JFK Theory: Anti-Castro Activists
Anthony Summers is the author of The Kennedy Conspiracy. He believes that John F. Kennedy was killed by a group of anti-Castro activists, funded by Mafia mobsters who had been ousted from Cuba. Summers believes that some members of the Central Intelligence Agency took part in this conspiracy. Summers speculated that the following people were involved in this conspiracy: Johnny Roselli, Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, David Ferrie, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Guy Bannister and E.Howard Hunt.
Sylvia Meagher in her book, Accessories After the Fact, also supported the theory that John F. Kennedy had been killed by Anti-Castro exiles.
Jim Garrison, the district attorney of New Orleans, believed that a group of right-wing activists involved in the anti-Castro movement, including Guy Bannister, David Ferrie, Carlos Bringuier and Clay Shaw were involved in a conspiracy with the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Kennedy.
The House Select Committee on Assassinations discovered evidence to suggest that anti-Castro Cubans were involved in the assassination. For example, an undercover agent heard Nestor Castellanos tell a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans, "We're waiting for Kennedy on the 22nd. We're going to see him in one way or another." The committee also obtained evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald met David Ferrie in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. It concluded that "individuals active in anti-Castro activities had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy".
(K1) Robert J. Groden, The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald (1995)
On Monday, August 12, 1963, Lee and Carlos Bringuier appeared in Second Municipal Court at 1:00 p.m. The charges were dismissed against Bringuier, and Lee was fined $10.00. Marina Oswald confirmed that Lee actually wanted to be arrested. He wanted the exposure. He wanted to get the publicity as a pro-Castroite. She referred to this as "self-advertising." Marina was right, but the question still remains: Why?
Lee was back handing out his Fair Play for Cuba Committee flyers on the streets of New Orleans on August 16. He had hired three men to help with distribution: odd, since he was nearly without funds for himself and his family. They stood in front of the International Trade Mart, whose director, Clay Shaw, would be charged with conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy four years later by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Somebody (probably Lee himself or, possibly, Carlos Bringuier) called WDSU-TV and other members of the New Orleans news media to announce that he was distributing the pro-Castro literature. More self-advertising. That evening's television news broadcast his activity, and the resulting bad publicity made it nearly impossible for him to obtain employment.
Why did Robert J. Groden think it strange that Lee Harvey Oswald should hire three men to give out Fair Play for Cuba Committee flyers on the streets of New Orleans?
(K2) Lee Harvey Oswald, Carlos Bringuier and Ed Butler, Vice-President of the Information Council of the Americas, took part in a debate on Bill Slatter's radio show Conversation Carte Blanche in 1963.
Lee Harvey Oswald: The principals of thought of the Fair Play for Cuba consist of restoration of diplomatic trade and tourist relations with Cuba. That is one of our main points. We are for that. I disagree that this situation regarding American-Cuban relations is very unpopular. We are in the minority surely. We are not particularly interested in what Cuban exiles or rightists members of rightist organizations have to say. We are primarily interested in the attitude of the US government toward Cuba. And in that way we are striving to get the United States to adopt measures which would be more friendly toward the Cuban people and the new Cuban regime in that country. We are not all communist controlled regardless of the fact that I have the experience of living in Russia, regardless of the fact that we have been investigated, regardless of those facts, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is an independent organization not affiliated with any other organization. Our aims and our ideals are very clear and in the best keeping with American traditions of democracy.
Carlos Bringuier: Do you agree with Fidel Castro when in his last speech of July 26th of this year he qualified President John F. Kennedy of the United States as a ruffian and a thief? Do you agree with Mr. Castro?
Lee Harvey Oswald: I would not agree with that particular wording. However, I and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee do think that the United States Government through certain agencies, mainly the State Department and the C.I.A., has made monumental mistakes in its relations with Cuba. Mistakes which are pushing Cuba into the sphere of activity of let's say a very dogmatic communist country such as China.
Bill Slatter: Mr. Oswald would you agree that when Castro first took power - would you agree that the United States was very friendly with Castro, that the people of this country had nothing but admiration for him, that they were very glad to see Batista thrown out?
