Castro on the Grassy Knoll

CASTRO ON THE GRASSY KNOLL 

By William Kelly

Billkelly3@gmail.com 

The idea that Fidel Castro was behind the assassination of President Kennedy isn't new, in fact it was the first conspiracy theory that was officially and universally debunked, except in the minds of those who still promote it.

Shortly after his arrest and Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities became known, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Joe Goulden asked Assistant Dallas D.A. Bill Alexander if he was going to charge Oswald with "furthering a communist conspiracy"

Goulden attended the US Army counter-intelligence school before becoming a journalist and media asset of David Atlee Phillips, whose personal papers Goulden now controls.

That Oswald was going to be charged with “furthering a Communist conspiracy” fueled a rumor that when it got back to LBJ, holed up in his VP office in the Executive Office Building next to the White House, he had his top aid Cliff Carter call the Texas Attorney General to stop it, trying to put an end to the communist conspiracy talk.

[The Tipping Point http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/06/tipping-point.html ]

But it continued, and continues to this day, making it a newsworthy issue that isn't ancient history.

That night Clare Booth Luce got a phone call from Julio Fernandez, the anti-Castro Cuban JMWAVE commando team leader who said he had a tape recording and other evidence on Oswald.

Within 24 hours the DRE put out a publication blaming the assassination on Castro, and in Mexico, a Nicaraguan (Somoza) intelligence agent Alvarado - said he saw Oswald in the Cuban embassy take money from a red haired black Cuban.

Although promoted by CIA officer David Atlee Phillips, Alvarado gave a date when Oswald wasn't there, and failed a lie detector test. "Nice try though," wrote Phillips, who also tried to get Tony Veciana's cousin in the Cuban intelligence to say Oswald worked for them.

A few days after the assassination the FBI visited Frank Sturgis in Florida and he said he knew of a meeting between Oswald and Castro, and when he later told the story, Jack Ruby was there too.

There were so many bogus Castro did it stories being floated about Donald Freed and Jeff Cohen wrote about them in an article "Fidel on the Grassy Knoll" in Liberation magazine.

Mathew Smith wrote a book "The Second Plot" - the plot to blame Castro for the murder of JFK.

And I have been compiling a list of them, and the unique thing about them is that most if not all of them stem from US CIA intelligence sources. 

[Black Prop Ops : https://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/12/black-prop-ops-at-dealey-plaza.html?m=0  ]

That Castro was behind the assassination of the president was a psychological warfare black propaganda operation built into the original plan - a plan that was originally devised to kill Castro and blame the Soviets. When the plan to kill Castro was "disapproved" by higher authority, it was redirected to the higher authority. 

Almost every allegation that Castro was behind what happened at Dealey Plaza was disproved - shown to be false, new allegations popped up all the time. 

In 1980, a few weeks before President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley with a gun bought a few blocks from Dealey Plaza, the Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) put out a report they acknowledged was leaked by the NSA - National Security Agency. It said their radio monitors picked up a broadcast from Cuba that said Castro was going to kill Reagan just as he killed JFK.

[See: SHNS NSA report: http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2015/04/psychwar-black-prop-ops-at-dealey-plaza.html ]

Now that is a classic case of black propaganda - real disinformation.

More recently, after meeting with CIA officials Guss Russo and German filmmaker - H - have tried to make a case against Castro, using dubious sources, while former CIA officers Brian Latell and Bob Baer have tried to pin the Dealey Plaza tail on Castro, without success.

Latell's case rests mainly on a Cuban defector who claims to have worked at the Cuban-Soviet listening post they set up on the north shore that was similar to the one the NSA and Australians have in the Outback desert and the subject of some of the first previously secret records released under the JFK Act.

This defector claims that on November 22, 1963 Castro himself ordered them to focus their electronic ears on Texas to pick up the Air Force One Radio communications, and that is proof of Castro's foreknowledge of the assassination! Now that's bad logic. That's evidence of Castro's foreknowledge of Kennedy's itinerary - something anyone who read the papers or listened to the news knew. And if they did pick up the AF1 radio transmissions and recorded them, we'd like to have a copy because our government seems to have lost ours.

After Latell came Phil Shenon, the only Castro-did-it proponent who doesn't appear to have intelligence ties. The former New York Times reporter, in his book "A Cruel and Shocking Act," says that his interest in the case of the murdered president stemmed from a former Warren Commission attorney who complained the Commission wasn't told about the CIA plots to kill Castro and other pertinent events that had a bearing on the assassination.

