“W debate overwho,ifnotOswald alone,killedKennedyandwhy. created to centralize theories,documentation and the always ongoing of theassassinationarrives,new websitessuchasJFKFacts.orghavebeen sued thestoryofassassination fordecades.Asthe50thanniversary cal Assassinations(COPA) andtheMaryFerrellFoundationhavepur have beenwritten.MajororganizationssuchastheCoalition onPoliti- over theyears.Morethan2,000booksandmanythousands ofarticles magnitude ofthecrime,anentireconspiracyindustryhasproliferated As iftofeedthewidespreadwishfindamastercriminal who fitthe for something.Aconspiracywould,ofcourse,dothejobnicely.” death withmeaning,endowinghimmartyrdom.Hewould havedied want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the president’s William Manchesterexplainedthenationalsenseofincredulity. “You wretched waifOswaldontheotherside,itdoesn’t balance,”asauthor dered presidentoftheUnitedStatesononesidescaleandthat believed more than one individual was responsible. “If you put the mur anniversary of Kennedy’s death recorded that 75 percent of Americans had been part of a larger conspiracy; another Gallup poll on the fortieth after theassassinationfoundthat52percentofpublicbelievedOswald generated byanitineratelonerlikeOswald.AGalluppolltakenshortly accept thatthemostnotoriouscrimeof20thcenturycouldhavebeen reporter 20 years ago. Indeed, the American public has found it hard to 120 ofthemurderpresident. tion withthe“whodunit” toward the Cuban revolution remain acentral part of the public fascina- own reasons,killedJFK.Nevertheless,CubaandKennedy’s policies sion ledbyChiefJusticeEarlWarren: Oswald,actingaloneandforhis evidence tochallengetheconclusionofofficialinvestigativecommis- Commission reportinSeptember, 1964.Thereport’sfindingsthatLeeHarveyOswaldactedasaloneassassinhaveneverbeenoverturned. Oswald incustodyDallas,left,aftershootingthepresident.ChiefJusticeEarlWarren, right,presentsPresidentLyndon B.JohnsonwiththeWarren That questionhasgenerated countless responses,manyofthem Conspiracy theoristshavecertainlydevotedthemselvestothat task. aides, Sorensen, Theodore told a New York Times as this,” one of John F. Kennedy’s top White House coulde resistdo something the idea thatas anobody big - -

(ARRB) told staff directoroftheKennedyAssassinationRecordsReviewBoard “The conspiracytheoriesaredivorcedfromreality,” JeremyGunn,former same onethatwastakenofftheplanewhenitlandedinWashington. Force One in to transport the dead president home was not the David Lifton, claimed that in the the casket body that was put aboard Air president’s injuries. One best-selling conspiracy book, Best Evidence, by to shootKennedy, andtheinaccuraciesofautopsyreportson famous photoofOswaldholdingtheMannlicher-Carcano rifle used Governor JohnConnallyseatedinfrontofhim,theshadowson pierced Kennedy’s neckandthen went throughtheshoulderofTexas the president’s andinhissuitcoat,theso-called“magicbullet”that body assassination, amongthem:thediscrepanciesbetweenbulletholesin anniversary. Conspiracy fantasiesformedaroundmanyelementsofthe few ofthedozensspeculativetheoriesstillcirculatingon50th a president, themafiaand/orCIAkilledpresident…thesearejust of gayskilledthepresident,military-industrialcomplex paranoid andpreposterous.Lyndon Johnsonkilledthepresident,agroup created by government secrecy eroded confidence in the truthfulness of confidenceinthetruthfulnessof created bygovernmentsecrecy eroded sealed,” notedtheExecutiveSummary oftheARRBreport.“Thesuspicions tigative commissionsandcommittees werewithheldfrompublicviewand surround the Kennedy assassination. “Even the records created by the inves nized publicoutrageovertheU.S. governmentsecrecythatcontinuedto Stone movie,JFK,starringKevinCostner. His infamous investigation became the basis of thepopular 1991 Oliver he later expanded the pool of conspirators to include the CIA and FBI. up charges,unsuccessfully prosecuted alocalbusinessmanforthe crime; tion ofthepresidentwas“ahomosexualthrill-killing”—and,on trumped prosecutor JimGarrison.Garrisonoriginallyclaimedthatthe assassina- assassination conspiracytheories:thewitchhuntinNewOrleans bylocal marketing ofperhapsthemostdiscreditedanddisreputableall Kennedy Like Garrison’s investigation,themoviewasutterfiction.Butitgalva- The creationoftheARRBbyCongressin1992owesto mass C igar

A fi c ionado , “and divorced from common sense.” , “anddivorcedfromcommonsense.” -

