Questions to Ask John Brennan(I): About Those JFK Files

The arch-terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, harbored in Miami for a number of years. We need to know also his role in the CIA-engineered bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 off Barbados in October, 1976.


As former Assistant CIA Director John Brennan gets set to be grilled in his now (CIA Director) confirmation hearings, some questions need to come front and center. I will deal with several of the main ones in this and a subsequent blog. I believe this is crucial because Brennan was Assistant  CIA Director when the Bushie torturers were running amuck and the stage was being set to create even more terrorists with drone strikes that often took out civilians, women, kids. Never mind Obama’s often saying “we need to put this behind us” – the moral tenor of a genuinely moral nation demands accountability and responsibility.  If we ignore that, or let it pass out of expediency, we're no better than the Third Reich.


So let me begin with question 1: If confirmed, are YOU going to release the remaining JFK assassination files – especially the ones on George Joannides which would show conclusively how Lee Oswald was being played as a patsy?

This is especially germane now, as the news has come forth (Jan. 13, in assorted AP releases to dozens of papers) that two of Robert F. Kennedy’s offspring, Rory and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. related to Charlie Rose in an interview (conducted at the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas) that their dad never bought into the Warren Commission Report. According to Robert Kennedy Jr., his father thought “the Warren Commission which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone was a ‘shoddy piece of craftsmanship” and he added that he too questioned the report.

Well, I mean, seriously – WHO wouldn’t? 200 material witnesses never called to testify, including: the reporter who found the alleged sniper’s nest, the woman who saw Officer J.D. Tippitt shot and by a heavy set short man – not Oswald, a soldier who felt the air percussion of a bullet whiz by as he stood with his camera on the grassy knoll, and at least five witnesses, including an Air Force officer – that observed an Oswald double.

Then we have the added poppycock of a supposed bullet making seven wounds in two men and emerging pristine or nearly so, on a Parkland Hospital stretcher. Then we had the spectacle of a bullet-pocked limo being disassembled and dispatched to Ohio and the brain disappearing between Parkland in Dallas, and Bethesda. Add to that an alleged assassin's rifle (6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano) which had to be substituted for to try to replicate the alleged shots in WC trials, since the purported original had shims out of whack in azimuth - so couldn't hit the broad side of a barn! How many coincidences have to occur before people are given credit for some basic common sense?

So, no, the Warren Commission was never set up as a “government commission” but as LBJ’s creature, to enable his full oversight-control and to provide an expedient political resolution by which assorted covert players and special interests could all wipe their paws clean. The nation, and especially the power brokers, could then  move on without getting into messy conspiracies, made especially easy after Oswald was shot and killed.

In the aftermath, those of us in deep politics also were aware that because Bobby never bought into the Warren hogswill, he sought independent outlets to do their own research. Through contacts assisted by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, he met with French Intelligence who provided their own report that later emerged in 1968 as the book ‘Farewell America’ written under the pseudonym of’ James Hepburn’. Readers can access the book here: http://www.jfk-online.com/farewell00.html


After Bobby was himself assassinated in June 1968, CIA and other black ops sought to tar the book and its basis, as they have done the past 45 odd years with all other rigorous works disclosing conspiracy.

This is why getting hands on the CIA's  Joannides files is so very important, especially in this 50th anniversary year. We’ve waited too long as it is and the American people deserve the truth concerning what was effectively a coup d’etat which saw the takeover of the U..S. and its executive branch by a massive Military Industrial complex and national security state.

Those of us in the research community also know that most of the "Oswald-Castro did it" tricks emerged at the time George Johannides was the Chief of Psychological Warfare branch of the CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami . Almost all his energy was directed to: a) implicating Oswald in the assassination by a strategy of "sheepdipping" (see John Newman's excellent 'Oswald and the CIA') and b) processing disinformation from pseudo -double agents and deliberate false sources to implicate Castro, the Soviets, Oswald or all three.

The entire effort was to set up assorted straw men to take the eyes off the real culprits, and most of us believe the CIA was a key player – certainly in the subsequent cover up and disinformation campaign. One of the most recent disinfo efforts incarnated in Brian Latell’s book: 'Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine'. It bears the veneer of some new insider info, but in fact is merely another in a long line of CIA DISINFO, churned out over the years, and supported by CIA assets and networks to try to convince the American people there was no conspiracy in the JFK assassination and Lee Oswald was the lone gunman.

