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<font size=3><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>July 9,
2007<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>Reflections on
the "Family Jewels" From a Target of the CIA<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">The
Killing
Machine</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By
FIDEL CASTRO<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">I</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>t was announced that the CIA would be
declassifying hundreds of pages on illegal actions that included plans to
eliminate the leaders of foreign governments. Suddenly the publication is
halted and it is delayed one day. No coherent explanation was given.
Perhaps someone in the White House looked over the material.<br><br>
The first package of declassified documents goes by the name of "The
Family Jewels"; it consists of 702 pages on illegal CIA actions
between 1959 and 1973. About 100 pages of this part have been deleted. It
deals with actions that were not authorized by any law, plots to
assassinate other leaders, experiments with drugs on human beings to
control their minds, spying on civil activists and journalists, among
other similar activities that were expressly prohibited.<br><br>
The documents began to be gathered together 14 years after the first of
the events took place, when then CIA director, James Schlessinger became
alarmed about what the press was writing, especially all the articles by
Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein published in<i> The Washington
Post</i>, already mentioned in the "Manifesto to the People of
Cuba". The agency was being accused of promoting spying in the
Watergate Hotel with the participation of its former agents Howard Hunt
and James McCord.<br><br>
In May 1973, the Director of the CIA was demanding that "all the
main operative officials of this agency must immediately inform me on any
ongoing or past activity that might be outside of the constituting
charter of this agency". Schlessinger, later appointed Head of the
Pentagon, had been replaced by William Colby. Colby was referring to the
documents as "skeletons hiding in a closet". New press
revelations forced Colby to admit the existence of the reports to interim
President Gerald Ford in 1975. <i>The New York Times </i>was denouncing
agency penetration of antiwar groups. The law that created the CIA
prevented it from spying inside the United States.<br><br>
That "was just the tip of the iceberg", said then Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger.<br><br>
Kissinger himself warned that "blood would flow" if other
actions were known, and he immediately added: "For example, that
Robert Kennedy personally controlled the operation for the assassination
of Fidel Castro". The President's brother was then Attorney General
of the United States. He was later murdered as he was running for
President in the 1968 elections, which facilitated Nixon's election for
lack of a strong candidate. The most dramatic thing about the case is
that apparently he had reached the conviction that John Kennedy had been
victim of a conspiracy. Thorough investigators, after analyzing the
wounds, the caliber of the shots and other circumstances surrounding the
death of the President, reached the conclusion that there had been at
least three shooters. Solitary Oswald, used as an instrument, could not
have been the only shooter. I found that rather striking. Excuse me for
saying this but fate turned me into a shooting instructor with a
telescopic sight for all the Granma expeditionaries. I spent months
practicing and teaching, every day; even though the target is a
stationary one it disappears from view with each shot and so you need to
look for it all over again in fractions of a second.<br><br>
Oswald wanted to come through Cuba on his trip to the USSR. He had
already been there before. Someone sent him to ask for a visa in our
country's embassy in Mexico but nobody knew him there so he wasn't
authorized. They wanted to get us implicated in the conspiracy. Later,
Jack Ruby, --a man openly linked to the Mafia-- unable to deal with so
much pain and sadness, as he said, assassinated him, of all places, in a
