Did the Cubans assassinate Kennedy?

The Cuban secret service was behind the assassination of President John F Kennedy, according to evidence presented in a new television documentary.

Rendezvous with Death, to be shown on German television on Friday, offers the most convincing evidence that Fidel Castro's regime was behind the most talked-about murder of the 20th century.

A former agent of the Cuban secret service G2 talks for the first time about how Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin, was, he claims, pointed out to the Cubans by the KGB.

Oscar Marino, who fell out with the Castro regime, said the Cubans were desperate to eliminate Kennedy, an opponent of the revolution who wanted to kill Castro.

"You ask why we took Oswald?" he said to the German film maker Wilfried Huismann. "Oswald was a dissident: he hated his country. He possessed certain characteristics.

"There wasn't anyone else. You take what you can get. . . Oswald volunteered to kill Kennedy."

Oswald was a Communist who spent three years in the Soviet Union and shot Kennedy in Dallas. He was killed by Jack Ruby after his arrest, leaving his motives shrouded in mystery.

Huismann spent three years persuading people to break their silence about Oswald's alleged Cuba connections. His film is based on testimony by former US, Cuban and Russian agents, KGB files and Mexican archives.

One of the main witnesses is a retired FBI agent, Lawrence Keenan, now in his eighties. Keenan was sent after the assassination to trace Oswald's footsteps in Mexico.

The evidence he found - linking the Cubans with the murder - prompted the FBI head, J Edgar Hoover, on the orders of President Lyndon Johnson, to withdraw Keenan after three days.

"This was perhaps the worst investigation the FBI was ever involved in," said Keenan.

Mexico City was considered a "Pandora's Box" by the Johnson administration, which feared a war with Cuba were the truth to be revealed to the American people.

"They were afraid of what will happen. They didn't want to. . . know the truth for fear it would mean we go to war. Johnson sincerely feared for his own life." It was convenient therefore for the administration to paint Oswald as a loner.

Alexander Haig, a military adviser to Kennedy and Johnson who became secretary of state in 1981, said in the film that Johnson was terrified his people would learn the truth.

"He [Johnson] said '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."

Mr Haig added: "He [Johnson] was convinced Castro killed Kennedy, and he took it to his grave."

Huismann's interviews and documents he found show the extent of the secret war, involving murder and sabotage plots, between Castro and the Kennedy brothers.

Without the knowledge of Congress or the American public, John and Robert Kennedy allegedly planned eight assassination attempts on Castro, all of which failed.

Huismann's explanation for the failures is a Cuban who fought alongside Castro but who later fell out with him.

The film-maker claims that this man was "contracted" by Robert Kennedy to murder the "Maximo Lider", and was provided by the CIA with pistols disguised as fountain pens and powerful poison to carry out the task.

But Castro always found out about the plots in advance, leading to suspicions of a double agent.

The film claims that in November 1963 the Cuban took his last order from Robert Kennedy to murder Castro. The act, involving poison and the fountain pen, was to be carried out on Nov 22, the very day Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

"Unfortunately, Castro was better than us," said a CIA agent in the film who is not identified.

Marino said Oswald was recruited to the secret service organisation by the same agent who had been recruited to kill Castro, a year before the Kennedy assassination.

"In other words the very man Robert Kennedy recruited to kill Fidel Castro hired his brother's murderer," Huismann said.

KGB files released in Moscow document a meeting between Oswald and the Cuban, who is now a retired surgeon living in Madrid.

Interviewed for the film, however, he denied any connection to Oswald, calling it an "outrageous lie".

Marino did not want to answer the question as to whether Castro had direct knowledge of the Oswald assassination plan.

Huismann wrote his film with Gus Russo, author of the 1998 book on the Castro-JFK rivalry, Live by the Sword.

FWIW, I agree with those who think the mob/mafia assassinated JFK (and although I didn't see where anyone brough it up, RFK as well). There's really no way around that conclusion, regardless of how many shooters one thinks was involved.

Oswald had worked for Carlos Marcello's lawyer; Jack Ruby (like Oswald, a loner and perhaps a little nutty, but with definite mobster history) had left the Chicago area (it was get out, or die) and ran a strip joint and whorehousee, until he was rocketed into notoriety by killing Oswald.

The Kennedy administration had pulled the plug on efforts to assassinate Castro using the mob, because the mob had been taking the money, without actually doing the work. RFK was livid when he found out that the operation had not been cancelled.

