Killing of Kennedy may have derailed Cuba pact

Sydney Morning Herald [possibly originated in the *Guardian*] ^ | November 27, 2003 | By Julian Borger in Washington

[archy]

Big>Killing of Kennedy may have derailed Cuba pact

By Julian Borger in Washington

November 27, 2003

Days before his assassination, president John F. Kennedy was planning a meeting with Cuban officials to negotiate the normalisation of relations with Fidel Castro, a declassified tape and White House documents reveal.

The rapprochement was cut off in Dallas 40 years ago by Lee Harvey Oswald, who appears to have believed he was assassinating the president in the interests of the Cuban revolution.

But the new evidence suggests Dr Castro saw Kennedy's killing as a setback. He sought a dialogue with the next administration, but Lyndon Johnson was at first too concerned about appearing soft on communism and later too distracted by Vietnam to respond.

Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at Washington's National Security Archives, said the new evidence "shows that the whole history of US-Cuban relations might have been quite different if Kennedy had not been assassinated".

Dr Castro's and JFK's tentative flirtation came at a time of extraordinary acrimony in the wake of the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles and the missile crisis that led the world to the brink of nuclear war.

On a newly declassified Oval Office audiotape, recorded 17 days before the assassination, Kennedy is heard discussing the option of a meeting with his national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy.

The president agrees in principle to send a US diplomat, Bill Attwood, but frets that news of the secret mission could leak out.

The key intermediary was Lisa Howard, an actress who had become a leading television journalist when she landed an interview with the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev.

In April 1963 she interviewed Dr Castro, and returned with a message that the Cuban leader was anxious to talk. The president was receptive.

The CIA was pursuing various schemes aimed at assassinating or undermining Dr Castro, but Kennedy's aides were increasingly convinced Havana could be weaned away from Moscow.

The administration gave a nod to Ms Howard, who set up a meeting between Mr Attwood and the Cuban ambassador to the UN, Carlos Lechuga.

Her flat then became a communications centre between Mr Attwood and the Castro regime. Dr Castro's aide, Dr Rene Vallejo, called at arranged times to talk to Mr Attwood, and in the northern autumn of 1963 suggested Mr Attwood fly to Mexico and on to Cuba, where the Cuban leader would talk to him alone in a hangar.

The plan, however, was sunk by the assassination. Ms Howard continued to ferry messages from Dr Castro, in which the Cuban leader expresses his support for Johnson's 1964 election and even offers to turn the other cheek if the new US leader wanted to indulge in some electoral Cuba-bashing. But the new president did not have the Cold War credentials of having faced down Moscow over the Cuban missile crisis. The moment had passed.

The Guardian

[archy]

Looks like the Cuban exile leaders who claimed JFK was looking to cut a deal with Castro called it.

[the_Watchman]

Dr. Castro? I'm highly suspicious of an article which pawns off this two-bit dictator as "Dr."!

[DallasMike]

The Left's theory for decades ...

And don't forget that it was the "right-wing atmosphere of hate" here in Dallas that prompted Lee Harvey Oswald and/or others (take your choice) to kill Kennedy. I've never figured that one out. Even if there were a "right-wing atmosphere of hate" here in Dallas it wouldn't have inspired Oswald because he was sympathetic, at the very least, to communism.

[tet68]

So it't "Doctor" Castro now.

Another happy graduate of Patrice Lumumba University?

[archy]

So it't "Doctor" Castro now.

Another happy graduate of Patrice Lumumba University?

Oh no. He was a degreed doctor of law- a lawyer, even before the *Granma* invasion and his unsuccessful attack on the Batista Army's Moncado Barracks on July 26, 1953. Graduated in 1950, IIRC.

[Edmund Burke]

He is a medical doctor, I believe. Sort of like Howard Dean. As I recall he went to university in Spain, but have not doublechecked his bio to make sure. If you need to have a heart operation (remove only, not replace), give him a call.

[fiscally_right]

Of course the notion that Cuba would be a utopia without American embargos is absurd, though I do think there must be a better way for events and policies to have unfolded. Before the communist revolution in Cuba it was a major center of American investment and tourism.

[Hasn't anyone seen Godfather II? ;-)]

[mrsmith]

Lisa Howard, one of the first women to have her own television news show, became the central intermediary in the Kennedy-Castro dialogue. Howard had been an actress and soap opera star before she broke into journalism in 1960 by scoring the first major interview with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the United Nations. She was hired by ABC news as a reporter and subsequently became the anchor for ABC's noontime news broadcast, "The NewsHour with Lisa Howard." Her two specials on Cuba, in 1963 and 1964, were the most substantive coverage of Castro's revolution in the early 1960s. She died in 1965.