While others have claimed this anonymous WC attorney with doubts was the late Arlen Spector, I don't think so. If it was, now that he's dead, Shenon would admit it was him, so I think Shenon's instigator was Sam Stern, who raised the same doubts with the HSCA. 

[See: Sam Stern HSCA interview: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/A Disk/Agent Oswald Office Files/Agent Oswald Office Official Records Subject File/Item 07.pdf   ]

Shenon's book focuses on some of the Warren Commission's inadequacies, though he's clear about his belief that they got the part right about Oswald being the lone gunman, he mainly takes up the chase to get Castro.

Shenon focuses primarily on a Twist Party allegedly hosted by Sylvia Duran and included such guests as Oswald, two American Gringos, and Cuban embassy officials, who encouraged Oswald to kill Kennedy. 

Then we got a piece of Bob Baer, whose six part - six hour long TV "documentary," claimed Oswald - the sole assassin of the president, used intelligence tradecraft - which he most certainly did.

That's a big step in the right direction, but then instead of reviewing all the "spies" Oswald came in contact with from his days in CAP and USMC, Moscow, Minsk, Dallas, New Orleans and Mexico City, he only wants to know about the Cubans and Russians, which certainly limits the investigation.

No matter, although six shows were completed and in the can, after two shows someone pulled the plug and it was removed from the History Channel USA, although it continued to air in Canada, where I am told, it played out as expected - Castro did it.

Someday we will find out who had the power to kill a very expensive and popular TV series - and why they did it. Their "limited fallout" hit them in the head.

Now with the sudden and in some quarters unexpected release of the previously with held government files we have Phil Shenon back on the story - asking the Donald to release the remaining records on the assassination in the Washington Post, this time with University of Virginia academic Larry Sabato, author of “The Kennedy Half-Century.”

[ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-has-a-chance-to-dispel-one-of-the-greatest-conspiracy-theories-in-us-history/2017/07/25/75a6f0bc-6e57-11e7-9c15-177740635e83_story.html?utm_term=.be673e8f70c9 ]

Then, like a Punch and Judy Show, they started pimping the Castro story in Politico, and I suppose we can expect more of this stuff.

[http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/03/jfk-assassination-lone-gunman-cia-new-files-215449]

Since I think Sabato was just brought along for the ride to give Shenon some added heavy weight status, I will for the moment discount Sabato's contribution until he responds to Dr. Cyril Wecht's request for the sources of their claim that 21st century forensics support the contention Oswald alone killed JFK.

[See: Dr. Wecht’s Letter and first response: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/08/dear-professor-sabato.html ]

In the meantime Shenon alone appeared on NPR's "Fresh Air," with reporter Dave Davies, and gave a good synopsis on the background of the newly released records, affirmed Oswald's status as the lone gunman and branded Jack Ruby as a crazy misfit and not part of any conspiracy.

[See: Shenon on NPR:  http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/08/phil-shenon-on-npr-transcript.html ]

Oswald however, was inspired by Castro, "enraged" by an article in the newspaper of an interview with Castro about assassination plots, and encouraged to kill Kennedy by Cuban embassy personnel at a Twist Party hosted by Sylvia Duran, the Cuban embassy receptionist who Oswald dealt with in trying to get a visa to Cuba.

Most reasonable people knowledgeable about this subject - Peter Dale Scott, John Newman and Bill Simpich to name three - stand corrected when they make a mistake and change what's incorrect and sometimes their views on things.

But Shenon harps on, repeating the same old non-sense, parroting the original cover-story built into the Dealey Plaza Operational plan that Fidel Castro was behind the assassination. 

That is what they call an "active measure" a current psych-war black propaganda operation that makes the Kennedy assassination news and relevant today as it was when it happened. 

Now I don't expect a respected former New York Times reporter with a book on the subject - "A Cruel and Horrible Act" to read my JFKCountercoup.blogspot.com review of his book - "A Cruel and Horrible Twist," but if he had he would know more than what's in his book.

Shenon asserts - and continues to assert even when shown to be wrong - that Oswald was the lone assassin of the President and was encouraged to do the horrible act by Castro Cuban Communists in Mexico City.

This event was supposed to have occurred at a "Twist Party" hosted by Sylvia Duran, who worked at the Cuban embassy and did indeed interact with Oswald at the embassy.

