Tag: Herminio Diaz

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.

What the CIA is hiding about three Cuban exiles implicated in the JFK story

Fabian Escalante
Former head of the Cuban state security agency, General Fabian Escalante

Fabian Escalante, the former head the Cuban state security agency, Departamento de Seguridad del Estado (DSE), has identified some persons of interest in connection with JFK’s assassination.

In his book JFK: The Cuba FilesEscalante identifies people whom his agency suspected were involved in the death of the president.

Besides the familiar names of  CIA officer David Atlee Phillips and David Sanchez Morales, Escalante focuses on three lesser known Cuban exiles:

Who else does original reporting on the JFK story?

Herminio Diaz, Tony Cuesta
From left to right, Tony Cuesta, Herminio Diiza and other commandos before the raid on Monte Barreto.

No other website consistently does fact-based JFK reporting the way JFK Facts does.

Oh sure, there are websites that chew over the same ol’ conspiracy theories. There are sites that chew over the same ol’ anti-conspiracy theories.

But there’s only one site that does original, fact-checkable journalism like Arnaldo Fernandez’s account of a CIA-sponsored raid on Cuba in 1966 that generated a credible suspect in JFK’s assassination.

What does the Cuban intelligence service say about JFK’s assassination?

Since the premiere of the Cuban-Brazilian TV documentary, ZR Rifle, on November 27, 1993, the former head and current historian of Cuban State Security General Fabian Escalante has said that Cuban exiles Herminio Diaz and Eladio del Valle, along with three American mobsters: Richard Gaines [Cain], Lenny Patrick, and Dave Yara were the shooters at Dealey Plaza.

What’s the basis for Escalante’s story? …

The state of the JFK case in 2014

James Fetzer, a retired professor of philosophy from the University of Minnesota-Duluth, is the very picture of a conspiracy theorist, from his dubious haircut to his hectoring tone to his assured command of facts. Professsor Fetzer recently offered his most detailed JFK conspiracy theory yet in Veterans Today, He purports to identify, by name, the six men who allegedly fired gunshots at President Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

The lavish detail of Fetzer’s allegations evokes one of the finest pieces of JFK journalism ever published — in the Onion. Fetzer’s is an American tale: a posse of six-shooters joins the army of Dealey Plaza gunmen.

Anthony Summers: ‘The absence of decent reporting on the facts of the case… shocked me’

Anthony Summers
Anthony Summers

Anthony Summers, biographer and former BBC correspondent, has been writing about JFK’s assassination for three decades for publications ranging from The Times of London to Vanity Fair. In my possibly biased opinion, I think his book, “Not In Your Lifetime,” is the best single volume on the JFK assassination and its confusing investigatory aftermath.

I sent him some questions by email and he responded as follows:

JFKFacts: You started reporting on the JFK story in the late 1970s. You were one of the first professional journalists to look deeply into the JFK assassination story. What did you discover?

Anthony Summers: At the time of the assassination occurred, I’d been a student at Oxford. I had reporting ambitions, and Dallas was almost the first real story I covered. I’d been working for a TV program during the vacations, and the program’s editor phoned within an hour of the assassination – it was early evening in the UK – to say he was gathering a team and chartering a plane to Texas. Could I drop everything and come?

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