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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/simpich07242009.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/simpich07242009.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">July 24-26,
2009<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>How American
Antiwar and Solidarity Movements in 60s Impeded an Effective Invasion of
Cuba <br><br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Fair Play for Cuba and the Cuban Revolution
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By BILL
SIMPICH <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">J</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>uly 26, Cuba’s most important holiday, is the
commemorative date in 1953 when Castro and his forces unsuccessfully
stormed the government stockade at Moncada and ignited the Cuban
revolution. On a day like today, it should be noted that Americans made a
successful Cuban invasion impossible with a campaign of determined
resistance.<br><br>
Antiwar and solidarity activists came together to protect the Cuban
revolution during the era of 1960-1963 - the era of the Bay of Pigs, the
Cuban missile crisis, and the JFK assassination - in significant part due
to organizations such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC).
Professor (and CISPES activist) Van Gosse has done groundbreaking
research to make a good argument that this period really was the birth of
the New Left. <br><br>
The release in the last few years of thousands of CIA and FBI files
reveals that this resistance was central in preventing a successful
invasion of Cuba. Like most activist organizations, the FPCC had
approximately a three-year life cycle - after that period, many of the
core activists had returned to Cuba or have moved on to other pressing
causes. In the period from 1960-1963, recently released documents show
the powerful conflict between the forces of agitation (the FPCC and its
allies) and the forces of provocation (the CIA, FBI and military). This
conflict ended with a political landscape that made any future US
invasion of Cuba impossible. This story is not founded on a theory about
who killed JFK, but rather examines an overlooked conflict.<br><br>
The story below is largely set in New York City, the headquarters of the
FPCC, and the revelation here of a key informant’s identity explains how
different threads of this drama weave together. As the Church Committee
said in the seventies, informants are used to “raise controversial
issues” and “to take advantage of ideological splits in an organization.”
Many of the documents are hidden to protect the identity of the
informants, while the world is deprived of the history of how these
informants were used to protect the US national security state. <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>An April 1960 New
York Times advertisement paid for by the Cuban government led to the
formation of the FPCC<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The founder and first leader of
the FPCC was Robert Taber, a CBS newsman who was befriended by the Santos
Buch family when they learned that Taber was interested in telling the
rebels' side of the story about Castro and his followers. With the help
of the Santos Buch family, Taber obtained a rare exclusive interview with
Fidel Castro while he was up in the mountains fighting in 1957. This
interview became the basis of the CBS Special Report “Rebels of the
Sierra Maestra: The Story of Cuba’s Jungle Fighters and his renowned book
on the rebels: “M-26: Biography of a Revolution”. “M-26" refers to
the aforementioned storming of Moncada on July 26, 1953.<br><br>
Working with CBS newsman Richard Gibson, they decided to run a full page
ad in the New York times in order to make a statement on the importance
of the Cuban revolution. Taber and Santos-Busch went so far as to raise
the money for the ad by obtaining a big donation from the Cuban
government with the assistance of Raulito Roa, the son of Cuban UN
foreign minister Raul Roa.<br><br>
The advertisement caused a minor sensation in a number of different
circles. The authors were flooded with more than a thousand letters of
people ready to take action. Besides the timeliness of the appeal, it was
signed by other leading lights in the literary community: Simone de
Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Norman Mailer, Dan Wakefield, even Truman
Capote. African Americans were prominent in the call - besides newsman
Richard Gibson of CBS, it was also signed by the historian John Henrik
Clarke, novelists James Baldwin, Julian Mayfield and John O. Killens, and
the soon-to-be-famous Southern activist Robert F. Williams. Other
supporters in this period included Linus Pauling and Allen Ginsberg.
<br><br>
The ad also caught the attention of the CIA's Cuban affairs head William
Harvey, whose love of alcohol and firearms caused many to ask if he was
the role model for Ian Fleming's James Bond. Two days after the ad ran,
William Harvey bragged to FBI counterintelligence chief Sam Papich. “For
your information, this Agency has derogatory information on all
individuals listed in the attached advertisement.” <br><br>
Harvey was the head of Task Force W, a brigade of 2000 Cubans, a navy of
speedboats, and 400 Americans based at CIA headquarters and the JM/WAVE
station in Miami. JM/WAVE may have been the largest CIA base in history.
Huge quantities of arms and munitions passed through its gates. The
JM/WAVE station directed a wide range of operations against Cuban
shipping, aircraft and industrial sites.<br><br>
The Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party were able to work
together within the FPCC, marking a break from a bad history going back
to the Depression era when 20,000 Communist supporters marched through
the streets to denounce their Trotskyist competitors. Berta Green of the
SWP was able to provide deep experience from her organizing efforts in
Detroit and more recently in New York City. Richard Gibson was a bridge
to people like Robert Williams, Leroi Jones, journalist William Worthy
and other black activists in making the equation between African American
militance and solidarity with Castro and Cuba's largely black population.
