Tag: National Security Archive

How the CIA plotted the ‘accidental’ death of Raul Castro

One of blackest of the black arts of espionage is the assassination operation designed to disguise who was reallly responsible.

Case in point: a newly-disclosed CIA plot to kill Raul Castro, commander of the Cuban armed forces, by making it look like he died in a plane crash.

From Peter Kornbluh, a leading Cuba scholar, in SpyTalk:

Fighting for freedom of information

The non-profit National Security Archive at George Washington University leads the way.

This calendar year alone the National Security Archive has filed suit against the Trump administration four times – including for access to the White House visitor logs and to prevent the destruction of Presidential records by Trump and his staff. As the Des Moines Register’s Editorial Board notes in a history of the law, “As with many of the rights we cherish, we must tirelessly work to ensure the public’s access to public information is protected.”

Ford White House edited CIA assassination plots out of Rockefeller Commission report

The Gerald Ford White House significantly altered the final report of the supposedly independent 1975 Rockefeller Commission investigating CIA domestic activities, over the objections of senior Commission staff, according to internal White House and Commission documents posted today by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University

Source: Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report

 

The whole Bay of Pigs thing

In face of a persistent legal challenge from the National Security Archive, the CIA continues to resist releasing an internal history of the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs more than a half century ago. The struggle for Volume 5, as the history is known, is an epic legal contest

Why the secrecy about something that happened so long ago?

That question was the subject of a recent historian’s roundtable: National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency.

CIA was in the loop for Castro peace feelers

Lisa Howard, ABC News
Lisa Howard, ABC News reporter

In response to Two secret memos on JFK and Cuba, John Simkin, the British historian wrote the following essay that gives valuable context to this neglected story.

Simkin writes:

“The secret negotiations that took place between the JFK administration and the Cuban government could be significant issue in the JFK assassination.

“A key figure in this was Lisa Howard.

Spy chief James Clapper wins Rosemary Award

 

Would this man lie to you?

“Despite heavy competition, Clapper’s ‘No, sir’ lie to Senator Ron Wyden’s question: ‘Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?’ sealed his receipt of the dubious achievement award, which cites the vastly excessive secrecy of the entire U.S. surveillance establishment.”

via the National Security Archive.

 

 

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..

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