CUBAN INFORMATION ARCHIVES




DOCUMENT  0020


[ Main Site Menu ] [ Back to JFK Menu ] [ Index to Site Documents ]

The CUBAN YOUTH TRIBUNAL
Accuses the U.S. in JFK Killing

[This is another reprint from a Cuban newspaper on their position relative to the JFK assassination.  It was a supplement to the State newspaper Gramma dated 20 August 1978. The original was in english so the wording is theirs.]


Gramma
Havana, August 20, 1978

AT THE YOUTH ACCUSES IMPERIALISM
INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL

PHOTO [of a committee meeting of persons who were young at the turn of the century. no caption]

            Important revelations about the CIA plot
            to implicate Cuba in the assassination of
            President Kennedy and the plans for attempts
            on the life of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro.

            The assassination in Dallas was to serve as a pretext for an attack on Cuba by those who have distorted and concealed information about CIA complicity in the case *U.S. citizen James Wilcott, a former CIA agent, states Oswald worked for the Agency *There was great excitement and elation in the CIA over Kennedy's assassination *The CIA lied to the U.S. Senate and is deceiving the people of the United States.  Testimony by the Cuban consul in Mexico who refused Lee Harvey Oswald's request for a visa to Cuba *Accounts of direct participation in plans to kill Fidel with bazookas, poison and other means *Display of electronic eavesdropping devices which the CIA installed in the Cuban embassy and consulate in Mexico City

             The CIA plot to implicate Cuba in the assassination of President Kennedy and its manipulation of information about the crime in Dallas highlighted the presentation of Charge 4 at the Youth Accuses Imperialism International Tribunal on August 2.

             Testimony by agents and officers of the Cuban security agencies who carried out missions in the ranks of the CIA or in the counterrevolutionary organizations which it set up, financed and used; by former Cuban CIA agents captured while engaging in activities against Cuba; and by former U.S. CIA agents point the finger at those who have tried to conceal and distort the facts to escape responsibility.  New conclusive evidence was also presented about the numerous attempts on the life of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro which the CIA organized.

             Charge 4, covering political, economic and military agencies of imperialism and agencies of crime such as the CIA, was read by Jorge Lopez on behalf of the Cuban National Preparatory Committee.

             Dr. Enrique Marimon Roca, a member of the Cuban Investigation Commission, then presented a detailed report on the CIA's attempts on Fidel's life.

             He showed a videotape of interviews with three Cuban CIA agents directly implicated in these plans, and introduced the personal testimony of two others.

             Dr. Idalberto Ladron de Guevara Quintana, also from the Cuban Investigating commission, presented a detailed report on the CIA's schemes -- revived lately -- to implicate Cuba in the killing of President Kennedy.

             Guevara Quintana introduced witnesses Eusebio Azcue Lopez and Juan Felaifel, both Cuban officials, expert Nilvio Labrada Vicent and prisoner Rolando Cubelas Secades.

             Presentation of evidence began in the morning when Dr. Enrique Marimon Roca requested the showing of videotapes of interviews with three Cuban CIA agents who participated in the CIA's attempts on the life of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro.

             Leopoldina Grau Alsina said that she and her brother were recruited by the CIA and assigned participation in a plot to poison Fidel.

             She said the CIA sent her a bottle of potassium cyanide pills which she gave to Manuel de Jesus Campanioni Sosa in order to poison some leader of the Revolution, if it was not possible to poison Fidel himself.  Campanioni had been a bodyguard for Mafia figure Santos Trafficante.

             Santos de la Caridad Perez Nunez, a waiter at the Habana Libre Hotel said Campanioni gave him two of the pills to try to poison Fidel.

             He said that after he accepted the assignment he left one of the pills at home and took the other one to the soda fountain to wait for the right moment, which came in March of 1962 when Fidel came into the cafeteria one morning sat down and ordered three milk shakes.

             Perez Nunez confessed that he went to get the pill but noticed the dry ice had ruined it, and he have up his attempts.  He said the Campanioni later asked him to return the other pill, which he did.

             He said he has been in the prison for 14 years and has been well treated.  He joined the rehabilitation plan 12 years age, and is paid 150 pesos a month for his work.

             Eugenio Zaldivar Cardenas was the last of the three to testify.  He said he was captured by Cuban security forces when, in May 1966, he tried to slip into the country through the Monte Barreto area of Miramar with a group commanded by Herminio Diaz.