We also know some enclaves of the entertainment industry are part of the disinformation process, as confirmed by the plan to televise a 13 -part HBO series later this year (produced by Tom Hanks) that will attempt to bolster Vince Bugliosi's obsessive hack baloney in his 1600+ page "Rewriting History' that Oswald acted alone. Has Hanks had CIA assistance, (as well as Bugliosi’s) in creating his 13- part bull pockey? We don’t know, but what we DO know is that the CIA had agents seeded in the news media for decades, putatively acting as “journalists” (actually as anti-conspiracy 'gate-keepers'), and documented by Kathryn Olmstead in her book Challenging the Secret Government (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1996)

In the midst of all this BS all we ask is that Brennan, if and when he becomes Director, release those files!
Brennan’s answers are also important given the National Archives basically told JFK Assassination researchers to go take a long walk on a short pier, (see e.g. http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/national-archives-to-jfk-file-seekers.htmlafters) seeking specific records mandated for release.

The records were originally requested by the nonprofit Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC), will now remain secret until at least 2017, when the 1992 JFK Records Act mandates public release of all assassination files in the government’s possession. Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, writing a book about the impact of JFK’s assassination on American politics, remarked after the National Archives(June, 2012) refusal to release files this year :

“This is a deeply disappointing decision that deprives everyone of a fuller understanding of the JFK assassination The 50th anniversary of that terrible event is the perfect opportunity to shed more light on the violent removal of a president. This adds to the widely held public suspicion that the government may still be hiding some key facts about President Kennedy’s murder.”

Hence, the main question we need at least one spined Senator to put to Brennan.

A second ancillary question is whether Brennan plans to release the files concerning the bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 in October, 1976 off Barbados’ SW coast. All other existing files, including from Venezuelan intelligence, point to CIA involvement and featuring hired anti-Castro thugs from Alpha 66 – a notorious Miami bunch that has worked in league with the CIA for decades . According to a secret CIA cable dated Oct. 14, 1976, intelligence sources in Venezuela relayed information about the Cubana Airlines bombing that tied in Alpha 66 creator Orlando Bosch, who had been visiting Venezuela, and Posada, who then served as a senior officer in Venezuela’s intelligence agency, DISIP.


The Oct. 14 cable said Bosch arrived in Venezuela in late September 1976 under the protection of Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, a close Washington ally who assigned his intelligence adviser Orlando Garcia “to protect and assist Bosch during his stay in Venezuela.”

On his arrival, Bosch was met by Garcia and Posada, according to the report. Later, a fundraising dinner was held in Bosch’s honor. “A few days following the fund-raising dinner, Posada was overheard to say that, ‘we are going to hit a Cuban airplane,’ and that ‘Orlando has the details,’” the CIA report said. Meanwhile, those of us living in Barbados had no remote notion of the bloody act to come, nor of the U.S. complicity in it, or that the same Cuban renegades whose associates (from the Bay of Pigs invasion)  conspired in the JFK hit were part of it. The CIA Report went on to read:


“"Following the 6 October [1976] Cubana Airline crash off the coast of Barbados, Bosch, Garcia and Posada agreed that it would be best for Bosch to leave Venezuela. Therefore, on 9 October, Posada and Garcia escorted Bosch to the Colombian border, where he crossed into Colombian territory.”

Note in the preceding the sanitizing of the language, the use of "crash" instead of bombing, or what we call "collateral language". Warren Hinckle and William Turner note in their excellent book, ‘Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK’ (p. 384, Thunders Mouth Press, 1992) go on to note that:

“Two men who had deplaned in Barbados, Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo Lusano, were interrogated after joking about the bombing in a Barbados taxicab. The two were employed by Luis Posada…and confessed that Posada and (Orlando) Bosch had supplied them with two bombs, which they planted on the Cubana aircraft.”

The authors added  that “the CIA hand in the terrorist destruction of the Cubana airliner materialized two weeks later” when a CIA double agent named Ignacio Rodriguez-Mena blew the whistle on them, evidently enraged as he might have been on the flight except his wife was late arriving at the departure terminal. Interestingly, Rodriguez -Mena was also the person former CIA spook Latell tried to implicate as sending a hidden signal to off Kennedy, back in 1963.  Kennedy's own words in a Nov. 18, 1963 Miami speech:  "the small band of conspirators" was to be the "green light" for a 'go'. Retrospective vendetta? Who knows?  