left: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; right: Jim McNamara/The Washington Post via Getty Images left: Bill Bridges/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images; right: Paul Slade/ Match via Getty Images of conspiracytheoriesregarding theassassinationofJFK,andwasbasisfor1991Oliver StonemovieJFK. into whetherornotLeeHarvey Oswald actedaloneorwithoutsidehelp.NewOrleansprosecutor JimGarrison(right)wasoneoftheloudestproponents CIA DirectorJohnMcCone (left)washeadofthespyagencyattime oftheKennedyassassination,andspearheadedsome earlyinvestigations all remaining intelligence records must be declassified. Similarly, the CIA however, refusedtoreleasethemuntil 2017—theyeartheJFKActstates 1,100 additionalCIArecordsas“assassination-related.”TheAgency, it wassourcesandmethods.” the board”overdeclassifyingspecificdocuments,herecalled.“Ineverycase the AssassinationRecordsReviewBoard.Buttherewere“lotsoffightswith CIA’s CenterfortheStudyofIntelligenceoversawagency’s workwith was mandatedbylaw,” saysBrianLatell,whoasthethen-directorof “The agencymadeagenuineandsincereefforttodeclassifyeverythingthat on covertoperationstokilloroverthrowCastrointheearly1960s. assassination recordsincludeddetailedCIAoperationalcablesandreports Warren CommissionthatOswaldactedalone.OnCuba,theKennedy assassination—none ofwhichdisprovedoriginalfindingsthe pages relatingspecificallyandbroadlytoalldirectindirectaspectsofthe spent four years locating, reviewing and releasing an estimated 5 million House and all other relevant government and law-enforcement agencies board chairedbyJudgeJohnTunheim, theFBI,CIA,SecretService,White undertaken bytheU.S.government.Undersupervisionofafive-member opening ofalldocumentationconcernedwiththedeathpresident. Congress in1992topassthe“JFKAct,”whichmandatedreviewand ries that filledthevoidleftby stillhidden historicalrecord,mobilized lack of transparency, along with the corrosive nature of the conspiracy theo- federal agenciesingeneralanddamagedtheircredibility.” Theinexplicable the results ofaninternalinvestigation into For 50years, theCIAhasfailedtodisclose Indeed, as the ARRB prepared to close its doors in 1998, it identified Indeed, astheARRBpreparedtocloseitsdoorsin1998,itidentified The resultwasoneofthemostfar-reaching declassificationprojectsever cleared theCubansofany wrongdoing. Cuban involvement intheKennedy assassination, whichpresumably

C to knowwhokilledKennedyandwhy.” chair theinvestigation.“ButAmericanpeopleandworldhavegot Supreme CourtChiefJusticeEarlWarren, whoJohnsonappointedto charging KhrushchevkilledKennedyandCastroKennedy,” hetold presidential commissionontheassassination.“Nowthesewildpeopleare Communist conspiracy, President Johnsonmovedquicklytoappoint a was “totallydiscredited,”recallstheCIA’s BrianLatell. Mexico City, Alvarado failedapolygraphtestandretractedhisclaims.He Mexico CityuntilSeptember26th.Duringquestioningatasafe-housein Oswald hadbeeninNewOrleansonSeptember18—hedidnottravelto president oftheUnitedStates. September 18th.”Alvaradoclaimedthemoneywastopayforkilling saw Oswald given $6,500 inthe Cuban Embassy inMexico City on [Mexico] stationingreatdetailonhisallegedknowledgethatheactually intelligence operativenamedGilbertoAlvaradohad“advisedour Kennedy’s assassination.ButMcConealsoreportedthataNicaraguan his wife,”McConeadvisedinatopsecretupdateontheinvestigationinto “travel permitstoCubaandthencetheSovietUnionforhimself City. CIAinterceptsoftelephonecallsrevealedthatOswaldwasseeking in lateSeptembertoboththeCubanandSovietEmbassiesMexico CIA DirectorJohnMcConebriefedPresidentJohnsononOswald’s visits role intheassassination,aswellCIA’s roleitself. records secret,theCIAhasfannedflamesofspeculationonCuba’s the pro-CastroOswaldinNewOrleans.Bycontinuingtokeeprelevant officer forananti-Castrogroupofexilesthathadseveralencounterswith assassination scholarJeffersonMorleyforthepapersofagency’s case continues tofightaFreedomofInformationActlawsuitbroughtby Although oneinformantwhopointedthefingeratCubawasdis- Nevertheless, withthegrowingpublicclamoraboutaninternational Both theCIAandFBIhadconcreteevidence,however, that came just six days after the assassination, on November 28, when came justsixdaysaftertheassassination,onNovember28,when prescient. TheveryfirstaccusationofaCuba/Oswaldconspiracy astro’s predictionthat“theyaregoingtosaywedidit,”proved 123