             He said he had been recruited by the CIA in 1963 and had participated in two attacks: the first time they strafed the Havana shoreline, and, the second, they fired on the home of Dr. Osvaldo Dorticos.  He explained that they were really trying to hit the aquarium, but since it was located next to the Dorticos home, his organization claimed credit for having attacked the residence of this member of the Political Bureau of the Party.

             Prisoner Rolando Cubelas Secades, who has served half of his 25-year sentence, appeared as a witness in the afternoon session.  He said that speculation by CIA officials to members of a Senate select committee to the effect that the Am/LASH operation was linked to the assassination of President Kennedy, by claiming that he was a double agent, was a perfidious lie, fed by the CIA to the Senate and people of the United States.  "It is absurd to think that a double agent would have spent 12 years in jail," he pointed out.

             Another witness was Humberto Rosales Torres who recounted his participation in a CIA assassination plot against the lives of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara on July 26, 1961.  The plan also involved an attack on the Guananamo naval base to have been carried out by the U.S. forces themselves in order to provide an excuse for an invasion of Cuba by Yankee marines.  Rosales said that after the plot was discovered by Cuban security forcer he was arrested, tried and given a nine-year prison term, which he has already served.  He said he is now free, living the normal life of any citizen, without limitations of any kind.

             The next witness was Fernando de Rojas Penichet, who was a member of a counter- revolutionary movement led b CIA agent Antonio Veciana.  The movement carried out various acts of sabotage and planned an attempt on the life of Fidel Castro, which was scheduled for October 4, 1961, at a meeting to welcome President Dorticos, to have been held in front of the north terrace of the old President Palace.

CIA PERSONNEL WERE HAPPY AND EXCITED OVER T HE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

             After testimony from the witnesses called by Dr. Guevara Quintana, two former CIA agents --U.S. citizens James Wilcott and Philip Agee -- appeared for the second straight day.

             The former, an electronics technician, said he had been recruited by the CIA in March of 1957 and assigned to headquarters in Washington and then, in June of 1960, to the Tokyo station.

             He said his work frequently brought him into contact with operations officers, especially when he was involved in operations against the socialist countries.  Thus, on several occasions, he heard remarks to the effect that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent.  They told him that when Oswald left the USSR, he was sent to the Atsugi Naval Air Station, a top secret CIA base in Japan.

PHOTO with caption
             Radio transmitter installed in one of the main offices of the Cuban embassy
             in Canada.

PHOTO with caption
             Window no. 1, from which Cuban embassy entrance in Mexico was observed.
             Window no. 2, from which the Cuban consulate entrance in Mexico was observed.

             Wilcott added that, just before the Kennedy assassination, there were certain changes in the daily routine at the station, leading him to believe that something was going to happen.  On November 22, he had traveled out of the city, but when he returned he was told to report immediately to the CIA station.  Then, his chief, Jack Randall, told him President Kennedy had been assassinated and that he should be reachable or go to the station since he might have been assigned an emergency task.  He said he went to the station with his friend George Breen and found a scene of great jubilation and excitement.

             "It was obvious that the majority of the personnel at the station, especially those who had to do with operations, were excited and overjoyed abut Kennedy's assassination.  This really bothered me because I supported Kennedy, " he said.

             During the next few days, according to Wilcott, the substance of conversation among operations officers was that one shouldn't think that Kennedy's assassination was the work of a mad man.  They gave specific details about high level, top secret meetings regarding the Bay of Pigs (Playa Giron) and how Kennedy was a traitor who deserved to die.

             He added that a CIA case officer, who might have been Robert Will, told him large sums of money had been spent recently for Oswald or for the Oswald project.

             He also heard Oswald had learned to speak Russian at the Atsugi base before going to the Soviet Union.

             Wilcott's colleagues told him the original plan involved passing Oswald off as a man solidly linked to the Cuban Government, so it would be possible to claim the assassination was the work of a Cuban agent.  This then would provide the pretext for attacking Cuba. However, it was not possible to establish solid ties between Oswald and the Cuban Government, and this part of the plan was dropped.

             Finally, Wilcott said all this information was given to the Congressional select committee investigating assassinations, along with a list of the Tokyo station personnel he could remember.  At Wilcott's request the attorney for the Committee, a Mr. Goldsmith, called the CIA to ask for a complete list of Tokyo station personnel with their photos so that Wilcott could identify them for the investigation -- but the CIA refused to supply the list.