But researcher James Douglass has exposed this subterfuge in his book ( JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters , p. 251:

“The CIA, by reversing the meaning of Kennedy's speech to motivate its own hired assassin, created a dogma of disinformation that it would disseminate for decades.....that the Miami speech was meant as an encouragement for murder, not dialogue".

THIS is why we need answers, otherwise we will continue to inhabit a fool's paradise where the elites spout bromides about "freedom" but the national security interests can do whatever....whenever.

For a solid account of the Cubana Airliner bombing (including a video) and why no one should ever believe squat on what the CIA or its lackeys has to say about Castro being involved in the JFK assassination, go to:

http://morallowground.com/2012/10/06/on-this-day-1976-the-bombing-of-cubana-airlines-flight-455/

National Archives to JFK File Seekers: 'DROP DEAD!'

Yeppers, that's the response of the National Archives - reduced to a nutshell - to those of us who want 1,117 critical files released by next year, the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination. Gary Stern, general counsel for the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), said the Archives would not release the records as part of the Obama administration’s ongoing declassification campaign. Stern cited CIA claims that “substantial logistical requirements” prevented their disclosure next year.

Some of us suspect that translates to: "Some of our assets who played a key part in the events of the time are still alive".  Suspicious? Paranoid? Fuckin-A right! I mean what have they got to hide?

Let's get sensible for once: One single unabashed and full release of the remaining files would quell nearly all the most dire conspiracy subtexts (e.g. those directly implicating the government or its agencies in executive action) and render redundant Comedian Tom Hanks' proposed 13-part HBO series next year - ostensibly designated to "prevent the American people from being snookered by the belief Oswald was framed".

Hey, Mr. Hanks, who is 'snookering' who? If you had one milligram of gumption or intestinal fortitude you'd be using all your energies to get those files released and dealing with them, instead of trying to brainwash the rest of us with two-bit propaganda dredged out of Vince Bugliosi's Warren Commission PR 'brief'.

According to Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, who is writing a book about the impact of JFK’s assassination on American politics:

“This is a deeply disappointing decision that deprives everyone of a fuller understanding of the JFK assassination The 50th anniversary of that terrible event is the perfect opportunity to shed more light on the violent removal of a president. This adds to the widely held public suspicion that the government may still be hiding some key facts about President Kennedy’s murder.”

Well, uh ..duh...and why on earth wouldn't such suspicions be aroused? Any person with a pair of functioning neurons ought to be asking: What has the government got to hide?

The records were originally requested by the nonprofit Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC), will now remain secret until at least 2017, when the 1992 JFK Records Act mandates public release of all assassination files in the government’s possession. However, do not be surprised that if Mitt Romney gets in, he passes an Executive Order mandating the remaining files never be released. Especially if they're found to contain what many of us already suspect.

Interestingly, The Archives’ decision comes as two former CIA officers have gone public with the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Cuban leader Fidel Castro had advance knowledge of JFK’s assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. In a piece published in the Daily Beast this week, retired CIA officer Glenn Carle claimed that “the Cuban dictator knew of Lee Harvey Oswald’s intention to kill President Kennedy.” Carle also defended a deceased CIA colleague, David Phillips, from allegations of JFK conspiracy theorists that he conspired in JFK’s death.

Two things:

First, I already exposed the 'Castro did it'  bunkum for the horse shit it is, and people can see that in the blog eviscerating CIA hack Brian Latell's effort:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/03/biran-latell-another-cia-hack.html

As I asked therein, and do so again: WHY should anyone in his or her right mind believe a pack of inveterate liars and their disinfo lackeys who had no compunction about blowing an airliner out of the sky off the coast of Barbados, on Oct. 6, 1976, killing all 73 on board- the entire Cuban National Fencing Team?

We also know at the time these "Oswald-Castro did it" tricks emerged, the one key person behind it was George Johannides, the Chief of Psychological Warfare branch of the CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami . Almost all his energy was directed to: a) implicating Oswald in the assassination by a strategy of "sheepdipping" (see Univ. of Maryland Military Science Professor John Newman's excellent 'Oswald and the CIA') and b) processing disinformation from pseudo -double agents and deliberate false sources to implicate Castro, the Soviets, Oswald or all three.

