Now available on You Tube retired Major General Fabian Escalante, former head and current historian of Cuba’s State Security Department,i gives a sneak preview of his upcoming book Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt. The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Aggression Against Cuba.
Escalante holds the U.S. government responsible for preventing the release of records that would confirm the JFK assassination as the result of a plot at national level by the military-industrial-congressional complex, the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, the Mafia, and Cuban exiles.
Does he present any new information here?, asked Jeff Morley in JFKFacts when it was announced. No, he does´t. He simply re-arranged the same data he had provided in JFK: The Cuba Files (Ocean Press, 2006) in order to enhance his insights into the alleged plot.
Old wine in new wineskin
Escalante´s approach to Lee Harvey Oswald bears resemblance to Melanson´s in “Leftist Lee at Work: The Great Debate and the Paper Chase” (The Third Decade, Volume 2, Issue 5, July 1982). However, Escalante rejected Antonio Veciana´s testimony about his casual encounter with Oswald and Maurice Bishop [David A. Phillips] in Dallas on September 1963.
Escalante asserts that Veciana was part of the plot, which included the recruitment of his brother-in-law Guillermo Ruiz, head of the Commercial Office at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, for defecting and revealing that Cuban officials had given Oswald specific instructions to kill Kennedy.
In another main approach, Escalante tracks the testimony given to him by the anti-Castro fighter Tony Cuesta just before being released in 1978, as token of gratitude —according to Escalante— for having saved his life thanks to the medical care in Cuban prison. Cuesta told Escalante that the Cuban exiles Herminio Diaz and Eladio del Valle were involved as shooters in the JFK assassination.
Escalante compares Kennedy´s approach to Obama´s nowadays, in the sense of applying soft power to achieve the same goal of destroying the Cuban Revolution.
A three-legged table
In support of his thesis, Escalante argues that the lone gunman hypothesis is absolutely discredited and a plot is the best explanation for the well-established facts. He emphasizes that the plot was hatched not in revenge for what Kennedy had done, but rather to prevent him from being re-elected in 1964, because his policies were turning away from the establishment’s. Regarding Cuba, Escalante compares Kennedy´s approach to Obama´s nowadays, in the sense of applying soft power to achieve the same goal of destroying the Cuban Revolution.
Escalante also restated that the killing was executed by the triangle CIA-Mafia-Cuban exile, since only such a trio had common motifs, means, and opportunity. Finally, the plot was some kind of killing two birds with one stone. Blaming Castro for being the mastermind of the JFK assassination conveyed a plausible excuse to trigger a military invasion against Cuba.
And yet it limps!
However, Escalante falls below the reasonable quantum of proof in regard of some issues like the three tramps, the so-called Pedro Charles´s letters, and three missing anti-Castro fighters from the CIA-funded Cuban Student Directorate (DRE).
He still insists that Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis were two of the three transients under police escort photographed near Dealey Plaza shortly after the assassination, but the late Mary La Fontaine debunked this myth in 1992 after finding in the arrest records at the Dallas Police Department that the three tramps were actually Gus Abrams, Harold Doyle, and John Gedney.
Escalante failed to elucidate beyond any reasonable doubt whether it is hoax or evidence that five letters postmarked in Havana after the JFK murder suggested there was a contract killing undertaken by Oswald under the direction of a Castro agent named Pedro Charles.
On the air Escalante made the point that the same typewriter was used in both letters to Oswald and letters denouncing the plot, but it does not allow to go beyond J. E. Hoover´s conclusion of “some type of hoax, possibly on the part of some anti-Castro group.”
Likewise, a cloud of doubt descends on Escalante´s claim that DRE militants Carlos Roca, Julio Garcia, and Sergio Perez, reportedly killed while fighting in Cuba, were actually “silenced” because they knew about the plot. For Escalante, DRE was not only paid by the CIA to spread the very first conspiracy theory, linking Oswald to Castro, but also a key factor in the killing itself, even with DRE leader Manuel Salvat present in Dallas on the day of the assassination.
Escalante conclusively demonstrated that the mentioned three DRE militants did not fall in combat as part of an anti-Castro guerrilla commanded by some Tartabull [in front of the TV cameras, Escalante misspoke it as Tondike], but inferring a connection to the JFK killing from a false report by DRE is a classic non sequitur.
What still remains
Escalante put forward that all the U.S. Presidents from LBJ to Obama share the responsibility for withholding JFK records. He said that the declassification has been postponed to 2029 (?!), but what makes his return to the subject worthwhile is the firm stand that, beyond any reasonable doubt, the still-secret JFK files are a prima facie evidence of a conspiracy at government level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg-13eXXBA8
[John Rowell:]
“I don’t suppose anyone has a link with subtitles? My Spanish is not quite up to par.”