             Wilcott has spent the last ten years attempting to make public this and other information about crimes and illegal activity by the CIA, but it has been very difficult.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DID NOT EXERT PRESSURE TO GET A COPY OF THE LIST WHICH MR. WILCOTT WANTED

             The next witness was Philip Agee who testified for the second day.  He said the House of Representatives had not exerted any pressure to get a copy of the list which had been suggested to the select committee.

             He added that in spite of the fact that this was clearly important information, they didn't dare exert such pressure.

             Agee also said it was important to note that the person who requested a visit at the Cuban consulate in Mexico is not the same one charged with being Kennedy's assassin, a fact that can be determined by the photos.

             Other inconsistencies Agee mentioned were the undue haste of the CIA in sending the FBI a memo saying that evidence showed that Oswald acted as a home assassin and the fact that the CIA and FBI said they had not contacted Oswald when he returned from the Soviet Union.

             "This is inconceivable," Agee said, "because it is a case of an alleged defector from the country (the United States) who later returns and these people are always contacted."

             He said Oswald was taken from Moscow to Amsterdam by train, the trip paid for by the U.S. embassy and held a meeting on his arrival in a CIA safe house.

             It is not known who paid for his return to the United States," he said.

DOCUMENTS ABOUT CIA INTERFERENCE IN PANAMA AND ARGENTINA IN 1953
             Marshall Perlin, who distinguished himself as one of the attorneys for the Rosenbergs, also appeared before the Tribunal.  He said that, with documents on the Rosenberg case, he had received papers dealing with CIA intervention in Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Panama and Argentina during 1953.

             The attorney said that the same government which murdered the Rosenbers was responsible for genocide in Vietnam, sabotage of a Cuban plane resulting in more than 70 deaths and for other atrocities as well.

             Additional witnesses at the session were Alfonso Cabrera Toscano, a Colombian political leader; Olga Martinez, a Uruguayan student; Cost Rican student Oscar Barrante Rodriguez; Benjamin Liberoff, a Uruguayan student; and Frank Shaffer Corona, from the United States.

PHOTO with caption

              Powerful interests in the United States have tried to cloud the issue
              of President Kennedy's assassination.

            *Dr. IDALBERTO Ladron de Guevara Quintana, an expert from the Cuban Investigating Commission, presented a detailed report dealing with the campaign of slander unleashed by imperialism in its attempt to implicate Cuba in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

             He added that, from available evidence and the results of the investigations undertaken it can be surmised that the assassination of the President of the United States at that time was the focal point for a conspiracy instigated by powerful political and economic interests in the United States composed of the most reactionary circles, which strongly disagreed with both the foreign and domestic policies of John F. Kennedy.

             He emphasized that, although this policy by no means constituted a radical change in the structure and objectives of the capitalist system in the United States, the changes introduced affected to some extent the interests of various U.S. monopolies (especially the military-industrial complex and the oil companies) as well as those of the Cuban-born counter revolutionaries, the Mafia and especially the CIA.

             He said powerful interests in the United States have tried to cloud the issue of President's Kennedy's assassination, and that certain groups have tried to convince world public opinion of the gross slander that the Dallas assassination was the result of an international leftist plot, in which Cuba played a key role.  In keeping with this, imperialism has tried to make it appear as if Lee Harvey Oswald carried out a plan directed by the Cuban Government for which a complicated intelligence operation had been orchestrated.

             The alternative open to imperialism to explain the Dallas crime would, in one way or another, remove suspicion from the real motives -- that is, those which sprung from the clash of interests in the United States -- and, in the final analysis, would confuse and complicate the trial of the investigation.

             He referred to the way the CIA manufactured a cover story for Oswald and used false evidence to try to influence U.S. and world public opinion, so that people would think or have the feeling that Cuba organized or at least gave tacit approval to the plot.

             One of the goals oft this intelligence operation was to obtain definite results in the confrontation with the Cuban Revolution.  If the United States was able to "demonstrate" that Cuba was responsible for the death of President Kennedy, any action against Cuba would be fully justified, including a direct attack.  We should bear in mind that at the same time the CIA was engaged in dangerous plots against the life of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro.

              However, international reaction to the assassination and the domestic turmoil which followed it, the failure to prepare the doctored evidence with which Cuba was to be implicated, the promise which the United States had made not to invade Cuba, the determination of our people to defend their Revolution at any price, and the International balance of forces itself were the factors which finally scuttled the plans of aggression against the Cuban people.

