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The
saga of Rolando Cubela
By Tim Gratz and Mark Howell.
keysnews.com.
Nov 24, 2003.
The Citizen's Thursday story on the Keys
connection to the Kennedy assassination
described the suspicious travels of one-time
Key West resident Gilberto Lopez, who was
in Texas the day of the assassination and
only days later returned to Cuba via Mexico.
It is possible his mysterious travels were
merely coincidental. But if Lopez's location
in Texas the day of the assassination was
sinister, his subsequent flight to Cuba
implies that Castro motivated the assassination,
in what can only be characterized as retaliatory
self-defense.
From the early 1960s the CIA had, on numerous
occasions, attempted to kill Castro, sometimes
through schemes that in retrospect seem
ludicrous. The CIA even engaged the Mafia
to kill Castro on its behalf.
Any investigation of Castro's possible
involvement in Kennedy's death must consider
the story of Rolando Cubela.
Cubela was a high-ranking official in the
Castro regime and longtime associate of
Castro. In 1961 he approached the CIA about
defecting to the United States, but the
CIA wanted him to stay undercover in Cuba.
On Sept. 7, 1963, Cubela was attending
a conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil. There
he approached the CIA and stated he would
stay in Cuba if he could do something very
big for the cause. He offered to kill Castro
for the United States. First, however, he
wanted proof that his operation was endorsed
at the highest level of American government.
He demanded to meet with Attorney General
Robert Kennedy.
The CIA knew Cubela was capable of murder.
In 1956, Cubela entered a fancy Havana nightclub,
walked up to the head of the Batista security
forces and shot him in the head.
The very same day that Cubela approached
the CIA in Brazil, Castro entered the Brazilian
embassy in Havana and granted an unusual
interview to an American reporter. Castro
stated that the leaders of the U.S. government
would not be safe if they continued their
efforts to kill Cuban leaders. Castro's
remarks were widely reported in the American
press.
Cubela's demand to meet with Robert Kennedy
was out of the question, of course. But
the CIA decided to send Desmond FitzGerald,
the number-three man in the CIA, to meet
with Cubela and give him the assurances
he required. FitzGerald would tell Cubela
that he was the personal emissary of Robert
Kennedy.
Richard Helms was the number-two man in
the CIA at that time. Helms later testified
that he told FitzGerald that this representation
could be made without the express approval
of Robert Kennedy.
There were, however, other high-ranking
CIA officials who warned against the Cubela
operation, fearing Cubela might be an agent
provocateur for Castro.
The first meeting with FitzGerald and Cubela
took place in Paris on Oct. 29, 1963. Cubela
asked for a rifle with a telescopic scope.
FitzGerald promised Cubela an appropriate
assassination weapon so he could kill Castro
without forfeiting his own life.
FitzGerald also told Cubela the U.S. would
assure him presidential approval for the
plan to kill Castro by having Kennedy, in
a speech planned for the Inter-American
Press Association, call the Castro regime
"thugs" and call for their removal.
The Kennedy speech to the IAPA occurred
in Miami on a Monday later in the following
month. Kennedy used the exact language FitzGerald
had promised to Cubela.
Four days later, FitzGerald met for a second
time with Cubela, again in Paris. At this
meeting, FitzGerald gave Cubela a CIA-designed
pen with a microscopic hypodermic needle
designed to inject the deadliest poison
into Castro without his knowledge.
The Kennedy speech to the IAPA in Miami
occurred on Monday, Nov. 18, 1963. The meeting
at which FitzGerald gave Cubela the poison
pen occurred on Friday, Nov. 22. Before
the end of the meeting, FitzGerald received
news of the Kennedy assassination and he
immediately called off the Cubela operation.
When news of the CIA/Mafia plots first
started to surface, the CIA had its inspector
general prepare a confidential internal
memo on all CIA plots to kill Castro, which
was only declassified in 1993. Chillingly,
the Report of the Inspector General concluded
that Kennedy was killed at the very moment
FitzGerald was meeting with Cubelo to give
him a CIA-designed weapon to kill Castro.
After President Lyndon B. Johnson reviewed
the report, he told a reporter, in confidence
at the time: "Kennedy was trying to
kill Castro. Castro got him first."
This story published on
Mon, Nov 24, 2003
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