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Did Castro OK The Kennedy Assassination? 25

Did Castro OK The

Kennedy Assassination?

Continued from Page 24

By the early sixties, the brothers had
reached their initial goals of winning the
American presidency and leadership in Cuba.
Castro's victory came at great cost. In the years
since, historians have debated whether Fidel
ever actually murdered someone. But few
question Racal's baptism in blood, nor his
ongoing ministry. Of the deaths he has overseen,
some were street criminals but the vast majority
were political enemies, and estimates of the toll
range as high as 14,000, claimed in a Harvard
University study. The Cuba Archive project
concluded that some 5,600 Cubans have died in
front of firing squads and another 1,200 in
“extrajudicial assassinations.” Minors and
who wrote a memorandum of this meeting, regard, secretly discussing the political
females were not spared.
which remains the only known documentary neutralization of Fidel. But in the last year of
Under pressure from within and without,
evidence that Jack and Bobby ever endorsed or JFK's life, while those more circumspect means
Kennedy and Castro began directing their
authorized a hit on Fidel. were in play, the U.S. plans to kill Castro
newfound power to destroying each other. When
Jack came to power, he considered Fidel to be The meeting commenced with a briefing continued. With the U.S.-backed assassinations
Cuba's liberator after the corrupt cruelties of from Lansdale about the training of Cuban exile of other world leaders—Rafael Trujillo in the
Batista, but Eisenhower and Nixon had already insurgents in the fine points of guerrilla warfare. Dominican Republic and Ngo Dinh Diem in
been plotting a coup. Elaborate (albeit flawed) The president then reiterated that he was not yet Vietnam—Fidel became even more certain that
plans were already in place. The secret war ready to approve any direct American military he was the next hit on the Kennedys' list. In 1965
involvement in such plans. Lately he had made Castro's sister Juanita, who had defected the
against the Castros was forced upon the
many speeches warning against the new year before to the States, testified before the
Kennedys by the American Right, by Jack's
insurrectionary forms of war, and calling for U.S. House Committee on Un- American
early disdain for moderating “liberalism,” and
improved countermeasures. Activities that “Fidel's feeling of hatred for this
by the Hard Left pressure exerted by Raul and
Che Guevara. Assassination was only one tool in Bobby then briefly described a possible country cannot even be imagined by Americans.
the American kit, but given the nightmare cults opportunity in which members of the Cuban . . . His intention—his obsession—is to destroy
that had so recently empowered Hitler and underground might stake out Fidel. Lansdale's the U.S.!”
Stalin, political decapitation was seen as memo, written later that same afternoon, called The CIA began to focus upon one
tactically concise and morally expedient. This ‘die plan’ “worth assessing firmly and pursuing Rolando Cubela, a military hero of the Cuban
vigorously. If there were grounds for action, the revolution who had secretly grown disillusioned
secret war, however, would leave deeply buried
CIA had some invaluable assets which might with Fidel's Communist leanings. He thus began
scars on the heart of America.
well be committed for such an effort.” Lansdale flirting with CIA agents in order to form a
In November 1961 the CIAs Cuba desk
went on: “I pointed out that this all pertained to possible alliance aimed at el presidente's
officers Bill Harvey and Sam Halpern had a
plan, the next phase in the ongoing attempt to fractioning the regime. If it happened, it could removal. According to the CIA, there was no
remove Castro. Halpern came up with a name develop like a brush-fire, much as in Hungary, contact with Cubela from August 29, 1962, until
for it: Operation Mongoose, named after a and we must be prepared to help it win our goal September 1963. On September 7, officer
carnivorous predator that kills its prey after of Cuba freed of a Communist government.” Nestor Sanchez and his partner, Richard
In the words of a former CIA director, Maxwell Long, met with Cubela at a safe house
stealing its eggs. It thus both dispatches its
“The language of the memo speaks for itself. in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to reassure him that the
enemy and removes its progeny, thereby
The only thing that Robert Kennedy can be agency had decided to use him in the next phase
preventing any line of succession—exactly what
referring to is the assassination of Castro. This of their plan to overthrow Castro. They
the Kennedy White House and the CIA had in
paragraph should never have been written.” discussed ways of approaching other Cuban
mind for the Castros and their political
descendants. It was not until just before the United military officers; Cubela told Sanchez that he
The plans were to continue fomenting States launched the Bay of Pigs invasion in April wanted assurances at the top who could ensure
revolution, and, by most estimates, the operation 1961 that Castro publicly declared himself a America's support for his actions, which
had somewhere between $50 million and $150 “socialist.” But once Fidel embraced the Red included the decapitation of the Cuban regime.
path, he did so with a vengeance, goading Soviet This was always the last word in any talks with
million to spend on its endeavor. The logistics
Premier Nikita Khrushchev to fire the first nuke Cubela: he wanted to hear it from the White
would be implemented by Harvey and his “Task
in the Missile Crisis in October 1962. Given House.
Force W.” The White House had taken the
Cuba's rogue tendencies, Khrushchev had made Within the agency, there were a number
Cuban operation out of the purview of the CIAs
it the KGB's business to stay on top of U.S. of dissenting voices. Cubela's mistress and her
Western Hemisphere Division and placed it
directly under the control of Bobby Kennedy efforts, and the Soviets had learned of Operation brother were high- level G2 (Cuban intelligence)
and the White House staff. The president thus Mongoose. To deter it, Khrushchev sent his officers. He was thought to be as “changeable as
had direct oversight. island ally 40,000 Russian troops, 1,300 field the weather, ... capable of rash, thoughtless,
On March 16, 1962, a meeting convened pieces, 700 antiaircraft guns, 350 tanks, and 150 violent action under the strain of provocation,
fighter jets. Fidel and Raid were soon tense situations, or frustration.” The year before
in the Oval Office with the goal of setting
wonderfully well protected. Later, when Castro he had attempted suicide.
presidential guidelines for Operation Mongoose.
embraced the Chinese Communists, the Soviet
The meeting was attended by the president;
leader started taking steps to contain Castro's (Continued on Page 27)
Bobby; the newly installed director of the CIA,
megalomania. Your thoughts, comments, suggestions
John McCone, and all the rest of the innermost
players in the secret war, including Ed Lansdale, There is evidence that the Soviet premier are always welcomed. Email
Bobby's Mongoose coordinator. It was Lansdale and the American president colluded in this publisher@xchroniclesnewspaper.com