Interestingly, on May 20, 2005, the same CIA that wants us to believe "Castro did it" or "knew about it" or "knew of Oswald", filed papers to block the release of specific JFK-assassination related documents to do with the activities of deceased CIA officer GEORGE JOANNIDES. Coincidence? Hardly!  At the time of Kennedy's death, Joannides (as Chief of Psychological Warfare branch of  JM/WAVE) was the character who manipulated Oswald (in conjunction with disaffected anti-Castro Cubans in the DRE and fellow agent David Atlee Phillips) and over months had him painted as a pro-Castro looneytune. By the time of the hit, 'Hey looka that! The Pro-Castro nut dunnit!' (Despite a savvy columnist, Kenneth Crawford, noting "the suspicious irony inherent in a lone-pro-Castro gunman being fingered in a city (Dallas) regarded as a ‘citadel of right wing strength'’. (Newsweek, Dec. 2, 1963, p. 21)

By doing this, Joannides also set the stage for the later Castro –conspiracy theory, that it was really Fidel who had Kennedy killed because of attempts made on the Cuban leader’s life via Operation ZR-Rifle. Not said, of course, is that Kennedy had already (from late 1962) initiated a rapprochement with Castro through his aide-de-camp Rene Vallejo and Kennedy's emissary, William Attwood. (See, e.g. Peter Kornbluh: ‘Kennedy and Castro: What Might Have Been’, in The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 22, 1999. )

This is what neither of these CIA hucksters, Carle or Latell, want people to process: that it makes ZERO sense for Castro or any of his confederates to want to whack JFK when he was already in the process of healing relations with Cuba, spurred on by the near calamitous events of October, 1962 and the Cuban Missile crisis (when Kennedy was being pressured by Gen. Curtis LeMay and others to bomb and invade Cuba).


Second, Carle's defense of David Atlee Phillips is more disinformation BS.  As reported in The Baltimore Sun, (Nov. 28, 1997): 'Document Supports Conspiracy Theory In JFK Slaying' - Paper Buttresses Theory That Oswald, Agent Met'  we read:


"A long secret government document released Wednesday lends credence to a favorite theory of conspiracy theorists on President John F. Kennedy's assassination: the contention that Lee Harvey Oswald was seen in Dallas with a U.S. Intelligence agent about two months before the killing. This issue has long been connected with unproved reports that a violent Cuban exile group - perhaps with the help of a U.S. intelligence agency - was involved in the assassination."

The Sun article named the intelligence agent as 'Maurice Bishop' which pseudonym was later exposed as the cover identity used by one David Atlee Phillips - who Carle seeks to protect.  The article also noted that the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 "failed to substantiate the report" but we now know why in the aftermath. It was because both Phillips and Joannides were recruited to stonewall and lie their asses off to the HSCA.

Fifteen years after JFK's killing, Joannides was called out of retirement by the CIA to serve as the agency's liaison to the House committee looking into Kennedy's assassination. During this time he never disclosed his own actions in 1963 to the congressional investigators he was supposed to be assisting. It wasn't until 2001, 38 years after Kennedy's death, that Joannides' support for the Cuban exiles, who clashed with Oswald and monitored him, came to light. Since then, the Agency has blocked every effort to get the bastard's files.


"[Joannides'] behavior was criminal," said Robert Blakey, the former House committee counsel who was deceived by the CIA agent. "He obstructed our investigation."

Even pro-lone nut hack Gerald Posner ('Case Closed')  was disturbed enough by the CIA's file disclosure intransigence (on the release of the Joannides' files)  to comment:

"The agency is stonewalling, It's a perfect example of why the public has so little trust in the CIA's willingness to be truthful."

And also why the public should continue to have so little trust in CIA hack disinformationists like Carle and Latell,  trying to pin the tail on Castro. What, Mr. Carle? Latell's crap wasn't good enough psych material so you had to put in your 0.02? Why isn't Tom Hanks investigating THIS?  Why does Hanks instead choose to become part of the matrix of the "Unspeakable"? (After James Douglass' remarkable book: 'JFK and the Unspeakable'). Well, I suppose for a sometime comedic actor ('Larry Crowne') and dabbler in semi-fictional historic fare ('John Adams', 'Band of Brothers', 'The Pacific' etc.) it's a lot easier to be part of BS orthodoxy and getting HBO  propaganda gigs, than it is to take the straight and narrow road to truth!

