the trail against Cubela and Guin.
"Committee to get documents on CIA plots," Washington, AP, in Biloxi Daily Herald, May 21, 1976, p. 10.
NARA Record Number: 1993.08.02.19:23:48:810033
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...lPageId=8]
89
See Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC): Granma Archives Index
[http://www.lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/granma/]
87
88Felaifel testified he was told of a plot "by CIA agent Anis, my brother, who at the
time was also the intelligence chief of the counterrevolutionary organization
directed by [Manuel] Artime." The latter had initially met Cubela in Madrid around
December 27-30, 1964, and again in February 1965.
The CC official record states that the CIA "contrived to put B-1 [Artime] and
AMLASH together in such a way that neither of them knew that the contact had
been engineered by CIA. The thought was that B-1 needed a man inside and
AMLASH wanted a silenced weapon, which CIA was unwilling to furnish to him
directly. By putting the two together, B-1 might get its man inside Cuba and
AMLASH might get his silenced weapon from B-1." 90
For Castro and many others the CIA stood behind any Airtime's deed against
the Cuban revolution. He had been the political chief of the Brigade 2506 at Bay of
Pigs, and his Revolutionary Recovery Movement (known by its Spanish acronym:
MRR) continued the war against Castro through CIA-sponsored "autonomous
operations" from bases in Central America.
An HCSA panel interviewed Cubela at the Riviera Hotel in Havana on August 28,
1978. He denied having given "the Cuban government any information that would
have led it to believe that the CIA was involved in a plot [AM/LASH] on Castro's
life in 1963." The HSCA took into account the possible influence of confinement
upon this testimony, but on August 2, 1978, before an agitprop tribunal set up by
Castro at the XI World Festival of Youth and Students in Havana, Cubela made his
point: "It is absurd to think that a double agent would have spent 12 years in jail." 91
Dr. Latell risks too much by embellishing Cubela's jail time: "He served 12 years
as the prison's doctor, living in comfortable quarters, and was often seen outside,
driving the streets." 92 It's normal that Cubela, a physician, worked as prison's doctor
and even that he enjoyed better living conditions, since he was reported as an
"informant." 93 However, Cubela driving the streets is going over the top without a
single witness worth mentioning, since he was even transferred to a penitentiary in
Oriente province after the jailbreak in Havana's Castle del Principe. 94
The last straw was the CIA asking the CC not to disclose Cubela as AMLASH,
because alerting DGI to his role in earlier plots against Castro would expose him to
reprisals. The elementary mental hygiene suggested that DGI analysts will be able
enough to identify Cubela as soon as they read the CC Report.
90
Church Committee Interim Report: Cuba, pp. 89 f.
[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church..._Cuba.pdf]
91
"The Cuban Youth Tribunal," Cuban Information Archives, Document 0020 [http://cuban-exile.com/doc_001-
025/doc0020.html]
92
"New book claims Castro knew Kennedy would be assassinated," The Miami Herald, March 19, 2012.
93
NARA Record Number: 1994.05.16.14:15:16:250005, Reel 51, Folder J Rolando Cubela, p. 8
[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...lPageId=8]
94
Ibidem, p. 96.After serving half of his jail term and testifying against the CIA at both t...