Cuba Paid Oswald to Kill Kennedy, New Film Says

[jAZ]

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/arti...04111709990002

Updated: 10:55 AM EST
Cuba Paid Oswald to Kill Kennedy, New Film Says

By Mark Trevelyan, Reuters

BERLIN (Jan. 4) - Cuba lay behind the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald and its agents provided the gunman with money and support, an award-winning German director says in a new documentary film.

Wilfried Huismann spent three years researching "Rendezvous with Death," based on interviews with former Cuban secret agents, U.S. officials and a Russian intelligence source, and on research in Mexican security archives.

The film, shown to journalists in Berlin on Wednesday, says Oswald traveled to Mexico City by bus in September 1963, seven weeks before the Kennedy shooting, and met agents at the Cuban embassy there who paid him $6,500.

Oscar Marino, a former Cuban agent and a key source for the documentary, told Huismann that Oswald himself had volunteered for the assassination mission and Havana had exploited him.

"Oswald was a dissident. He hated his country...Oswald offered to kill Kennedy," Marino said in the film.

"He was so full of hate, he had the idea. We used him...He was a tool."

He said he knew with certainty that the assassination was an operation of the Cuban secret service G-2, but would not say if it was ordered by President Fidel Castro.

Oswald was shot dead by Jack Ruby two days after killing Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

The film argues Cuba wanted to eliminate Kennedy as the chief enemy of its Communist revolution, and portrays him and Castro as dueling opponents each trying to assassinate the other first.

Former CIA official Sam Halpern told Huismann: "He (Castro) beat us. He bested us. He came out on top, and we lost."

FBI PROBE ABORTED

Laurence Keenan, an officer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who was sent to Mexico City immediately after Kennedy's death to investigate a possible Cuban connection, said he was recalled after just three days and the probe was aborted.

"This was perhaps the worst investigation the FBI was ever involved in," Keenan said. "I realized that I was used. I felt ashamed. We missed a moment in history."

Keenan, 81, said he was convinced Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, blocked further investigation because proof of a Cuban link would put him under irresistible pressure to invade the island, a year after the Cuban missile crisis had brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.

"Most likely there would have been an invasion of Cuba which could have had unknown consequences for the whole world," he told journalists at the screening, saying that was why Johnson preferred to accept Oswald was "a crazed lone Marxist assassin."

Interviewed for the film, Alexander Haig, then a U.S. military adviser and later secretary of state, quoted Johnson as saying "we simply must not allow the American people to believe that Fidel Castro could have killed our president."

"And the reason was that there would be a right-wing uprising in America, which would keep the Democratic party out of power for two generations," Haig said.

He added that Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the assassinated president and attorney general in his administration, had personally ordered eight attempts on the life of Castro, who is still in power to this day.

Cuban and Russian sources interviewed in the film say the KGB alerted the Cubans to Oswald in mid-1962 after he left the Soviet Union, where he had lived for three years, and returned to the United States with his Soviet wife and their daughter.

Cuban intelligence first made contact with Oswald in November 1962, according to the film.

Huismann also unearthed a U.S. intelligence report shown to Johnson which said Cuban secret service chief Fabian Escalante flew via Mexico City to Dallas on the day of Kennedy's assassination, and back again the same day.

Tracked down by the film maker, Escalante denied he had been in Dallas and evaded questions about Cuba's alleged role. "What is truth, what are lies?" he said, smiling.


01/04/06 11:12 ET

[jAZ]

This actually makes too much sense. It's not kookey enough.

[greg63]

They provided the magic bullet.

[jidar]

Oswald was a communist and is known with certainty to have made several attempts to become involved with the Cubans, he viewed that as a stepping stone to the Russians.
It's actually pretty plausible.

[jAZ]

Originally Posted by jidar

...he viewed that as a stepping stone to the Russians.
It's actually pretty plausible.

It is, but he had already "stepped" to the russians stone. He lived there for 3 years and married a russian woman. I found the latter quotes from Haig and the Escalante to be very interesting.

[Pitt Gorilla]

That's cold, calling him a "tool."

[greg63]

Originally Posted by jAZ

"He was a tool."

[arrowheadnation]

I too found that to be cold.....

but hilarious.

[jidar]

Originally Posted by jAZ

It is, but he had already "stepped" to the russians stone. He lived there for 3 years and married a russian woman. I found the latter quotes from Haig and the Escalante to be very interesting.