Back to David Atlee Phillips who Glenn Carle defends against those nasty CT's: Investigator

HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi is abundantly clear regarding the tactics of David Atlee Phillips (The Last Investigation, p. 336):


“David Atlee Phillips, former Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of the CIA, lied under oath to the House Select Committee – and he got away with it. In its final report the Committee slipped in that fact obliquely, relegating it to a footnote. This was a devious way to cover its ass; it also illustrated the Committee’s readiness to dismiss evidence that would contradict its final report. That it disregarded Phillips' perjury confirms the Committee's tacit decision not to pursue the truth 'wherever it might lead' - especially if it headed toward the CIA. Chief Counsel Blakey had, after all, a' working agreement' with the Agency."

The last point makes it especially confounding to read Blakey's words (above) about being so incensed at Joannides, when the liar and perjurer Atlee Phillips was equally guilty.  Fonzi goes on to emphasize Phillips import (op. cit., p. 336):

"David Phillips represented the most crucial investigative link ever developed between the Central Intelligence Agency and the assassination of President Kennedy."

So for Glenn Carle to assert Phillips had no role is nothing short of doing what Phillips did in respect of the HSCA investigation: lying!  Fonzi, meanwhile, probably has offered the best perspective on our illustrious government's investigations thus far in the end notes of his book, (Gaeton Fonzi: 1993, The Last Investigation, Thunders Mouth Press, p. 410):

“So again, our government slapped the American people in the face. We have been slapped in the face over and over and over again and we still deny it is happening to us. Why?"

Maybe because they believe they can do so with impunity. Let's also bear in mind that a report issued by the House Select Committee on Assassinations noted that of all the anti-Castro groups, the DRE ( Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil ) of Phillips and Joannides was “one of the most bitter toward President Kennedy for his deal with the Russians”.  (HSCA Volume 10, 1979: ‘Anti-Castro Activities and Organizations: Investigation of the Assassination of    President John F. Kennedy’, in Appendix to the Hearings Before the Select Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives (U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 82) The "deal" referenced pertains to JFK's promise to Khrushchev - as part of  resolving the October,1962 missile deal - to attempt no further invasions of Cuba if all Soviet hardware was removed. Kennedy also, to much right wing consternation, removed U.S. Jupiter missiles based in Turkey - 6 months later. All of this had to make the Phillips-Joannides Cuban clique apoplectic.

Well, imagine - just imagine - how riled and furious that same Phillips-Joannides anti-Castro Cuban group would be when it learned (compliments of their CIA handlers, no doubt) that Kennedy was in the process of establishing normalized relations with Fidel via a rapproachement with his aide-de-camp (Indeed, medical assistance had already been dispatched to Cuba as a sign of good will). Hell, the fuckers would have gone ballistic and begged Joannides and Phillips for anything they might do, any role, to exact payback. Anyone want to bet that one or more were offered the job of mechanics in a hit? Too extreme? They'd never do it? Hey ....these were the same fuckers that blew a Cubana Airliners plane (Flight 455) out of the skies off Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976! If they could kill 73 innocents that day don't tell me they wouldn't volunteer to put one or more bullets into a prez that: a) they believed 'betrayed' them by not providing air cover for Operation Zapata (the Bay of Pigs invasion), or b) had begun rapprochement with Fidel Castro.

To quote Larry Sabato on this NARA perfidy:

“After five decades it is ridiculous that information is still being withheld from the people whose taxes paid for it,”

But hey, maybe it isn't a biggie since they feel no compunction - the gov't - about pissing $10b a week on a useless operation like Afghanistan. So what's a little document concealment in the scheme of things? Especially when it may point the way to finally seeing the permanent war-security state entered via a coup de-etat in November, 1963?

Sadly, as the 50th anniversary of the hideous Dallas tragedy approaches, CIA officials are hiding information about covert operations that culminated in the death of perhaps the most liberal president in the last half century and the National Archives is helping them get away with it. Worse, a supposedly "liberal" president and Democrat seems to be condoning it. Go figure!

