- NEIGHBORS TO THE SOUTH
A correspondent’s notebook
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
John F. Kennedy: A dual-purpose assassination
An interview with Division Gen. (r) Fabián Escalante Font
‘They were in Dallas’ (Second and final part)
Changing the cassette is a welcome distraction. I take advantage of the pause to drink water, pour myself another cup of coffee and light a cigarette. While my interviewee returns a phone call, I review the essence of his statements so far: There was a plot, Oswald was not a lone gunman and the assassination had a dual purpose. As I ponder along those lines, Escalante hangs up the phone and prepares to continue.
PW: From what you've told me so far, apparently the plotters were leaving clues that would point to Oswald as Kennedy's assassin.
|
|
|
Gen. Fabian Escalante
|
FE: I don't know if Oswald took part in Kennedy's assassination. I, like everyone else, saw the images of Oswald after he was captured and he didn't give the impression of a man who had just assassinated the president of his country. He even said that he learned he was accused of the murder only after he was arrested. And, as is well known, the following day Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, an old element of the Chicago Mafia, obviously so he wouldn't talk.
PW: So, your theory does not posit that Oswald participated in the direct action?
FE: That fact is known only to the American authorities. But we do have certain information – which will come out in my book – about some Cuban elements who probably were present in Dallas.
PW: Can you give us a preview?
FE: In the book, I refer to brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll, Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz, Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Eladio del Valle, and Herminio Díaz.
PW: Are the two Cubans who accompanied Oswald to Silvia Odio's home among these people?
FE: We don't know. The two Cubans who went to Silvia Odio's home were perfectly described by her and were never found. But, according to the Warren Commission itself, immediately after Kennedy's assassination, the police detained two Cubans whom they released because they couldn't speak English. Isn't this an extraordinary contradiction? All you have to do is take the Warren Commission report and investigate what the Commission did not investigate, what it ignored and what appears there clearly, patently.
I repeat that I don't know whether Oswald participated or not in Kennedy's assassination. Maybe he did, in some manner. What is clear is that [the assassination] could not have been carried out by a single person. There were several shots coming from two opposite directions. That has been proven. Also, the weapon supposedly used by Oswald was a bolt-action rifle whose bolt has to be drawn back to load [each round] every time it's fired, and even if it has a telescopic sight, you have to aim again, and presumably you're nervous because you're involved in a huge criminal project. It's impossible for a man to do that in such a short time. And remember that testimony existed that Oswald was a lousy shooter.
Another contradiction is that Oswald, after the assassination, supposedly leaves the famous book repository, goes to the room where he lived, takes a revolver and goes to a movie house in Dallas and sits to wait for [the police] to arrest him. How could a criminal who had just participated in an assassination go get a revolver and then go sit in a movie house? Only if someone told him to do so.
PW: As part of a plan?
FE: He was waiting for someone. Someone who told him to go there for another reason. That's the only explanation, because [Oswald] was calm, was not upset, did not feel persecuted.
A few minutes after Kennedy's assassination, the Dallas police was already giving Oswald's description, in great detail. What a swift investigation that was! With so many people around, why did it have to be him? Why did Oswald become a suspect from the very moment of Kennedy's assassination? And a campaign began immediately, blaming the Soviet Union first and finally Cuba for the deed. The Cubans, the Cubans! Fidel Castro, the Cubans! Why? Because that was the original objective.
Then came the statements. Sergio Carbó and Frank Sturgis made statements in Miami; Manuel Salvat did likewise from Mexico, journalists and all of them veteran agents of the CIA. The Buchanan brothers also accused Cuba and the tide rose, just like the media operation we have seen in connection with the war against Iraq and the famous weapons of mass destruction that still have not surfaced. The same kind of operation was staged against Cuba to accuse it of assassinating Kennedy.
PW: However, I understand that the accusations against Cuba disappeared suddenly. The Warren Commission stated that the crime was committed by a lone assassin and denied links to any foreign state. What happened?
FE: Perhaps the alleged evidence against Cuba was much too coarse. Or maybe they wanted to avoid an investigation that could run deep. Something didn't work out. We'll have to continue researching.
PW: You have mentioned Cubans linked to Oswald. Those who were with him at Silvia Odio's home, were they part of the operation?