             He pointed to the evidence fabricated by the CIA to link Oswald to Cuba and charged that Lee Harvey Oswald "had been a CIA agent since 1958, recruited and trained at the Atsugi Naval Air Station, a military base in Tokyo, Japan, used by the CIA to conceal its special operations."

             He enumerated facts which reveal the CIA's participation in the plot against Cuba, and recalled the picture supplied by the CIA to the Warren Commission, obtained by the Agency from its espionage center which maintained constant surveillance on visitors to the Cuban embassy and consulate in Mexico City and made use of electronic eavesdropping techniques as well.

             He said that as part of the plan against Cuba, the CIA -- fully aware of the Mafia's role in the Kennedy killing -- has tried to link our country to such elements through people like Jack Ruby and Santos Trafficante.  The witness characterized this move as "a bogus and crude provocation."

             He also mentioned the CIA's maneuver in the face of its constant failures to implicate Cuba in the Kennedy case, which involved speculating on the possibility that prisoner Rolando Cubelas Secades was a "double agent" who supposedly -- according to the CIA -- informed Cuban officials of the plots against the life of the top leader of the Cuban Revolution.  Then, as a reprisal, Cuba supposedly decided to assassinate President Kennedy.

             This new scheme by the CIA, said Dr. Ladron de Guevara, "is simply aimed at throwing the investigation off the track of those actually responsible for the crime, and once again at linking Cuba to the assassination of President Kennedy."

             The Cuban expert stressed various aspects of the slanderous campaigns against Cuba, "which have been maliciously and deliberately fabricated at one time or another, to create, promote or revive the focus of this grotesque CIA scheme: blaming Cuba for t he killing of President Kennedy."

             The witness recalled that since the events in Dallas more than 100 people linked in some way to the case have died under mysterious circumstances. He concluded by saying that this was further proof that the investigations had to be carried through to the end.

PHOTO with caption
              "Bugging" expert leaving espionage center set up across the street from the
              The Cuban embassy and consulate in Mexico City front 1960 to 1972.
            

PHOTO with caption

             *Dr. ENRIQUE Marimon Roca, an expert jurist and member of the Cuban commission in charge of investigating attempts on the lives of political leaders, stated in his well-documented report to the Youth Accuses Imperialism International Tribunal that the elimination of political leaders and heads of state was a U.S. Government policy carried out through its agencies of subversion, mainly through the Central Intelligence Agency.

             He called attention to the fact that the U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating the CIA's activities publicly admitted in its conclusions the existence of several of the CIA's innumerable plots to assassinate leaders in various parts of the world.  He added, however, that the CIA told the Senate nothing about its involvement in the assassination of many figures of the progressive and revolutionary movement nor about many of its plans for assassinating leaders of the Cuban Revolution.

             "Although the assassination of political leaders is not the only method utilized by the CIA in its so-called covert actions -- which range from destabilization and blackmail to the overthrow of legally established governments -- assassination and terrorism are the most frequently used methods of this Agency at the service of U.S. imperialism," he said.

             The Cuban expert asserted that the CIA had lied to the Senate committee in charge of investigating the Agency's activities, and, at the same time, was trying to confuse U.S. citizens and world public opinion in general by giving a false image of its participation in such unscrupulous and criminal activities.

             He said that in August of 1975 our Commander in Chief gave Senator McGovern a list of 24 unsuccessful plans for assassination attempts against Fidel himself and other leaders of the Revolution.

             Dr. Marimon Roca asked the Tribunal to consider -- as both an example and an indictment -- a plan concocted by the CIA to be put into effect in October of 1961 at a rally to be held in front of the north terrace of the old Presidential Palace in Havana.

             This plan to assassinate the Commander in Chief and other leaders of the Cuban Revolution was conceived in Washington as far back as March 14, 1960, by Allen Dulles, then head of the CIA, and J.C. King, head of its western hemisphere section.  They were following the instructions of Dwight Eisenhower, then President of the United States, who, on December 11, 1959, has suggested to the head of the CIA the possibility of eliminating Fidel Castro.

             On July 21, 1960, a cable was received at the CIA station in Havana which read as follows: "Possible physical elimination of three top leaders being seriously considered by central office."

             On October 4, 1961, the counterrevolutionary organization People's Revolutionary Movement (MRP), led by CIA agents Bernardo Paradela Ibarreche and Antonio Veciana, worked out plans for sabotage and the assassination of leaders of the Cuban Revolution.

