Posted on 01/05/2006 10:03:10 AM PST by Kenny Bunk
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.
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.
What They Said:
''Oswald was a dissident. He hated his country... Oswald offered to kill Kennedy. ...We used him.''
Oscar Marino, a former Cuban agent, speaking in the documentary
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
Not only was Oswald's rifle not used but AS FOUND could not have been used. The scope was not even attached properly and had to be shimmed by the US Army Ordinance Laboratory before it could be sighted properly. FBI marksmen were afraid that it would explode in their faces also. Working the bolt also proved extremely difficult too difficult for that gun to have been used to fire so quickly.
The gun was a PoS imported into the country as scrap metal.
"War, for the Democrats, is like welfare, they only do it for the votes."
SO TRUE!!!!!!!
A true believer. Tell me, are you an expert in such things?
He was lucky if he hit the street with that rifle!
Oswald was given an apartment while in the USSR when they were almost impossible to get for natives long waiting lists, bribes to be paid. It overlooked the river and had an excellent view.
Marina's uncle was a Colonel in the KGB.
Your being unaware of such uncontroversial facts leds me to believe you don't know a lot about this affair.
I believe the name of the show was "Magic Bullet" or something very similar.
Well, "Check," anyway. Could have washed, wiped it off with a vinegar-oaked rag, etc. ad inf. But excellent point.
If LHO did not indeed shoot JFK, OK. It has been amply demonstrated that it still could have been done, from that window with that rifle, which of course, is not to say it was.
Well considering that Oswald missed the first shot, hit a non-fatal area on shot two and then one good head shot shows an average marksman with an average gun.
Oswald's rifle is in the National Archives but, even if it had been loaned out, it was not in the original condition. It had work done (AFTER the assassination) to make the scope alignment work since Kleins mailed it with an improperly attached scope. Testimony before the WC established that.
Cuba Paid Oswald to Kill Kennedy"
10-1 Teddy's smoking a cuban cig. while reading this...trying to remember which Kennedy it was.
Now this, if true, is news. Got a source?
Other sources are telling us that the actual assassination rifle itself was used in tests, and performed quite well.
Okay, but why did he and Maria live in a crummy low class neighborhood in Dallas?
I thought conspiracy theories were taboo here...
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/factoid2.htm
Some of what you'll read there:
After the assassination the Warren Commission directed the FBI to run the same experiment using the C2766 rifle and ammunition which was identical to what was found in the Texas School Book Depository. Cunningham related the results of that experiment (3H494):
CUNNINGHAM: Yes.
We fired the rifle. Mr. Killion fired it three times rapidly, using similar ammunition to that used in the assassination. We reran the tests both on the cheek and both hands. This time we got a negative reaction on all casts.
EISENBERG: So to recapitulate, after firing the rifle rapid-fire no residues of any nitrate were picked off Mr. Killion's cheek?
CUNNINGHAM: That is correct, and there were none on the hands. We cleaned off the rifle again with dilute HCl. I loaded it for him. He held it in one of the cleaned areas and I pushed the clip in so he would not have to get his hands near the chamber—in other words, so he wouldn’t pick up residues, from it, or from the action, or from the receiver. When we ran the casts, we got no reaction on either hand or on his cheek. On the controls, when he hadn't fired a gun all day, we got numerous reactions.
Cunningham had explained earlier why a false negative could arise with the rifle (3H492):
EISENBERG: A paraffin test was also run of Oswald's cheek and it produced a negative result.
CUNNINGHAM: Yes.
EISENBERG: Do your tests, or do the tests which you ran, or your experience with revolvers and rifles, cast any light on the significance of a negative result being obtained on the right cheek?
CUNNINGHAM: No, sir; I personally wouldn’t expect to find any residues on a person's right cheek after firing a rifle due to the fact that by the very principles and the manufacture and the action, the cartridge itself is sealed into the chamber by the bolt being closed behind it, and upon firing the case, the cartridge case expands into the chamber filling it up and sealing it off from the gases, so none will come back in your face, and so by its very nature, I would not expect to find residue on the right cheek of a shooter.
To summarize, both false positives, from nitrates present in ordinary substances other than gunpowder, and false negatives, due to the sealed-chamber design of the C2766, arose in paraffin tests.
"Could have washed, wiped it off with a vinegar-oaked rag, etc"
then why did his hands test positive?
oh I guess he washed his face with gloves on! LMAO
give me a friggin' break...
the clown Oswald was a patsy and anyone who thinks they could have done what he did with that POS rifle is dreamin'
I and no Marine I know would admit they could do it!
lunch time!
gotta go to the "chow hall!"
have a good one!
The scary thing is, this makes sense, unlike the elaborate mafia theories of the past.
I'll bet Cuba was surprised when this loon pulled it off though. They likely under-estimated (former) Marine marksmanship.
I worked in downtown Dallas for a while, and walked down that ramp in the Police department parking area for kicks.
It's easy; I was never challenged, and, at least at the time, looked as it does in the picture. (The only thing stopping anyone is a large "NO ENTRY" sign; oooohhh, so effective.)
I wandered among the cops and could easily have walked up to any number of criminals in the process of transfer (had I so desired) and shot them in the guy.
For those who may wish to retrace Ruby's steps, it's across from the "Elm Street Garage" (a large, multi-story parking garage) near Pacific and Elm.
And, yes, you are technically tresspassing, so leave if challenged, or you may join the prisoners.
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