FE: First, let me make it clear that when I mention some Cubans I'm not saying they participated in the assassination. I can't say that because I have no proof. But we do know that at some time, around those dates, they were in Dallas. There are two characters: one is Herminio Díaz and the other Eladio “Lito” del Valle Gutiérrez, with a long counter-revolutionary record. In 1966, when New Orleans prosecutor Jim Garrison began his investigation into Kennedy's assassination, “Lito” del Valle was hacked to death in Miami. The same happened to his friend David Ferrie, who was murdered in New Orleans.
PW: Herminio Díaz, was he also murdered?
FE: Herminio Díaz comes from the Cuban street gangs of the 1940s. In 1948, at the Cuban consulate in Mexico, he murdered another Cuban named Pipí Hernández, and in 1956 or 1957 he was involved in an assassination attempt against President José Figueres of Costa Rica. You can find that in the Costa Rican newspapers. In 1966, Herminio comes to infiltrate Cuba with another man, whose name I don't remember right now. The boat is commanded by Tony Cuesta, who is piloting the craft but does not come to infiltrate. As we were able to determine later, the mission of this infiltration team was to assassinate Fidel Castro.
On the date of the infiltration, our country was mobilized because of an incident between the U.S. and Cuba. The landing spot for this operation is the northern coast of the City of Havana, a few meters from the Hotel Comodoro, two blocks from Fifth Avenue and 70th Street. A very inappropriate place. The milicianos at the Hotel Comodoro detect the landing and rush to meet it. When they order [the infiltrators] to halt, there is a clash, there is a gunfight and Herminio Díaz falls, mortally wounded.
Tony Cuesta's craft flees but is intercepted by a Cuban Navy patrol boat. During the shootout, its fuel tank is hit by a bullet and the boat explodes. Cuesta is captured, badly hurt, mutilated, blinded, but alive and is taken to a Cuban hospital where he receives a very long rehabilitation treatment. He was released in 1979 or 1980, at the time when I was Chief of State Security.
Tony Cuesta and I talked several times. Talking with him was difficult, because he always spoke as if he were telling a secret. Several times I told him: “Tony, it's me you're talking to. I'm the only person who can turn on the microphones here and I haven't turned them on, so talk a bit louder because I can't hear what you're saying.” It was like a big mystery, as if we both were conspiring. One time, in the late 1970s, he asks me to go see him. Probably it was a way to say thanks, because it was difficult for us to save his life and the process of rehabilitation was very long.
We had a long conversation. We started talking about the exiles, about the principal characters, Orlando Bosch, Antonio Veciana, Luis Posada Carriles, Jorge Mas Canosa. But all of a sudden, I don't know how, we started talking about Kennedy's assassination and the man paled and said more or less this: Herminio Díaz and Eladio del Valle were in Dallas on that day, Nov. 22. I ask him why he's telling me this. And he answers that he doesn't know anything else, but that he does want us to know that Herminio Díaz and Eladio del Valle were there.
I tell him it's not enough and I ask him if he's trying to tell me that they participated in the assassination. And he digs his heels and tells me he can say no more, he can say only that, because he knows that's a topic of interest to us. Despite my efforts, I couldn't find out more.
PW: Did Tony Cuesta mention only Herminio Díaz and Eladio del Valle?
FE: Only those two. But reviewing other sources – papers, documents – we learned that other characters were reported to have been in Dallas around that date. That's why I mentioned Orlando Bosch. Orlando Bosch is a very dangerous character, an international terrorist, the brain behind the bomb in the Cubana de Aviación airliner in 1976, when 72 people died. In April 1963, Orlando Bosch published in New Orleans a pamphlet titled “The Cuban Tragedy” that accused John Kennedy of betraying the cause of Cuba. José Miró Cardona, president of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC), after returning from a trip to Washington in April 1963, dissolved the CRC and also accused Kennedy of betraying the Cuban exile community.
All this has been documented, public statements recorded by the press. That's why I began by telling you that in my opinion Kennedy's assassination was hatched when Oswald arrived in New Orleans, on April 24, 1963. Who did he meet with when he arrived? With the Cuban agents of the CIA, with the Cubans who participated actively in a program against Cuba. Beginning on April 24, we see Oswald permanently in the company of Cubans or acting with the counter-revolutionary Cubans, until his visit to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico. Then we see the famous letters that reached Oswald, supposedly from Cuba, where he is encouraged almost brazenly to assassinate Kennedy.
It is amazing to think that Herminio Diaz, a veteran counter-revolutionary like him, comes to infiltrate Cuba through its capital, almost in the presence of a platoon of Cuban troops, in the midst of a serious crisis between the U.S. and Cuba. It's quite strange. All the more so if we consider the dozens of people who have been linked to Kennedy's assassination and who later have died under mysterious circumstances.