Lee Harvey Oswald: I would say that the activities of the United States government in regards to Batista were a manifestation of not so much support for Fidel Castro but rather a withdrawal of support from Batista. In other words we stopped armaments to Batista. What we should have been done was to take those armaments and drop them into the Sierra Maestra where Fidel Castro could have used them. As for public sentiment at that time, I think even before the revolution, there were rumblings of official comment and so forth from government officials er, against Fidel Castro.
Ed Butler: You've never been to Cuba, of course, but why are the people of Cuba starving today?
Lee Harvey Oswald: Well any country emerging from a semi-colonial state and embarking upon reforms which require a diversification of agriculture you are going to have shortages. After all 80% of imports into the United States from Cuba were two products, tobacco and sugar. Nowadays, while Cuba is reducing its production as far as sugar cane goes it is striving to grow unlimited, and unheard of for Cuba, quantities of certain vegetables such as sweet potatoes, lima beans, cotton, and so forth, so that they can become agriculturally independent ...
Ed Butler: Gentlemen I'm going to have to interrupt you. Our time is almost up. We've had three guests tonight on Conversation Carte Blanche, Bill Stuckey and I have been talking to Lee Harvey Oswald, Secretary of the New Orleans Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Ed Butler, Executive Vice-president of the Information Council of the Americas (INCA) and Carlos Bringuier, Cuban refugee. Thank you very much.
Was Lee Harvey Oswald a supporter or opponent of Fidel Castro?
(K3) The Warren Commission Report (September, 1964)
On August 5, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald visited a store managed by Carlos Bringuier, a Cuban refugee and avid opponent of Castro, and the New Orleans delegate of the Cuban student directorate. Oswald indicated an interest in joining the struggle against Castro. He told Bringuier that he had been a marine and was trained in guerrilla warfare, and that he was willing not only to train Cubans to fight Castro but also to join the fight himself. The next day Oswald returned to the store and left his Guidebook for Marines for Bringuier.
A few days later, a friend of Bringuier's saw Oswald passing out Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets on Canal Street, not far from the store Bringuier managed. He, Bringuier and another exile proceeded to the site of Oswald's mini-demonstration, and Bringuier was enraged when he recognized the pro-Castro demonstrator as the anti-Castro activist wannabe of a few days before. Though no physical violence resulted, some heated words were uttered, a crowd gathered, and Oswald was arrested along with the three Cubans for disturbing the peace.
Why was the Warren Commission interested in the relationship between Lee Harvey Oswald and Carlos Bringuier?
(K4) G. Robert Blakey was interviewed by Frontline in 1993.
Q: Going back to the point about his (Lee Harvey Oswald) apparent pro-Castro activity. Is this an organization with any substance?
A: Every effort was made, both by the FBI in 1963, and by the committee, to establish that the pro-Castro activity in New Orleans had a larger group behind it. Apparently he had a unit of the 'Fair Play for Cuba'. Apparently it had no membership other than Lee Harvey Oswald himself. Indeed, when he distributed the literature, one of the two people was hired. The other person we've never been able to identify. There's just no evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald had other associates in the pro-Castro activity.
Q: Doesn't that argue for the whole thing just being a shell game? I mean a pretense?
A: Oh it surely argues for it being a shell game. Is it a shell game by Lee Harvey Oswald, or a shell game by Lee Harvey Oswald on behalf of someone else? You answer that, I think, not by what happens in New Orleans, but by the consistent train of his character. From Japan to the Soviet Union, to New Orleans to Mexico City, of acting, at least for his own perspective, out of a Marxist or a pro-Castro perspective.
Q: Now, how do you reconcile the fact that there are two contradictory activities going on?
A: I'm not terribly sure that you can reconcile them. The most consistent thing through Lee Harvey Oswald's life is his Marxist position. The effort to talk to the anti-Castro Cubans is an effort either by Lee Harvey Oswald, in his crazed mind, to be engaging in subterfuge activity, or it is, in fact, Lee Harvey Oswald acting on behalf of someone else, infiltrating anti-Castro activities.
The true Lee Harvey Oswald is the Marxist. Oswald engages in a number of activities in New Orleans. He distributes 'Fair Play for Cuba' literature. He apparently is the head of a unit of 'Fair Play for Cuba'. He goes on a radio station and debates on behalf of Castro. All of this indicates his Marxist pro-Castro leanings.
