Retired CIA officer says Cuban leader ordered intelligence officer to listen for news from Texas on morning of shooting
Fidel Castro knew of Lee Harvey Oswald’s intentions and did nothing to deter him, according to Brian Latell. Photograph: Desmond Boylan/Reuters
It is one of history's most enduring mysteries and has kept conspiracy theorists buzzing for half a century: did Fidel Castro have a hand in the assassination of President John F Kennedy? Officially, the Cuban dictator was cleared of involvement in the shooting of his fiercest adversary. The inquiry into the murder concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist sympathiser, acted alone.
Now a retired CIA officer claims to have proof that Castro knew the murder was about to happen – an allegation certain to refuel speculation before next year's 50th anniversary of a pivotal moment of the 20th century.
Brian Latell, who studied Cuban affairs as a CIA analyst in the 1960s and became the agency's chief intelligence officer for Latin America, says in a book that he is certain Castro knew.
On the morning of 22 November 1963, the day Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Castro ordered a senior intelligence officer in Havana to stop listening for non-specific CIA radio communications and to concentrate on "any little detail, any small detail from Texas", Latell claims in his book Castro's Secrets – the CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine, due to be published next month.
Four hours later came news that Kennedy was dead. Latell claims Castro was aware that Oswald, who had been denied a visa to visit Cuba at the embassy in Mexico City, told staff there he was going to murder Kennedy to prove his communist allegiance. "Fidel knew of Oswald's intentions and did nothing to deter the act," Latell writes.
In an interview published on Sunday in the Miami Herald, Latell, now a senior lecturer on Cuba at the University of Miami, said he discovered the information in interviews with Cuban former intelligence officers, backed up by declassified US government documents.
Full story at The Guardian
Now a retired CIA officer claims to have proof that Castro knew the murder was about to happen – an allegation certain to refuel speculation before next year's 50th anniversary of a pivotal moment of the 20th century.
Brian Latell, who studied Cuban affairs as a CIA analyst in the 1960s and became the agency's chief intelligence officer for Latin America, says in a book that he is certain Castro knew.
On the morning of 22 November 1963, the day Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Castro ordered a senior intelligence officer in Havana to stop listening for non-specific CIA radio communications and to concentrate on "any little detail, any small detail from Texas", Latell claims in his book Castro's Secrets – the CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine, due to be published next month.
Four hours later came news that Kennedy was dead. Latell claims Castro was aware that Oswald, who had been denied a visa to visit Cuba at the embassy in Mexico City, told staff there he was going to murder Kennedy to prove his communist allegiance. "Fidel knew of Oswald's intentions and did nothing to deter the act," Latell writes.
In an interview published on Sunday in the Miami Herald, Latell, now a senior lecturer on Cuba at the University of Miami, said he discovered the information in interviews with Cuban former intelligence officers, backed up by declassified US government documents.
Full story at The Guardian
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