126 on a top secret, 138-page internal CIA history, “Report on Plots to Paris onthedayPresidentKennedy waskilled.Thereportdrewheavily assassination efforts—amongthem theSanchez/AMLASHmeetingin Leaders,” whichdescribed,in shockingdetail,theCIA’s clandestine released areporttitled“Alleged AssassinationPlotsInvolvingForeign however, an investigative Senate committee led by Senator Frank Church were deliberately withheld from the Warren Commission. In 1975, to eliminate Castro, “ZR/RIFLE,”codenamed were so secret that they prompted Castrotoretaliate. to revisittheissueofwhetheritsownassassinationplotsmight have and Paper Mate pens rigged with hidden syringes, the agency was forced seashells efforts tokillCastrousingpoisonpills,toxiccigars,exploding dozen years later in the wake of the first major public revelations of CIA wrongdoing—hidden forhalfacentury. Cuba, haskeptthisinvestigation—itpresumablyclearedtheCubansof in thiscasetheidentityofoneagency’s mostimportantsourcesinside to dowithKennedy’s death.The sensitivityof“sourcesandmethods,” “BlackWalnut,”tion, codenamed intowhethertheCubanshadanything informant’s beliefinpossibleCuban complicity. tion—a vagueremarkheandhisagencycolleaguesinterpretedastheir would neverdothat,”the asset reported to Esterline after theassassina- later seniormanageroftheBayPigsoperation.“Theytoldmethey Castro’s innercircle.Esterlineserved asstationchiefinCaracas,and ally recruited by veteran CIA operative Jacob Esterline to penetrate a leftist politician from Panama. This high-level “asset” had been person missed, theCIAalsopursuedinformationfromasecondinformant— revolutionary CheGuevara.Right,Castro givesanaddressduringtheCubanMissileCrisis, whichtooktheworldtobrinkofWorld War III. relationship betweenthetwocountries.OneofpeopleinvolvedinthateffortwasABCcorrespondentLisaHoward,picturedatleftwithCuban The Kennedyadministrationhadbegunaseriesofback-channeloverturestotheCubangovernmentandFidelCastro inhopesofnormalizingthe got toknow whokilledKennedy andwhy.” “The Americanpeopleandtheworld have At thetimeofKennedy’s death,CIA“executiveaction”operations “Black Walnut” wouldnotbethelastofsuchinternalinquiries;a According toEsterline,thiscommentsetoffaninternalinvestiga- —President Lyndon B. Johnson -

E Peter DaleScott’s DeepPoliticsII:EssaysonOswald, MexicoandCuba, with othersinisterforcestoterminate thepresident.Inbookssuchas effort to pursue a peaceful coexistence with Cuba, CIA officials conspired about a shadowy Cuban role in the Kennedy assassination. about ashadowyCubanroleintheKennedyassassination. day before his trip to Dallas. Speculation, sheer though it may be, continues cided, impulsively, to seize the opportunity to shoot the president only the in advance.Thistheoryseemsunlikely;allindicationsarethat Oswald de- instruct Oswald to kill thepresident, Castro knew abouthisplansto do so analyst teachingatUniversityofMiami,arguesthatevenifCuba didnot CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Brian Latell, now a retired CIA tion cannotsatisfactorilyresolveit.” postulated bysome.Thebasicissuearisesfromspeculation,andspecula- launching acounterattackintheformofLeeHarveyOswald,ashasbeen have devisedthatitwasaU.S.Governmentactionasthebasisfor is notallthatclear—hewouldstillhavehadtoknowenoughdetail that hewouldhavelearned.Assuminglearnedsomething—which Castro actuallylearnedoftheplansdescribedaboveand,ifso,details would nothaveknowninadvanceofthatplot. the actualdayKennedywaskilled,inspectorgeneralinferredthatCastro acted first.SincetheassassinationdevicewasonlypassedtoAMLASHon determine whetheratanypointCastrowouldhaveknownenoughto general detailedthreespecificplots,includingtheAMLASHoperation,to Castro] plansandPresidentKennedy’s death.”Theagency’s inspector Known?” examinedthe“cause-and-effectrelationshipbetween[CIA’s empted theobviouslyfailedeffortstomurderhim. another CIAinspectorgeneraltoassesswhetherCastromighthavepre- general. Thepublic revelations of the Church Committeereport forced Assassinate FidelCastro,”compiledin1967bytheCIA’s owninspector In hisrecentlypublishedbook,Castro’s Secrets:CubanIntelligence,the not or whether to “One canspeculate,”thereportconcluded,“as That secondinspectorgeneralreport,titled“WhatCouldCastrohave 22, 1963,butratheritssubject—to terminatethepresident’s the sponsorofviolencethat shookthenationonNovember ven more conspiracy writers have speculated that Cuba was not