At some point, RFK had Carlos Marcello rounded up and deported to (I think it was) Costa Rica, as Marcello (who was from Italy) had a phony Costa Rican identity. The agents literally left him in the middle of nowhere on some airstrip, and Marcello was lucky to make it out alive. The Kennedys didn't finish that job, and that was quite literally signing their own death warrants.

A good case can be made for the proposition that the Mafia killed JFK. But the CIA's role remains murky.

Last year, law professor Robert Blakely, the executive director of the House Assassinations Committee and a strong advocate of Mafia complicity, was distressed to learn that the CIA contact for the committee, George Joannides, had lied about the activities of an anti-Castro group of Cubans. Joannides got Blakely to curtail the Committee's investigation into the activities of a group known as DRE on the basis that it had nothing to do with Oswald or the investigation. Actually, Joannides was the CIA's controller for the group, which was involved in a scuffle with Oswald in New Orleans that got him interviewed on TV.

Of course, that does not prove CIA complicity in the assassination, only that they covered up an explosive piece of information. And if Cubans in the US were directly involved in the assassination, it would be hard to know who they were really working for, the CIA, the Mafia, or Castro, because ties to all three are plausible in many cases and a false flag recruitment might obscure the true principal.

Um-hmm, and thereby, the CIA maintains plausible denial regarding activities surrounding the assassination of foreign leaders (just how plausible it is, of course, is difficult to gauge, given the Soviet-sponsored campaign of vilification against the CIA, which has taken on a life of its own thanks to our good friends the Moslems, and various Marxists like Castro and Chavez).

Also, the payments to the mob regarding Castro guaranteed CIA silence and cover-up, which is exactly what the mobsters involved counted on when they hired the shooter.

I had some other fascinating bit... supper calls... oh yeah, it'll have to wait, because I can't remember the guy's name... another mafia character who knew and worked for Castro, in Cuba, and to save himself and prove he was bona fide, shot down a bunch of captured Battistianos, and was photographed holding the weapon, standing on their mass grave.

"You really can not calculate trajectory angles based on a 2 dimensional piece of film."

I agree, but I never suggested you could. All you need is the data.

"You would have to create a 3 dimensional model of the road and downward slope, car, building, and position of the people in the car to determine if the bullet came from the 6th floor. A computer graphic designer actually did that using a 3d program. And it was his determination that JFK was shot from the 6th floor. Here is a link to the man's site. Very interesting work. I do not believe anyone else has tried this to this detail."

http://www.jfkfiles.com/jfk/html/intro.htm

I've seen other 3-D models as well and some re-enactments. They all fail. The usual "workaround" is to reposition JFK's body to get a match. At this site if you look at their own pictures it's negates what they say in their analysis. The neck entrance wound and the neck exit wound clearly establishs a very low trajectory. The only question is the position of the body. If you take the body position from the Zapruder film, the shot does not match.

Indeed, the the illustration of the trajectory cone they use showing the bullet exiting JFK is much lower than it actually was. The exit wound has to be moved down several inches or JFK's body has to be tilted much further forward to get a trajectory match. Neither of which matches with the reality of the Zapruder film.

Since the motion of JFK's head was completely contrary to a fatal head shot from the rear the FBI reversed the frames to make the film consistent with reality. Too bad they didn't have Dr. Lattimer to contradict decades of actual experience so this dilemma was avoided.

Gee poor Marina just could not resist all the conspiracy "kooks" and had to change her viewpoint. How terrible.

Obviously any random MC would not have been Oswald's. "Well yer honor we couldn't come up with Joe's actual rifle used in the crime but we have one just like it which we can use to convict him." Yeah right. It is just this type of imprecise conjecture, elided misconceptions and outright deception which destroyed the credibility of the WC's Report.

Oswald's statement clearly shows his motivation was not that claimed by the Defenders of the WC. Why would he have rejected his chance for fame and glory if that was what he sought?

The actual assassination planning and execution need not have involved many people particularly people who knew all. Afterwards most in the media swallowed and defended the Report. Significantly the vast majority of the American people never believed it.

"You really can not calculate trajectory angles based on a 2 dimensional piece of film."

I agree, but I never suggested you could. All you need is the data.

The exit wound has to be moved down several inches or JFK's body has to be tilted much further forward to get a trajectory match. Neither of which matches with the reality of the Zapruder film. On one hand you agree with me you can not create trajectories with a piece of film but then at at the end of your reply you state you can with the Zapruder film.

So the FBI was involved in the assassination. You can dismiss Latimer's work but that does not change his results.

Gee poor Marina just could not resist all the conspiracy "kooks" and had to change her viewpoint. How terrible.