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For a solid account of the Cubana Airliner bombing (including the false arrest of five Cubans who were in the process of exposing the actual anti-Castro Cuban-American terrorists)  and why no one should ever believe squat on what the CIA or its lackeys has to say about Castro being involved in the JFK assassination, go to:

http://www.freethefive.org/updates/USMedia/USM455Pertierra101111.htm

BRIAN LATELL: Another CIA Hack-Disinformationist

The headlines in today's Miami Herald: http://www.herald.com/
fairly screamed about some newfangled "revelations" about the JFK assassination (made by a former CIA "analyst" Brian Latell) and claimed an alleged role by Fidel Castro. Also indicating Fidel "knew" Lee Oswald was going to try to eliminate JFK - presumably to further the Cuban cause. The name of this execrable piece of offal, which I wouldn't waste a load of lickspittle on, far less $29.95, is entitled 'Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine'.

It bears the veneer of some new insider info, but in fact is merely another in a long line of CIA DISINFO, churned out over the years, and supported by CIA assets and networks to try to convince the American people there was no conspiracy in the JFK assassination and Lee Oswald was the lone gunman.

For those of us who know better, it's like playing 'whack-a-mole' and every time you whack one disinformation book, spook or faux source down, another seems to erupt to take its place. But as the 50th anniversary of the assassination approaches we expect ever more of these efforts, including - I understand - an HBO series next year (produced by Tom Hanks) that will attempt to bolster Vince Bugliosi's obsessive hack baloney in his 1600+ page "Rewriting History' that Oswald acted alone. In future blogs next month I will show why Hanks is truly wasting his reputation and his money on this project. He'd do much better to do a follow-up of 'The Pacific'! But hey, maybe he loves wasting time on useless propaganda projects!

Anyway, let's deal with Latell's book. Let me begin by citing again CIA document 1035-960 and one of its paramount objectives:

CIA document 1035-960:

RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report

Possible actions to be taken:

b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets.

---
And we now know, after this document was produced, that one of the other methods of "refutation" has been to launch or initiate books (e.g. Gerald Posner's 'Case Closed' in 1993) based entirely on disinformation. What I want to do is give a number of such examples which appear in Latell's book. But before doing so, allow me to set the stage as it were for readers. And I will be very blunt here.

Question: WHY should anyone in his or her right mind believe a pack of inveterate liars and their disinfo lackeys who had no compunction about blowing an airliner out of the sky off the coast of Barbados, on Oct. 6, 1976, killing all 73 on board- the entire Cuban National Fencing Team?

As Warren Hinckle and William Turner note in their excellent book, ‘Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK’ (p. 384, Thunders Mouth Press, 1992):

“Two men who had deplaned in Barbados, Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo Lusano, were interrogated after joking about the bombing in a Barbados taxicab. The two were employed by Luis Posada…and confessed that Posada and (Orlando) Bosch had supplied them with two bombs, which they planted on the Cubana aircraft.”

Of course, this dastardly terror strike was personal to me since as I’d noted in an earlier blog,

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-i-remain-cynic-re-wars-on-terror.html

I was at the Paradise Beach on the southwest coast of the island with my five nieces when it occurred. We witnessed the explosion, wondering what the hell had happened – then watched in horror barely an hour and a half later as bloody body parts washed ashore. Even now, as adult women, they're unable to venture anywhere near that particular beach.

The prevailing thought at the time was some malfunction occurred and a plane just blew up more or less by accident. It was only years later that it was ascertained that the two questioned in Barbados were hired thugs commissioned by anti-Castro extremist Cubans and the CIA .

Hinckle and Warner go on to note (ibid.) that Venezuelan Police later raided Posada’s apartment and found bomb equipment and plans, including a map of Washington, DC, indicating these vermin were also behind the infamous Letelier assassination.

The authors continued by noting that “the CIA hand in the terrorist destruction of the Cubana airliner materialized two weeks later” when a CIA double agent named Ignacio Rodruguez-Mena blew the whistle on them, evidently enraged as he might have been on the flight except his wife was late arriving at the departure terminal.

We also know at the time these "Oswald-Castro did it" tricks emerged, the one key person behind it was George Johannides, the Chief of Psychological Warfare branch of the CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami . Almost all his energy was directed to: a) implicating Oswald in the assassination by a strategy of "sheepdipping" (see John Newman's excellent 'Oswald and the CIA') and b) processing disinformation from pseudo -double agents and deliberate false sources to implicate Castro, the Soviets, Oswald or all three.

