Education Forum: On 6/30/2004 at 6:42 PM, Tony Frank said:I notice no one is responding to the poll on what purpose it served to kill JFK. I guess nobody with theories can say what the actual reason for killing Kennedy was.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 was organized and carried out by a combination of CIA officers and anti-Castro Cubans. If this had become known at the time that the CIA had removed the elected president of the United States, citizens would rightly have doubted they were living in a democracy. This is the kind of thing that happens in Africa and South America and not in a country that claims the “leadership of the free world”.
Since 1963 the Deep State (CIA, FBI, political leaders of the Democrats and Republicans, mainstream media, etc.), has been busy covering up the truth of the assassination. Once you start this process you must continue it, even if it means killing those in a position to reveal the truth. On other occasions they have destroyed the reputation of those politicians who want another investigation into the assassination. Therefore, the JFK assassination has led to a series of other political conspiracies. This continues to the present day. So much so that it has become the political culture of the United States to cover-up crimes carried out by the wealthy elite. That is why the Jeffrey Epstein case is related to the JFK assassination. It is the same Deep State that is protecting these people. It has become more easier in recent years as the wealthy elite who have taken over control of the Democrat and Republican parties.
Why were the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans so angry with JFK that they felt the need to kill the president? It has been claimed by senior figures in the CIA that they wanted JFK to be elected as president in 1960. They were frustrated that Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon had refused to order an invasion of Cuba. The Kennedy family had a long tradition of being extremely hostile to communism and during the second TV presidential debate on 7 October 1960, JFK attacked Nixon for being a member of an administration that had failed to deal with the threat posed by Fidel Castro. (1)
Of course, JFK’s relationship with the CIA deteriorated after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. However, it was what was taking place in 1963 that senior figures in the CIA decided that JFK had to die. William Attwood was a long-term friend of JFK. He also held progressive political views. During the 1960 presidential campaign Attwood was employed as a speech writer for JFK. In 1961, Kennedy appointed him as ambassador to Guinea and in 1963 he served with the U.S. delegation to the United Nations. In this post Attwood was the leading advocate inside the Kennedy Administration for talking to Fidel Castro about the potential for improving relations. He was supported by McGeorge Bundy, who suggested to Kennedy and the National Security Council that there should be a “gradual development of some form of accommodation with Castro”. (2)
In April 1963 Lisa Howard arrived in Cuba to make a documentary on the country. In an interview with Howard, Castro agreed that a rapprochement with Washington was desirable. On her return Howard met with the Central Intelligence Agency. Deputy Director Richard Helms reported to President Kennedy on Howard’s view that “Fidel Castro is looking for a way to reach a rapprochement with the United States.” After detailing her observations about Castro’s political power, disagreements with his colleagues and Soviet troops in Cuba, the memo concluded that “Howard definitely wants to impress the U.S. Government with two facts: Castro is ready to discuss rapprochement and she herself is ready to discuss it with him if asked to do so by the US Government.” (3)
CIA Director John McCone was strongly opposed to Howard being involved with these negotiations with Fidel Castro and the Cuban government. He argued that it might “leak and compromise a number of CIA operations against Castro”. According to James W. Douglas, the author of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (2008) “the CIA wanted to block the door that could be seen opening through Howard’s interview”. (83) In a memorandum to McGeorge Bundy, McCone commented that the “Lisa Howard report be handled in the most limited and sensitive manner,” and “that no active steps be taken on the rapprochement matter at this time.” (4)
Arthur Schlesinger explained to Anthony Summers in 1978 why the CIA did not want President Kennedy to negotiate with Fidel Castro during the summer of 1963. He pointed out that the head of the CIA’s Cuba unit, Desmond FitzGerald, masquerading as an American Senator, had told Rolando Cubela that a coup against Castro would have the full backing of the United States Government: “The CIA was reviving the assassination plots at the very time President Kennedy was considering the possibility of normalization of relations with Cuba – an extraordinary action. If it was not total incompetence – which in the case of the CIA cannot be excluded – it was a studied attempt to subvert national policy.” (5)
Howard now decided to bypass the CIA and in May, 1963, published an article in the journal, War and Peace Report, Howard wrote that in eight hours of private conversations Castro had shown that he had a strong desire for negotiations with the United States: “In our conversations he made it quite clear that he was ready to discuss: the Soviet personnel and military hardware on Cuban soil; compensation for expropriated American lands and investments; the question of Cuba as a base for Communist subversion throughout the Hemisphere.” Howard went on to urge the Kennedy administration to “send an American government official on a quiet mission to Havana to hear what Castro has to say.” A country as powerful as the United States, she concluded, “has nothing to lose at a bargaining table with Fidel Castro.” (6)
