More Dylan at Dealey Plaza
Bob Dylan was impressed by those young American
students who went to Cuba to support the Cuban Revolution despite the legal
restrictions imposed by the government making such travel illegal. Dylan met
some of them at a New York apartment, introduced to them by his girlfriend
Suzie Rotolo.
Among those who Dylan met was Corliss Lamont,
leftist radical writer and author of a pamphlet “Crime Against Cuba” that was
distributed by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), copies of which were
handed out by Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963.
It has been alleged that the specific copies in
Oswald’s possession were numbered copies that were in a batch that, according
to Lamont’s records, sold and sent to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The Warren Report says Oswald got Lamont’s phamplet
from the New York City office of the FPCC, which was then being targeted by the
FBI and CIA, as were the students who attempted to break the travel to Cuba
embargo.
Besides Dylan, his good friend and fellow protest
singer and songwriter Phil Ochs also supported the FPCC and frequented their
New York City office.
Ochs had attended an exclusive military academy with
Barry Goldwater, Jr. and the sons of other high ranking military officers, and
enlisted in the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC) while a college
student in Ohio. One of his duties included spying on campus anti-war groups,
but then his dorm room mate taught him how to play the guitar and he began
writing political songs and ballads on such subjects as such as assassinated
civil rights leader Medgar Evers, Billy Sol Etes, Christine Keeler, General
Walker and the war in Vietnam – “Draft Dodger Rag.” His song “Crucifixioin” is
supposed to be about the Kennedy assassination.
Also see: “The Marines Have Landed on the Shores of
Santo Domingo,” “The Men Behind the Guns,” “Talkin’ Cuban Crisis,” “That Was
the President,” “United Fruit,” “William Butler Yeats Visits Lincoln Park and
Escapes Unscathed,” “I Ain’t :Marchin’ Anymore.”
Ochs later told his old roommate Jim Glover that,
under the direction of his former ROTC officer, he went to Dallas and was in
Dealey Plaza “as a national security observer” when the president was
assassinated.
Ochs also went insane, changing his name to CIA
agent John Train before committing suicide after a number of public
confrontations with his former friend Bob Dylan.
John Train, it turns out, is the name of a real CIA
officer who ran CIA propriety companies out of his New York City offices that were
visited by George deMohrenschildt in April 1963, shortly after he left his
friend Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. At the same time deMohresnschildt also met
Col. Sam Kail and Dorothie Matlack, who reported to the Pentagon office known
as ACSI - the Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence (US Army Reserves). Kail
had previously been stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Havana while ACSI was
directed by the same officers who the Texas Army Reserve commanders reported to
from Dallas, including those who became entwined in the assassination.
When Castro visited New York, stayed at a Harlem
hotel and addressed the United Nations, CIA-Cuban G-2 Double Agent LICOZY-3 was
ostensibly recruited and identified only as an American student from
Philadelphia who went to Mexico City, and was later terminated as an agent by
Phil Agee while he was still a faithful CIA officer.
Fifteen years later, when investigators from the
House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) requested specific CIA files,
they were given practically everything they asked for, except the names of the
Double-agents in Mexico City.
Based on public records and recently records
released under the JFK Act, some researchers suspect LICOZY-3 to be Steve
Kenin, an American student from Philadelphia who went to Cuba, met and was
photographed with Fidel Castro and went to Mexico City.
Kenin also knew Suzie Rotolo, Dylan’s girlfriend who
had introduced Dylan to the pro-Castro Cuban crowd in New York city, as she
attended the same upstate New York summer camp as Steve Kenin and his twin brother
Elliot, both of whom were aspiring folk musicians. The Kenin brothers owned a
music store
just around the corner from Rittenhouse Square.
Some other curious events stand out from the
recently released records, including reports of Oswald’s sudden and
inexpliciable appearance handing out FPCC leaflets in Philadelphia at
Rittenhouse Square in the summer of 1963 when the Quebec to Guantamano March
passed through.