Within six months, the FPCC had 7000 members in 27 "adult
chapters" and 40 student councils on various college campuses with
emerging student leaders such as Saul Landau and Robert Scheer. When
Fidel met Malcolm X and other community leaders at the Hotel Theresa in
Harlem during the late summer of 1960, it was the social event of the
year in New York for African Americans and radicals alike. <br><br>
In December, 1960, William Worthy released the documentary “Yanqui, No!”,
with a camera crew that included the legendary D.A. Pennebaker and Albert
Maysles. After doing a national tour for Fair Play, his work led to an
indictment for traveling to Cuba - imposed on no other journalist. “The
Ballad of William Worthy” earned a spot in the Phil Ochs canon:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>William Worthy isn’t worthy to enter our door<br>
<dd>He just came back from Cuba, he’s not American anymore<br>
<dd>But it seems awfully funny to hear the State Department say<br>
<dd>You’re living in the Free World<br>
<dd>In the Free World you must stay.<br><br>
</dl>Sensing a deepening problem, the anti-Castro forces countered by
investigating the funding of the initial ad, calling the FPCC leaders
before a Congressional committee, the Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee with the appropriate-sounding name of "SISS". It
was also known as the Eastland Committee; at the time, James Eastland was
probably the most racist senator in the United States. The SISS was so
powerful that its chief prosecutor Julian Sourwine had been known in the
48-state era as the "97th Senator".<br><br>
On January 6, 1961 Santos-Buch told Sourwine in executive session that he
and Taber had received the needed money from "eight different
people". The documents reveal that Santos Buch changed his story on
January 9 at a subsequent executive session, and that he was also given a
promise that the CIA would help get a number of family members out of
Cuba. On January 9, Santos Buch changed his story, at least in part
because of his desire to extricate his family from Cuba. On January 10,
Santos Buch publicly admitted that the Cubans provided the crucial $3500
needed to place the NYT ad. A week later, Jane Roman from James
Angleton's counterintelligence office in the CIA reported that security
concerns made it too dangerous for the CIA to keep its promise to Santos
Buch. <br><br>
Taber had gone to Cuba the previous month, in December 1960. For obvious
reasons, he now felt it was a good idea to stay. He passed on his
executive secretary duties to Richard Gibson, covered the ensuing Bay of
Pigs invasion, and was wounded by mortar shells in the effort. Meanwhile,
CIA operatives David Phillips and James McCord (of Watergate fame) ran an
illegal domestic surveillance on the FPCC throughout the year of 1961
until the FBI apparently got wind of it while they began their own
operation. The CIA then backed away from the FBI’s turf for a period of
time. During this same period, Phillips was running an anti-Castro media
campaign in New Orleans. Phillips was the recent recipient of the CIA’s
Intelligence Medal of Merit for the disinformation campaign he ran in
Guatemala that paved the way for the successful 1954 coup - it was stated
that “this achievement has no parallel in the history of psychological
warfare”. <br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The upsurge of protest
against the Bay of Pigs invasion in the United States<br><br>
</b></font>Some people could sense the Bay of Pigs coming, but the FPCC
sounded the alarm. After the Nation magazine warned about it in explicit
terms during November of 1960, the LA chapter held a press conference to
get the word out. They “called upon Congress to investigate immediately
the widespread reports indicating that the Central Intelligence Agency is
implicated in the training of armed forces for an invasion of Cuba.
Persistent reports from Guatemala, Nicaragua and Florida of invasion
forces in these areas being tied to the CIA raise into question U.S.
observance of the principle of nonintervention into the domestic affairs
of other countries.” <br><br>
At what is described by Van Gosse as a "massive inaugural rally of
San Francisco Fair Play" in January 1961, the anarchist Beat poet
Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote an homage to Castro and Walt Whitman that
sums up the passions of many people during this era.<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>One Thousand Fearful Words for Fidel Castro<br><br>
<dd>I am sitting in Mike’s Place trying to figure out<br>
<dd>What’s going to happen<br>
<dd>without Fidel Castro<br>
<dd>Among the salami sandwiches and spittoons<br>
<dd>I see no solution<br>
<dd>It’s going to be a tragedy<br>
<dd>I see no way out<br>
<dd>among the admen and slumming models<br>
<dd>and the brilliant snooping columnists<br>
<dd>who are qualified to call Castro psychotic<br>
<dd>because they no doubt are doctors<br>
<dd>and have examined him personally<br>
<dd>and know a paranoid hysterical tyrant when they see one<br>
<dd>because they have it on first hand<br>
<dd>from personal observation by the CIA<br>
<dd>and the great disinterested news services…<br>
<dd>I see no answer<br>
<dd>I see no way out<br>
<dd>among the paisanos playing pool<br>
<dd>it looks like Curtains for Fidel<br>
<dd>They’re going to fix his wagon<br>
<dd>in the course of human events...<br><br>
<dd>The radio squawks<br>
<dd>some kind of memorial program:<br>
<dd>“When in the course of human events<br>
<dd>it becomes necessary for one people<br>
<dd>to dissolve the political bonds<br>
<dd>which have connected them with another“<br>
<dd>I see no way out<br>
<dd>no escape<br>
<dd>He’s tuned in on your frequency, Fidel…<br><br>
<dd>History may absolve you, Fidel<br>
<dd>but we’ll dissolve you first, Fidel<br>
<dd>You’ll be dissolved in history<br>
<dd>We’ve got the solvent<br>
<dd>We’ve got the chaser<br>
<dd>and we’ll have a little party<br>
<dd>somewhere down your way, Fidel<br>
<dd>It’s going to be a Gas<br>
<dd>As they say in Guatemala…<br><br>
<dd>Here’s your little tragedy, Fidel<br>
<dd>They’re coming to pick you up<br>
<dd>and stretch you on their Stretcher<br>
<dd>That’s what happens, Fidel<br>
<dd>when in the course of human events<br>
<dd>it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve<br>
<dd>the bonds of International Tel & Tel<br>
<dd>and United Fruit<br>
<dd>Fidel<br>
<dd>How come you don’t answer anymore<br>
<dd>Fidel<br>
<dd>Did they cut you off our frequency<br>
<dd>We’ve closed down our station anyway<br>
<dd>We’ve turned you off, Fidel<br><br>
<dd>I was sitting in Mike’s Place, Fidel<br>
<dd>waiting for someone else to act<br>
<dd>like a good Liberal<br>
<dd>I hadn’t quite finished Camus´ Rebel<br>
<dd>so I couldn’t quite recognize you, Fidel<br>
<dd>walking up and down your island<br>
<dd>when they came for you, Fidel<br>
<dd>“My Country or Death” you told them<br>
<dd>Well you’ve got your little death, Fidel<br>
<dd>like old Honest Abe<br>
<dd>one of your boyhood heroes<br>
<dd>who also had his little Civil War<br>
<dd>and was a different kind of Liberator<br>
<dd>(since no one was shot in his war)<br>
<dd>and also was murdered<br>
<dd>in the course of human events<br>
<dd>Fidel...Fidel...<br>
<dd>your coffin passes by<br>
<dd>thru lanes and streets you never knew<br>
<dd>thru day and night, Fidel<br>
<dd>While lilacs last in the dooryard bloom, Fidel<br>
<dd>your futile trip is done<br>
<dd>yet is not done<br>
<dd>and is not futile<br>
<dd>I give you my sprig of laurel." <br><br>
</dl>In the immediate aftermath of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, the
FPCC’s national influence was at its highest point. <br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"Actions with up to 2,000 outside the United Nations began the
same day as the invasion and lasted throughout the entire week of the
crisis, culminating in a rally of perhaps 5,000 in Union Square on 21
April - the largest left wing demonstration there or anywhere else in the
US since the execution of the Rosenbergs, and one also unprecedented in
that a young Communist and a young Trotskyist shared the same public
podium, brought together by the 26th of July.<br><br>
<dd>"...Meanwhile, San Francisco saw demonstrations in which
students played a leading role. Coordinated actions on various Bay Area
campuses on 19 April were followed by a student-only rally of 2,000 in
Union Square on 20 April, and an equally large all-ages Fair Play
demonstration...(where protesters) spontaneously took to the streets of
the downtown area to march to the offices of Hearst's virulently
anti-Castro San Francisco Examiner, an unheard thing to do in those
days." <br><br>
</dl>Elsewhere, there was violence inflicted on numbers of Fair Play
protesters. Meeting halls were shuttered in Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark
and Tampa. Campuses came alive with lively actions at Cornell,
Swarthmore, Madison, Berkeley, City College, Yale, the University of
Michigan and Oberlin.<br><br>
On April 27, Hoover himself ordered his agents to focus on pro-Castro
activists, stating that the FPCC illustrated "the capacity of a
nationality group organization to mobilize its efforts in such a
situation so as to arrange demonstrations and influence public
opinion.”<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Right after the Bay of Pigs,
the FBI organizes a campaign of disruption against the FPCC<br><br>
</b></font>In response, FBI man number three Cartha “Deke” DeLoach began
a well-documented red-baiting campaign against the FPCC during May 1961.