William Attwood read Howard’s article the first week of September 1963. He later wrote: “I read ABC correspondent, Lisa Howard’s article, Castro’s Overture, based on her conversation with Castro last April. This article stressed Castro’s expressed desire for reaching an accommodation with the United States and a willingness to make substantial concessions to this end. On September 12, I talked with Miss Howard, whom I have known for some years, and she echoed Ambassador Diallo’s opinion that there was a rift between Castro and the Guevara-Hart-Alveida group on the question of Cuba’s future course.” (7)
Lisa Howard arranged a meeting between William Attwood and Carlos Lechuga, Cuba’s representative to the United Nations. “On September 23, I (Attwood) met Dr. Lechuga at Miss Howard’s apartment. She has been on good terms with Lechuga since her visit with Castro and invited him for a drink to meet some friends who had also been to Cuba. I was just one of those friends. In the course of our conversation, which started with recollections of my own talks with Castro in 1959, I mentioned having read Miss Howard’s article. Lechuga hinted that Castro was indeed in a mood to talk. I told him that in my present position, I would need official authorization to make such a trip and did not know if it would be forthcoming. However, I said an exchange of views might well be useful and that I would find out and let him know.” (8)
At his meeting with Robert Kennedy on the 24 September 1963, Attwood explained his proposal for talks with Castro: “He said my going to Cuba, as Lechuga had mentioned, was too risky – it was bound to leak – and if nothing came of it the Republicans would call it appeasement and demand a congressional investigation. But he thought the matter was worth pursuing at the U.N. and perhaps even with Castro some place outside Cuba. He said he’d consult with Harriman and McGeorge Bundy.” (9)
On 27 September, Attwood met Lechuga in the U.N. Delegates’ Lounge “always a good place for discreet encounters because of its noise and confusion” and told him that he had “discussed our talk in Washington” but admitted it would be difficult for him, in his present capacity as a government official, to accept an invitation to Cuba. However, he had been told by Kennedy that he had authorization to talk to anyone who came to Washington from Havana. Lechuga said he would pass the message to Castro. He also warned Attwood that he was making a tough anti-American speech on 7th October, but he should tell Kennedy not to take it too seriously.” (10)
Lechuga later explained: “Kennedy speaking through McGeorge Bundy said there should be an agenda for dialogue with Cuba. Of course, I sent all the information of these conversations with Attwood to Havana. In Havana, the responses were delayed. According to Attwood’s perception, the responses were very slow. He wanted to accelerate the process somewhat. Havana was moving too slowly. And at this moment, without his knowledge, Lisa Howard called Cuba and spoke with Comandante Vallejo, who was the assistant to Fidel Castro, to accelerate the process. She had known him in Cuba before. To try to take advantage of her friendship with him, in order to try to get a quicker response from the Cubans.” (11)
Attwood decided to use an old friend, Jean Daniel, the editor of the French socialist news-weekly L’Observateur, as a go-between. Attwood had lunch with Daniel on 3 October and told him about his talks with Lechuga. Attwood asked Ben Bradlee to arrange a meeting between Daniel and the president. This took place on 24 October. Kennedy blamed the pro-Batista policy in the fifties for “economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation” and added, “We’ll have to pay for those sins.” Kennedy told Daniel: “The continuation of our economic blockade depends on his continuation of subversive activities.” Daniel wrote later: “I could see plainly that John Kennedy had doubts (about the government’s policy on Cuba) and was seeking a way out.” (12)
At the same time as Attwood was attempting to organize talks between Kennedy and Castro, the CIA was continuing with the AM/WORLD project. On 29th October 1963, Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA official who had replaced William King Harvey as the agency’s chief Cuba man, travelled to Paris to meet Rolando Cubela (code name AM/LASH). FitzGerald, posing as a U.S. Senator representing Attorney General Robert Kennedy, gave Cubela a poison pen device from the CIA’s Operation Division of the Office of Medical Services: “a ball-point rigged with a hypodermic needle… designed to be so fine that the victim would not notice its insertion.” (13)
Meanwhile, Castro’s personal aide, Major René Vallejo, had become involved in the proposed negotiations. He phoned Lisa Howard on 29 October, and assured her that Castro was as eager as he had been during her visit in April to improve relations with the United States, but it was impossible for Castro to leave Cuba at that time to go to the UN or elsewhere for talks with a Kennedy representative. Howard replied that there was now a U.S. official authorized to listen to Castro. On 31st October Vallejo phoned Howard again saying, “Castro would very much like to talk to the U.S. official anytime and appreciated the importance of discretion to all concerned.” James W. Douglas has pointed out the phrase “to all concerned” was significant. “At this point Castro, like Kennedy and Khrushchev, was circumventing his own more bellicose government in order to talk with the enemy. Castro, too, was struggling to transcend his Cold War ideology for the sake of peace. Like Kennedy and Khrushchev, he had to walk softly.” (14)
