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24 Did Castro OK The Kennedy Assassination?

Did Castro OK The

Kennedy Assassination?

Incriminating new evidence has
come to light in KGB files and the
authors' interviews of former

Cuban intelligence officers that
indicates Fidel Castro probably
knew in advance of Oswald's

intent to kill JFK.

by Gus Russo | Stephen Molton

On September 24, 1964, a copy of the official
Warren Commission Report was delivered to
President Lyndon Johnson in the Oval Office.
Its conclusions were, in hindsight, as accurate as
fundamentally different visions of freedom. right around the time that Jack Kennedy was
possible, given the commission's impossibly
Initially, some saw a natural kinship between first elected to Congress.
short investigative calendar and its utter lack of
John E Kennedy and Fidel Castro, but they were Fidel overcame his “rustic” upbringing
foreign intelligence. It named, correctly, Lee
each in the grip of the new cold war's paradigm, to be reasonably well liked at El Colegio de
Harvey Oswald as the lone shooter,
one of strictly defined opposites. In many ways, Belen in Havana. But the priests who taught
hypothesizing that in shooting John F. Kennedy
the young Jack Kennedy was not much different there sensed a certain moral indifference in him.
he had been lashing out for reasons only he
from the young Fidel Castro. Both had been His temper could be savage. He accepted
knew. The report found “no evidence of a
dominated and manipulated by their fathers. leadership from no one, taking only the wise
conspiracy.” Where Joe Sr. had acquired his millions as a counsel of one brilliant priest named Llorente.
A few weeks later, President Johnson's
scheming, streetwise Irish outsider, Angel By the time he moved on to the University of
hidden tape recorder captured a phone
Castro lived as a gentrified peasant, self-made Havana, he arrived dressed like a businessman,
conversation with Senator Richard Russell, the
and considered rich on his own turf but still a albeit with a lounge lizard's flair for excess, and
old Dixiecrat whom he had pressured to be on
lowly Guajiro in the eyes of the Cuban quickly learned to negotiate the thuggish politics
the Warren Commission.
aristocracy. Their talented sons had leaped over that thrived there.
“I don't believe it,” Russell said about
decades, even centuries of class prejudice to The stately Harvard campus did not
the report's conclusions. “I don't either,”
become leaders by sheer force of personality. foster the political trench warfare that the
admitted the president.
They were intellectually curious, articulate, University of Havana did, and Jack Kennedy's
Around the same time, Johnson was on easy in the company of men, and attracted to the psychological issues were certainly not as
the phone with his old friend Mike Mansfield,
spotlight. aggravated, but he too underwent a
the majority leader of the Senate. The president
Both Jack and Fidel came from large transformation as he made his way out of
divulged what few in Congress had been briefed
Catholic families, and both of their fathers made school, through the war, and into a campaign for
about: “There's a good deal of feeling that
a sport of bedding women out of wedlock. Joe Congress in 1946. The unpretentious, honest,
maybe the Cuba thing. Johnson's voice trailed
Sr. kept his mistresses out of sight in hotel and egalitarian PT boat commander of World
off for a moment. He was always careful not to
rooms, at the penthouses of trusted friends, or War II gave way to a cooler peer of the realm, a
be too definite on the subject. "Oswald was
on his private yacht. Angel took his lovers man whose charm became more calculating. He
messing around in Mexico with the Cubans.”
wherever he desired them, including in his own was capable of kindness, and he understood,
Johnson had handpicked the members of home. intellectually, that power could improve the
the Warren Commission and directed its focus.
Fidel, Raul, and their siblings had been lives of those less fortunate. But one of his
Could it be that he and his attorney general,
born to Angel's housekeeper while she worked lovers of long standing noted his “tremendous
Robert Kennedy, believed there might be details
for his wife, and Angel made no secret of the acceptance of inequality at every level. . . . That
that should remain hidden to keep the American
small shack full of his offspring, who lived just was absolutely acceptable.” He seemed content
public calm in the wake of the tragedy in
out of sight of the casa grande. It was not until to believe that “people who are different have
Dallas? The fact was, Lyndon Johnson never
Fidel was seventeen years old that Angel different responses. The pain of poor people is
would believe the conclusions of the Warren
recognized him as his legal offspring. Fidel different from 'our' pain.”
Commission Report. His staunch contention
loathed him. It was Jack and Fidel's younger
would always be that “Oswald was a Still, Angel knew that Fidel was brothers—the naturally empathetic ones, Bobby
Communist agent.” A year before his death, in
exceptional and would grant him special and Raul—who schooled the older ones in their
1972, Johnson finally started revealing his
privileges, sending him to the country's best humanity. When Jack made his run for the
secret to people outside his close circle, telling
preparatory school, keeping him in natty presidency, it was Bobby who tutored him in the
George Weidenfeld, publisher of his
clothes, and furnishing him with a car as he nuances of American poverty and injustice.
autobiography, that one day he would prove the
approached his college years. Fidel's sister When Fidel made his first triumphal tour of the
Oswald-Castro connection. But there weren't
Juanita noted that he treated the peasants on the United States after he had vanquished the
enough days left at that point for Johnson to
Castro plantation with the same cruelty as his dictator Fulgencio Batista, it was Raul who
expose the truth.
father did. “There were a lot of employees waylaid him in a Houston hotel and berated him
A conspiracy of silence would keep the
working on the farm and serving at the house,” for not telling Americans that he was a Marxist.
facts hidden until now, 63 years later, when
she reported—nearly 1,000 people in all—but The garrulous yet emotionally remote older boys
evidence from a variety of different sources,
“Fidel never took care of these people. On the gained depth in the presence of their kid
many of them newly available, can be pieced
contrary, he criticized my father for being too brothers, but conversely, they were also pushed
together to tell the real story for the first time.
generous with them.” He made no public to positions of passionate intransigence, too.
Two charismatic leaders prevailed over
declaration on behalf of the poor until he joined
the Western Hemisphere in the early 1960s,
Cuba's leftward drift in his early twenties— (Continued on Page 25)
both men having risen to power with two