At the same time, Lee Harvey Oswald makes a contact with Carlos Bringuier who is an anti-Castro Cuban leader in New Orleans and this is documented and unquestioned. Which is Lee Harvey Oswald? Is he pro-Castro? Is he anti-Castro? This man is all things to all people.
Why is G. Robert Blakey confused by the behaviour of Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Does the information in this source contradict the information given in K2?
(K5) Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins (1988)
Martin was seated across my desk, his anxious gaze fixed on my every move. An on-again, off-again alcoholic, he was a thin man with deeply circled, worried eyes. Although he had been written off as a nonentity by many, I had long regarded him as a quick-witted and highly observant, if slightly disorganized, private detective. I had known him casually as far back as my days as an assistant D.A. and always had gotten along well with him.
"Jack," I said, "why don't you relax a little? You should know by now that you're among friends here."
He nodded nervously. He was seated in the roomy, upholstered chair across from my desk, but he looked most uncomfortable. I offered him some coffee. "You're not under cross-examination. Jack," I said "I just want a little help. Understand?"
"The police report says the reason Banister beat you was you had an argument over telephone bills." I pulled a copy of the police report from my desk drawer and shoved it across to him. "Here, take a look at it." He bent his head over and examined it as if he had never seen it before. I was sure that he had seen it many times, probably even had a copy at home.
After a moment he looked up without saying a word. His eyes told me he was deeply concerned about something.
"Now, does a simple argument over phone bills sound like a believable explanation to you?" I asked.
I waited. Then, dreamily, he shook his head slowly. "No," he admitted. "It involved more than that."
"How much more?"
Again I waited. He breathed deeply, sucking in the air.
"It started like it was going to be nothing at all," he began. "We'd both been drinking at Katzenjammer's - maybe more than usual, because of the assassination and all. Banister especially."
Pausing to chug down another cup of coffee, he made a real effort to collect his thoughts.
"Well, when we came back to the office. Banister started hitching about one thing and then another. He was in a mean mood. Then all of a sudden, he accused me of going through his private files. Now I never went through his private stuff ever - absolutely never. And that really ticked me off."
He hesitated for a long moment.
"Go on. Jack," I said gently.
"I guess I blew up," he continued, his face flushed with memories of injustice. "That's when I told him he'd better not talk to me like that. I told him I remembered the people I had seen around the office that summer. And that's when he hit me. Fast as a flash - pulled out that big Magnum and slammed me on the side of the head with it."
"Just because you remembered the people you'd seen at his office the past summer?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's all it took. He went bananas on that one."
"And just who were the people you'd seen in the office that summer?" I prodded softly.
"There was a bunch of them. It was like a circus. There were all those Cubans - coming in and going out, coming in and going out. They all looked alike to me."
Someone once commenced that whenever you really want to do something unseen, whenever you go to great pains to make sure that you are unobserved, there always turns out to be someone who was sitting under the oak tree. At the strange place that was Banister's office. Jack Martin, unnoticed in the middle of it all, was the one sitting under the oak tree.
He drew a long breath and then went on. "Then there were all these other characters. There was Dave Ferrie - you know about him by now."
"Was he there very often?" I asked.
"Often? He practically lived there."
Then Martin fell silent. I saw by the look in his eyes that he had come to a full stop.
I was not about to let my weekend visit to 544 Camp Street go down the drain that easily, so I gave him a hand. 'And Lee Harvey Oswald'" I added.
Jack swallowed, then nodded. It was almost as if he felt relief in finally having a burden lifted from him. "Yeah, he was there too. Sometimes he'd be meeting with Guy Banister with the door shut. Other times he'd be shooting the bull with Dave Ferrie. But he was there all right."
"What was Guy Banister doing while all this was going on?"
"Hell, he was the one running the circus."
"What about his private detective work?"
"Not much of that came in, but when it did, I handled it. That's why I was there."
"So, Jack," I said. "Just what was going on at Banister's office?"
He held up his hand. "I can't answer that," he said firmly. "I can't go into that stuff at all." Unexpectedly, he stood up. "I think I'd better go," he said.