precinct full police agents.<br><br>
Subsequently, in international functions or on visits to Cuba, on more
than one occasion I met with the aggrieved Kennedy relatives, who would
greet me respectfully. The former president's son, who was a very small
child when his father was killed, visited Cuba 34 years later. We met and
I invited him to dinner.<br><br>
The young man, in the prime of his life, and well brought up, tragically
died in an airplane accident on a stormy night as he was flying to
Martha's Vineyard with his wife. I never touched on the thorny issue with
any of those relatives. In contrast, I pointed out that if the
president-elect had then been Nixon instead of Kennedy, after the Bay of
Pigs disaster we would have been attacked by the land and sea forces
escorting the mercenary expedition, and both countries would have paid a
high toll in human lives. Nixon would not have limited himself to saying
that victory has many fathers and defeat is an orphan. For the record,
Kennedy was never too enthusiastic about the Bay of Pigs adventure; he
was led there by Eisenhower's military reputation and the recklessness of
his ambitious vice-president.<br><br>
I remember that, exactly on the day and minute he was assassinated, I was
speaking in a peaceful spot outside of the capital with French journalist
Jean Daniel. He told me that he was bringing a message from President
Kennedy. He said to me that in essence he had told him: "You are
going to see Castro. I would like to know what he thinks about the
terrible danger we just experienced of a thermonuclear war. I want to see
you again as soon as you get back." "Kennedy was very active;
he seemed to be a political machine", he added, and we were not able
to continue talking as someone rushed in with the news of what had just
happened. We turned on the radio. What Kennedy thought was now
pointless.<br><br>
Certainly I lived with that danger. Cuba was both the weakest part and
the one that would take the first strike, but we did not agree with the
concessions that were made to the United States. I have already spoken of
this before.<br><br>
Kennedy had emerged from the crisis with greater authority. He came to
recognize the enormous sacrifices of human lives and material wealth made
by the Soviet people in the struggle against fascism. The worst of the
relations between the United States and Cuba had not yet occurred by
April 1961. When he hadn't resigned himself to the outcome of the Bay of
Pigs, along came the Missile Crisis. The blockade, economic asphyxiation,
pirate attacks and assassination plots multiplied. But the assassination
plots and other bloody occurrences began under the administration of
Eisenhower and Nixon.<br><br>
After the Missile Crisis we would have not refused to talk with Kennedy,
nor would we have ceased being revolutionaries and radical in our
struggle for socialism. Cuba would have never severed relations with the
USSR as it had been asked to do. Perhaps if the American leaders had been
aware of what a war could be using weapons of mass destruction they would
have ended the Cold War earlier and differently. At least that's how we
felt then, when there was still no talk of global warming, broken
imbalances, the enormous consumption of hydrocarbons and the
sophisticated weaponry created by technology, as I have already said to
the youth of Cuba. We would have had much more time to reach, through
science and conscience, what we are today forced to realize in
haste.<br><br>
President Ford decided to appoint a Commission to investigate the Central
Intelligence Agency. "We do not want to destroy the CIA but to
preserve it", he said.<br><br>
As a result of the Commission's investigations that were led by Senator
Frank Church, President Ford signed an executive order which expressly
prohibited the participation of American officials in the assassinations
of foreign leaders.<br><br>
The documents published now disclose information about the CIA-Mafia
links for my assassination.<br><br>
Details are also revealed about Operation Chaos, carrying on from 1969
for at least seven years, for which the CIA created a special squadron
with the mission to infiltrate pacifist groups and to investigate
"the international activities of radicals and black militants".
