The JFK Files and Cuba    

On October 26, the U.S. National Archives released additional documents from the files regarding the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Preliminary examination by journalists revealed what are well known facts relating to Cuba and that horrible crime.[1] Here are what some journalists report.

CIA and Defense Department Schemes To Kill Fidel Castro

“Some of the papers recounted the [CIA’s] well-chronicled schemes to kill Fidel Castro. One document, a summary of the CIA’s plans to assassinate foreign leaders, recounted how the CIA tried to use James B. Donovan, the American lawyer and negotiator made famous by the movie ‘Bridge of Spies,’ for one plot. He would give Castro a contaminated skin-diving suit while the two negotiated for the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners.”

“It was known that Fidel Castro liked to skindive. The CIA plan was to dust the inside of the suit with a fungus producing madera foot, a disabling and chronic skin disease, and also contaminating the suit with tuberculosis bacilli in the breathing apparatus,” the paper said. Donovan didn’t go through with it, instead presenting the Cuban leader with “an uncontaminated skindiving suit as a gesture of friendship.”

“Another outlandish plot described talks of prepping a ‘booby-trap spectacular seashell’ that would be submerged in an area Castro enjoyed diving. The seashell would be loaded with explosives that would go off once lifted. ‘After investigation, it was determined that there was no shell in the Caribbean area large enough to hold a sufficient amount of explosive which was spectacular enough to attract the attention of Castro.’”

“Another scheme to kill Castro involved a CIA employee fluent in Spanish based in Cuba who was recruiting a high-ranking Cuban government official in 1963. The CIA officer and the Cuban actually met in Europe on the day of Kennedy’s assassination. The Cuban wanted the CIA to supply him with ‘some type of esoteric gadget with which he would be able to defend himself’ if he got into a fight with Castro. ‘He had in mind some sort of pellet pen,’ the document read. The agency officer didn’t have a pellet pen, but he did show his asset a ballpoint pen with a hypodermic needle ‘inside that when you pushed the lever, the needle came out and poison could be injected into someone.’”

“But the Cuban declined the gadget because it would have required him to get too close to Castro. Instead, the agent asked the CIA operative for weapons. The agency complied, sending down high-powered rifles with scopes to Cuba. The asset was never used. The case officer broke off contact in 1964.”

The Pentagon proposed “a scheme called Operation BOUNTY that sought to overthrow Cuba’s government, and established a system of financial rewards for Cubans for ‘killing or delivering alive known Communists.’ A reward would be paid to an individual upon presentation of a leaflet, with ‘conclusive’ proof of death and dead person’s party/revolutionary membership card. Cubans who played along would get a certain dollar amount based on the title of the Communist they had killed. They would get up to $100,000 for government officials and $57,500 for “department heads.” Castro, perhaps for symbolic reasons, would earn a Cuban only two cents.”

Anti-Castro Groups’ Plans

“Many of the documents center on the activities of Cuban anti-Castro groups — including Orlando Bosch’s Insurrectional Movement of Revolutionary Recovery (MIRR) — as the FBI tried to dissuade or scuttle their plans for armed invasions of the island. One FBI document from June 1959 predicts an uprising against Castro that never came: ‘Conditions are getting so bad in Cuba that it can well be that a counterrevolution will occur from within Cuba, rather than waiting for any invasion force from outside…. Powerful interests, such as bankers, sugar institute, et cetera, are extremely dissatisfied.’”

“Similarly, another 1959 FBI report relays intelligence on some Cuban exiles jockeying to replace Castro if he were to be overthrown, an outcome seen as all but assured. The same document cites the prediction by an informant that Castro ‘cannot last more than two months.’”

“A 1964 FBI memo describes a meeting in which Cuban exiles tried to set a price on the heads of Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. ‘It was felt that the $150,000.00 to assassinate FIDEL CASTRO plus $5,000 expense money was too high,’ the memo noted. At a subsequent meeting, they settled on more modest sums: $100,000 for Fidel, $20,000 for Raúl and $20,000 for Che.”

Cuban Plans To Assassinate JFK?

 In 1963, the Cuban ambassador to the U.S. reacted with “happy delight” to the murder, according to a CIA memo.

In 1978 Fidel told American lawmakers that his country was not involved in the plot to kill Kennedy.

“A draft report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations found it unlikely that Cuba would kill Kennedy as retaliation for the CIA’s attempts on Fidel Castro’s life. ‘The Committee does not believe Castro would have assassinated President Kennedy, because such an act, if discovered, would have afforded the United States the excuse to destroy Cuba,’ the draft states. ‘The risk would not have been worth it.’”

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[1] Miller, Strippers, surveillance and assassination plots” The wildest JFK Files, Wash. Post (Oct. 27, 2017); Yuhas & Dart, JFK files reveal FBI warning on Oswald and Soviets’ missile fears, Guardian (Oct. 27, 2017). Some of these U.S. plots against Fidel and Cuba were discussed in a prior post about then U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s obsession with Cuba.