Category: In 1963

Two secret memos about JFK and Cuba

One of the very best JFK document researchers recently called attention to two important JFK documents from 1963. They both concern President Kennedy’s exploration of normalizing relations with Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba.

Are the memos relevant to story of JFK’s assassination ? You be the judge.

Castro predicted Cuba would be blamed for JFK’s assassination

“Now,” Fidel said, “they will have to find the assassin quickly, but very quickly, otherwise, you watch and see, I know them, they will try to put the blame on us for this thing.”

The story comes from “When Castro Heard the News,” by French journalist Jean Daniel writing in The New Republic, Dec. 7, 1963.

Castro was right.

In 1963, RFK urged lifting of the Cuba travel ban that is still in effect 51 years later

In 2014, most Americanns are barred by law from visiting Cuba, the island nation closest to America. When it comes to Cuba, Amrica’s vaunted ideals of “free trade” are frankly repudiated by the government in Washington which justifies violation Americans’ freedom to travel in the name of supporting democracy and human rights.

A half century ago,  Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy came to believe that the ban on travel to Cuba was “inconsistent with “our views of a free society,” as these historic documents collected by the  non-profit National Security Archive reveal..

Dawn of 1964 had a melancholy feeling and a message

“Christmas and New Year’s Eve, 50 years ago, was one of mixed emotions in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963,” writes Tom Hintgen in the The Fergus Falls Daily Journal in Minnesota. “Still, Americans looked forward to ushering in the new year of 1964.”

“During the holidays in 1963 there were no video games, no CDs and no games to be played on a personal computer. But there were train sets, footballs and Schwinn bicycles, given as Christmas gifts. Kids in 1963 also longed for pogo sticks and even a few hula hoops left over from the Eisenhower years of the 1950s.” …

Christmas with the Kennedys

Jack and Jackie Kennedy’s Christmas card from 1959

John and Jackie Kennedys sent out a Christmas card every year. They were about to send one in November 1963 when tragedy struck. The Kennedy’s never-sent 1963 Christmas card is now a collector’s item; one sold for $45,000 in 2006.

Dec. 17, 1963: Mark Lane for the defense

Mark Lane
Mark Lane

On December 17, 1963, a lawyer from New York named Mark Lane wrote to Chief Justice Warren to “respectfully request that your Commission give consideration to the appointment of defense counsel” for the accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. He enclosed an article he had written.

The article was published two days later in the National Guardian, a weekly publication of leftist politics.

The headline proclaimed

Nov. 26, 1963: A conspiracy allegation from Mexico City

On Tuesday the 26th, President Johnson met with many of the heads of state who had come to Washington for Kennedy’s funeral. The idea of a Presidential commission to address the assassination was not yet settled.

Meanwhile, in Mexico City another allegation of Communist conspiracy involving Oswald emerged, adding to the earlier CIA reporting that Oswald had met with a KGB officer associated with “Department 13” – sabotage and assassinations.

Nov. 25 1963: After the funeral, Washington’s response firms up

LBJ on the phone

On the Monday following the tragic and astonishing events in Dallas, President Kennedy’s body was laid to rest in Arlington cemetery. A host of foreign dignitaries took part, including British Prime Minister Home, French President Charles de Gaulle, and many others.

Meanwhile the federal government’s response to the assassination was taking shape. …

Nov. 23, 1963, 6 pm: ‘This is not my picture’

Oswald was interrogated at 6 pm Saturday evening in the office of Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Department: Oswald was shown a photograph seized earlier that day from his house.

He said the photographs had been faked, a claim repeated by some conspiracy theorists. Two subsequent examinations concluded the photographs had not been faked.

Oswald said:

Nov. 23 1963: The first JFK conspiracy theory, paid for by a CIA officer

On November 23, members of the Cuban Student Directorate, a CIA-funded organization based in Miami, published a special edition of their monthly magazine, Trinchera (Trenches), in which they linked the accused assassin Lee Oswald to Cuban president Fidel Castro.

This was the first JFK conspiracy scenario to reach public print.

According to declassified CIA records, it was paid for by undercover officer, George Joannides.

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