Shenon wrote a whole book around this party - and asserts that among those at the party - besides Duran, the Cubans and Oswald were two other Americans - Gringo strangers who stood out from the crowd and who were seen the next morning on the street with Oswald, implying they were together on more than the Twist Party occasion.

Shenon keeps repeating that these two Gringos were never identified, but if he read my review of his book or the records released under the JFK Act he would know that these two fellow Americans were identified by the CIA and named in documents because they were recorded on tape talking to Duran on the telephone seeking visas to Cuba - the same reason Oswald talked to Duran.

One of the two Americans seen with Oswald at the Twist Party and again the next day was said to be a film actor, and that narrowed it down to Richard Beymer - then a star in West Side Story and The Longest Day.

While Shenon and all of his resources and contacts couldn't identify him, the CIA did and I had no trouble locating Richard Beymer alive and well in the mid-west, and talked with him on the phone.

Beymer acknowledged going to Mexico for a few weeks in the fall of 1963, as a special guest at a film festival and while there, trying to get to Cuba. And he took a friend with him.

Beymer gave me the name of his traveling companion, who owned a popular bar in New York City, but is now a Catholic priest.

Beymer was surprised he is named in CIA records related to the assassination, but acknowledged contacting the Cuban embassy about getting a visa to Cuba. That was a popular if difficult thing to do at the time. 

As for the "Twist Party" - Beymer doesn't remember it, but "that would be something we would have done" being two footloose single guys below the border. 

No, he doesn't remember meeting Oswald either, something he believes he would have given Oswald's notoriety after the assassination.

I also located Beymer's pal - Father Brad, in upstate New York where he is a parish priest.

He said it was a pretty radical move from owning a bar in the city to being a priest, and could write a book, especially about the bands and celebrities who played at and patronized his joint.

Father Joe recalled the trip to Mexico with Beymer, and trying to get to Cuba, but drew a blank on the Twist Party and doesn't recall meeting Oswald.

In fact, he said, they were there on the day of the assassination, recalling how they learned about it when they got off an elevator in a lobby of a hotel. 

And since they were only in Mexico for a few weeks - and were there on November 22, they weren't there when Oswald was supposed to be in late September.

So if they were at the Twist Party - as the other participants say they were - it wasn't with Oswald.

But even after all of the Castro-done-it leads are run down like this, and go no where, Shenon continues to harp on the Castro angle, as does Bob Baer, Gus Russo and Brian Latelle, promoting the original cover story that just doesn't hold water because it has too many holes in it.

Now the accused assassin did attend a party in Dallas in February 1963 where he was encouraged to engage in a political assassination, but Shenon doesn't want to go there, so few people know about it.

And so the "still unfolding" story of the assassination of President Kennedy continues, and the fake Cuban-Castro-Commie Cover-story gets propagated on NPR, but those who are actually reading the newly released records and can really clear the air of the smoke and mirrors propaganda, can't get air time. 

Shenon's insistence on focusing on Oswald's associations with Cuban and Russian spies rather than including all of the spies Oswald knew, belies his true agenda.

If you are a real investigative journalist seeking the truth then you must include Oswald's associations with his brothers, both military men, David Ferrie, George deMornschilt, George Bouhe, Jean deMeniel, Sam Balen, Volkmar Schmidt, Ruth and Michael Paine and others who had more meaningful interactions with Oswald than the Cubans and Russians. 

For a moment put aside the  bogus Mexico City Twist Party where no one encouraged Oswald to kill JFK,  and focus for a moment on the truly significant February 1963 house party hosted by Volkmar Schmidt for the purpose of introducing the Oswalds and Paines. That's where Oswald was encouraged to commit a political assassination - that of General Walker, who he was later accused of attempting to kill. 

[See: The Other Party: http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-other-party-with-psychwar-twist.html ]

So there was a party where Oswald was encouraged to commit political assassination, but it wasn’t the Twist Party in Mexico City, but a house party in Dallas where the Oswalds met the Paines, and Volkmar Schmidt encouraged Oswald to kill General Walker, which would make him “A Hunter of Fascists,” as was written on the photo of Oswald with the rifle found among the effects of George deMohrenschildts.

But since that party doesn’t lead to the Castro Cuban Commies and cover-story, a dead end alley, Shenon, nor Baer, nor Latell, nor any of those who propagate the discredited Castro did- it theory will go there, because it leads closer to the real truth of who killed JFK and how they did it. 

But that doesn't stop us for going there. 

Stick around and follow me. I'm going there.