             The acts of sabotage were aimed at arousing the indignation of the people, thus ensuring a large turnout at the rally to be held in front of the old Presidential Palace, where Commander in Chief Fidel Castro was to speak.  The assassination attempt would be made that day by firing a bazooka at the rostrum where the Commander in Chief and other leaders would be seated.  The bazooka was to be located in apartment 8-A, on the eight floor of the building at 29 Avenida de las Misiones.

             A woman who was caught while trying to plant an incendiary device in a Sears' department store in Havana disclosed the plan.  She named Juan Izquierdo Diaz, MRP head of operations, as one of those responsible for the plan.  Izquierdo had taken over his post from Antonio Veciana, who had slipped out of Cuba to the United States the day before the attempt was to be carried out.

             Izquierdo Diaz revealed all the details of the plan, stating that it had been worked out by Veciana before he left Cuba.

             The plan was foiled by the state security agencies, and Raul Venta del Maso, Raul Fernandez Trebejo, Jesus Arguelles, Bernardo Iglesias and several others were arrested as the main participants.

             Numerous weapons and explosives were confiscated in the operation.

             Another plan concocted by the Pentagon and the CIA was to be put into action on July 26, 1961, in the former province of Oriente.

             The main objective was to assassinate Fidel Castro, Raul and Ernesto Che Guevara and, at the same time, fake an attack on the naval base in Guantanamo and carry out further acts of sabotage and terrorism throughout the country.

             After calling attention to several other plans to assassinate the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Dr. Marimon named the CIA directly responsible for these sinister lots.  He also denounced, as direct participants in the plans, a number of Cuban-born terrorists, among them Antonio Veciana Blank (known in international crime circles as Victor or Mario) who was recruited by the CIA in 1960 and has followed specific CIA instructions to assassinate Fidel Castro.

PHOTO with caption
Surveillance agent carrying transmitter with which to communicate with other agents.

             The witness referred to the activities of counterrevolutionary CIA agent Venecia Blank an to his participation in the plan to assassinate Fidel Castro in Chile.  He mentioned that the Miami Herald of January 20, 1977, ran an article by columnist Jack Anderson in which he named Veciana as the coordinator of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro in 1961 and 1971.  Anderson also said in May 1977 that Veciana was linked to the assassination of President Kennedy.  Dr. Marimon said that it was also Anderson who revealed that Veciana, before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, admitted that he had been summoned to Dallas by CIA officer Maurice Bishop and that Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy's presumed assassin, was also present at their meeting.

PHOTO

            The CIA and the Cuban-born counter revolutionaries rejoiced over Kennedy's death

            *CUBAN WITNESS Juan Felaifel Canahan made important declarations in his appearance before the International Tribunal on August 2.

            Felaifel, as a member of the Cuban state security agencies, carried out its orders to infiltrate the CIA by first pretending he belonged to the counterrevolutionary organization known as the Movement of Revolutionary Recovery, and by making use of his contacts with his brother Anis, a CIA agent who also belonged to one of the counterrevolutionary organizations.

             On the orders of the stat security agencies, Felaifel traveled to Miami in April 1963 and went to work almost immediately for the CIA.  He was given training in subversive activities and espionage.

             He carried out 21 missions of infiltration into Cuba before returning to Cuba permanently on February 21, 1966.

             Through his contacts with the Cuban-born counter revolutionaries abroad, he learned that President Kennedy had promised to give support to mercenary brigade 2506, organized by the CIA for the attack at Playa Giron.

             CIA officers and the Cuban counter revolutionaries in Miami knew of Kennedy's later refusal to give direct support to the mercenaries once they had landed in Cuban territory.  Some within the CIA and among the counter revolutionaries were of the opinion that Kennedy had taken a weak stand toward the Cuban Revolution and the socialist camp in general, Felaifel said, and the president's prestige among these CIA groups and Cuban-born counter revolutionaries took a nose dive.

             Following the exchange of the mercenaries and their return to the United States, there was a welcoming ceremony at which President Kennedy promised to return a Cuban flag to the mercenaries "on Cuban soil after communism is eradicated."

             Felaifel said that the whole thing boomeranged on Kennedy because in the opinion of the Cuban exiles and CIA officers, the flag had been "put on ice" due to Kennedy's weakness and his moves to restrict and control CIA activities, in addition to Robert Kennedy's habit of meddling in the affairs of the counterrevolutionary organizations, the CIA and the Mafia.

             He said that at the outset of the October Crisis the exiles were worried about how the president would react in the face of communism.  Their worries disappeared for the moment when Kennedy declared a quarantine of Cuba, since they thought this was the prelude to an invasion.

