By: Daniel Nardini
Conspiracy theories abound around the assassination of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Here is one more. Recently, the author of the book Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine, Brian Latell, gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation on the theory that the Cuban government knew about the planned assassination of the president. According to Latell, Cuba’s agent responsible for intercepting CIA communications on the island, Florentino Aspillaga, received a strange message from Cuban intelligence just three hours before the death of Kennedy, “Suspend all your efforts against the CIA and focus all your equipment, antennas and attention on Texas.” In 1987, Aspillaga defected from Cuba and in 2007, Latell did extensive interviews with Aspillaga. These interviews helped form the theory that the Cuban government knew that Kennedy was about to be assassinated and that it knew that the person, Lee Harvey Oswald, would carry out the murder.
I am not so easily convinced. Bear in mind that the lecture was given at the Heritage Foundation—a right wing think tank not always noted for objectivity. We know that Florentino Aspillaga did play an important part in Cuba’s secret intelligence agency DGI at the time. Yet what he is talking about is nothing less than an assassination attempt that Cuba knew about. As much as Fidel Castro was not too thrilled with Kennedy, allowing an assassination would have put Cuba in jeopardy. With the way Oswald planned to kill Kennedy, it is very doubtful that anyone in Cuba or the Soviet Union knew what one crazy individual would do. Latell even claimed that when Oswald visited the Cuban embassy to get a visa to go to Cuba and was turned down by the Cuban embassy personnel, he claimed “he would shoot Kennedy to prove his loyalty to Communism.” Interestingly enough, this claim cannot be found in the Warren Commission—the published report on the Kennedy assassination.
There are all kinds of claims being made in the book that just cannot be independently verified. There is no question that Lee Harvey Oswald had enrolled in pro-Soviet and pro-Cuba organizations, and that he had for a time lived in the Soviet Union and was allowed to bring back his Russian wife. Yet others claimed he had connections with organized crime. The one thing that comes through all too clearly about Oswald is that he was a very troubled, very unbalanced individual who was in so many ways the perfect person to commit a random act. And this is what he did, and it is very, very doubtful that anyone—even Cuban and Soviet intelligence—could have guessed what Oswald would have done. Even though Mr. Latell was a national CIA intelligence officer in Latin America,, his theory that Fidel Castro knew about Kennedy’s murder is questionable. He may have written a book that contains “facts,” but I have seen books that equally contain “facts” about Kennedy being murdered by the CIA itself, the Mafia, and yes anti-Castro anti-communist Cubans. Until I see more convincing arguments from anyone on the Kennedy assassination, I will just dismiss Brian Latell’s arguments as just theory alongside other conspiracy theories out there on the Kennedy murder.
Mission Improbable
By: Daniel Nardini
Conspiracy theories abound around the assassination of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Here is one more. Recently, the author of the book Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine, Brian Latell, gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation on the theory that the Cuban government knew about the planned assassination of the president. According to Latell, Cuba’s agent responsible for intercepting CIA communications on the island, Florentino Aspillaga, received a strange message from Cuban intelligence just three hours before the death of Kennedy, “Suspend all your efforts against the CIA and focus all your equipment, antennas and attention on Texas.” In 1987, Aspillaga defected from Cuba and in 2007, Latell did extensive interviews with Aspillaga. These interviews helped form the theory that the Cuban government knew that Kennedy was about to be assassinated and that it knew that the person, Lee Harvey Oswald, would carry out the murder.
I am not so easily convinced. Bear in mind that the lecture was given at the Heritage Foundation—a right wing think tank not always noted for objectivity. We know that Florentino Aspillaga did play an important part in Cuba’s secret intelligence agency DGI at the time. Yet what he is talking about is nothing less than an assassination attempt that Cuba knew about. As much as Fidel Castro was not too thrilled with Kennedy, allowing an assassination would have put Cuba in jeopardy. With the way Oswald planned to kill Kennedy, it is very doubtful that anyone in Cuba or the Soviet Union knew what one crazy individual would do. Latell even claimed that when Oswald visited the Cuban embassy to get a visa to go to Cuba and was turned down by the Cuban embassy personnel, he claimed “he would shoot Kennedy to prove his loyalty to Communism.” Interestingly enough, this claim cannot be found in the Warren Commission—the published report on the Kennedy assassination.
There are all kinds of claims being made in the book that just cannot be independently verified. There is no question that Lee Harvey Oswald had enrolled in pro-Soviet and pro-Cuba organizations, and that he had for a time lived in the Soviet Union and was allowed to bring back his Russian wife. Yet others claimed he had connections with organized crime. The one thing that comes through all too clearly about Oswald is that he was a very troubled, very unbalanced individual who was in so many ways the perfect person to commit a random act. And this is what he did, and it is very, very doubtful that anyone—even Cuban and Soviet intelligence—could have guessed what Oswald would have done. Even though Mr. Latell was a national CIA intelligence officer in Latin America,, his theory that Fidel Castro knew about Kennedy’s murder is questionable. He may have written a book that contains “facts,” but I have seen books that equally contain “facts” about Kennedy being murdered by the CIA itself, the Mafia, and yes anti-Castro anti-communist Cubans. Until I see more convincing arguments from anyone on the Kennedy assassination, I will just dismiss Brian Latell’s arguments as just theory alongside other conspiracy theories out there on the Kennedy murder.