"Hold on. Jack. What's the problem with our going into what was happening at Banister's office?"
"What's the problem?" he said. "What's the problem?" he repeated, as if in disbelief. "The problem is that we're going to bring the goddamned federal government down on our backs. Do I need to spell it out? I could get killed - and so could you."
He turned around. "I'd better go," he mumbled. He wobbled as he headed for the door.
Jim Garrison believed Guy Banister and Dave Ferrie were involved with a group of anti-Castro Cubans in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. How does this source support this theory?
(K6) Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy (1980)
According to Delphine Roberts, Lee Oswald walked into her office sometime in 1963 and asked to fill in the forms for accreditation as one of Banister's "agents." Mrs. Roberts told me, "Oswald introduced himself by name and said he was seeking an application form. I did not think that was really why he was there. During the course of the conversation I gained the impression that he and Guy Banister already knew each other. After Oswald filled out the application form Guy Banister called him into the office. The door was closed, and a lengthy conversation took place. Then the young man left. I presumed then, and now am certain, that the reason for Oswald being there was that he was required to act undercover."
Mrs. Roberts said she was sure that whatever the nature of Banister's "interest" in Oswald, it concerned anti-Castro schemes, plans which she feels certain had the support and encouragement of government intelligence agencies. As she put it, "Mr. Banister had been a special agent for the FBI and was still working for them. There were quite a number of connections which he kept with the FBI and the CIA, too. I know he and the FBI traded information due to his former association...."
Guy Banister always denied knowing Lee Harvey Oswald. How does Delphine Roberts undermine this claim? According to Roberts, what was the connection between Oswald, FBI, CIA and the Anti-Castro Cubans?
(K7) Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, 70 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (2001)
David Philips suspected by the House Select Committee on Assassinations of doubling as the shadowy "Maurice Bishop" CIA overseer of the Cuban Alpha 66 anti-Castro brigade. The same David Philips in charge of spinning the Oswald-Mexico City incident in the CIA's favor may have engineered the "Mexico City scenario" in the first place. Lane, who has made a legal and literary career out of blaming the CIA for JFK's death, says he did.
Alpha 66's Cuban leader Antonio Veciana claimed that at one of his hundred or so meetings with Bishop, Oswald was there not saying anything, just acting odd.
"I always thought Bishop was working with Oswald during the assassination," Veciana told Russell.
Veciana's cousin worked for Castro's intelligence service and after the assassination Bishop wanted Veciana to bribe his cousin into saying that he met with Oswald, in order to fabricate an Oswald-Castro connection.
Investigators never established for sure that Bishop and Philips were one and the same, but descriptions of Bishop's appearance and mannerisms mirrored Philips'. Veciana drew a sketch of his old controller and Senator Richard Schweiker, a member of the assassination committee, recognized it as Philips. When the select committee's star investigator Gaeton Fonzi finally brought Veciana and Philips together, the two started acting weird around each other. After a short conversation in Spanish, Philips bolted. Witnesses to the encounter swear that a look of recognition swept Veciana's visage, but Veciana denied that Philips was his case officer of more than a decade earlier.
Antonio Veciana was the leader of the Alpha 66 anti-Castro group. He also claimed his group was financed by a CIA agent named Maurice Bishop. How does Veciana implicate the CIA and the anti-Castro activists in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?
(K8) Michael Dorman, Newsday (1995)
A long-secret government document released this week lends credence to a favorite theory of conspiracy advocates 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 murder.
That issue has long been connected with unproved reports that a violent Cuban exile group - perhaps with the help of an American intelligence agency - was involved in the assassination. The House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated the reports but said in 1978 it was unable to substantiate them.
However, the document obtained yesterday by Newsday provides a previously lacking measure of credibility to the reports. Those reports center on a shadowy figure called Maurice Bishop - likely a pseudonym - said to have been an intelligence agent during the early 1960s.
Antonio Veciana, founder of the Alpha 66 Cuban exile group that launched repeated guerrilla raids against Fidel Castro's regime, testified before the House committee that he considered Bishop his US intelligence contact; that he met with Bishop more than 100 times over a 13-year period; that Bishop had directed him to organize Alpha 66 and had paid him $253,00. Moreover, he said, he had met briefly in Dallas with Bishop and Oswald sometime around September, 1963, two months before Kennedy's Nov. 22 assassination. G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel to the House committee, said: "After careful analysis, we decided not to credit Veciana's claim" because, among other things, there was no proof that Maurice Bishop existed.
