Humberto Fontova: Fidel Castro: Reagan's Savior?
[Humberto Fontova is the author of Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant, a Conservative Book Club "Main Selection."]
The latest essay from Fidel Castro's ghostwriters (referred to as "Fidel Castro" by news agencies that have earned Havana bureaus) claims the Cuban Maximum leader saved President Ronald Reagan's life in 1984. "Right-Wing Terrorists" (the same bunch, you may recall, that the same source blames for JFK's assassination) were plotting the murder of President Reagan during a campaign visit to Charlotte North Carolina.
Luckily, Cuban security officials working at the UN penetrated to the very heart of the plot. "The information was complete," claims the "Fidel Castro" essay, published on September 11th. "The names of those implicated in the plan; day, time and hour where the assassination could occur; the type of weapon the terrorists had and where they kept their arms; and along with all that, the meeting place of those elements planning the action as well as a brief summary of what had occurred in said meeting,"
U.S. authorities eagerly and unquestioningly accepted the information. They sprung quickly to action, foiling the plotted assassination and nabbing the dastardly right-wingers. Then they thanked Castro's agents profusely.
Neither the FBI nor Republican officials seem to recall anything of the sort. But no matter. The "Fidel Castro" essay demonstrating his solicitude for president Reagan's well-being is dutifully making the global rounds on all the usual wires.
Fidel Castro has not been seen in public in over a year-- and even his last picture is over 100 days old. No absence remotely of this duration is recorded in his 48-year reign. In fact, whenever bedridden in the past the Cuban press always made it a point to run film clips and photos of him, even as he lay prostrate in his hospital bed. Showing his glowing face was important for the regime. We can only assume that nowadays his face is in no condition to be shown.
"His" latest essay, however, is based on a sound premise: intimate knowledge of assassination attempts against U.S presidents and presidential candidates ( especially those whose foreign policy might inconvenience Havana) has indeed been a trademark of the Cuban DGI (Directorio General de Inteligencia.) On March 19, 1976, for instance, the Los Angles Times ran the headline "Cuban Link to Death Plot Probed." The L.A. Times story revealed that according one of the plotters, Gregg Daniel Adornetto, both Republican candidates of the day, President Ford and Ronald Reagan, were to be assassinated during the Republican National Convention in San Francisco. The Emiliano Zapata Unit, a Bay Area radical terrorist group, would make the hits. After his arrest Adornetto revealed the assassination plot's "Cuban link" as a Cuban DGI agent named Andres Gomez. Adornetto had met him years earlier when as a member of the terrorist Weather Underground he traveled to Cuba for training and funding.
Much evidence points to an earlier assassination plot by Castro against a U.S. president bearing fruit. "U.S leaders who plan an eliminating Cuban leaders should not think that they are themselves safe!" warned Castro on Sept 7 1963. "We are prepared to answer in kind!"
Many of those closest to the early evidence were convinced that Castro made good on his boast. "I'll tell you something that will rock you," Lyndon Johnson told Howard K. Smith in 1966. "Kennedy tried to get Castro -- but Castro got Kennedy first."
General and former Secretary of Defense Alexander Haig agreed with LBJ. Haig served as a military aide under both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. "As I read the secret report I felt a sense of physical shock, a rising of the hair on the back of my neck," he writes about an incident one month after the Kennedy assassination when a classified report crossed his desk. "I walked the report over to my superiors and watched their faces go ashen." "From this moment, Al." said his superiors, "You will forget you ever read this piece of paper, or that it ever existed."
The classified intelligence report that so rattled Haig and caused so many faces to go ashen described how a few days before the Dallas assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, accompanied by Castro intelligence agents, had been spotted in Havana, where he'd traveled from Mexico City.
A documentary released last year by award winning German filmmaker Wilfred Huismann makes much the same case as General Haig's, who is featured prominently in the documentary. "President Johnson said we simply must not allow the American people to believe that Fidel Castro could have killed our president," said General Haig. "The reason was that there would be a right-wing uprising in America, which would keep the Democratic Party out of power for two generations."
Huismann, by the way, is no "Cuban Exile Crackpot” or even a right-winger. The documentary titled, Rendezvous with Death, was shown worldwide to much interest and some acclaim. One nation where Huismann proved unable to obtain a venue for a showing was the United States.
