JFK & the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters (31 page)

Although Johnson as usual made no reply to this message, Castro kept trying to communicate with him through Lisa Howard and UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson. (William Attwood was no longer in the loop, having been appointed U.S. ambassador to Kenya in January 1964.) On June 26, 1964, Stevenson wrote a “Secret and Personal” memo to Johnson saying Castro felt that “all of our crises could be avoided if there was some way to communicate; that for want of anything better, he assumed that he could call [Howard] and she call me and I would advise you.”
[186]
Again Johnson gave no response.

Castro even enlisted the help of Cuban Minister of Industry Ernesto “Che” Guevara, previously an opponent to dialogue, in what had become a Cuban diplomatic offensive for negotiations with the United States. During Guevara’s December 1964 visit to the United Nations, he tried to arrange a secret meeting with a White House or State Department representative but was unsuccessful. Finally Guevara met with Senator Eugene McCarthy at Lisa Howard’s apartment. The next day McCarthy reported to Under Secretary of State George Ball that Guevara’s purpose was “to express Cuban interest in trade with the U.S. and U.S. recognition of the Castro regime.”
[187]
Ball rewarded McCarthy by admonishing him for even meeting with Guevara, because there was “suspicion throughout Latin America that the U.S. might make a deal with Cuba behind the backs of the other American states.”
[188]
Ball told McCarthy to say nothing publicly about the meeting. When Lyndon Johnson ignored this Cuban initiative as well, Castro gave up on him. He realized that John Kennedy’s successor as president had no interest whatsoever in speaking with Fidel Castro, no matter what he had to say.

In the 1970s, Fidel Castro reflected on a peculiar fact of Cold War history that related closely to the story of John Kennedy. Thanks to the decisions made by Khrushchev and Kennedy, “in the final balance Cuba was not invaded and there was no world war. We did not, therefore, have to suffer a war like Vietnam—because many Americans could ask themselves, why a war in Vietnam, thousands of miles away, why millions of tons of bombs dropped on Vietnam and not in Cuba? It was much more logical for the United States to do this to Cuba than to do it ten thousand kilometers away.”
[189]

Castro’s comparison between Cuba and Vietnam provokes further questions about John Kennedy. If JFK had the courage to resist the CIA and the Pentagon on Cuba, as Castro recognized, how could he have allowed himself to be sucked into the war in Vietnam? Or did he finally turn around on Vietnam in a way that paralleled his changes toward the Soviet Union and Cuba? Did John Kennedy ultimately make a decision for peace in Vietnam that would become the final nail in his coffin?

NOTES

[
1
]. Thomas Merton, Cold War Letter 111, to Rabbi Everett Gendler, Princeton, October 1962; in Thomas Merton,
Witness to Freedom: Letters in Times of Crisis,
edited by William H. Shannon (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), p. 69.

[
2
]. Peter Kornbluh, “JFK & Castro: The Secret Quest For Accommodation,”
Cigar Aficianado
(October 1999), p. 90.

[
3
]. Ibid., p. 91.

[
4
]. March 4, 1963, Memorandum for the Record on “Mr. Donovan’s Trip to Cuba,” written at the request of National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy by his deputy, Gordon Chase.

[
5
]. Evan Thomas,
Robert Kennedy: His Life
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), p. 239; citing March 14, 1963, RFK to JFK memorandum, Theodore Sorensen Papers, John F. Kennedy Library.

[
6
]. Ibid., citing March 26, 1963, RFK to JFK memorandum, Assassination Records Review Board, John F. Kennedy Library.

[
7
]. Max Frankel, “Exiles Describe 2 New Cuba Raids,”
New York Times Western Edition
(March 20, 1963), p. 2.

[
8
]. Gaeton Fonzi,
The Last Investigation
(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1994), p. 132.

[
9
]. Dick Russell, “Three Witnesses,”
New Times
(June 24, 1977), p. 34.

[
10
]. Fonzi,
Last Investigation
, pp. 117-71, 271-365.

[
11
]. Ibid.

[
12
]. “New Attack Reported,”
New York Times
(March 28, 1963), p. 3.

[
13
]. Fonzi,
Last Investigation
, pp. 389-90.