That's your reply? Very pathetic. As I stated before, she has never altered her testimony.

Obviously any random MC would not have been Oswald's. "Well yer honor we couldn't come up with Joe's actual rifle used in the crime but we have one just like it which we can use to convict him." Yeah right. It is just this type of imprecise conjecture, elided misconceptions and outright deception which destroyed the credibility of the WC's Report.

Have you actually had access it to Oswald's rifle? They used what they had available and they managed to accomplish something people like you have said for decades was 'impossible.' Now you are stating 'possible' is not 'probable.' See you are slowly coming over to the dark side.

Oswald's statement clearly shows his motivation was not that claimed by the Defenders of the WC. Why would he have rejected his chance for fame and glory if that was what he sought?

I have no idea what his motivation was. I can not read the mind of a dead man. I do know his own brother, who visited him in his jail cell believes to this day he did it. And during his visit to his brother LHO never claimed to be a patsy or was innocent. He was quite cocky in fact. But maybe Robert Oswald was in on it?

The actual assassination planning and execution need not have involved many people particularly people who knew all. Afterwards most in the media swallowed and defended the Report. Significantly the vast majority of the American people never believed it.

You are being evasive. How many? How many were involved in the assassination? How many shooters? I would really like to know your full theory. And please, don't just say the mob. Lay it out. How was it done? How many riflemen? Where were they positioned? How many shots? Were the wounds altered before the autopsy? Was the WC in on it? Etc.

The fact that the majority of people believe in a conspiracy is irrelevant. A lot of people believe we have aliens on ice at Area 51.

I'm not using the film to determine the trajectory... The 3-D object, JFK's body, shows the entry and exit wounds. You can't move those wounds. They establish a point A and a point B. All you need then is the position of the body.

The film shows the postion of the body, not the trajectory, but knowing the enty/exit wound locations one can extrapolate a direction. The wound angle is too flat. His body is too upright. The visual evidence (wounds & body position) does not match the proposed trajectory from that window.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't know who killed him, but there is no way the repository window lines up with that wound given the visual evidence.

jw

Well, other people, including an Australian documentary film crew who reinacted the shooting claim otherwise. Other than a CBS documentary done in the 70s I think no one has even attempted to reproduce the shooting.

Dale K. Myers using films, photos, autopsy reports, surveyor plans, etc. also states otherwise. Have you gone to the trouble of doing this? My guess is no. It apparently took months to accomplish.

His work was independently checked by experts from Z-Axis Corporation, a company that does analysis of events like plane crashes.

You must be a conspiracy theorist since to believe someone other than Oswald shot the President makes it a conspiracy.

Lattimer's "work" has no credibility.

I was speaking of the FBI's role in the COVERUP. While it certainly did its best to keep its role wrt Oswald covered up I did NOT claim it was involved in the actual killing. Certainly it was determined to keep the information it had indicating a plot was afoot from coming to the attention of the WC and thus did not tell it about the threats against Kennedy it had uncovered prior to the assassination. Hoover's hatred of the Kennedy's and love of LBJ played a role in the entire affair and he believed JFK got what was coming to him.

Marina has changed her opinion about what happened and has rejected most of what she was saying.

No one that I know of has claimed that ALL MCs were incapable of the shooting just that Oswald's was. That was made certain since it could not have been used IN THE CONDITION IT WAS FOUND to do so. (Hopefully you won't ignore what is actually claimed in order to set up further straw men.) However, better shots than I have claimed it to have been virtually impossible and I have seen no evidence proving them to be incorrect. WCR testimony shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Oswald's rifle could have only hit anything through sheer luck.

Robert Oswald's book is just about as convincing as most of the books which ignore evidence to the contrary and claim LHO did it.

I could answer all those questions and more had I the resources devoted to finding the facts that the WC had to concoct its Report. Not all the Commission even believed its lies in any case. Richard Russel, Russel Long and Wade Boggs did not buy them. And I believe John Cooper had doubts as well. Most of it was convinced that the truth (which they feared was a communist conspiracy to kill JFK) would lead to a world war. As things stand I can only say that the flaws within the theory of the Lone Assassin simply make it unbelievable unless you want to believe it.

Latimer's work has no credibility? So you have read his book? No of course not. Now that's knocking down a straw man.

Marina may have changed her mind about a conspiracy. She has never recanted her testimony. That she took the pictures of Oswald with the rifle. That he owned that rifle. That he took a shot at Walker. Etc. She has never stated she was told to lie or make things up.