But the document, released by the US Assassination Records Review Board, supports the contention that Bishop existed and otherwise backs Veciana's story. Government sources said the document - a US Army intelligence report dated Oct. 17, 1962 - describes a man who fits the profile of Maurice Bishop. "He used a different name, but we believe this man fits Bishop's profile very closely," one official said.
The document is a report from an Army intelligence officer, Col. Jeff W. Boucher, to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and a controversial figure in the Vietnam War. It said the intelligence operative described as fitting Bishop's profile "has contact with the Alpha 66 group" and that Alpha 66 "was going to conduct raids against Cuba."
Alpha 66 leaders, the document said, had told the operative they "desired support of the US Army in the action phase," including funds, equipment and arms. "In return the group would provide intelligence information, would furnish captured equipment, and could land agents in Cuba. The group estimated it would require $100,000 to complete the balance of its program, consisting of four more raids on Cuba."
The document said a unit of Army intelligence had approved debriefing Alpha 66 frogmen who had conducted underwater operations against Castro; exploring the possibility of buying captured Soviet equipment from Alpha 66 and briefing Lansdale on the Alpha 66 proposal to furnish intelligence information and material for financial support.
How does the document referred in this source connect the CIA and the anti-Castro activists in New Orleans?
(K9) Lisa Pease, Probe Magazine (March-April, 1996)
During the Church committee hearings, Senator Richard Schweiker's independent investigator Gaeton Fonzi stumbled onto a vital lead in the Kennedy assassination. An anti-Castro Cuban exile leader named Antonio Veciana was bitter about what he felt had been a government setup leading to his recent imprisonment, and he wanted to talk. Fonzi asked him about his activities, and without any prompting from Fonzi, Veciana volunteered the fact that his CIA handler, known to him only as "Maurice Bishop," had been with Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas not long before the assassination of Kennedy. Veciana gave a description of Bishop to a police artist, who drew a sketch. One notable characteristic Veciana mentioned were the dark patches on the skin under the eyes. When Senator Schweiker first saw the picture, he thought it strongly resembled the CIA's former Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division-one of the highest positions in the Agency - and the head of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO): David Atlee Phillips.
What was the connection between Antonio Veciana and David Atlee Phillips?
(K10) Judyth Baker, posting on Manatee High School website (2003)
Between 1961 and 1963, I was trained to do special cancer research. I became involved in an anti-castro project in New Orleans. I can't even discuss the impact of this project, but suffice that by spring of 1963, I was working for Reily coffee company as a front (my boss was former FBI agent William Monaghan) while actually engaged in clandestine cancer research with 'Dr.' David W. Ferrie (supposedly committed suicide but was probably murdered during the Garrison investigation) and renowned medical specialist Dr. Mary Sherman (brutally murdered July 21, 1964 for her part in the scenario I am about to describe). You may recall that I took Russian (all fees paid) at Manatee (then Jr.) Community College. I spoke crude conversational Russian by 1963, when I was introduced in New Orleans to Lee Harvey Oswald. When I wore my hair and makeup the same as his wife, Marina, - for I was same height, weight, and spoke Russian, Lee Oswald and I could worked together. Lee was involved in an anti-Castro project whose sponsor, Dr. Ochsner, was possibly related to the CIA in fact, one of Ochsner's best friends was 'Wild Bill' Donovan, who founded the CIA and who was, like Ochsner, a President of the American Cancer Society. The project included delivery of live biological weapons into Cuba, aimed to kill Castro. Not only was Oswald an innocent man, he was framed in Dallas. He was a patriot who, had he defended himself, would have led to our deaths.
Judyth Baker claims she was the girlfriend of Lee Harvey Oswald during her stay in New Orleans. According to Baker, what was David Ferrie, Mary Sherman and Oswald doing in New Orleans during the summer of 1963.