The Agency compiled more than 300,000 names of American citizens and
organizations and extensive files on 7,200 persons.<br><br>
According to <i>The New York Times, </i>President Johnson was convinced
that the American anti-War movement was controlled and funded by
Communist governments and he ordered the CIA to produce
evidence.<br><br>
The documents recognize, furthermore, that the CIA spied on various
journalists like Jack Anderson, performers such as Jane Fonda and John
Lennon, and the student movements at Columbia University. It also
searched homes and carried out tests on American citizens to determine
the reactions of human beings to certain drugs.<br><br>
In a memorandum sent to Colby in 1973, Walter Elder who had been
executive assistant to John McCone, CIA Director in the early 1970s,
gives information about discussions in the CIA headquarters that were
taped and transcribed: "I know that whoever worked in the offices of
the director were worried about the fact that these conversations in the
office and on the phone were transcribed. During the McCone years there
were microphones in his regular offices, the inner office, the dining
room, the office in the East building, and in the study of his home on
White Haven Street. I don't know if anyone is ready to talk about this,
but the information tends to be leaked, and certainly the Agency is
vulnerable in this case".<br><br>
The secret transcripts of the CIA directors could contain a great number
of "jewels". The National Security Archive is already
requesting these transcripts.<br><br>
A memo clarifies that the CIA had a project called OFTEN which would
collect "information about dangerous drugs in American
companies", until the program was terminated in the fall of 1972. In
another memo there are reports that manufacturers of commercial drugs
"had passed" drugs to the CIA which had been "refused due
to adverse secondary effects".<br><br>
As part of the MKULTRA program, the CIA had given LSD and other
psycho-active drugs to people without their knowledge. According to
another document in the archive, Sydney Gottlieb, a psychiatrist and head
of chemistry of the Agency Mind Control Program, is supposedly the person
responsible for having made available the poison that was going to be
used in the assassination attempt on Patrice Lumumba.<br><br>
CIA employees assigned to MHCHAOS the operation that carried out
surveillance on American opposition to the war in Vietnam and other
political dissidents expressed "a high level of resentment"
for having been ordered to carry out such missions.<br><br>
Nonetheless, there is a series of interesting matters revealed in these
documents, such as the high level at which the decisions for actions
against our country were taken.<br><br>
The technique used today by the CIA to avoid giving any details is not
the unpleasant crossed out bits but the blank spaces, coming from the use
of computers.<br><br>
For <i>The New York Times</i>, large censored sections reveal that the
CIA still cannot expose all the skeletons in its closets, and many
activities developed in operations abroad, checked over years ago by
journalists, congressional investigators and a presidential commission,
are not in the documents.<br><br>
Howard Osborn, then CIA Director of Security, makes a summary of the
"jewels" compiled by his office. He lists eight cases
including the recruiting of the gangster Johnny Roselli for the coup
against Fidel Castro but they crossed out the document that is in the
number 1 place on Osborn's initial list: two and a half pages.<br><br>
"The No. 1 Jewel of the CIA Security Offices must be very good,
especially since the second one is the list for the program concerning
the assassination of Castro by Roselli," said Thomas Blanton,
director of the National Security Archive who requested the
declassification of "The Family Jewels" 15 years ago under the
Freedom of Information Act.<br><br>
It is notable that the administration which has declassified the least
information in the history of the United States, and which has even
started a process of reclassifying information that was previously
declassified, now makes the decision to make these revelations.<br><br>
I believe that such an action could be an attempt to present an image of
transparency when the government is at an all time low rate of acceptance
and popularity, and to show that those methods belong to another era and
are no longer in use. When he announced the decision, General Hayden,
current CIA Director, said: "The documents offer a look at very
different times and at a very different Agency."<br><br>
Needless to say that everything described here is still being done, only
in a more brutal manner and all around the planet, including a growing
number of illegal actions within the very United States.<br><br>
<i>The New York Times</i> wrote that intelligence experts consulted
expressed that the revelation of the documents is an attempt to distract
attention from recent controversies and scandals plaguing the CIA and an
Administration that is living through some of its worst moments of
unpopularity.<br><br>
The declassification could also be an attempt at showing, in the early
stages of the electoral process that the Democratic administrations were
as bad, or worse, than Mr. Bush's.<br><br>
In pages 11 to 15 of the Memo for the Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, we can read:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>"In August 1960, Mr. Richard M. Bissell approached Colonel
Sheffield Edwards with the objective of determining whether the Security
Office had agents who could help in a confidential mission that required
gangster-style action. The target of the mission was Fidel
Castro.<br><br>
<dd>"Given the extreme confidentiality of the mission, the project
was known only to a small group of people. The Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency was informed and he gave it his approval. Colonel J.