KENNEDY AND CASTRO: THE SECRET HISTORY (GWU)

[walrus954]

Dr. Castro? What kind of rag is this? Where, pray tell, did Castro earn his PhD?

[archy]

Dr. Castro? What kind of rag is this? Where, pray tell, did Castro earn his PhD?

A JD, rather than a PhD, or whatever a Doctorate in Jurisprudence works out to in Spanish. Per following Bio:

Fidel Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926, on his family's sugar plantation near Biran, Oriente province, Cuba. His father, originally an immigrant laborer from Galicia, Spain, became owner of a 23,000-acre plantation.

As a boy, Castro worked in the family's sugar cane fields and, at 6 years old, convinced his parents to send him to school. He attended two Jesuit institutions, the Colegio Lasalle and the Colegio Dolores, both in Santiago. In 1942 he entered the Colegio Belen, a Jesuit preparatory school in Havana. He was voted the school's best athlete in 1944.

In 1945 Castro attended the University of Havana's Faculty of Law, and having earned a law degree, went into practice in 1950 in Havana with two partners. As a lawyer he devoted himself to helping the poor.

Castro intended to campaign for a parliamentary seat in the election of 1952 but General Fulgencio Batista overthrew the government of President Carlos Prio Socarras in a coup d'etat and canceled the election. Castro went to court and charged the dictator with violating the constitution. The court rejected Castro's petition. With no legal recourse left, Castro organized an armed attack by 165 men on the Moncada Barracks in Oriente province on July 26, 1953. That attack and the one on Bayamo garrison failed completely. Half the attackers were killed; Castro and his brother Raul were taken prisoner. They were released in a general amnesty on May 15, 1955.

[archy]

He is a medical doctor, I believe. Sort of like Howard Dean. As I recall he went to university in Spain, but have not doublechecked his bio to make sure. If you need to have a heart operation (remove only, not replace), give him a call.

I believe you're confusing Fidel, the Doctor of Jurisprudence [a lawyer] with El Che Ernesto Guevara, a graduate of the the medical school of the University of Buenos Aires in 1947.

Physician, heal thyself....

[archy]

Lisa Howard, one of the first women to have her own television news show, became the central intermediary in the Kennedy-Castro dialogue. Howard had been an actress and soap opera star before she broke into journalism in 1960 by scoring the first major interview with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the United Nations.

Any relation to Edward Lee Howard? Born circa 1952, he too had a continuing interest in the affairs of the Soviet Union.

[archy]

Even if there were a "right-wing atmosphere of hate" here in Dallas it wouldn't have inspired Oswald because he was sympathetic, at the very least, to communism.

Or that was his very well-maintained cover.

Live your cover.

-archy-/-

[archy]

Of course the notion that Cuba would be a utopia without American embargos is absurd, though I do think there must be a better way for events and policies to have unfolded. Before the communist revolution in Cuba it was a major center of American investment and tourism.

[Hasn't anyone seen Godfather II? ;-)]

Try the classic Our Man in Havana

Havana. *Warning* Spoilers in review *here*

[archy]

Of course the notion that Cuba would be a utopia without American embargos is absurd, though I do think there must be a better way for events and policies to have unfolded. Before the communist revolution in Cuba it was a major center of American investment and tourism.

[Hasn't anyone seen Godfather II? ;-)]

Try the classic Our Man in Havana too. And if feeling literary, try Steven Hunter's new novel Havana. *Warning* Spoilers in review *here*

[gitmogrunt]

I have read that Castro went on to appropriate his fathers 23,000 acre plantation after the revolution for the "state".

To prove that he is a Maximo commie culero.

[archy]

I have read that Castro went on to appropriate his fathers 23,000 acre plantation after the revolution for the "state".

To prove that he is a Maximo commie culero.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit. Like Hitler, he hated and feared his father. Like Hitler, he was educated as a Catholic, but it never really *took* with him. Like Hitler, he was imprisoned for a first failed attempt, but then released.

There are lessons in those similarities.

-archy-/-

[KiaKaha]

Just to throw something out there, is it possible with normalized relation with the US Castro would not have been able to play the “Enemy at the Gate” card. I am sure the siege mentality played up by Castro over the years has helped him stay in power where other Communist regimes have fallen.

In my opinion an excellent way to undermine a Communist dictatorship is to show the people what they are missing under that system, free-speech, human rights and Play-stations

[expatpat]

Another part of their thory is that Vietnam would have ended early and quietly if.......