(K11) Gus Russo, Live by the Sword (1998)
David Ferrie has long been portrayed on paper and in film as an American grotesque: a raving hater of President Kennedy, who threatened to kill the President. He was said to be angry at JFK for failing to help the Cuban exiles restore liberty to their land. It seems certain he made a celebrated statement after the Bay of Pigs fiasco on which much of the portrait has been based. That incident occurred in July 1961, when Ferrie was addressing the New Orleans chapter of the Order of World Wars. Ferrie became so critical of Kennedy's handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion that he was asked to discontinue his remarks. But that was almost certainly taken out of context and misinterpreted.
A devout Catholic (who was, for a time, a seminarian), Ferrie voted for Kennedy in 1960 and was "elated" when he defeated Richard Nixon for the presidency that year. "Things are going to turn for the better now that a Catholic has been elected," a good friend would remember Ferrie saying. Another friend elaborated, "After all, he was an Irish Catholic too. He was an enthusiastic supporter (of Kennedy). Dave was a spokesman for the Kennedys . To him, the idea of a Catholic president was mind-boggling, He thought Kennedy was fabulous."
Does Gus Russo believe that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
(K12) Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy (1980)
David Ferrie, aide in Carlos Marcello's apparatus, and anti-Castro activist, attracted brief official attention less than forty-eight hours after the assassination. Just hours before Ruby killed Oswald, and while Ferrie was still away on his peculiar marathon around Texas, a disaffected member of Banister's staff called New Orleans authorities to say he suspected Ferrie of involvement in the President's murder. This was Jack Martin, a Banister investigator, and he voiced suspicion that Ferrie had been in contact with Oswald. Within hours of the assassination, Martin had been involved in a dispute with Banister - a confrontation that may have occurred when Banister caught Martin trying to examine confidential files. For whatever reason, Banister injured Martin by hitting him on the head with a revolver butt. It was the day after this, following a visit to the hospital, that Martin raised the alarm over Ferrie. A hue and cry began, but Ferrie - as we have seen - was away in Texas. His associates, questioned in his absence, proved uninformative. One did, however, relate a strange incident.
He said that a lawyer had already been to Ferrie's home, promising to act on Ferrie's behalf as soon as he returned. The lawyer, said Ferrie's friend, had remarked that "when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by the Dallas police, Oswald was carrying a library card with Ferrie's name on it." The lawyer, G. Wray Gill, was one of Carlos Marcello's attorneys. Ferrie spoke with Gill by telephone, on the evening of the day Ruby killed Oswald, but did not immediately report to the authorities. When he finally did so next day, Ferrie turned up accompanied by the Marcello lawyer. He denied knowing anything about Oswald or the assassination. Martin, the informant who had started the chase after Ferrie, was dismissed as a crank with a grudge. He was indeed an odd character - a fact for which Ferrie may have been most grateful. As this story has shown, there was good reason to suspect him. A case in point is the reported concern by Marcello's lawyer about a library card.
Nothing in the record reflects the finding in Oswald's possession of any document relating to Ferrie. Yet the Secret Service did ask Ferrie whether he had loaned Oswald his library card. Ferrie denied it, but the statements of two witnesses suggest he was panic-stricken over just that. One of Oswald's former neighbors in New Orleans would later tell investigators that Ferrie visited her soon after his Texas trip - asking about Oswald's library card. Oswald's own landlady said the same - and added a disturbing factor. She recalled Ferrie turning up to ask about the card within hours of the assassination - before he set off on his trip. This bizarre episode, which may be of key significance, remains unexplained.
What was the connection between David Ferrie, Lee Harvey Oswald and Carlos Marcello?
(K13) G. Robert Blakey was interviewed by Frontline in 1993.
Q: Who is David Ferrie?
A: If Oswald is an enigmatic character, and he is, David Ferrie is his soulmate. David Ferrie is a man, not well educated, but described as brilliant. Apparently a homosexual. An airline pilot for Eastern Airlines and a good pilot. A man who is very active in the anti-Castro Cuban movement. A man who is close to Carlos Marcello. He is also, significantly, a man who, in the 1950s, headed up a civil air patrol unit in which Lee Harvey Oswald apparently was a member.
Q: It appears that when Oswald went to Dallas, suddenly he's not with anybody. Maybe he did it alone?