"As part of his counterintelligence responsibilities, DeLoach
developed a "Mass Media Program" that included over 300
newspaper reporters, columnists, radio commentators, and television news
investigators."<br><br>
Meanwhile, during that same month, something very odd was going on in
Havana. Dr. Enrique Lorenzo Luaces told Army Intelligence that Taber
introduced him to “Lt. Harvey Oswald, an arms expert” while having drinks
at Sloppy Joe's, better known as the "Sardi's for spies". When
the FBI interviewed Taber, he denied knowing Oswald. A popular position
to take, especially since the common wisdom is that Oswald was
continuously in the USSR between 1959 and 1962. <br><br>
During June, 1960, a few months after Oswald's defection to the USSR in
late 1959, J. Edgar Hoover himself sent a memo to the State Department
alerting it to the possibility that an imposter was using Oswald's
identity. Hoover was tipped to the problem by a telegram from Harold F.
Good at the New York field office. Former Cuban Prime Minister Tony
Varona testified to a House committee that he believed Oswald was in Cuba
during 1961. There is a long and well-documented history of reports
involving individuals impersonating Oswald, no matter where one stands on
the JFK assassination.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The FBI uses Victor Vicente,
the head of the FPCC’s Social Committee and informant T-3245-S*, to build
a criminal case against Gibson<br><br>
</b></font>Back in Washington DC, SISS was now focusing its attention on
Richard Gibson, issuing a subpoena for him to come to Washington and
testify. They wrote a letter to INS, asking them to take action to stop
Gibson from leaving the country before his testimony. INS explained that
American citizens were virtually never given such a “stop” order without
a directive from the Secretary of State. Within a matter of hours, such a
directive was issued against Gibson. Gibson spent years abroad in the
1950s in expatriate circles, and this directive was a serious blow to his
freedom.<br><br>
In Gibson’s first appearance in April, 1961, he told SISS that "on
behalf of myself and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and speaking
personally for myself and many other American Negroes, I can only express
delight at the utter and dismal defeat of this act of international
banditry." The SISS, licking its wounds, ordered him to come back
with the FPCC membership list. When he came back on May 16, he provided
the mailing list, and claimed that there was no way to separate the FPCC
members from those who were on the mailing list. This infuriated the
committee. The FBI was asked to take action to obtain whatever membership
list could be found, as well as anything else that would expose Gibson to
perjury charges. They immediately ordered a mail cover on Gibson's home
at 788 Columbus Circle. <br><br>
On May 21 and 22, Special Agents Patrick Lundquist and Harold Hoeg went
inside the FPCC offices and photographed the list provided to them by
informant T-3245-S*. The identity of T-3245-S* has been the subject of
serious speculation over the years, especially because the “S” is a
symbol for a political informant.<br><br>
With the flood of new documents released by the government in the wake of
the JFK Act, I can confirm with confidence after long and careful study
that the identity of this informant is Victor Thomas Vicente, who was the
head of the Social Committee for the FPCC. As the one willing to do the
difficult work of fundraising, he was given special trust. Vicente’s work
proved invaluable.<br><br>
The dean of the study of FBI “black bag jobs”, also known as “break-ins”
or “surreptitious entries” for many years has been Athan G. Theoharis,
professor of history at Marquette History. In a black bag job, the
documents are photographed rather than stolen, so that the target does
not know that its privacy has been compromised. William Sullivan
justified them in a letter to the Director’s office in 1966: “Such a
technique involves trespass and is clearly illegal; therefore, it would
be impossible to obtain any legal sanction for it. Despite this, “black
bag” jobs have been used because they represent an invaluable technique
in combatting subversive activities...aimed directly at undermining and
destroying our nation.” <br><br>
Theoharis credits the FBI for eight black bag jobs to the FPCC, far more
than suffered by any other group in his study. He discovered an initial
black bag job at the FPCC NY headquarters during January, 1961, which I
have not yet located in the FBI records on-line. The second one is
clearly during the weekend of May 22-23, 1961. <br><br>
The purpose for the entry was to obtain evidence to contradict Gibson’s
testimony to SISS about the FPCC membership list and to the Fair Play
publication. In the material provided by Vicente in May, 1961, a
voluminous mailing list was included in this material, but the agents
reported that there was no way to determine whether a code system was
being used on this list in order to designate members or subscribers –
names of members of student groups were also provided, but no membership
list and no list of subscribers to “fair play” was included in this
material. Thus, this material could not be used to support a perjury
charge against Gibson.<br><br>
However, the data was used to focus on FPCC operatives in Dallas, Tampa
and Miami (major cities in the southern United States). What is
fascinating is that the NY office mailed the relevant portions of these
mailing lists to Miami got the mailing lists on 6/16/61, Dallas got the
lists on 6/19/61 in a letter from “FED” in the New York office to Dir.
FBI urging an investigation of the principal FPCC leaders in the area.
Shortly after, Miami was asked to bring the Tampa office into the hunt.