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I can provide a couple of tips:
(1) Anybody can download YouTube videos by making a small change to the URL, prepending the letters “ss” to “youtube.com”.
https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=KFDbA_jfMY8
(2) There are plenty of software applications (many free) to add subtitles:
https://www.wondershare.com/subtitle/subtitle-editor.html
“[Fabian Escalante] emphasizes that the plot was hatched not in revenge for what Kennedy had done, but rather to prevent him from being re-elected in 1964, because his policies were turning away from the establishment’s. ”
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Arnaldo: if that were the case why the extreme cruelty? The public, grotesque execution? It is speculated that Hugo Chavez could have been discreetly dispatched as follows:
http://www.dealey-plaza.org/~ramon/politics/USAFCIS.jpg
Given JFK’s frail health and the large number of injections, they could have given him some accelerated Addison Disease.
Then again, the bloody savagery could have been a warning. Consider how Eladio del Valle and Johnny Roselli were hacked to pieces. Or Sam Giancana. A warning that has worked for 50+ years.
I agree in regard of the long-lasting warning, but I don´t have any explanation for killing JFK in such a way. Was the manipulation of medical care a feasible option?
a public assassination sends a powerful message. Our policy towards Cuba was not changed for another 50 years. message was received loud and clear.
the public assassination sent a strong message to any leaders seeking to change our policy towards Cuba. Message was received clear and loud.
IMO, the records remain sealed to protect the prestige of the US abroad, political stability at home, and the CIA’s continuing existence.
That’s what the CIA means by declaring that these 53-year-old records still represent a security risk to this very day.
In my opinion, the real reason for concealing the records has to do with protecting the system itself, and those still alive…
I don’t suppose anyone has a link with subtitles? My Spanish is not quite up to par.
I think when I go to sell my JFK book, I will not offer any assassins, or names of dead people purporting to know the names of other dead people, that allegedly told them they shot JFK. While I will consider perspectives of other countries and other players, I can not in good conscience accept the word of an opponent of the deceased. any word from Castro, or his cronies, about JFK’s demise is without a factual basis and amounts to a self-serving agenda at least, and propaganda at best. Escalante seems to want to live the American dream and is peddling old news as a course to riches. Sad. Very sad, indeed.
Tony Summers got the same testimony from a former inmate that took care of Cuesta at the prison´s infirmary, Reinaldo Martinez. After being released, this ear witness got the same testimony in exile from another anti-Castro fighter, Remigio Arce. All the three, Cuesta, Martinez, and Arce, are dead. Thus, it´s not possible to determine if the testimonies from Arce and Cuesta were independent, since Martinez didn´t asked Arce how he knew about it. And be aware that Cubans are capable to attribute to themselves having descended in the moon before Armstrong.
“Escalante also restated that the killing was executed by the triangle CIA-Mafia-Cuban exile, since only such a trio had common *motifs, means, and opportunity.”~Arnaldo M. Fernandez
. . .
motive
(noun)
1. a reason for doing something, especially one that is hidden or not obvious.
“a motive for his murder”
synonyms: reason, motivation, motivating force, rationale, grounds, cause, basis, object, purpose, intention; More
“Motive” comes from the Latin word motus meaning a moving motion. From the early … A “Motif” is a theme or idea that recurs as a pattern in an artistic work.
. . . . .
A motive, in law, especially criminal law, is the cause that moves people to induce a certain action.[1] Motive, in itself, is not an element of any given crime; however, the legal system typically allows motive to be proven in order to make plausible the accused’s reasons for committing a crime, at least when those motives may be obscure or hard to identify with. However, a motive is not required to reach a verdict.[2] Motives are also used in other aspects of a specific case, for instance, when police are initially investigating.[2]
The law technically distinguishes between motive and intent. “Intent” in criminal law is synonymous with Mens rea, which means the mental state shows liability which is enforced by law as an element of a crime.[3] “Motive” describes instead the reasons in the accused’s background and station in life that are supposed to have induced the crime. Motives are often broken down into three categories; biological, social and personal.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motive_(law)
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Your absolutely right. It’s my fault to mistype the term.
I mean, You’re absolutely right. Mistyping seems to be a kind of curse for me.
In another main approach, Escalante tracks the testimony given to him by the anti-Castro fighter Tony Cuesta just before being released in 1978, as token of gratitude —according to Escalante— for having saved his life thanks to the medical care in Cuban prison. Cuesta told Escalante that the Cuban exiles Herminio Diaz and Eladio del Valle were involved as shooters in the JFK assassination.
Interesting that Herminio Diaz’s name is mentioned again as a possible assassin in Dallas. Not In Your Lifetime by Anthony Summers also named him as a potential participant in the assassination of President Kennedy. Of course it does not prove anything, but it perhaps noteworthy that Escalante mentions him as well. One problem is it appears to come from the same source, Tony Cuesta, so it is not a lot to go on, and it raises the issue of how reliable and trustworthy a witness Cuesta was.