[
14
]. “Memorandum from Attorney General Kennedy to President Kennedy,” April 3, 1963,
Foreign Relations of the
United States (FRUS), 1961-1963, Volume VI: Kennedy-Khrushchev Exchanges
, p. 263.

[
15
]. “U.S. Curbs Miami Exiles to Prevent Raids on Cuba,”
New York Times
(April 1, 1963), p. 1. Antonio Veciana
told journalist Dick Russell that he was among those whom President Kennedy had ordered confined to Dade County. Dick Russell,
The Man Who Knew Too Much
(New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992), p. 297.

[
16
]. “Seized Boat’s Owner Says U.S. Knew in Advance of Cuba Raids,”
New York Times
(April 3, 1963), p. 3.

[
17
]. Ibid.

[
18
]. “U.S. Strengthens Check on Raiders,”
New York Times
(April 6, 1963), p. l.

[
19
]. “Castro Sees a Gain in U.S. Bar to Raids,”
New York Times
(April 11, 1963), p. 10.

[
20
]. Tad Szulc, “Cuban Exile Leader Out in Rift With U.S.,”
New York Times
(April 10, 1963), p. 8.

[
21
]. “Spending Figure Disputed,”
New York Times
(April 18, 1963), p. 12.

[
22
]. “Cuban Exile Chief Quits With Attack on Kennedy,”
New York Times
(April 19, 1963), p. 1.

[
23
]. “Statement by Dr. Miro Cardona on His Resignation From Cuban Exile Council,” published in full in the
New
York Times
(April 19, 1963), p. 14.

[
24
]. Associated Press, “Cuban Exile Chief Accuses the U.S. of Defaming Him,”
New York Times
(April 18, 1963), p. 1.

[
25
].
FRUS 1961-1963,
vol. VI, p. 267.

[
26
].
Memorandum for the Record: Subject: Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro
, prepared by the Inspector General and delivered in installments to the Director of Central Intelligence in April-May 1967; from Section 6, “Schemes in Early 1963.” In an introduction to the report as printed by Prevailing Winds Research, Peter Dale Scott has written: “The IG Report was the result of an investigation ordered in 1967 by President Johnson, after a Drew Pearson–Jack Anderson column of March 7, 1967, had published for the first time details of ‘a reported CIA plan in 1963 to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro.’ However, Johnson never got to see the actual report: [CIA Director] Helms merely spoke to him from a set of notes which excluded the key events of late 1963.”

[
27
]. Ibid.

[
28
]. Ibid.

[
29
]. Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy and His Times
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), p. 583. See also introduction by Peter Kornbluh to “Kennedy and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation; An Electronic Briefing Book” at the National Security Archive’s web site: www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive.

[
30
]. Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy,
p. 584.

[
31
]. From Richard Helm’s secret May 1, 1963, CIA Memorandum on “Interview of U.S. Newswoman with Fidel Castro Indicating Possible Interest in Rapprochement with the United States,” which was declassified on June 19, 1996. Peter Kornbluh posted the document as part of his “Electronic Briefing Book.”

[
32
]. Ibid.

[
33
]. Kornbluh, “JFK & Castro,” p. 93.

[
34
]. Cited by Kornbluh, “JFK & Castro,” p. 93.

[
35
]. Anthony Summers,
Not in Your Lifetime
(New York: Marlowe, 1998), pp. 220-21.

[
36
]. CIA memo to file from M. D. Stevens, dated January 31, 1964, document #1307-475. Cited by William Davy,
Let
Justice Be Done: New Light on the Jim Garrison Investigation
(Reston, Va.: Jordan Publishing, 1999), p. 36.

[
37
]. New Orleans District Attorney interview of Gerald Patrick Hemming, May 8, 1968, as described by Davy,
Let Justice Be Done.

[
38
]. Jim Garrison,
On the Trail of the Assassins
(New York: Warner Books, 1988), pp. 29-31, 46, 68.

[
39
]. Ibid., p. 46.

[
40
]. Anthony Summers,
Conspiracy
(New York: Paragon House, 1989), p. 291.

[
41
]. Daniel Campbell interview by Jim DiEugenio, September 3, 1994; cited by Davy,
Let Justice Be Done
, pp. 40 and 288.