An earlier documentary titled, The Men Who Killed Kennedy, features a cast of characters undreamt of even by Oliver Stone. It features more gunmen on the grassy knoll than could conceivably fit on Mt McKinley; only Captain Kangaroo is missing. It casts J. Edgar Hoover and Texas Governor John Connoly as among the plotters with Vice President Lyndon Johnson as the plot's kingpin.
Both the History Channel and A&E jumped at the chance to run this "documentary." For maximum exposure, the History Channel even ran it as a series rather than a single show. But one that features a former U.S. secretary of Defense and NATO chief as witness didn't make the cut with the U.S. media. Haig regards JFK's assassination as a form of "blowback" for his and his brother Bobby's repeated and often idiotic attempts to kill Castro, as does director Huismann. You'd think this might have made it appealing to the U.S. Media. Alas, the evidence seems to point the finger too convincingly at Castro for their tastes.
I know, I know, we can argue this evidence till the cows come home. My point is the mainstream media phobia (John Stossel excepted) against running anything that might implicate Fidel Castro in anything more unsavory than providing free and superb health care even while suffering under an archaic, counterproductive, insane and downright diabolical "U.S. Embargo!"
Among the Huismann documentaries' scoops was a telegram discovered in KGB archives after the Soviet union's formal collapse. The telegram was sent on July 18, 1962 by KGB officer Vladimir Kryuchkov to Ramiro Valdés (Chief of Cuban intelligence of the time and widely considered Cuba's 2nd most powerful man today.) The telegram informed Valdes that a weird fellow named Lee Harvey Oswald had recently returned to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and that he might prove useful to Cuban intelligence.
This is not to imply that the Soviets inspired JFK's murder. Far from it. Khrushchev had swept the floor with Kennedy at the Vienna Summit, the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. The last thing he probably wanted was Kennedy replaced. No, the KGB was merely informing the Cubans that, given Oswald's hatred for America, fondness for Communism, plus his troubled personality, he might prove useful as an unspecified "asset."
In 1963, Cuban exile Carlos Bringuier was member of the Cuban exile organization DRE (Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil.) In August of that year he had several run-ins with Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans and came to agree with Kryuchkov. After several talks and one scuffle with Oswald, Bringuier became convinced that Oswald was a dangerous Castro acolyte. Repeatedly he sought out the local FBI and beseeched him to at least look into the matter. Carlos was no more successful with the FBI than his DRE colleagues had been a year earlier with the State Department and CIA. Time and time again DRE infiltration squads had informed the CIA and State Department of Soviet missiles being placed secretly in Cuba.
"Refugee rumors" scoffed JFK's national Security Advisor Mc George Bundy at reports these youths had risked their lives to obtain. Not content to scoff in private, this former Harvard Dean, this shining exemplar of Camelot's "Best & Brightest", made his scorn for these hot-headed Cuban exiles known on America's most popular news chat show. "Nothing in Cuba poses a threat to the U.S.," Bundy stressed, barely masking his scorn. "There's no likelihood that the Soviets or Cubans would try and install an offensive capability in Cuba." The cocksure Bundy was a guest on "Face the Nation," assuring the American people of this on Oct. 14, 1962.
Exactly 48 hours later, U-2 photos sat on JFK's desk revealing those "refugee rumors," sitting in Cuba, nuclear armed, and pointed directly at Bundy and his entire staff of sagacious Ivy League wizards.
Instead of going public with their scorn for Carlos Bringuier's crackpot theories, the FBI merely threatened to deport him back to Cuba. On Nov. 23rd, however they sought him out. "Good evening Mr Bringuier! So nice to see you again, sir! Now regarding this Oswald fellow, we remember you had...."
"If you'd listened to me three months ago!" Carlos erupted. "Our president might be alive right now!" The FBI graciously threatened to deport Carlos back to Cuba for his insolence.
Markus Wolf was the chief of East Germany's foreign intelligence service, a branch of the STASI with many contacts and operations in Castro's Cuba. It was the STASI rather than the KGB that undertook the training of Castro's police and intelligence services. Wolf's autobiography is titled, Man Without a Face and subtitled, "The Autobiography of Communism's Greatest Spymaster." Most intelligence experts agree that the subtitle fits. Wolf was once asked about the Kennedy assassination and quickly replied. "Don't ask me--ask Fidel Castro."