PW: Do you mean to say he was sent to his death?
FE: Everything seems to indicate that. I can only judge from the analysis, because it doesn't make sense – according to history and the record of CIA infiltrations into Cuba – to land two blocks away from Fifth Avenue when the Cuban forces were in combat preparedness. It's a scheme made up either by mad men or with a secret intention. You decide which of the two.
PW: Let's go back to Paris at the time of the CIA meeting with Cubela. Wasn't the purpose to find a certain engagement between the Cuban government and the Kennedy administration?
FE: No, it wasn't in Paris, though it was arranged through a Frenchman, a journalist named Jean Daniel. Probably this was what motivated the final breakup of the relationship between Kennedy and the counter-revolutionary community in Miami. It was a process that began with the failure of Operation Mongoose in 1962, that operation intended to unleash a civil war in Cuba, which cost $100 million at the time, entrusted by President Kennedy to his brother Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General. That operation was defeated by Cuba shortly before the Missile Crisis in October 1962.
Kennedy already had experienced the failure of a large-scale military operation [the Bay of Pigs.] That is, militarily he was unable to beat us. And in 1962 Cuba foiled the largest subversive plan the U.S. had ever prepared, known as Operation Mongoose. Between January and August 1962, we counted 5,780 major subversive operations in Cuba – sugar cane fields set on fire, the attempted assassination of politicians, the murder of teachers, the murder of peasants, bombs.
It was not a paper operation, as some have contended saying it was a “contingency plan.” Therefore, Kennedy also knew that the famous civil war he attempted to unleash in Cuba never got off the ground.
PW: Did the U.S. then abandon its military plans against Cuba?
FE: Not altogether, but there was a change in policy. Already in early 1963, the Kennedy administration received information about discrepancies between Cuba and the Soviet Union as a result of the fact that the Soviets negotiated a solution to the Missile Crisis behind Cuba's back. That damaged [Cuba's] relations with the Soviets.
According to documents declassified by the U.S., in March-April 1963 the administration studied alternatives for Cuba – whether to attack it or treat it just like any other communist country. As a result, one of the variants was to seek a negotiated solution to the conflict, but from a position of strength. To hold conversations but to take advantage of the fact that there are disagreements between the Cubans and the Soviets. To threaten with destruction, to use special-mission units of the CIA to sabotage the energy networks, the main productive centers of [Cuba.]
I'm not guessing at this. I'm citing the documents declassified by the U.S. which tell of operations approved by President John F. Kennedy himself against Cuba – 24 operations in June, 14 more in October of November – major-scale terrorist operations.
At the same time, the American ambassador at the United Nations tried to establish some type of communication with the Cuban ambassador through a journalist, Lisa Howard. In November 1963, a French journalist, Jean Daniel, went to Washington to interview Kennedy and told him that he would later come to Cuba to interview Fidel. Apparently, during that interview Kennedy asked [Daniel] to return to Washington after interviewing Fidel to give [Kennedy] his impressions. At the moment Kennedy was assassinated, Jean Daniel was interviewing President Fidel Castro.
PW: So, Kennedy's assassination frustrated the possibility of a rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba?
FE: So it seems. The change that began in April 1963 coincided with the breakup of relations between the counter-revolutionary leadership in Miami and Kennedy's administration. There are two examples, as I said before: Orlando Bosch's statement and the statement from the CRC led by José Miró Cardona. On June 30 or July 30, 1963, a raid was conducted against a large training camp in New Orleans, followed by the seizure of weapons and explosives that were to be smuggled into Cuba. The raid was conducted by the FBI under instructions from the government, because both President Kennedy and his brother Robert understood that this counter-revolutionary group in Miami was getting away from them.
PW: Were the Kennedys afraid that the Cuban exile community in Miami was sufficiently powerful to frustrate a policy of rapprochement with Cuba?
FE: Indeed. Many alleged patriots in this group grew rich in 1962 with the business of counter-revolution. When the CIA mounted Operation Mongoose, it created a large base of operations in Miami, known as JM-WAVE, with a budget of $100 million. It also created a support network of more than 50 companies as “fronts” to develop and stimulate this war – shipyards, banks where money could be laundered, real-estate companies, air travel companies, sea travel companies.
These were led by counter-revolutionary Cubans who became rich with these and parallel businesses, such as drug trafficking. In 1963, this mechanism – which in my book I call “the Cuban-American mechanism of the CIA and the Mafia” – grew independent of the administration and began to act on its own, which it still does.