He lived in Russia but he had zero connections with the KGB while there other than being under constant surveilance. Oswald decided he wanted to work for the KGB after he returned to the US and so he got involved with Cubans in the US hoping to exploit their relationship with the Russians to get involved with them.
Or so I read.
Of course I also read that these attempts were clumsy and didn't lead to anything.

[banyon]

Oh, good, for a second I thought this was about the MTV Vee-Jay.

[jAZ]

Originally Posted by jidar

He lived in Russia but he had zero connections with the KGB while there other than being under constant surveilance. Oswald decided he wanted to work for the KGB after he returned to the US and so he got involved with Cubans in the US hoping to exploit their relationship with the Russians to get involved with them.
Or so I read.
Of course I also read that these attempts were clumsy and didn't lead to anything.

Ahhh! Makes sense now.

[JohnnyV13]

There's one really big hole with one of Haig's statements. How in the hell does Bobby Kennedy order Castro's assassination WHEN HE IS ATTORNEY GENERAL?

The Attorney General heads the justice department, which includes all federal law enforcement agencies under its umbrella. The key here is "DOMESTIC LAW ENFORCEMENT". Now, the FBI can investigate the Kennedy assasination in Mexico because it concerns a domestic law enforcement issue, but no domestic law enforcement agency has the power to perform covert operations on foreign soil.

Now, you might say that Bobby Kennedy, for all intents an purposes was the no. 2 man in JFK's administration. Even so, don't you think Bobby is going to royally piss off some other dept heads in D.C. if he's ordering hits that he has no authority to order? Wouldn't the CIA director be rather pissed? Or the NSA, for that matter. And WHO is going to implement Bobby's order...the FBI? Gee, and Hoover just LOVED the Kennedy's didn't he? Do you think Hoover is going to sit on his hands while Bobby issues totally unconstitutional orders?

The other question is why would Al Haig know this about Bobby?

[Miles]

"Damn, I knew I left something out."

[jAZ]

Originally Posted by JohnnyV13

There's one really big hole with one of Haig's statements. How in the hell does Bobby Kennedy order Castro's assassination WHEN HE IS ATTORNEY GENERAL?

The Attorney General heads the justice department, which includes all federal law enforcement agencies under its umbrella. The key here is "DOMESTIC LAW ENFORCEMENT". Now, the FBI can investigate the Kennedy assasination in Mexico because it concerns a domestic law enforcement issue, but no domestic law enforcement agency has the power to perform covert operations on foreign soil.

Now, you might say that Bobby Kennedy, for all intents an purposes was the no. 2 man in JFK's administration. Even so, don't you think Bobby is going to royally piss off some other dept heads in D.C. if he's ordering hits that he has no authority to order? Wouldn't the CIA director be rather pissed? Or the NSA, for that matter. And WHO is going to implement Bobby's order...the FBI? Gee, and Hoover just LOVED the Kennedy's didn't he? Do you think Hoover is going to sit on his hands while Bobby issues totally unconstitutional orders?

The other question is why would Al Haig know this about Bobby?

If you are going to try to knock of a foreign head of state, who's to say the FBI can't do it. That can't be any more "illegal" than having the CIA do it, right?

[JohnnyV13]

Originally Posted by jAZ

If you are going to try to knock of a foreign head of state, who's to say the FBI can't do it. That can't be any more "illegal" than having the CIA do it, right?

My post is more about how power works in washington, and what agencies will have people with the capabilities you need to get the job done.

I mean think about it, Hoover and the Kennedy's hated each other. If Bobby were to go around ordering assassinations he's not supposed to order, then Hoover has the goods on him. Using the FBI would be VERY risky, b/c you'd have to bypass Hoover, and he was there FOREVER. If Hoover found out, he either use the info to squeeze the kennedys' nutsack in politics OR he'd leak it.

Now, think about this: Bobby is going to use a covert agency, say the NSA. That means Bobby is going over the head of the NSA chief to task people under the NSA authority, and the NSA chief is not under the DOJ. At best, Bobby would have to give up political favors to get NSA guys to do this job. And. the Sec. of Defense isn't going to be real happy b/c the NSA is under the DOD.

Now maybe the theory is Haig knows b/c Haig is a military advisor and Bobby used covert military intelligence units to get it done. But again, the AG isn't in the chain of command for military units. That would have to come out of the White House.

You could argue JFK was using Bobby as a backdoor conduit for his orders, but how "covert" is using your freak'n brother? Anything Bobby does is going to be connected to JFK, and its not like he is going to gain any deniability by using Bobby.

This whole sequence just seems rather unlikely