Excerpt: Castro on the assassination, 23 Nov., '63

[Alan Dale]

CONCERNING THE FACTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE TRAGIC DEATH OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

November 23rd, 1963

by Fidel Castro


"...But there are new ingredients. In fact a whole series, a whole propaganda chain, distributed in doses.

First that he is a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee which was false. Later a man who lived in the Soviet Union. Afterwards, a whole series of insinuations in several cables. Today, he is not only all that, he is also a Communist and a very willing Communist at that, he admits it. In fact all this is really very strange.

Their description is not that of a fanatic. But that of an individual with a number of characteristics that really fit what U.S. reaction wants like a ring on a finger, that fit the worst Policy of the United States; a person who seems to have been expressly made for this purpose, expressly made for specific ends: to create hysteria, to unleash an anti-Soviet, anti-Cuban, anti Communist, anti-progressive, anti-liberal campaign in the United States; to eliminate a President whose Policy collided head on with the Policy promoted by the most Reactionary circles in the country after the nuclear test ban treaty, after several speeches which were unanimously attacked for being weak toward Cuba.

What can have been the motives for the assassination of President Kennedy? What can there be behind all this? We cannot affirm anything because we do not have other elements for judgment: both the personality of the individual and the propaganda being carried out are suspicious, everything is suspicious.

We cannot categorically affirm what is behind all this, but we do affirm that it is suspicious; that we must be careful, that we must be vigilant, that we must be alert. Because this man may be innocent, a cat's paw, in a plan very well prepared by people who knew how to prepare these plans; or he may be a sick man and if so, the only honest thing is to hand him over for a medical examination and not to be starting a campaign extremely dangerous to world peace; or he may be an instrument very well chosen and very well trained by the Ultra-Right, by Ultraconservative reaction of the United States with the deliberate aim of eliminating a President who, according to them, did not carry out the Policy he should have - more warlike, more aggressive, more adventuresome Policy. And it is necessary for all people of the United States themselves to demand that what is behind the Kennedy assassination be clarified.

It is in the interest of the U.S. people and of the people of the world, that this be made known, that they demand to know what is really behind the assassination of Kennedy, that the facts be made clear: whether the man involved is innocent, sick or an instrument of the reactionaries, an agent of a macabre plan to carry forward a Policy of war and aggression, to place the Government of the United States at the mercy of the most aggressive circles of monopoly, of militarism and of the worst agencies of the United States. It is in our interest, in the interest of all people and of the U.S. people that we demand this."

Can you believe he said it like this literally within the first 36 hours?

[Magda Hassan]

Can you believe he said it like this literally within the first 36 hours?

Yes I can. He is no idiot. He knew well the forces that killed Kennedy. The same forces he was confronted with every day. He knew Oswald was not what they said. He would have known Oswald's branch of the 'Fair Play for Cuba' was not active, that it was a front. He knows how the media works in the US. Where the real power lies. Everyone outside the US knew it was a coup d'etat. It is just the poor American people that were taken by surprise and for whom the elaborate cover story and kabuki theatre is intended.

[Tracy Riddle]

6/12/1964 In a memo to J. Edgar Hoover from the special agent in charge of the New York office came information from an informant who maintained that Fidel Castro has conducted his own ballistics tests based on the "official" scenario of the JFK assassination and has decided "it took about three people" to assassinate JFK. Castro, who considers himself a sharpshooter, has attempted to recreate the shooting, using a high powered rifle with a telescopic sight. "Conducting the tests was Castro's own personal idea to prove to himself that it could not be done and that when Castro and his men could not do it, Castro concluded Oswald must have had help." "Castro is said to have expressed the conclusion that Oswald could not have fired three times in succession and hit the target with the telescopic sight in the available time, that he would have needed two other men in order for the three shots to have been fired in the time interval. The source commented that on the basis of Castro's remarks, it was clear that his beliefs were based on theory as a result of Cuban experiments and not on any firsthand information in Castro's possession." Hoover passes this information along in a confidential letter to J. Lee Rankin 6/17, general counsel for the Warren Commission. According to Hoover, Castro also said that when "Oswald" was refused a visa at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City several weeks before the assassination, he left saying, "I'm going to kill Kennedy for this." Existence of the Hoover letter and some of its contents won't become generally known until the mid-1970s. The letter itself won't be made public until March 30, 1995.