From that group was derived much of the leadership of today’s extreme right in Miami. It's the same group addressed by Kennedy on Nov. 18, 1963, four days before his assassination, when Kennedy said the U.S. was not willing to allow the existence of another Cuba – he stressed “another” – in the hemisphere. In my opinion, that speech by Kennedy on Nov. 18, 1963, sealed his death sentence.
PW: From what you say, you believe, first, that there was no lone gunman, and second, that Cuban counter-revolutionaries took part [in the plot.]
FE: One step at a time. Examination of the famous amateur film, photographs and testimony from eyewitnesses show that the route of the presidential motorcade was changed. Kennedy was left unprotected. [The car] had to turn first to the right and then to the left, which is when they killed him, when the fatal shots were fired. All that can be found in the famous Zapruder film. A lone gunman? Impossible. It was an operation that must have involved between 15 and 20 men.
PW: So, if Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone gunman, who killed President Kennedy? Was it the Cuban counter-revolutionaries? The CIA? The Mafia?
FE: I don't know who killed Kennedy. Surely in the U.S. there is someone who knows it perfectly. I cannot accuse the whole world, and I don't try to, but I do accuse the CIA's Cuban-American mechanism. We must search for the likes of David Phillips who were intimately involved; David Morales, who was a Chicano; the Americans who had profited much from the secret war against Cuba. Just when a beam of light appeared that might have presaged a dialogue – not an understanding, which wouldn't have been easy, but at least a dialogue – the ubiquitous counter-revolutionaries from Miami show up to try to impede that rapprochement. And that story was repeated for the following 40 years.
On the other hand, Robert Kennedy was one of the worst enemies of the American Mafia. He brought Joe Valacchi to trial and had him testify against all the Mafiosi, so they had their own accounts to settle. They must know perfectly well [who killed Kennedy.] Surely Sam Giancana knew, and he was murdered. Joe Roselli knew, and he was stuffed into a barrel and thrown into Miami Bay. Eladio del Valle knew, and he was hacked to death. David Ferrie knew, and he was found in his apartment, poisoned. Herminio Díaz knew, as well as the hundred-or-so people who died under mysterious circumstances after the Kennedy assassination.
PW: In summary, do you believe that what provoked the assassination was a “settlement of accounts” and that it was a question of a conspiracy by various enemies whose positions and power were threatened?
FE: I have no doubt. In mid-1963, the team around Kennedy consisted of pragmatic people, intellectuals known as the New Frontier. They chose a Cuban leader: Manuel Ray Rivero, former Minister of Public Works in the first revolutionary Cabinet, who had participated in the struggle against the Batista dictatorship, in the civic-resistance movement.
This Cuban fellow, who defected from the revolution in late 1960, arrived in Miami but did not join the Batistianos because, although he was an enemy of the revolution, he had scruples and refused to join that troop of torturers and murderers. He adopted an independent position, so the CIA alienated him, it accused him of being a communist, it expelled him from his very own organization, the People's Revolutionary Movement (MRP.)
In 1962 and early 1963, he organized the Revolutionary Junta in Exile (JURE), whose program it was to defeat the revolution and remove Fidel Castro from power but to retain some of the revolution's achievements, such as the agrarian reform. He was the Kennedy administration's man in 1963. Kennedy moved away from the Cuban ultra-right and chose this would-be social democrat, Manuel Ray, to find an image. That was another motive for the breakup with the far right in Miami. And a motive for revenge.
Kennedy was an adversary, responsible for [the Bay of Pigs invasion], as he himself acknowledged. He was responsible for Operation Mongoose, which he approved and entrusted to his brother. But he unquestionably was also a pragmatist, a man who wouldn't accept the Cuban revolution but who knew that, with the means utilized until that time, he couldn't confront it.
He also had to face up to the influence of Cuba in Latin America. The United States had to look for a new vision and [Kennedy] began to elaborate the Alliance for Progress, but the American far right wouldn't event admit the tepid reforms made by the Alliance for Progress. In my judgment, that's what cost Robert Kennedy's life some years later.
So, here we have the Holy Alliance: Cuban counter-revolutionaries, the American far right, and the Mafia. Someday, the truth will emerge, after all the information available in the U.S. is declassified. Meanwhile, perhaps my book will awaken a few consciences and make people think.
Manuel Alberto Ramy is chief correspondent of Radio Progreso Alternativa in Havana, Cuba, and the editor of the Spanish-language pages of Progreso Weekly.