A: Anybody who looks at this has to be candid enough to say that the evidence cuts in two directions. When he is in Dallas, he apparently is alone, or largely a loner.
He gets the job at the depository by happenstance. The Kennedy motorcade in front of the depository is by happenstance. It has none of the earmarks of a carefully planned assassination. His flight from the depository is by happenstance. His killing of Tippit is by happenstance. …
But then, you find David Ferrie, who is an investigator for Carlos Marcello, being a boyhood friend to Lee Harvey Oswald and with him that summer, and with Carlos Marcello at that very point in time. You have an immediate connection between a man who had the motive, opportunity and means to kill Kennedy and the man who killed Kennedy.
Why does G. Robert Blakey believe that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
(K14) Article in New York Daily News about Marita Lorenz (3rd November, 1977)
Marita Lorenz told the New York Daily News that her companions on the car trip from Miami to Dallas were Oswald, CIA contact agent Frank Sturgis, Cuban exile leaders Orlando Bosch and Pedro Diaz Lanz, and two Cuban brothers whose names she did not know.
She said that they were members of Operation 40, a secret guerilla group originally formed by the CIA in 1960 in preparation for the Bay of Pigs invasion...
Ms. Lorenz described Operation 40 as an "assassination squad" consisting of about 30 anti-Castro Cubans and their American advisors. She claimed the group conspired to kill Cuban Premier Fidel Castro and President Kennedy, whom it blamed for the Bay of Pigs fiasco...
She said Oswald... visited an Operation 40 training camp in the Florida Everglades. The next time she saw him, Ms. Lorenz said, was... in the Miami home of Orlando Bosch, who is now in a Venezuelan prison on murder charges in connection with the explosion and crash of a Cuban jetliner that killed 73 persons last year.
Ms. Lorenz claimed that this meeting was attended by Sturgis, Oswald, Bosch and Diaz Lanz, former Chief of the Cuban Air Force. She said the men spread Dallas street maps on a table and studied them...
She said they left for Dallas in two cars soon after the meeting. They took turns driving, she said, and the 1,300-mile trip took about two days. She added that they carried weapons - "rifles and scopes" - in the cars...
Sturgis reportedly recruited Ms. Lorenz for the CIA in 1959 while she was living with Castro in Havana. She later fled Cuba but returned on two secret missions. The first was to steal papers from Castro's suite in the Havana Hilton; the second mission was to kill him with a poison capsule, but it dissolved while concealed in ajar of cold cream.
Informed of her story, Sturgis told the News yesterday: "To the best of my knowledge, I never met Oswald."
According to Marita Lorenz, what was Operation 40?
(K15) Michael Kurtz, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historians Perspective (1982)
Several documents from the FBI and CIA assassination files hint that foreknowledge of the president's murder was fairly widespread. On 21 November, a Cuban told Gregory Basila, a San Antonio pharmacist, that "Kennedy will be killed in Dallas tomorrow." An informant told the FBI's Miami office that $25,000 to $50,000 was being offered to assassinate the president. Early in the morning of 22 November, a CIA source in Madrid heard a former Cuban journalist say that "Kennedy would be killed that day."
Even more suggestive were two incidents that occurred before the assassination. In late September 1963, Sylvia and Anne Odio were visited in their Dallas apartment by two Cubans and an American. A couple of days later one of the Cubans, Leopoldo, telephoned Sylvia and told her that the American was so "loco" that he might even shoot the president of the United States. On the day of the assassination, Sylvia Odio fainted when she saw Lee Harvey Oswald's picture on television and immediately recognized him as the American companion of her two Cuban visitors.
Late in the night of 22 November 1963, Clare Boothe Luce, one of America's most distinguished women, received a telephone call from a Cuban exile friend. He told her that he and several friends had met Oswald when he tried to infiltrate their anti-Castro free Cuba organization in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. He also told her that Oswald had made several trips to Mexico City and had returned with a large sum of money. Mrs. Luce recalled her friend's remarking about Oswald's boast that he was a "crack marksman and could shoot anybody," even the president. The last thing the friend told Mrs. Luce was that there "is a Cuban Communist assassination team at large, and Oswald was their hired gun."
According to Michael Kurtz, what evidence is there that the anti-Castro Cubans were involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.