Ronald Radosh: Yet more dumb JFK conspiracies
[Mr. Radosh, adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is co-author with Joyce Milton of "The Rosenberg File."]
Everyone loves conspiracy theories, and Europe is no different. First they had the best-selling French book whose author claimed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were covert actions of American intelligence; next there was the Arab world's claim that it was an operation by Israeli intelligence. Now we have a new one - in the form of a much-hyped German television documentary, "Rendezvous With Death," directed by Wilfried Huismann with the help of an American JFK assassination buff named Gus Russo. The film first aired in Germany in January and is now being readied for American distribution.
Ulrich Deppendorf, the director of German television's public broadcasting network, ARD - the equivalent of PBS here - claims the documentary proves that "Lee Harvey Oswald was the final pawn in a murderous feud between Fidel Castro and the Kennedy brothers." This writer would love nothing more than to reveal that the detestable Fidel Castro, one of the hemisphere's few remaining communist dictators and tyrants, had a hand in President Kennedy's murder, using Oswald as a secret top agent of Cuba's G-2, its intelligence arm. Unfortunately, this tendentious and conspiratorial film - blending favored conspiracy theories of both the far left and far right - falls far short of the task.
The 90-minute film offers the following line of argument. Oswald, then a 24-year-old Castro supporter, got his orders in the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, where G-2 gave him the job of assassinating the American president. The job was Mr. Castro's retaliation for the CIA's comic and failed attempts to have Mr. Castro killed - from exploding cigars to poison in his food. Those who have not studied the hundreds of assassination books, or had a chance to read Gerald Posner's definitive conspiracy-debunking "Case Closed," might find the film compelling on first viewing.
Over dramatic music, Mr. Huismann presents - for the "first time" of course - tapped phone calls from the Cuban Embassy in Mexico; references to secret KGB documents about Oswald; and alleged former agents from G-2, now in exile in Spain and Mexico. Each says he always knew Oswald was their former agency's pawn. Mr. Huismann also interviews Larry Keenan, a former FBI agent who was sent to investigate in Mexico after Kennedy's death - and quickly called back - as well as a former CIA officer named Sam Halpern, who was involved in the plots to eliminate Mr. Castro in the 1960s. But Mr. Halpern offers nothing to substantiate the film's thesis, merely reiterating familiar stories about the attempts to assassinate Mr. Castro.
Compelling? Hardly. First, the witnesses are all speaking secondhand; not one of them is said to have been involved in running Oswald. Take one charge made by Mr. Huismann. An unidentified but alleged FSB officer, presented in silhouette,reads from what he says is a secret telegram dated July 18, 1962, sent by the KGB (the FSB's predecessor agency) to the Cubans. The gist of the message allegedly supports former G-2 agent Antulio Ramirez's claim that the KGB contacted him to let him know that Oswald had gone back to the United States, and was therefore ready for some unspecified mission. We are offered no proof that such a telegram exists save for Mr. Huismann's source's claim. Likewise, we are told that Oswald's attempt to kill right-wing Major General Edwin Walker in April 1963 - which he fumbled - was a test run by G-2 to see whether he was capable of assassination. Again, not one iota of hard evidence is offered; it's just asserted that the Cubans were involved.
The main evidence offered by Mr. Huismann and writer Gus Russo - their would-be smoking gun - is a document written on White House stationary. It says on the morning of November 22, the day JFK was killed, Fabian Escalante, the head of Cuba's counter intelligence service and a top adviser to Mr. Castro, took off in a small passenger plane to Dallas from Mexico to personally supervise the impending assassination. After Kennedy was dead, Escalante purportedly flew back to Mexico and switched to another plane for his return to Cuba.
Viewers are shown dramatic footage of a small plane, which we are told is "Escalante's plane" and proves nothing. (The claim is the equivalent of someone who says he has proof that then CIA chief of counter intelligence James Angleton had flown into Havana in a small plane to supervise the various attempts to assassinate Mr. Castro.) We are never told how Escalante brazenly managed to fly into Dallas the day of the president's appearance undetected by radar, immigration, or customs, and then direct a covert operation. Mr. Huismann says he got the handwritten memo, which is shown on screen, from a former JFK and LBJ aide, Martin Underwood, who asked that it not be made public until his own death.