The Tampa FPCC had hundreds of members during this period, due to the
pro-Castro workers in the nearby cigar factories. The president of the
chapter during this time, VT Lee, later became Gibson's successor as the
last national FPCC head. It seems like the FBI wanted the focus to be on
FPCC members in the vicinity of Cuba. Within days, the FPCC mailing list
were circulating in right-wing circles such as the Mississippi
Sovereignty Commission and the Florida Legislative Investigation
Committee.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Taber returns to the USA,
leaves the FPCC, is hounded by the red-hunters, but curiously not charged
with perjury - while Gibson seeks recruitment by the CIA in exchange for
money<br><br>
</b></font>Taber returned to the US during the end of 1961. The stories
were various: One was that he was "homesick"; another was that
Cuban currency was not convertible into American dollars. In any case,
Taber claimed that he could return "quietly". He was subpoenaed
in short order. He resigned from the FPCC in February, and spoke with the
CIA and FBI on 3/19/62. On 4/10/62, he had to testify again before SISS,
this time in executive session, where he was confronted with his
testimony that clashed with Santos-Buch about the source of the money for
the ad. Despite the committee's fury at Taber, he was never charged with
perjury. Instead, his testimony was publicly released in June 1963. Many
people claim that Taber had gone over to the CIA at this point. The real
question is more subtle - it isn't whether he asked to be an informant,
but whether his offer was ever accepted.<br><br>
In a dramatic incident during the summer, Gibson's problems with money
finally got the best of him. On July 16, 1962, Richard Gibson wrote a
letter to Thornton Hagert of Falls Church, VA, the stepbrother of Philip
Reiss of the Dept. Of Agriculture. Gibson writes in the letter that Reiss
told him in the past that he is a former CIA employee. Gibson wants to
make contact with the CIA, and suggests either the 799 Broadway office or
his home. (201-306052) (also see redacted version at
105-93072-80)<br><br>
On July 24, 1962, the Nationalities Intelligence Section get the OK to
interview Gibson. On August 16, 1962, Gibson is interviewed by NY agents
Hoeg and Day. James Day writes the report in October, after Gibson
skipped the country heading for Algeria in 9/12/62 - some say "just
ahead of an indictment" but I'm not convinced any indictment was in
the works based on these records. Gibson initially went to Canada, and
there is no sign of pursuit or even concern by his departure by the
intelligence agencies.<br><br>
Although I don't see anything in the file indicating a push for
indictment of Gibson, Gibson's story to Lee was that the Cuban Mission
told him that indictment was imminent. From reviewing the documents, it
seems like this was Gibson's cover story.<br><br>
"On September 15, 1962, NY T-1 advised that on the evening of
September 14 Ted Lee (also known as VT Lee) advised that Gibson's
departure from the United States was unexpected. Lee told the source that
someone from the CMUN (the Cuban Mission to the UN) had contacted Gibson
and had told Gibson that things were getting hot for Gibson in the United
States and that it would be necessary for Gibson to go to Canada for a
short time. According to what Lee told NY T-1, the employee of the CMUN
gave Gibson an envelope and instructions. Lee further stated that when
Gibson got to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa, Canada, Gibson was told that
he should go to Algeria with the result that Gibson left Ottawa, Canada
by plane on September 13, 1962 headed for Algeria. Lee stated that Gibson
told him of this when Gibson called Lee from Ottawa, Canada on the
evening of September 12, 1962. Lee further advised T-1 that very few
people know of the involvement of the CMUN in this matter and that NY T-1
should keep it secret."<br><br>
Gibson says he will assist the FBI for money, as he finds the FPCC no
more than a translation service and the whole leftist movement
"ineffective and inconsequential". He adds that the Cubans are
stupid and he hates stupidity, and that the Communists have failed to
help the Negro race. <br><br>
Hoeg discusses in his report that he will submit the New York office’s
“recommendation for both a tactical and strategic plan to be implemented
to disrupt, dissolve, or at least neutralize the FPCC as a subversive
organization”.<br><br>
Another report on this interview says: “We advised Attorney General
(Robert F. Kennedy) re (Gibson’s) interview with New York office on
8/16/62 (redacted) wherein he wanted money to denounce FPCC and wanted US
to grant fugitive Robert Williams immunity from prosecution if he
returned from Cuba. We told AG Gibson was untrustworthy and we were not
initiating any more communication with him. Data herein will be given AG,
as well as CIA and State Department, which agencies are aware of the
previous interview.”<br><br>
FBI reports Gibson is in Algeria, speculates that Gibson may have been
picked up by the CIA as an informant, but a handwritten note by Austin
Horne of the CIA says no. Chief of the Nationalities Intelligence Section
Raymond Wannall told his boss domestic intelligence chief William
Sullivan that Gibson is very untrustworthy and the approach has to be to
accept any info he provides but not to run Gibson as an
informant.<br><br>
A later document confirms that neither the FBI or the CIA would accept
Richard Gibson’s help at that time: "Gibson indicated that he was
willing to publicly denounce the FPCC, say he was duped, that the FPCC is
a tool of the Cuban government, that it is ineffective, and anyone still
remaining loyal (to the FPCC) was just wasting his time, or any other
tactic subsequently determined to be the most effective course of
conduct. However, there was an undertone that he expected to be paid for
any efforts in this regard. He stated that it was his personal opinion
that it would be much more effective to use the FPCC as a cover for
intelligence and counter-intelligence purposes, but when questioned for
his specific thinking in this regard, he commented only that this could
possibly be worked out later." Gibson clearly had some weak moments.
<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The Cuban missile crisis -
protesting against the end of the world<br><br>
</b></font>At this point, during October, 1962, the world was in the full
grip of the Cuban missile crisis. Even when protesting against the end of
the world, FPCC activists did not get a lot of support, but the show of
resistence made the powers that be even more irrational.<br><br>
From Ron Ridenour's on-line book, Our America:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>I later learned that everyone in the United States was scared to
death, even my friends. There were daily air raid drillspractice drills
for children and workers in air raid shelters, stacked with food and
water supplies. Hoarding became a national characteristic with rushes on
supermarkets. The American people were preparing for a world war; they
were not acting to prevent one. A few thousand rare souls braved the
government-mass media-panic-created atmosphere to take up picket signs.