Other than the discredited audio tape The House Committee found no other evidence of a conspiracy and stated Oswald still shot the President and the policeman.

I see, any book that doesn't support a conspiracy is de facto worthless. Robert Oswald knows more about LHO than you or I will ever know. It would take a lot of evidence for someone in my family to believe I would ever committ a crime. Talk about a closed mind.

The problem with all those conspiracy people you mention is they all have a totally different theory as to who did it. That sounds more like people wanting to make money by selling a book. There are tons of resources for you to check. You can find the WC report online I beleive. My acceptance of LHO assassinating JFK is based on facts. As I stated before if Oswald ever went to trial he would have been convicted of both the JFK and the policeman murders.

Never explained by Lattimer's absurd theory is how IF the Kill Shot came from the rear and the car was almost stopped JFK's brains wound up all over the trailing policeman. Or why Jackie would have been scrambling onto the trunk trying to retrieve parts of Jack's head blown back behind the car? With a rear shot the blood and flesh would have been blown INTO the car. Lattimer's theory also demands that result.

I have read plenty of books by WC believers and read the Lattimer JAMA article which introduced the Jet Effect theory. Presumably you believe ONLY the critics write books about this to make money but NOT the numerous supporters including President Ford. They are as pure as the driven snow no doubt.

The Zapruder film shows the bullet came out the front right of his head - I don't need Latimer for that. Unless of course you are one of those people who believe the Zap film was altered by unnamed individuals.

Other photos from the rear of JFk after the head shot and they show no damage to the back of his head - but then they were altered as well, right?

90+ percent of JFk books are by conspiracy theorists, and naturally everyone has a unique theory - after all what publisher is going to spend money on a conspiracy book that states the same thing as 5 other books.

Now I am never going to state categorically there was not a conspiracy. How could I prove it was impossible. Maybe someone talked LHO into it, or paid him, there is no way to know. But there is enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt LHO fired from the 6th floor, hit the President twice and later in his attempt to get away killed the police officer.

The thing that bothers me about the conspiracy theorists (not you necessarily) is not only was there a huge conspiracy that goes right to the White House but LHO was 'pure as the driven snow.' A patsy. It reminds me of the defenders of Tookie, the crips leader who was just executed. Not only did his defenders state he was innocent but he was this reformed man who loved children and wanted to bring peace to the world. Why couldn't they just say, yes he killed those 4 people but we are morally opposed to the death penalty. Why this obsession to martyr the guy. I see the same thing with Oswald. Very odd.

Oswald was a strange bird without a doubt. But his background simply does not mark him as a killer (He was such a nerd that he was called "Ozzie the Rabbit" in the Corps). Nor do his known abilities with rifles mark him as capable of the shooting. From all those who knew him it is claimed he actually admired Kennedy. Being an acknowledged Leftist he would have no reason to believe elevating LBJ would be good for his cause. And the "he was just a dumbass" line does not hold true. From the interviews with him he sounded rather articulate and rational.

There are the reports of doubles at gun ranges (deliberately drawing attention to himself by firing at others' targets), gun shops (having the sights worked on), furniture stores (complete with pregnant wive and small child), meetings with Cuban exiles with companions who bragged about him being an ex-marine ready to shoot. The trip to Mexico. This is strange stuff and not all of it can be discounted as b.s.

This case could not have been stranger if an author tried to make it so and the probabilities necessary for it to have succeeded as claimed start to get into the one in a million catagory. And the wierdness started from day one with one of DPD gun experts hauling out a rifle he identified as a Mauser. In fact, an entire book could be written just about the rifle and its history. Much of the evidence arguing against it being the gun used comes from the WC Report itself. And it did not end with the shooting but continues with the hospital doctors' contentions and even the mysterious autopsy and publishing of fake pictures.

While some believe him completely innocent of any involvement I don't. But the whole house of cards comes down when Jack Ruby got involved. The guy was everywhere at the Hospital, at the police station, at news conferences where HE corrected the DA wrt the correct name of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Oswald's killing makes it impossible for me to believe the WC Report's conclusions given the complete falsehood about his background and mob involvement. No one should pretend that Ruby was not a long time associate of organized crime beginning in Chicago. Examination of his long distance phone records only raises more disturbing questions.

It simply is just too pat: JFK is killed; a mobster kills the suspect; LBJ takes power; Justice Department investigations and wiretapping of the mobsters ceases almost immediately. Applying the question "Who profitted?" by this makes it hard to believe the mob had no hand in it.

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