Why would Underwood have waited decades to release this document, when for years he was a key proponent of JFK conspiracy theories?...
Read entire article at NY Sun
Everyone loves conspiracy theories, and Europe is no different. First they had the best-selling French book whose author claimed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were covert actions of American intelligence; next there was the Arab world's claim that it was an operation by Israeli intelligence. Now we have a new one - in the form of a much-hyped German television documentary, "Rendezvous With Death," directed by Wilfried Huismann with the help of an American JFK assassination buff named Gus Russo. The film first aired in Germany in January and is now being readied for American distribution.
Ulrich Deppendorf, the director of German television's public broadcasting network, ARD - the equivalent of PBS here - claims the documentary proves that "Lee Harvey Oswald was the final pawn in a murderous feud between Fidel Castro and the Kennedy brothers." This writer would love nothing more than to reveal that the detestable Fidel Castro, one of the hemisphere's few remaining communist dictators and tyrants, had a hand in President Kennedy's murder, using Oswald as a secret top agent of Cuba's G-2, its intelligence arm. Unfortunately, this tendentious and conspiratorial film - blending favored conspiracy theories of both the far left and far right - falls far short of the task.
The 90-minute film offers the following line of argument. Oswald, then a 24-year-old Castro supporter, got his orders in the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, where G-2 gave him the job of assassinating the American president. The job was Mr. Castro's retaliation for the CIA's comic and failed attempts to have Mr. Castro killed - from exploding cigars to poison in his food. Those who have not studied the hundreds of assassination books, or had a chance to read Gerald Posner's definitive conspiracy-debunking "Case Closed," might find the film compelling on first viewing.
Over dramatic music, Mr. Huismann presents - for the "first time" of course - tapped phone calls from the Cuban Embassy in Mexico; references to secret KGB documents about Oswald; and alleged former agents from G-2, now in exile in Spain and Mexico. Each says he always knew Oswald was their former agency's pawn. Mr. Huismann also interviews Larry Keenan, a former FBI agent who was sent to investigate in Mexico after Kennedy's death - and quickly called back - as well as a former CIA officer named Sam Halpern, who was involved in the plots to eliminate Mr. Castro in the 1960s. But Mr. Halpern offers nothing to substantiate the film's thesis, merely reiterating familiar stories about the attempts to assassinate Mr. Castro.
Compelling? Hardly. First, the witnesses are all speaking secondhand; not one of them is said to have been involved in running Oswald. Take one charge made by Mr. Huismann. An unidentified but alleged FSB officer, presented in silhouette,reads from what he says is a secret telegram dated July 18, 1962, sent by the KGB (the FSB's predecessor agency) to the Cubans. The gist of the message allegedly supports former G-2 agent Antulio Ramirez's claim that the KGB contacted him to let him know that Oswald had gone back to the United States, and was therefore ready for some unspecified mission. We are offered no proof that such a telegram exists save for Mr. Huismann's source's claim. Likewise, we are told that Oswald's attempt to kill right-wing Major General Edwin Walker in April 1963 - which he fumbled - was a test run by G-2 to see whether he was capable of assassination. Again, not one iota of hard evidence is offered; it's just asserted that the Cubans were involved.
The main evidence offered by Mr. Huismann and writer Gus Russo - their would-be smoking gun - is a document written on White House stationary. It says on the morning of November 22, the day JFK was killed, Fabian Escalante, the head of Cuba's counter intelligence service and a top adviser to Mr. Castro, took off in a small passenger plane to Dallas from Mexico to personally supervise the impending assassination. After Kennedy was dead, Escalante purportedly flew back to Mexico and switched to another plane for his return to Cuba.
Viewers are shown dramatic footage of a small plane, which we are told is "Escalante's plane" and proves nothing. (The claim is the equivalent of someone who says he has proof that then CIA chief of counter intelligence James Angleton had flown into Havana in a small plane to supervise the various attempts to assassinate Mr. Castro.) We are never told how Escalante brazenly managed to fly into Dallas the day of the president's appearance undetected by radar, immigration, or customs, and then direct a covert operation. Mr. Huismann says he got the handwritten memo, which is shown on screen, from a former JFK and LBJ aide, Martin Underwood, who asked that it not be made public until his own death.
Why would Underwood have waited decades to release this document, when for years he was a key proponent of JFK conspiracy theories?...