One of the earlier mutations of this propaganda trick appeared several years ago when a German movie director, Wilfried Huismann, claimed that after three years of research and contacts with "former Cuban and KGB Agents” he'd learned that "Cuba provided the gunman with money and support".

The gambit was exposed by author James Douglass in his (2008) book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. The CIA had actually manufactured a phony letter (probably dictated by David Atlee Phillips or one of his cronies) to a "Comrade Kostin" from Lee Oswald, which was to be integrated into the fake “Oswald in Mexico City” files. Problem was these dummies didn't even get the name correct, as it was actually Valery Vladimirovitch Kostikov.

The bogus, confected letter was delivered to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, and specifically mentioned Oswald’s alleged comings and goings in Mexico City including a “meeting with the Soviet director of assassinations”. Prior to the fake letter, Kostikov had already been set up using fraudulent telephone calls (and transcripts of said calls) purportedly from Oswald. This prompted a later memo from Clarence Kelly to the then FBI Director that Kostikov was (sic) “the most dangerous KGB agent in the hemisphere.’

After JFK’s slaying, the real purveyors and plotters revealed the “material” of the incriminating phone calls, transcripts and letter – manufacturing the Kostikov-Cuban- Oswald connection. (Douglass, op. cit. p. 228, as the author notes the letter’s 3rd paragraph extended the complicity to Cuba.)

When critics like Douglass combed through these claims of Huismann, it was clear a more coherent propaganda effort would be needed in the future to try to at least make the Cuba-Fidel-Oswald connection stick. Maybe they needed to get a real CIA analyst to do a book, as opposed to some film director from Deutschland.

Again, I refer readers to the earlier blog link given where I also show FOIA documents of what the CIA planned to do to instigate a war or confrontation with Castro. Please look them over carefully. Does it make sense to you that the same outfit that intended to launch "Remember the Maine" incidents in Cuban harbors, as well as sinking of refugee boats (carrying Cuban refugees) on the high seas, and setting fire to installations or bombing them with likely random killing of innocent Cubans, can be trusted to tell the truth on Fidel Castro, Oswald and JFK? If you believe that I have 100 acres of prime beach front property on Barbados' north shore to sell you for a song!

Anyway, let's get back to one of Latell's claims to the effect that Oswald, "a belligerent Castro supporter, grew frustrated when officials at the Cuban embassy in Mexico City refused to give him a visa to travel to the island", oh and he "promised to shoot Kennedy" to prove his revolutionary credentials. As Latell writes:

"Fidel knew of Oswald’s intentions — and did nothing to deter the act,”

Which, of course, repeats the lie that the person appearing at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City was really Lee Oswald. Readers can compare for themselves the photos of the real Lee Oswald, and the person (a heavy set male) photographed by CIA monitor cameras in Mexico City at the time Oswald was alleged to have appeared there.

Of course, the CIA regularly monitored the Cuban and Soviet embassy compounds in Mexico City, and had photographs of anyone coming or going. A cable dated Oct. 10, 1963 referred to (John Newman, Oswald and the CIA, p. 399)

"..an American male, who identified himself as Lee OSWALD, contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring whether the Embassy had received any news concerning a telegram which had been sent to Washington. The American was described as approximately 35 years old, with an athletic build, about six feet tall, with a receding hairline."

This description, of course, fairly well matches the heavy set dude on the right side of the graphic which bears the actual image of the "Oswald" captured. Is that really Lee Harvey? No fucking way!

It was certainly not Oswald, who at only 5'9" (at most) and slight of build (160 lbs.) possessed a decidedly un-athletic physique. University of Maryland Military Science Professor Newman also makes reference (ibid.) to a note scribbled in the margin of the above cable by a CIA employee with the words: "Not Oswald! WRONG!"

Hey, maybe this innocent spook wasn't let in on the game? Who knows? When spooks run operations with multiple dummie fronts, double agents, cut-outs and the like, it's easy to get trapped in your game. They can't cover ALL the bases, all the time!

