Where Cuba Fits in the Newly Declassified JFK Files
Invasions, self-harm attacks and biological warfare
HAVANA TIMES — Recently declassified files about the assassination of US President J.F.Kennedy reveal many of the CIA’s plans against Cuba. Fidel Castro’s allegations about a biological war being waged against his country were confirmed as some of the plans made by US intelligence services were made public.
The strategy to carry out bomb attacks and assassinations within the US so as to accuse the Cuban government were also revealed.
One of the documents, declassified in its entirety, explains how the CIA planned to sabotage Cuban agricultural production “via biological agents which would appear to be of natural origin.”
In May 1971, Cuba recorded the first cases of African swine fever, a disease that hadn’t existed on the island until then. More than 400,000 pigs had to be sacrificed, pork being the meat that Cubans consume the most. In January 1977, The Washington Post published the confessions of a CIA agent who took part in the operation of introducing swine fever on the island.
The biological war also affected humans. In the ‘80s, there was a surprising outbreak of Haemorrhagic Dengue Fever, a very lethal disease which didn’t exist in Cuba. It caused 154 fatalities, there were 110 children among the victims. This was carried out by an opposition group based in and protected by the US. The fact was confirmed by the anti-Castro Cuban-American Eduardo Arocena before a US District Court in New York in 1984.
The documents further reveal that the self-harm attacks were a part of the US strategy against Cuba. The CIA even proposed to carry out attacks within US territory against anti-Castro leaders themselves, their alleged “allies”. “We could develop a Cuban Communist campaign of terror in Miami, in other cities and even in Washington,” stated documents which proposed to place bombs and assassinate anti-Castro leaders in the US.
“The campaign of terror could target Cubans that are looking for asylum. We could sink a boat with Cubans onboard on their way to Florida,” they wrote and added that it didn’t matter whether the cause of the sinking was “real or simulated.”
It was already known that the CIA had carried out a large number of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro but these documents reveal that in 1964 a price was even put on “Raul Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara’s” heads.
In the beginning, it was 150,000 USD (plus 5,000 USD in expenses) for killing Fidel but it seemed too expensive for them. They reduced this to 100,000 USD and increased the number of those with a death sentence. They also offered payment for “killing or handing over renowned Communists alive.” In order to get their reward, assassins needed to give the CIA “conclusive proof of the person’s death and their party card.”
“The crown jewels” of these documents is the possible tie between US intelligence services and the only assassin arrested after the JFK assassination. The former militarymen Lee Harvey Oswald visited the Cuban embassy in Mexico requesting a visa just before the assassination. If it is confirmed that he was a CIA agent then the attempt to link the Cuban government with the shots in Dallas will be made evident.
In one of the declassified files, it’s revealed that one of the Warren Commission members, who investigated the assassination, asked the CIA’s deputy director, David Bellin, if Oswald was an agent at this intelligence agency. The question remains unanswered because it’s written in other documents which will remain hidden from the public eye for another quarter of a century.
The declassified files come at a very interesting time when Washington is accusing Cuba of attacking US diplomats at its embassy in Havana with a fantasy sonic weapon.
Surely it’s no coincidence that the first people affected by these alleged attacks were CIA agents who secretly operate in Cuba, under a diplomatic guise.
Would it be absolutely crazy to think that this is a new self-harm plan? Maybe we’ll have to wait another 50 years for these history files that the “Langley boys” write today be declassified.
There is no hard evidence that Oswald visited the Cuban embassy. The one witness, Silvia Duran, was surreptitiously arrested with the help of the CIA and held in solitary confinement unbeknown to Mexican officials until she signed a statement indicating having seen him. Having been released, she began to question her experience and was subsequently rearrested and the Mexican police given strict instruction not to divulge any agency involvement.
The only “evidence” that Lee Harvey visited Mexico City at all were bus tickets magically found in his wife’s hotel room by a “journalist” and likely CIA stooge Priscilla Johnson. Multiple exhaustive searches of the premises by FBI teams had previously failed to find these tickets and the corresponding Spanish language magazine. All this after Marina Oswald had been illegally apprehended and held in custody incommunicado for months by federal police. (Source: Plausible Denial, by Mark Lane).
The CIA had been concocting “evidence” weeks before his alleged involvement in the assassination. Similarly, the proof he visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City is also highly dubious.
Jealous of the excepcionalism of the American experience.
Ha Ha….
Me jealous of you lot??
In your dreams……….
Seems to me that you are jealous.
Ha Ha……
Seems to me that you’re coming over all exceptional again!
Tyrannical? That’s a matter of opinion. But regional? The US remains the preeminent military and economic power IN THE WORLD.
As I’ve said various times Mr P…..
I am a big fan of many aspects of your country.
If I were to list all these aspects, this would be a very long comment.
But the way in which the USA acted towards large parts of the rest of the region in the era we are referring to, was to my mind, tyrannical.
“…tyrannical regional power.”? Really?
There is a big difference Mr P……….
USA was dishing out its uber control dictum to all parts of the Latin American region…
The Cuban Government, for all it’s obvious flaws, actually managed to achieve it’s little piece of independence and sovereignty.
History shows that Cuba, against all odds, succeeded in standing up to the most almighty military power the human race has ever witnessed.
USA was the attacker….
And Cuba was defending itself against seemingly insurmountable odds….
Whatever tactics Cuba used to defend itself against the would-be usurper of their sovereignty will always be 100% justified…….
These successful tactics achieved independence against the wishes of the tyrannical regional power. Cuba set an example for the continent as a whole.
History shows that the USA were playing a loser’s game in their efforts to try and retain control over Cuba. Historical records give evidence to the sickening lengths the USA went to in order to try and deny Cuba it’s independence.
The annual UN condemnation (97% against 3%) of your country’s pathetic and spiteful little tin-pot embargo will always signify a moral victory for the Republic of Cuba.
According to Judyth Baker’s credible book, Me and Lee, Oswald was on his
way to Cuba with vials of cancer causing SV40 virus which was to be
injected into Fidel Castro. Baker was a young innocent laboratory tech
interested in cancer research. She unwittingly got pulled into the
biological weapon field when she was hired by “the respected” Dr. Alton
Oschner who was well aware of his role in the CIA’s atrocities. After
Oswald was shot, Judyth left New Orleans and lived a very discrete life
with her young family. These were the years when dozens of Kennedy
assassination witnesses were turning up dead. Jack Ruby who died in
prison from lung cancer claimed that he had been injected with the SV40
virus as a way to keep him quiet.
Don’t forget that the Castros gave as good as they received. There were “dirty tricks” coming from both sides. Here’s the difference: In the US, although it took more than 50 years to be made public, the truth, or at least most of it, has come out. In Cuba, there is no legal demand for full disclosure. We are likely to never get the unvarnished Cuban version.
I am surprised it took a whole week for HT to put up an article on this.
The files merely confirm what many were already aware of.
Although some of the more strident apologists for US policy still sought to deny the facts.
There are those who clearly live in a state of complete denial.
And then there are those who simply have to deny from a psychological perspective.
The truth is too unpalatable and does not fit very neatly with their opinions.
In fact I recall a couple of weeks ago I made a comment on here regarding having met Cuban pig farmers (in the east of the country) whose stock were affected by the swine flu virus.
One of the more vocal of the ‘in denial brigade’ on this forum wrote a scornful reply rejecting that this act of sabotage ever even occurred !!
Of course there are those who, when the truth is actually confirmed, are big enough to alter their views to reflect the facts.
I guess one of the big questions is this:
How often does US policy towards Cuba appear in the files that the CIA and the FBI successfully begged dumb-boy-trump to keep a lid on ?????????