There were a few demonstrations. The largest mustered about 10,000
people. They marched before the United Nations plaza with slogans:
“US-USSR, No War Over Cuba”, and “Hands Off Cuba.” The latter, more
“radical” demand was opposed by the social democratic part of the tiny
minority who protested US bellicosity. The American working classthe
population as a wholeshunned the left-wing like pariahs. As Simone de
Beauvoir wrote in Force of Circumstance, “To be genuinely left-wing in
the United States takes a great deal of character and independence as
well as openness of mind...(they are) lonely and courageous men and
women.”<br><br>
</dl>Van Gosse mentions that the FPCC-led demo in New York on October 27
drew about 2500, and the SANE-led one the next day had about 8000
participants. San Francisco FPCC led the biggest one on the West Coast,
with about 3500. These were among the few actions led by FPCC that month
- the organization was already much smaller and weaker than during the
Bay of Pigs eighteen months earlier. On October 8, the FPCC did put
together a picket line at the UN with 200 participants, where they were
attacked with bottles of red paint, rotten eggs and other
objects.<br><br>
The FBI "expanded its Security Index, establishing a special
"Cuban Section" that included not only names of suspected Cuban
agents operating in the United States, but also of people who had
participated in organizations or picket lines that supported Castro.
Nearly twelve thousand persons were included on the main index and
another twenty thousand in two reserve indexes - all of whom were
targeted for arrest as "potentially dangerous" in the event of
an "internal security emergency".<br><br>
Oh, yes, the Security Index is still around, under another name. After
1971, the Security Index became ADEX during the 70s. From the 80s on,
it's been known as "Main Core". There's been progress, of a
sort - now, 8 million Americans are apparently on the round-up list.
<br><br>
So members of the FPCC were on the Security Index, but not Oswald. He was
placed on the FBI’s watchlist (a level of slightly lesser severity,
denoted by a “Wanted Notice Card”) shortly after he relinquished his
passport at the US embassy in Moscow. This would be lifted a month before
the assassination, as shown below. <br><br>
At the same time, Oswald became a subject of the CIA’s mail-reading
project “HT LINGUAL”. Thus, even though no CIA file was opened on Oswald
for more than a year, Angleton’s CI-SIG unit was reading his mail,
ostensibly because he was a defector that might be contacted by the
Soviets.<br><br>
Right at the time of the final Bay of Pigs prisoner exchange, the FBI and
Vicente conduct a key black-bag job at the FPCC office.<br><br>
During April, 1963, Vicente reports the contents of the FPCC bank
statements from Chase for the months of January through April 1963. Lee
is the person who can authorize withdrawal from the bank account. The FBI
agents are still trying to develop volunteer Ed Linton as a source.
<br><br>
During this month, Victor Vicente stated that Vincent Lee had
telephonically contacted him and asked that the NYC FPCC take care of the
month's rent of the FPCC office. <br><br>
Lee was on a speaking tour for the month of April, and assured his
colleagues that Ed Linton would handle the office Monday-Wednesday, Lee’s
wife Marjorie Speece would handle the office Thursday, and that the
office would be closed on Friday. The FBI agents entered on April 21,
1963 - a Sunday. Lee's final words on the subject were that "Victor
Vicente will handle anything of importance that happens during his
absence."<br><br>
4/18/63 is the postmark date of the letter sent from Dallas by Oswald to
the national FPCC office in New York, according to a It refers to
“photographs of the below listed material made available by NY 3245-S* on
4/21/63...in the event any of this material is disseminated outside the
bureau, caution should be exercised to protect the source, NY 3245-S*,
and the communication should be classified “Confidential”.<br><br>
The FPCC notes stating that 50 pieces of literature were forwarded to LHO
on 4/19/63. Lee informed the FBI that the notation was written by him -
but all the evidence is that he was out of town at the time. It was a
meaningless and stupid falsehood, and he was probably covering for his
ally Vicente in an absent-minded fashion.<br><br>
On 4/21/63, Vicente “made available records and correspondence currently
maintained at FPCC Headquarters…Approximately 100 photographs were taken
of this material…NYO will make appropriate dissemination when the film is
developed.”<br><br>
Hoover biographers Dr. Anthan G. Theoharis and John Stuart Cox have a
copy of the FBI NY office’s “Surreptitious Entries” file, maintained
“informally” in the SAC’s personal folder, which says that “the FBI did
break into the FPCC offices during April, 1963".<br><br>
On April 21, 1963, Vicente - advised that Lee H. Oswald of Dallas, Texas,
was in contact with FPCC of New York City at which time he advised that
he passed out pamphlets for the FPCC.”<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Under the wing of the CIA,
informant Victor Vicente goes to Mexico City and meets Castro and
Che<br><br>
</b></font>The document that tells us what was Vicente's award for all of
his hard work is a 7/10/63 memo by CIA’s Louis de Santi of the
counterintelligence division of the Special Affairs Staff (SAS) which
states: “(T)he FBI informant (blank) is an American-born (blank) born in
NYC (blank). He has been under FBI control for nearly three years
penetrating the three pro-Castro organizations in NYC: the Fair Play for
Cuba Committee (FPCC); the Casa Cuba, and the Jose Marti Club. Through
the first two years Subject was only a marginal asset, in the last six
months he has become a valuable penetration for the FBI into the above 3
organizations as well as the (blank) having apparently won the complete
confidence of the pro-Castro leaders and Cuban officials. (blank)
Recently he was asked to join the CPUSA…subject has been instructed by
his Cuban superiors to take a camera with him to take pictures of Cuba
for organizational meetings in NYC.”<br><br>
The LAD/JFK Task Force wrote an analysis in the 70s that DeSanti
debriefed the informant upon his return to the US, and there is a
reference that there were interviews with Castro and Che
Guevara.<br><br>
In The Road to Dallas, author Robert Kaiser names the document quoted
above that identifies Vicente: “In July 1963, the agency infiltrated an
informer from the New York chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a
Puerto Rican named Victor Thomas Vicente, into Cuba, probably through
Mexico City. Vicente declined to settle there, as the CIA hoped he might,
but he met both Castro and Che Guevara and was debriefed after he
returned.”<br><br>
Upon his return to New York, Victor Vicente showed a slide show of his
recent trip to Cuba on September 23 with about 100 persons in attendance.