The point is that Latell repeats a lie, so is already caught out as a propagandizer, not a truth teller. The reason Castro wouldn't have known, is fairly clear: because the character in Mexico City at the Cuban Embassy had nothing to do with him! Why also would he have known the actual Lee Harvey Oswald, when as Newman shows, Oswald was likely an agent working for the U.S. government to expose the assassination. As Newman notes, p. 59, Oswald had two files prepared by the CIA and never disclosed by the Warren Commission: OS-351-164 (The 'OS' for Office of Security') and 74-500, where '74' denotes the country code for Russia, Newman, op. cit., p. 57. Indeed, it is Douglass who indicates it was Oswald who made an anonymous phone call to Chicago days before a planned hit of JFK in that city on Nov. 2, 1963 which led Kennedy to cancel his trip. The suspect later arrested was another "lone gunman": Thomas Arthur Vallee.

Say one thing say the next, at least Latell admits he had no hard evidence for any Oswald-Castro role in the Kennedy assassination. As he told the Herald:

"I don’t say Fidel Castro ordered the assassination, I don’t say Oswald was under his control. He might have been, but I don’t argue that, because I was unable to find any evidence for that."

Then why bring it up at all, and in such a dubious book? Also, why make reference to "Oswald’s outspoken public support for Cuba — he had staged several one-man demonstrations and even scuffled with members of an anti-Castro group" when you're unable to produce the REAL hidden files on these activities, and the actual puppeteer behind them: George Joannides? (The CIA up to now has refused to release any Joannides files which shows me they're not invested in any truth, no matter how many "analysts" or apologists they trot out.)

What we do know (as James Douglass shows) is that part of the sheep -dipping process was painting Oswald as some pro-Castro extremist. We know that this part of the pre-cover-up was likely orchestrated by George Joannides in conjunction with the DRE (Revolutionary Cuban Students group) to manufacture incidents such as the altercation with Carlos Bringuier on Canal Street. By doing this, Joannides also set the stage for the later Castro –conspiracy theory, that it was really Fidel who had Kennedy killed because of attempts made on the Cuban leader’s life via Operation ZR-Rifle.

My point? Latell's book is an absolutely, totally useless waste of paper (and trees) without supporting files on Joannides' activities. But the CIA refuses to release those. So what are we then to conclude?

Latell in his book then goes into a lot of babble on Cuban "double agents" who he suggest leaked the info on Oswald and Castro, but again, this is useless without us also knowing what Joannides was doing.

Lastly, the biggest argument against all this "Fidel killing JFK" hogwash is that nearly a year earlier than the Kennedy hit, a rapprochement with Castro (through his aide-de-camp Rene Vallejo) had already been set up by Kennedy. This has been well documented by National Archives contributor Peter Kornbluh, and paved the way to normalization of relations, including trade. ('Kennedy and Castro: What Might Have Been', by Peter Kornbluh, in The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 22, 1999, p. 1C)

National Security Archivist Kornbluh shows (by reference to documents he has accessed), it was William Attwood, a Washington lawyer (who had negotiated the original release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners), who was instrumental. Attwood was charged with becoming the first American emissary to secure Castro’s ear and trust in a year-long rapprochement. In particular, to show good will and good faith, Attwood arranged for $62 million in medicines and food aid as part of the prisoner deal. All this was approved by JFK and likely sealed his death warrant in the Agency.

Why on Earth would Castro compromise all of this over some half-baked plot allegedly using a "lone defector"? (In fact, Oswald wasn't an actual defector, which in any case isn't a crime, but part of a CIA false defector program set up as early as 1958, if not sooner. This is documented by Victor Marchetti in his book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. )

The true treachery in all this, from the true traitors, was the CIA's use of Rolando Cubela (a Cuban political figure whom Castro trusted) to attempt to murder Castro (using a ball point pen rigged with hypodermic needle to inject cyanide) and being told that a phrase in Kennedy's Nov. 18, 1963 speech in Miami ("the small band of conspirators") was the "green light" for a 'go'. (Douglass, op. cit. p. 251)

Douglass goes on to note that (ibid.):

"The CIA, by reversing the meaning of Kennedy's speech to motivate its own hired assassin, created a dogma of disinformation that it would disseminate for decades.....that the Miami speech was meant as an encouragement for murder, not dialogue".

And of course, Latell's despicable effort is only the latest mutation of this disinformation process.