Tag: Anthony Summers

Cuban said his friend was a Dealey Plaza gunman; CIA has files on source of the story

Reinaldo Martinez
Reinaldo Martinez’s JFK story

A Cuban-American man has said a leading anti-Castro fighter identified a mutual friend as having admitted he took part  in the assassination of President Kennedy. Reinaldo Martinez, who made the allegation in this video interview with JFK author Anthony Summers, named the man who admitted involvement as Herminio Diaz.

Is the story, picked up last month in the online Daily Mail, credible?

Summers, author of “Not In Your Lifetime,” notes the story is hearsay. Martinez, now deceased, admitted he had no proof it was true, only that the anti-Castro fighter who told him the story.

JFK Facts has discovered that the CIA retains two secret files on the source of Martinez’s story. The agency says the files are “not believed relevant” to JFK’s assassination.

Summers vs. Hitchens on JFK

Anthony Summers rather gets the best of the late Christopher Hitchens in this 1991 BBC Show on Oliver Stone’s movie.

Mary Ferrell would have chuckled about media coverage of JFK files

Robbyn Swan worked with her husband Anthony Summers on his JFK investigation, Not in Your Lifetime, which remains one of the best books ever written about the Dallas tragedy. Along the way, Swan got to know Mary Ferrell, the Dallas legal secretary who became one of the first and most exacting critics of the Warren Commission.

In a timely Facebook post, Swan

New JFK Files: CIA drags its feet on compliance, failing to release 12 documents

Tony Cuesta
Tony Cuesta, anti-Castro fighter with a JFK story

The National Archives’ long-awaited release of JFK assassination files, which began on Monday, has some holes in it.

At least 12 CIA documents that were supposed to be released online Monday are still in the possession of the Agency, according to the Archives.

Among the missing documents are ten pages of notes on the FBI/Army Intelligence file of Tony Cuesta, an anti-Castro militant who implicated a Cuban exile marksman in the assassination of JFK.

The CIA also retains a 47-page file on Cuesta, which is supposed to be released this year, according to the National Archives online database.

The omission of the Cuesta file and 11 other documents from this week’s release was inadvertent, according to archivist James Mathis.

In an email to JFK Facts, Mathis wrote.

Anthony Summers reflects on covering the JFK story

Summers was amazed when doing his documentary for BBC’s “Panorama” in the late 1970s that many of his interview subjects had never been spoken to before. “All of the media of that time, not least the New York Times, had completely failed to really quarry into the story.  They simply had not done it,” he said. “They concentrated on the great tapestry of the assassination and the Kennedy era.”

Source: On the trail of the assassin(s) — Irish Echo

Anthony Summers digs deeper on Orest Pena

Orest Pena
Orest Pena, JFK witness (H/T Vasilios)

A faithful reader adds to what is known about Orest Pena, the New Orleans bar owner whose testimony to Congress in 1978 remains secret. The reader quotes from Anthony Summers’ useful reporting in his book, Not  in Your Lifetime. 

“There was the claim of Orest Pena, a New Orleans bar owner who in 1963 himself supplied occasional information to FBI agent Warren De Brueys. Pena was to say he had seen Oswald with Agent De Brueys on “numerous occasions” and that De Brueys threatened him physically before his Warren Commission appearance, warning him to keep quiet.

Summers continues: …

If you don’t know much about the JFK story, try ‘Before History Dies’

Before History DiesJacob Carter, millennial author, wants his generation to know and care about the JFK assassination story. The result is  “Before History Dies,”  an introduction to the debate over the causes of JFK’s death via interviews with thoughtful people who hold diverse opinions on the subject.

They include: Anthony Summers, David Talbot, Dan Hardway, Marie Fonzi, Dale K. Myers, Max Holland, Judge John R. Tunheim, and Gerald Posner.

I’m not unbiased because I am interviewed too, and because Carter is the social media manager for JFK Facts and a friend. Nonetheless, I have to say this is not just an excellent introduction to the JFK story. Its a model for people of any age for how to think about the JFK story: with humility, tranquility, and courage.

Scroll to Top