C. King, Head of the Western Hemisphere Division, was also informed, but
all the details were deliberately concealed from officials of Operation
JMWAVE. Even though some officials of Communications (Commo) and the
Technical Services Division (TSD) took part in initial planning phases,
they were not aware of the mission's purpose.<br><br>
<dd>"Robert A. Maheu was contacted, he was informed in general terms
about the project, and he was asked to evaluate whether he could get
access to gangster-type elements as a first step for achieving the
desired goal.<br><br>
<dd>"Mr. Maheu informed that he had met with a certain Johnny
Roselli on several occasions while he was visiting Las Vegas. He had only
met him informally through clients, but he had been told that he was a
member of the upper echelons of the 'syndicate' and that he was
controlling all the ice machines on the Strip. In Maheu's opinion, if
Roselli was in effect a member of the Clan, he undoubtedly had
connections that would lead to the gambling racket in Cuba.<br><br>
<dd>"Maheu was asked to get close to Roselli, who knew that Maheu
was a public relations executive looking after national and foreign
accounts, and tell him that recently he had been contracted by a client
who represented several international business companies, which were
suffering enormous financial losses in Cuba due to Castro. They were
convinced that the elimination of Castro would be a solution to their
problem and they were ready to pay $ 150,000 for a successful outcome.
Roselli had to be made perfectly aware of the fact that the U.S.
government knew nothing, nor could it know anything, about this
operation.<br><br>
<dd>"This was presented to Roselli on September 14, 1960 in the
Hilton Plaza Hotel of New York City. His initial reaction was to avoid
getting involved but after Maheu's persuasive efforts he agreed to
present the idea to a friend, Sam Gold, who knew "some Cubans".
Roselli made it clear that he didn't want any money for his part in all
this, and he believed that Sam would do likewise. Neither of these people
was ever paid with Agency money.<br><br>
<dd>"During the week of September 25, Maheu was introduced to Sam
who was living at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. It was not
until several weeks after meeting Sam and Joe who was introduced as
courier operating between Havana and Miami that he saw photos of these
two individuals in the Sunday section of Parade.</i> They were identified
as Momo Salvatore Giancana and Santos Trafficante, respectively. Both
were on the Attorney General's list of the ten most wanted. The former
was described as the boss of the Cosa Nostra in Chicago and Al Capone's
heir, and the latter was the boss of Cuban operations of the Cosa Nostra.
Maheu immediately called this office upon learning this
information.<br><br>
<dd>"After analyzing the possible methods to carry out this mission,
Sam suggested that they not resort to firearms but that, if they could
get hold of some kind of deadly pill, something to be put into Castro's
food or drink, this would be a much more effective operation. Sam
indicated that he had a possible candidate in the person of Juan Orta, a
Cuban official who had been receiving bribery payments in the gambling
racket, and who still had access to Castro and was in a financial
bind.<br><br>
<dd>"The TSD (Technical Services Division) was requested to produce
6 highly lethal pills.<br><br>
<dd>"Joe delivered the pills to Orta. After several weeks of
attempts, Orta appears to have chickened out and he asked to be taken off
the mission. He suggested another candidate who made several
unsuccessful."<br><br>
</dl>Everything that was said in the numerous paragraphs above is in
quotes. Observe well, dear readers, the methods that were already being
used by the United States to rule the world.<br><br>
I remember that during the early years of the Revolution, in the offices
of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform, there was a man working
there with me whose name was Orta, who had been linked to the
anti-Batista political forces. He was a respectful and serious man. But,
it could only be him. The decades have gone by and I see his name once
more in the CIA report. I can't lay my hands on information to
immediately prove what happened to him. Accept my apologies if I
involuntarily have offended a relative or a descendent, whether the
person I have mentioned is guilty or not.<br><br>
The empire has created a veritable killing machine that is made up not
only of the CIA and its methods. Bush has established powerful and
expensive intelligence and security super-structures, and he has
transformed all the air, sea and land forces into instruments of world
power that take war, injustice, hunger and death to any part of the
globe, in order to educate its inhabitants in the exercise of democracy
and freedom. The American people are gradually waking up to this
reality.<br><br>
"You cannot fool all of the people all of the time", said
Lincoln.<br><br>
<br><br>
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