On 12 November, 1963, McGeorge Bundy recorded: “I talked this afternoon with William Attwood and told him that at the President’s instruction I was conveying this message orally and not by cable… He (Kennedy) would prefer to begin with a visit by Vallego to the U.S. where Attwood would be glad to see him and to listen to any messages he might bring from Castro. In particular we would be interested in knowing whether there was any prospect of important modification in those parts of Castro’s policy which are flatly unacceptable to us: namely, the points in Ambassador Stevenson’s recent speech of which the central elements are (i) submission to external Communist influence, and (ii) a determined campaign of subversion directed at the rest of the Hemisphere.” (15)
On 18 November 1963, Kennedy gave a speech where he covered the situation in Cuba and appeared to be a message to Castro. He said that “a small band of conspirators” had made “Cuba a victim of foreign imperialism, an instrument of the policy of others, a weapon in an effort dictated by external powers to subvert the other American Republics. This, and this alone, divides us. As long as this is true, nothing is possible. Without it, everything is possible. Once this barrier is removed, we will be ready and anxious to work with the Cuban people in pursuit of those progressive goals which a few short years ago stirred their hopes and the sympathy of many people throughout the hemisphere.” (16)
Jean Daniel arrived in Cuba at the beginning of November. His first attempts to meet with Castro ended in failure. He was told that he was very busy and had no desire to talk to Western journalists. On 19 November, Castro suddenly turned up at Daniel’s hotel. He had been informed that Daniel had met Kennedy on 24 October and was eager to learn the details of their conversation. “Castro knew from the secret Attwood-Lechuga meetings that Kennedy was reaching out to him. In fact, even as Daniel was trying to see Castro, Castro had been trying to firm up negotiations with Kennedy through Lisa Howard and William Attwood.” (17)
Daniel later recalled: “Fidel listened with devouring and passionate interest… Three times he had me repeat certain remarks, particularly those in which Kennedy showed his impatience with the comments attributed to General de Galle, and lastly those in which Kennedy accused Fidel of having almost caused a war fatal to all humanity.” Castro told Daniel: “I haven’t forgotten that Kennedy centered his electoral campaign against Nixon on the theme of firmness toward Cuba… But I feel that he inherited a difficult situation; I don’t think a President of the United States is ever really free, and I believe he now understands the extent to which he has been misled, especially, for example, on Cuban reaction at the time of the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion… I know that for Khrushchev, Kennedy is a man you can talk with. I have gotten this impression from all my conversations with Khrushchev.” (18)
On 22 November 1963, a “CIA official was meeting with a Cuban agent in Paris and giving him an assassination device for use against Castro”. Once again, he said he was acting in the name of the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. (19) William Attwood says there is no evidence that Kennedy knew about this. “And indeed, what motive would either of them have in plotting the death of someone they were planning to communicate with?” (20) James W. Douglas, agrees and has suggested that by hiring Rolando Cubela in the name of “Robert Kennedy to assassinate Castro laid the foundation for the repeated claim that Castro, to pre-empt the threat on his own life, ordered JFK’s murder – and that RFK had therefore triggered his own brother’s assassination.” (21)
Later that day Daniel met Castro again in his summer home on Varadero Beach. At 1:30 pm the phone rang. It was President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado with news that Kennedy had been shot. When he hung up the phone, Castro repeated three times, “This is bad news”. Soon afterwards a second phone call said that Kennedy was still alive and could be saved. Castro replied that “if they can, he is already re-elected.” Just before 2:00 pm, news came that Kennedy was dead. Castro stood up, looked at Daniel, and said, “Everything is changed. Everything is going to change.” (22)
(1) John F. Kennedy, Second TV Debate (7 October 1960)
(2) McGeorge Bundy, memorandum to the Standing Group of the National Security Council (21 April 1963)
(3) Richard Helms, memorandum to several figures in the CIA and the John Kennedy administration (1 May 1963)
(4) James W. Douglas, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (2008) page 61
(5) John McCone, memorandum to McGeorge Bundy (2 May 1963)
(6) Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy: The Truth? (1992) pages 400-401
(7) Lisa Howard, War and Peace Report (September 1963)
(8) William Attwood, memorandum (8 November 1963)
(9) William Attwood, The Twilight Struggle: Tales of the Cold War (1987) page 260
(10) William Attwood, memorandum (8 November 1963)
(11) Carlos Lechuga, Cuban Officials and JFK Historians Conference (7 December 1995)
(12) William Attwood, The Twilight Struggle: Tales of the Cold War (1987) pages 260-261
(13) Frank Church, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report of the United States Senate Committee to Study Government Operations (1976) page 88
(14) James W. Douglas, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (2008) page 84
(15) McGeorge Bundy, memorandum (12 November 1963)
(16) John F. Kennedy, speech (18 November 1963)
(17) James W. Douglas, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (2008) page 84
(18) Jean Daniel, The New Republic (14 December 1963)
(19) Frank Church, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report of the United States Senate Committee to Study Government Operations (1976) page 94
(20) William Attwood, The Twilight Struggle: Tales of the Cold War (1987) page 262
(21) James W. Douglas, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (2008) page 251
(22) Jean Daniel, The New Republic (7 December, 1963)