The FPCC was still soldiering on with hundreds of people attending the
various New York forums, but it appeared to be reaching the end of the
three year life cycle that is the natural fate of most activist-oriented
organizations. Cuba was no longer in the news on a regular basis. Getting
the travel ban reversed seemed hopeless in the political climate of the
era. The FPCC was undergoing more and more infiltration - some of the FBI
reports refer to as many as forty informants. But the intelligence
agencies’ plans to make the FPCC look bad were to blow up in their
face.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Throughout this period, CIA
and Mafia forces were trying to assassinate Castro<br><br>
</b></font>Trafficante (Tampa), Marcello (Dallas) and Johnny Roselli
(Chicago) had the motive to assassinate Castro, and they worked with CIA
operatives like William Harvey to get it done. In the wake of the missile
crisis, such an operation had to be done in secret. Officials like
William Harvey of Task Force W, Deputy Director of Plans Richard Helms,
and Desmond Fitzgerald of the Special Affairs Staff had not informed the
CIA Director about some of their plots, which forced them to cover up
after the JFK assassination. Harvey testified to the HSCA that he and
Helms concealed the Castro assassination plots from the CIA director.
<br><br>
David Morales, the Chief of Operations at JM/WAVE, was involved in all of
the numerous CIA actions against Castro in 1963. CIA documents show that
Morales was at an early AMTRUNK meeting at a “safe house in Washington,
D.C.”, along with “Tad Szulc, New York Times reporter”, someone from the
State Department, and two other CIA agents, before the CIA and AMTRUNK
apparently went their separate ways in April. One of the more spectacular
efforts happened on March 13, 1963, when Morales and “Colonel” Rosselli’s
team tried to assassinate Castro from a house near the University of
Havana by firing a mortar...bazookas, mortars and machine guns were
taken. Demond Fitzgerald handed poison to another operative to kill
Castro on the very day that JFK was shot. <br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The Kennedys had their own
projects for a coup or to push the Soviets from Cuba<br><br>
</b></font>Kennedy also met with CIA officials in May 1962 and told them
not to join forces with the Mafia without personally contacting him.
<br><br>
As quietly as possible during 1963, the Kennedy brothers were brewing
their own Cuban disruption campaign. They had a two-track strategy: A
coup launched from foreign shores if necessary, or an agreement with
Castro to rid the island of Soviet influence. Working with a separate
wing of the CIA than those supporting the Cuban exiles, this project was
known as AM/WORLD. <br><br>
The leaders of this effort were Manuel Artime and Harry Ruiz-Williams,
with the CIA’s Harry Hecksher as the main case officer. The plan to
create this junta in exile was picked up by the Associated Press as early
as May 1963. By October, JFK had approved thirteen new sabotage missions
as well a project called AMTRUNK proposed by New York Times correspondent
Tad Szulc to enlist Cuban military officers into the coup effort.
Although many referred to Artime as the Kennedys’ “Golden Boy”, it is
revealing that the CIA referred to him as AM/BIDDY-1. <br><br>
Oswald joins the FPCC and meets the CIA’s David Phillips of the
anti-Castro forces, who is involved in a deceptive operation designed to
counter the FPCC in foreign countries<br><br>
During this same period Oswald used the opportunity to build up his
resume as the head of his one-man FPCC chapter in New Orleans,
culminating in an arrest and widespread TV coverage in August as he
picketed on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and outraged his
Southern neighbors. The arrest for breach of the peace grew out of a
contrived fight between Oswald and the anti-Castro DRE, after what looked
like a deliberately clumsy effort by Oswald to pose as an ant-Castro
activist to infiltrate the DRE. Oswald even wrote VT Lee and described
the fight several days before it actually happened. The head of the DRE
was David Phillips.<br><br>
At the beginning of 1963, the Cuban disruption program Operation Mongoose
is abolished with Harvey’s departure. Harvey’s Task Force W now becomes
the Special Affairs Staff (SAS). <br><br>
Throughout 1963, David Morales of the CIA’s Special Affairs Staff (SAS)
was one of the coordinators of operations against Castro (including new
assassination projects), and to maintain contact with Cubans and other
enemies of the Kennedys. <br><br>
That autumn, when CIA agent David Phillips became Chief of Cuban
Operations in Mexico City, he became one of these SAS coordinators.
Phillips was in effect rejoining the officers he had worked with on the
Bay of Pigs in 1961, at which time he had been responsible for propaganda
operations against the newly-created Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The
SAS was packed with people who wanted to invade Cuba and saw JFK as an
impediment. <br><br>
During September, Alpha-66 Cuban exile leader Antonio Veciana met with
David Phillips and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas at the lobby of the
Southland Building for fifteen minutes. Oswald was talking about
“something that we can do to kill Castro.” <br><br>
On 9/16/63, John Tilton of the CIA asked the FBI to help obtain FPCC
stationery and any existing foreign mailing list in order to have a
sample “to produce large quantities of propaganda in the name of the
(FPCC)” in order to “counter” their activities in foreign
countries.<br><br>
Tilton also said that the CIA was considering planting “deceptive
information” which might “embarrass” the FPCC in areas where it has some
support. Tilton assured the FBI that no "fabrication" would
take place without advance notice and agreement.<br><br>
The CIA request was directed to the “Nationalities Intelligence Section”
-to chief Raymond Wannall. Its analogue in New York was Harold Hoeg's
Squad 312. “The reply to CIA should be delivered via Liaison.”<br><br>
On 9/26/63, a memo then went out to SAC NY from LL Anderson on behalf of
Director Hoover. “New York should promptly advise whether the material
requested by CIA is available or obtainable. If available, it should be
furnished by cover letter with enclosures suitable for dissemination to
CIA by liaison.”<br><br>
This is right when Lee Harvey Oswald left for Mexico City for a week, and
repeatedly visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in an unsuccessful
quest for a visa to get to Cuba. Wasn’t this the foreign FPCC activity
the CIA was gearing up to counter? Transcripts of calls that were
supposedly made by Oswald to the Cuban embassy reveal conversations so
contrived that it is obvious that an imposter was making these calls.