left: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; right: Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images Universal History Archive/Getty Images effect a dialogue between President Kennedy and Premier .” effect adialoguebetweenPresident KennedyandPremierFidelCastro.” Daniel wroteintheTimes New York Times article.Hismeetingswithboth KennedyandCastro, his roleasan“unofficialenvoy” intheNewRepublic,andafront-page assassination whentheFrenchjournalistpublishedadetailed account on dent senttoCastrothroughJean Daniel becamepublicshortly after the with Castro.Themessage of possiblereconciliationthat the U.S. presi- before hecouldendtheColdWar—in theCaribbean,andelsewhere. knoll.” ThemotivationofKennedy’s killerswastoeliminatethepresident patsy oracoverforadditionalassassinspositionedonthefamous “grassy Gaeton Fonzi’s TheLastInvestigation,OswaldisdepictedaseitheraCIA Air Force One,carryingJacquelineKennedystillwearingherblood-staineddress,returnedtoWashington, D.C.,withthepresidentialcoffin. In fact, the White House had been quietly pursuing talks with Cuba In fact,theWhiteHousehadbeen quietlypursuingtalkswithCuba At thetimeofhisdeath,Kennedywasindeedpursuingsecret talks on December11,1963,hadestablished “in Castro’s clearinterestinimprovedrelations.Inatopsecretmemorandum from Cuba, Howard debriefed CIA deputy director Richard Helms on lution replacedDonovanasthe centralinterlocutor. Whenshereturned who hadtraveledtoHavana doatelevisedspecialontheCubanrevo- in negotiatingwithCastro. dent instructed his top aides to “start thinking along more flexible lines” the prisoner releases to improve overall relations to Donovan, the presi- intermediary. AfterCastrobroachedthepossibilityofexpandingtalkson Cuban forces at the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, became the first had pickedtonegotiatethereleaseofmorethan1,000exilescaptured by before Daniel. James Donovan, a NewYork lawyer who Robert Kennedy for months—usingaseriesofsecretintermediariesandinterlocutors In lateApril,acorrespondent forABCNewsnamedLisaHoward 129 that arrived on the desk of the president, Helm’s reported that “Howard “JFK pursued a series of actions—right up to the week of his death—that definitely wants to impress the U.S. Government with two facts: Castro caused members of his own military intelligence establishment to regard is ready to discuss rapprochement and she herself is ready to discuss it with him as a virtual traitor who had to be eliminated,” the book argues. In him if asked to do so by the U.S. Government.” the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost led to nuclear Predictably, the CIA adamantly opposed any dialogue with Cuba. war, Kennedy, sought a détente with both Khrushchev and Castro, the The agency was institutionally invested in its ongoing efforts to covertly book reports. “For turning to peace with his enemy (and ours) Kennedy roll back the revolution. In a secret memo rushed to the White House on was murdered by a power we cannot describe.” May 1, 1963, CIA Director John McCone requested that “no active steps be taken on the rapprochement matter at this time” and urged only the he imaginative recreation of the Kennedy assassination has “most limited Washington discussions” on accommodation with Castro. been a way to explore the twin issues of confidence and But in the fall of 1963, Washington and Havana did take active steps “Tconspiracy in U.S. history,” Jefferson Morley has written. toward actual negotiations. In September Howard used a cocktail party at The government secrecy that has accompanied the Kennedy assassination, while significantly reduced by the JFK Act, has eroded public confidence in official findings, while enhancing the validity of conspiracy theories— Some of the more popular conspiracy completely implausible and off-the-wall as some may be. The credibility of theories speculate that anti-Castro forces the Warren Commission findings have been severely undercut by the fact inside the opposed to that the CIA withheld from its investigators all information on its Castro- assassination plots. Yet with the clear corrosive effect of undue secrecy on Kennedy’s outreach efforts to Cuba the American psyche, after 50 years there are still “sources and methods” were behind the assassination. the CIA feels compelled to hide, and records related to Cuba operations in 1963 that it claims still cannot be declassified. her E. 74th St. Manhattan townhouse as cover for the first meeting In anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, between a Cuban official, UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga, and a U.S. last year officials at the National Declassification Center, the government official, deputy UN Ambassador William Attwood. Using Howard as a agency that pushes for prioritizing the release of still-secret historical secret back channel, Castro and Kennedy then began passing messages records, approached the CIA about releasing all remaining Kennedy about arranging an actual negotiation session between the two nations. assassination records, as a historical contribution to the nation. But the On November 5, Kennedy’s secret taping system recorded a conversa- “securocrats” at CIA claimed they did not have the time and resources to tion with his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, on whether to meet that deadline. The public would have to wait till 2017 before the send Attwood to Havana to meet secretly with Castro. Attwood, Bundy remaining 1,100 records will be reviewed and, perhaps, finally opened. told the president, “now has an invitation to go down and talk to Fidel But what is now known about the CIA, Kennedy’s Cuba policies, the about terms and conditions in which he would be interested in a change assassination and Oswald’s actions leaves an extraordinary and bitter irony. of relations with the U.S.” The president is heard agreeing to the idea but As historian Max Holland pointed out 20 years ago in a little read essay in asking if “we can get Attwood off the payroll before he goes” so as to “sani- Reviews in American History on “Making Sense of the Assassination,” tize” him as a private citizen in case word of the secret meeting leaked. Oswald’s violent acts were “manifestly political” and based on “a drive to On November 14, Howard arranged for Attwood to come to her be recognized as a revolutionary capable of the daring act.” A would-be home and talk via telephone to Castro’s top aide, René Vallejo, about communist, and one-man chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, he obtaining the Cuban agenda for a secret meeting in Havana with the saw himself as a political actor who had the opportunity to save Cuba from Cuban commandante. Vallejo agreed to transmit a proposed agenda to the policies of U.S. aggression that he had likely read about in the New Cuba’s UN ambassador, Lechuga, to give to the Americans. When Orleans newspapers. The AMLASH mission and others like it may have Attwood passed this information on to Bundy at the White House, he was come back to haunt the U.S., noted veteran journalist Daniel Schorr, who told that when the agenda was received, “the president wanted to see me broke the story of the CIA’s assassination plots against Castro. “An arrow at the White House and decide what to say and whether to go [to Cuba] launched into the air to kill a foreign leader may well have fallen back to or what we should do next.” kill our own.” “That was the 19th of November,” Attwood recalled. “Three days What Oswald could not have known was that his act of assassination before the assassination.” would actually terminate a significant secret effort by President Kennedy As this dramatic history emerged over the past 25 years, it became to explore détente in the Caribbean, and fundamentally change the grist for some of the more popular conspiracy theories, not only on the how framework of a hostile U.S. policy toward the Castro revolution. “This is but why Kennedy was killed. Early in the opening scenes of the movie, an end to your mission of peace, this is an end to your mission of peace,” JFK, for example, a narrator sets the stage for the assassination by stating: Castro said to Daniel as they listened to a radio report that President “more rumors emerge of JFK’s backdoor efforts outside usual State Depart- Kennedy had died in Dallas. ment and CIA channels to establish dialogue with Fidel Castro through Fifty years later, that sad fact remains the ultimate historical irony of contacts at the United Nations in New York. Kennedy is seeking change the Kennedy assassination. v on all fronts.” It was JFK’s “turn toward peace” that led to his assassination, according to James Douglass’s chronicle of these conspiratorial events, JFK Peter Kornbluh is an analyst at the National Security Archive, and is coauthor and the Unspeakable, which has gained a popular following. of a forthcoming book on the history of dialog between the U.S. and Cuba.

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