Whatever the truth in the matter, it's clear Castro was more interested in killing American presidents than saving them.
Read entire article at FrontpageMag.com
The latest essay from Fidel Castro's ghostwriters (referred to as "Fidel Castro" by news agencies that have earned Havana bureaus) claims the Cuban Maximum leader saved President Ronald Reagan's life in 1984. "Right-Wing Terrorists" (the same bunch, you may recall, that the same source blames for JFK's assassination) were plotting the murder of President Reagan during a campaign visit to Charlotte North Carolina.
Luckily, Cuban security officials working at the UN penetrated to the very heart of the plot. "The information was complete," claims the "Fidel Castro" essay, published on September 11th. "The names of those implicated in the plan; day, time and hour where the assassination could occur; the type of weapon the terrorists had and where they kept their arms; and along with all that, the meeting place of those elements planning the action as well as a brief summary of what had occurred in said meeting,"
U.S. authorities eagerly and unquestioningly accepted the information. They sprung quickly to action, foiling the plotted assassination and nabbing the dastardly right-wingers. Then they thanked Castro's agents profusely.
Neither the FBI nor Republican officials seem to recall anything of the sort. But no matter. The "Fidel Castro" essay demonstrating his solicitude for president Reagan's well-being is dutifully making the global rounds on all the usual wires.
Fidel Castro has not been seen in public in over a year-- and even his last picture is over 100 days old. No absence remotely of this duration is recorded in his 48-year reign. In fact, whenever bedridden in the past the Cuban press always made it a point to run film clips and photos of him, even as he lay prostrate in his hospital bed. Showing his glowing face was important for the regime. We can only assume that nowadays his face is in no condition to be shown.
"His" latest essay, however, is based on a sound premise: intimate knowledge of assassination attempts against U.S presidents and presidential candidates ( especially those whose foreign policy might inconvenience Havana) has indeed been a trademark of the Cuban DGI (Directorio General de Inteligencia.) On March 19, 1976, for instance, the Los Angles Times ran the headline "Cuban Link to Death Plot Probed." The L.A. Times story revealed that according one of the plotters, Gregg Daniel Adornetto, both Republican candidates of the day, President Ford and Ronald Reagan, were to be assassinated during the Republican National Convention in San Francisco. The Emiliano Zapata Unit, a Bay Area radical terrorist group, would make the hits. After his arrest Adornetto revealed the assassination plot's "Cuban link" as a Cuban DGI agent named Andres Gomez. Adornetto had met him years earlier when as a member of the terrorist Weather Underground he traveled to Cuba for training and funding.
Much evidence points to an earlier assassination plot by Castro against a U.S. president bearing fruit. "U.S leaders who plan an eliminating Cuban leaders should not think that they are themselves safe!" warned Castro on Sept 7 1963. "We are prepared to answer in kind!"
Many of those closest to the early evidence were convinced that Castro made good on his boast. "I'll tell you something that will rock you," Lyndon Johnson told Howard K. Smith in 1966. "Kennedy tried to get Castro -- but Castro got Kennedy first."
General and former Secretary of Defense Alexander Haig agreed with LBJ. Haig served as a military aide under both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. "As I read the secret report I felt a sense of physical shock, a rising of the hair on the back of my neck," he writes about an incident one month after the Kennedy assassination when a classified report crossed his desk. "I walked the report over to my superiors and watched their faces go ashen." "From this moment, Al." said his superiors, "You will forget you ever read this piece of paper, or that it ever existed."
The classified intelligence report that so rattled Haig and caused so many faces to go ashen described how a few days before the Dallas assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, accompanied by Castro intelligence agents, had been spotted in Havana, where he'd traveled from Mexico City.
A documentary released last year by award winning German filmmaker Wilfred Huismann makes much the same case as General Haig's, who is featured prominently in the documentary. "President Johnson said we simply must not allow the American people to believe that Fidel Castro could have killed our president," said General Haig. "The reason was that there would be a right-wing uprising in America, which would keep the Democratic Party out of power for two generations."
Huismann, by the way, is no "Cuban Exile Crackpot” or even a right-winger. The documentary titled, Rendezvous with Death, was shown worldwide to much interest and some acclaim. One nation where Huismann proved unable to obtain a venue for a showing was the United States.