Photographs and a tape recording made available to members of the Warren
Commission showed that someone impersonated Oswald in Mexico City. Even
Hoover said it to LBJ the morning after the assassination.<br><br>
The 10/4/63 response from SAC NY James Kennedy reiterated his
understanding that "CIA desires information regarding the
availability of samples of FPCC stationery and FPCC mailing lists in
connection with their consideration of plans to counter the activities of
FPCC in foreign countries. The NYO plans to contact 3245-S* (Vicente) on
10/27/63."<br><br>
The attached blind memo is a COINTELPRO letter suggesting that VT Lee
should be asked “how many dupes are still contributing to Castro’s
propaganda arm here in the US…his fervor for Castro’s cause is directly
related to the amount of funds being received.” <br><br>
Angelton’s aide Jane Roman stated that the man who “takes over Cuban
operations in WH/3/Mexico on the 8th of October 1963 is named David
Phillips.” The PR man who was key in bringing down the Guatemalan
government now has a second chance at getting Cuba right.<br><br>
The next day after Phillips takes over Cuban operations in Mexico,
October 9, FBI supervisor Marvin Gheesling canceled a FLASH notice on
Oswald that had kept him on the aforementioned Watchlist among all FBI
offices. As mentioned earlier, Oswald was placed on this Watchlist due to
his defection to the USSR in 1959 and his statements to the US embassy
that he was going to provide military secrets to the Soviet
Union.<br><br>
When Gheesling canceled the FLASH just hours before the twin October 10
cables were sent by the CIA containing critical information about Oswald,
he “turned off the alarm switch on Oswald literally an instant before it
would have gone off”. Gheesling's explanation for why he released the
“stop” on 10/9/63 is contained in a memo to FBI #2 man Clyde Tolson from
Inspector Gale: The “stop was placed in event subject returned from
Russia under an assumed name and was inadvertently not removed by him on
9/7/62 when case closed.”<br><br>
James W. Douglass, a Catholic theologian who has pondered this question,
suggests that Gheesling may have been misled by Tilton's memo "into
thinking Oswald was only working under cover in Mexico to counter the
Fair Play for Cuba Committee. As a CIA operative, Oswald did not belong
on the Security Index. Thus, his security watch was lifted. His staged
Soviet connection could then be documented for scapegoating purposes
after Dallas, but without sounding a national security alarm that would
have put a spotlight on Oswald and prevented Dallas from
happening."<br><br>
The next day, the CIA sent two totally conflicting documents. One was a
teletype to the FBI, State Department and the Navy about Oswald
contacting the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, inaccurately describing him
as “approximately 35 years old, with an athletic build, about six feet
tall, with receding hairline...believed that Oswald was identical to Lee
Henry Oswald", a seeming error made by the CIA in their initial
filing of 1960 when the CIA finally (and mysteriously) opened a file on
Oswald a year after his defection and his threat to reveal military
secrets to the Soviets. <br><br>
The other document was a cable sent two hours later to the station in
Mexico: "Oswald is five feet ten inches, one hundred sixty five
pounds, light brown wavy hair, (and) blue eyes." This description
came from his mother to the FBI’s John Fain years earlier, which then
ricocheted back and forth between INS, the FBI and CIA for years after
that, although Oswald’s weight only varied between 130-150 and was 150 at
the time of his death. The description sent to the FBI, the State
Department, and the Navy is a deliberate lie.<br><br>
The wording of this cable was repeated to the Dallas police officers
almost verbatim in a mysterious call-in to the dispatcher fifteen minutes
after Kennedy was shot: “white, slender, weighing about one hundred sixty
five pounds, about five feet ten inches tall, and in his early thirties.”
Despite repeated attempts to find out the source, even J. Edgar Hoover
had to admit that the information came from “an unidentified
citizen”.<br><br>
Both of these messages were drafted by Mexico City desk officer Charlotte
Bustos, while a key role in checking for accuracy was played by Ann
Egerter of Angleton’s CI/SIG mole-hunting unit (the woman who opened the
201 file on "Lee Henry Oswald") This may have been as part of a
larger strategy to confuse the FBI, with the goal to withhold information
about its anti-Cuban operations in Mexico City. Egerter admits that she
thought Oswald “was up to something bad” and that she knew he had spoken
with a KGB agent at the Mexican embassy.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Vicente comes through for the
CIA on October 27<br><br>
</b></font>Right on October 27, as predicted in the NY FBI memo earlier
that month, Vicente came through. He provided the Agency with the FPCC
stationery they sought, as well as a ten page mailing list. He also
provided them with "one hundred photos of the financial records and
general activities", which included a recent letter from
Oswald.<br><br>
In any case, Vicente brought home the bacon. Special Agent James Kennedy
wrote that he was "...advised that CIA was interested in obtaining
samples of FPCC stationery and also the existing foreign mailing list of
FPCC. On 10/27/63, NY-3245-S* furnished the above material to agents of
the NYO...3245-S* is a highly confidential source, the unauthorized
disclosure of which could be prejudicial to national defense interests.”
<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">After the assassination,
Taber, wracked with guilt, appears to have gone over to the other
side<br><br>
</b></font>"At approximately 9:45 pm on the night of 11/22/63,
ROBERT TABER telephonically contacted the NYO at which time it was
immediately evident TABER had been drinking heavily He at first asked to
speak with SAS JAMES A DAY and LUNDQUIST, who had previously interviewed
him in Boston and NY, and then spoke to HAROLD HOEG. He was regretful,
saying he wished he had never heard of the “damned outfit” the FPCC. Told
him they wanted him to cure his perjury about the Cuban funding, he said
he wanted to but didn’t want to go back to jail, he’s “got four years
under his belt” (note: to the SISS, he told them he did eight years) FBI
told him it was the best way to avoid prosecution. Taber called HOEG
again on 12/5, and had a similar conversation.<br><br>
The CIA and the Assistant AG Yeagley discussed plans to have a grand jury
sit on 1/15/64 and prosecute Taber for perjury about Cuba's Raul Roa
being the source of FPCC's original 1960 start-up ad, as well as failure
for FPCC to register, based on his statements to Lundquist on 11/22 while
intoxicated.<br><br>
But, instead, FBI founder Robert Taber is interviewed by Lundquist and
O'Flaherty, and offers to provide info to the CIA, and even called back
Lundquist on information about another case - almost certainly the report
about seeing "Lt. Harvey Oswald" in Cuba after the Bay of Pigs
invasion. Taber admitted that he checked out of hospital on crutches in
third week of April, 1961 and went to Sloppy Joe’s tavern in Havana, but
denied knowing anything about Lt. Lee Oswald or anyone named Oswald.