The same marchers had previously marched from Quebec
to Moscow in the name of peace and nuclear disarmament, and passed through
Minsk when Oswald lived there, but it’s not known if they met. A few weeks
later, when they got to Washington D.C., one of the marchers, amateur boxer Ray
Robinson got into a fistfight inside a parked car with former CIA officer
Wilcox, who testified before the HSCA that he handled a secret fund for Oswald
when he was stationed in the Marines in Japan.
After passing through New York City, where they met
with FPCC activists, the marchers arrived in Philadelphia where they had a rally
at Rittenhouse Square when Oswald was reported to have handed out his leaflets,
and just around the corner from where Steve and Elliot Kenin ran the Guitar
Workshop.
Steve attended Temple University where one of his
professors had relocated to Cuba to teach at Havana University during the
revolution, after which Steve himself traveled to Cuba, met and had his picture
taken with Castro, and wrote about his experiences for the Temple student
newspaper.
Steve Kenin also edited the program for the first
Philadelphia Folk Festival and did the same for the Newport Folk Festival the
following year when Dylan famously performed. Kenin knew Suzie Rotolo from
summer camp and knew Dylan from Newport, and named his son Dylan.
Bob Dylan came to Philadelphia in October 1963 to
play his first major theater concert at Town Hall (Masonic Temple at North
Broad, demolished in 1980s), the night before he played and recorded at Carnege
Hall in New York city.
Among the songs Dylan wrote around that time:
Goen’ to Accopolco –
In 1963 Steve Kenin took off on his motorcycle to
ride around Mexico and wrote an article about his adventures for Motorcycle
Magazine and visitede Accopolco and Mexico City where he reportedly met Lee Harvey Oswald.
In Mexico City Steve Kenin stayed at a Quaker hostel
“Cassa d’Amego,” which is supported by
Philadelphia Quakrs, and he hung out at a Mexican restaurant near the American
embassy that was popular with other Americans, including Oswald. According to a
Mexican lawyer who was there, he last saw Kenin ride off on his motorcycle with
Lee Oswald on the back, heading for the Cuban embassy to try to get visas to
Cuba.
Oswald did go to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies in a
failed attempt to get a visa to Cuba, and at the Cuban embassy he dealt with a
Syliva Duran.
Shortly thereafter two other young Americans in
Mexico City also contacted Sylvia Duran in an attempt to get visas to Cuba, and
while there, reportedly attended a Twist Party at Duran’s apartment, a party also
attended by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Of the other two Americans, one was recognized as a
movie actor Richard Beymer - the star of the then popular West Side Story,
which includes the music of Leonard Bernstein, who was also profoundly impacted
by JFK’s murder.
Beymer was accompanied by a friend, the owner of a
Manhattan bar that featured live music who also knew Bob Dylan.
Tracked down and questioned about the CIA records
that mention him and the Twist Party, Beymer was quite surprised by the whole
thing, not having been questioned by anyone before.
Yes, he went to Mexico City and Acapulco in 1963
with his friend, the owner of a Manhattan bar, and yes, they were young and
footloose and fancy free and may have attended a Twist Party at a private
apartment, but no, he doesn’t remember Sylvia Duran or Lee Harvey Oswald.
His friend who owned a Manhattan bar, now a Catholic
priest, recalls that they were in Mexico on November 22, 1963 when the
assassination occurred, and since they were only there for a few weeks they
couldn’t have been in Mexico in late September and early October when Oswald
was there.
As for Steve Kenin, he says that he doesn’t remember
meeting Oswald or giving him a ride to the Cuban Embassy on his motorcycle,
though he did try to get a visa to go back to Cuba, but had probably left
Mexico before Oswald arrived.
He is a bit perplexed however, by what the CIA
records say about him and the accounts of witnesses implicate him with
Oswald and Castro. It makes one wonder what would have happened if the story
came out shortly after the assassination, even if it wasn’t true, that Kenin had
given Oswald a ride to the Cuban Embassy and then the photo of him and Castro
further connected Oswald and Castro?
Could that have been a psyops ploy to link Oswald and Castro and what would it mean?