An earlier documentary titled, The Men Who Killed Kennedy, features a cast of characters undreamt of even by Oliver Stone. It features more gunmen on the grassy knoll than could conceivably fit on Mt McKinley; only Captain Kangaroo is missing. It casts J. Edgar Hoover and Texas Governor John Connoly as among the plotters with Vice President Lyndon Johnson as the plot's kingpin.
Both the History Channel and A&E jumped at the chance to run this "documentary." For maximum exposure, the History Channel even ran it as a series rather than a single show. But one that features a former U.S. secretary of Defense and NATO chief as witness didn't make the cut with the U.S. media. Haig regards JFK's assassination as a form of "blowback" for his and his brother Bobby's repeated and often idiotic attempts to kill Castro, as does director Huismann. You'd think this might have made it appealing to the U.S. Media. Alas, the evidence seems to point the finger too convincingly at Castro for their tastes.
I know, I know, we can argue this evidence till the cows come home. My point is the mainstream media phobia (John Stossel excepted) against running anything that might implicate Fidel Castro in anything more unsavory than providing free and superb health care even while suffering under an archaic, counterproductive, insane and downright diabolical "U.S. Embargo!"
Among the Huismann documentaries' scoops was a telegram discovered in KGB archives after the Soviet union's formal collapse. The telegram was sent on July 18, 1962 by KGB officer Vladimir Kryuchkov to Ramiro Valdés (Chief of Cuban intelligence of the time and widely considered Cuba's 2nd most powerful man today.) The telegram informed Valdes that a weird fellow named Lee Harvey Oswald had recently returned to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and that he might prove useful to Cuban intelligence.
This is not to imply that the Soviets inspired JFK's murder. Far from it. Khrushchev had swept the floor with Kennedy at the Vienna Summit, the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. The last thing he probably wanted was Kennedy replaced. No, the KGB was merely informing the Cubans that, given Oswald's hatred for America, fondness for Communism, plus his troubled personality, he might prove useful as an unspecified "asset."
In 1963, Cuban exile Carlos Bringuier was member of the Cuban exile organization DRE (Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil.) In August of that year he had several run-ins with Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans and came to agree with Kryuchkov. After several talks and one scuffle with Oswald, Bringuier became convinced that Oswald was a dangerous Castro acolyte. Repeatedly he sought out the local FBI and beseeched him to at least look into the matter. Carlos was no more successful with the FBI than his DRE colleagues had been a year earlier with the State Department and CIA. Time and time again DRE infiltration squads had informed the CIA and State Department of Soviet missiles being placed secretly in Cuba.
"Refugee rumors" scoffed JFK's national Security Advisor Mc George Bundy at reports these youths had risked their lives to obtain. Not content to scoff in private, this former Harvard Dean, this shining exemplar of Camelot's "Best & Brightest", made his scorn for these hot-headed Cuban exiles known on America's most popular news chat show. "Nothing in Cuba poses a threat to the U.S.," Bundy stressed, barely masking his scorn. "There's no likelihood that the Soviets or Cubans would try and install an offensive capability in Cuba." The cocksure Bundy was a guest on "Face the Nation," assuring the American people of this on Oct. 14, 1962.
Exactly 48 hours later, U-2 photos sat on JFK's desk revealing those "refugee rumors," sitting in Cuba, nuclear armed, and pointed directly at Bundy and his entire staff of sagacious Ivy League wizards.
Instead of going public with their scorn for Carlos Bringuier's crackpot theories, the FBI merely threatened to deport him back to Cuba. On Nov. 23rd, however they sought him out. "Good evening Mr Bringuier! So nice to see you again, sir! Now regarding this Oswald fellow, we remember you had...."
"If you'd listened to me three months ago!" Carlos erupted. "Our president might be alive right now!" The FBI graciously threatened to deport Carlos back to Cuba for his insolence.
Markus Wolf was the chief of East Germany's foreign intelligence service, a branch of the STASI with many contacts and operations in Castro's Cuba. It was the STASI rather than the KGB that undertook the training of Castro's police and intelligence services. Wolf's autobiography is titled, Man Without a Face and subtitled, "The Autobiography of Communism's Greatest Spymaster." Most intelligence experts agree that the subtitle fits. Wolf was once asked about the Kennedy assassination and quickly replied. "Don't ask me--ask Fidel Castro."
Whatever the truth in the matter, it's clear Castro was more interested in killing American presidents than saving them.