<br><br>
Taber affirms that he’s willing to assist the US government. A situation
can be created to make it look like he’s fleeing to Cuba to avoid
prosecution. When Taber was interviewed by CIA, the agency initially said
it was very interested in Taber’s offer. It is to be noted that both
newspaper articles in the accompanying letterhead memo feature the
possible prosecution of Taber, Gibson, and Lee.<br><br>
Like with Gibson, the CIA apparently got cold feet. On March 2, 1964,
Henry Real said that CIA plans to use Taber are “indefinite”. During
March 1964, Robert Taber applied for employment with the CIA. The CIA's
Office of Security rejected him because "In view of Subject's
notorious background, which raises serious questions on his honesty,
loyalty, integrity and (deleted) trustworthiness, (deleted). Leo J.
Dunn." Wannall grumbled to Sullivan a couple of months later that
they should empanel a grand jury against Taber if he goes to Cuba as he
has discussed.<br><br>
During 1965, Taber released his classic work on guerilla insurgency, War
of the Flea. Ominously, this book was reprinted in 2002 by Potomac Press,
with a new foreword by Bard E. O'Neill, a military counterintelligence
author. The book is now a standard reference for the US military on
counterinsurgencies.<br><br>
In 1966, it appears that the plan Taber discussed with the CIA may have
ripened into fruition. The CIA reported that Robert Taber asked for and
received political asylum in Cuba. Allegedly, he was facing prison due to
perjury before the Internal Security Committee.<br><br>
Taber, like Gibson, clearly had some weak moments.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Virtually all the FBI agents
named here were among the 18 punished by Hoover, and then chosen to lead
the investigation into the assassination<br><br>
</b></font>18 FBI agents were punished by Hoover for their
pre-assassination work. Lundquist and Hoeg of New York were two of them.
At an HSCA hearing Gale stated, “Tolson called me on two of the agents in
New York they (the Warren Commission or the FBI) found had, they felt,
were derelict in the way they had reported the matter, and he asked me if
we had found those...and I told him that, yes, we had found
those.”<br><br>
Hoover believed that Oswald's background as a Soviet defector (and
marrying the daugther of a Soviet intelligence officer) triggered
espionage concerns; and his FPCC activism triggered security concerns.
The FBI files available to Hoover also revealed that Oswald had initially
threatened to provide US military secrets to the Soviets in exchange for
citizenship and that he was presently a self-declared Marxist.. For these
reasons, Hoover felt that Oswald should have been on the Security Index,
and certainly should not have been removed from the Watchlist.<br><br>
The others punished included Gheesling for removing the FLASH, Elbert
Turner for not taking action on the CIA memo received the day after
Gheesling removed the FLASH, and Hosty, Kaack, and Lambert L. Anderson
for not following up more aggressively. Fain would have been punished,
but he retired in 1962. Nevertheless, the same men proceeded to lead the
post-assassination investigation as well.<br><br>
As soon as the investigation was over, the FBI knew what it had to do to
protect its role in history. The Director's office told New York that
since Warren Commission had issued its report, “you are now authorized to
mail an updated copy of the letter previously submitted. Include a number
of spelling and typographical errors in the letter and use commercially
purchased stationery. Use every possible precaution to ensure that the
letter cannot be traced to the FBI”. Originally submitted for approval
three months earlier was a hit-piece on the “left-wing background and
moral degeneration of Mark Lane”.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The FPCC legacy remains a
powerful one<br><br>
</b></font>The FPCC provides a legacy of resistance. It was an antiwar
organization and a solidarity organization, much like CISPES (Committee
in Support of People of El Salvador). Berta Green, to this day, continues
to organize against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is still a force
in present day America - when co-founder Alan Sagner was nominated as
head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Senator John McCain
red-baited him about his history with the FPCC. (Sagner said good things
about the founding of the FPCC, and then weaseled out with, “Within a
year of two after the group was organized...I perceived that people were
getting involved whose purpose and mission was different than
mine.”)<br><br>
Fair Play stood in solidarity with Cubans, and also with African
Americans. Cubans helped build it, and part of the reason for the FPCC’s
decline is that so many of them went back to Cuba.. Some people fell or
lost faith in the struggle; some were strengthened; and some we won't be
sure about until all the files are opened.<br><br>
The work of the FPCC and its allies made any successful invasion of Cuba
impossible. They blew the whistle on the Bay of Pigs loudly and clearly
for months before the invasion. They mounted resistance to the war plans
of US military and intelligence advisors in the Bay of Pigs aftermath.
The agencies retaliated by infiltrating the FPCC and demonizing its
leadership. When JFK was allegedly killed by the FPCC activist Lee Harvey
Oswald, the agencies had to hide their war plans from the Warren
Commission in order to avoid punishment for public exposure of their
illegal plans to assassinate Castro, violate the Neutrality Act by
creating shadow armies and navies, and engage in dirty tricks on American
citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. The Kennedys’ AMTRUNK
operation never regained its momentum and slowly petered out to a close
by 1966. <br><br>
LBJ was petrified that any Cuban connection with Oswald could result in
World War III. That’s how he persuaded Warren to chair the Warren
Commission. LBJ didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, any details about
the assassination. The net result was to greatly ease the heat on
Cuba.<br><br>
Many of these activists are still alive and with their shoulders bent in
defense of Cuba, such as Saul Landau. Lawrence Ferlinghetti still
operates the City Lights Book store in North Beach and continues to
inspire at the age of 90. Many others are unknown to anyone but their
loved ones. After the hard stories about that era, it heartened me to
know that Rosa Parks came to Robert F. Williams' funeral in 1996 (he made
it back to the USA in 1969, where all charges were ultimately dropped),
and gave thanks that a warrior that faced so many dangers in the defense
of the people was able to return home with his family and live a long and
happy life. Think about what didn't happen to Fidel.<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Fidel...Fidel...<br>
<dd>your coffin passes by<br>
<dd>thru lanes and streets you never knew<br>
<dd>thru day and night, Fidel<br>
<dd>While lilacs last in the dooryard bloom, Fidel<br>
<dd>your futile trip is done<br>
<dd>yet is not done<br>
<dd>and is not futile<br>
<dd>I give you my sprig of laurel." <br><br>
</dl>Bill Simpich</b> is an antiwar activist in the San Francisco Bay
Area. The endnotes, with weblinks to the documents, are available with an
email to <a href="mailto:bsimpich@gmail.com">bsimpich@gmail.com</a>. To
see other historical documents from the sixties and seventies involving
US intelligence and military plans,
<a href="http://www.maryferrell.org">maryferrell.org</a> is a great
resource.<br><br>
<br><br>
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