             Their hopes vanished, however, when rumors began to spread that there had been an agreement in which Kennedy, promised not to invade Cuba.  The president's attitude was then considered as one more act of treason against the exiles and the CIA.

             As a result of the agreement putting an end to the October Crisis, control over the counterrevolutionary groups and the CIA was stepped up.  The measures annoyed the counter revolutionaries, who claimed that Kennedy sympathized with the establishment of a socialist state in Cuba.  This, plus Robert Kennedy's interference in the affairs of the CIA, the Mafia and the counter revolutionaries, created a climate of hostility against the Kennedy brothers, who were accused of trying to make the United States adopt a conciliatory line toward the socialist camp.  Felaifel noted that, thus, the foundation was already laid for the approval of any action against the Kennedys.

             He went on to say that as a result of the propaganda spread against Kennedy, the Cuban exiles and the CIA agents were thrilled when they heard the news of Kennedy's death, saying that finally firm steps would be taken against the Cuban Revolution.

             He called attention to the reaction of Bob, a high-ranking CIA leader of Sicilian descent who had a penchant for using mafioso language.  Bob was watching television with the CIA team to which Felaifel belonged when Kennedy was assassinated.  When he saw the news, he burst out, "We finally got rid of the ‘pinko' in the White House!"

             He said that a few days later Bob called his team together at the CIA safe house in Miami and told them that operations against Cuba would be stepped up, with no limits on expenses and no control of any king because the vice-president, who was now the head of state, was a rabid anti-Castroite and anti-communist.

             Present at that meeting were Jose Enrique Daussa, the CIA's top agent; and Nicolas Salado, Porfirio Ramirez Ruiz and Reynaldo Rodriguez Reyes, all members of Felaifel's infiltration team.

PHOTO with caption
              939-927K
              Photo of the alleged Oswald which appears in the Warren Commission report.
              It was taken from the CIA espionage center across from the Cuban embassy
              and consulate in Mexico City.

PHOTO with caption
Green Opel, licence plate 91-NBG, used for surveillance.

             The number of CIA teams and counterrevolutionary groups was increased and their respective activities -- infiltration, sabotage and attacks on Cuban fishing boats and merchant ships -- stepped up.

             Felaifel also learned that the CIA, acting in collaboration with the counterrevolutionary organization Movement of Revolutionary Recovery and, specifically, with its leader Manuel Artime Buesa, planned another assassination attempt against Fidel Castro.  The plan was worked out by CIA headquarters in Virginia, and the assigned to the Miami CIA station through agent Artime, who was to coordinate the action with Rolando Cubelas Secades.

             Artime received large sums of money from the CIA under the cover of business transactions, using as a front the Tabraue jewelry shop, on Flagler Street in Miami.  Its owner, Guillermo Tabraue, was a Cuban counterrevolutionary whom Artime had recommended to the CIA as the middleman for handling the funds sent by the CIA to the counterrevolutionary organization and to Artime.  Artime worked out the execution of the plan in France and Spain, meeting with Cubelas in Spain.

             Felaifel learned of the plan through CIA agent Anis, head of intelligence for Artime's organization.  Anis, Artime and a man known as Gallego Sanz built a silencer for an FAL 7.62 rifle similar to the one Cubelas had in Cuba.  The silencer was tested in the Everglades of Florida, and later Gallego Sanz sent it to Spain with a Tasco telescopic sight, both to be delivered to Cubelas.

             Felaifel. Also learned that Cubelas had trouble with the silencer and had asked Artime to sent him another one.  Taking into account that the first silencer was a home-made job, Artime asked the CIA to send him a professional one.  The new silencer was delivered to Cubelas in Europe.

             Felaifel testified regarding these events in the trial on March 8, 1966, in which Rolando Cubelas and others involved in t he case were convicted.

PHOTO

            Imperialist economic, political and military institutions and its criminal agencies such as the CIA denounced for activities against the peoples.

            *THE CUBAN youth, representing the youth and students of the world, expressed their condemnation of imperialist economic, political and military institutions and criminal agencies such as the CIA before the Youth Accuses Imperialism International Tribunal.

PHOTO with caption
The CIA also installed a listening device in the Cuban consulate in Jamaica

PHOTO with caption
              Window used by surveillance agent from a fixed point to check up on Cuban    embassy and consulate in Mexico City, The photo was taken while the agent was    trying to open the window to watch the entrance to the embassy.  The operation    was repeated every day as he got ready to begin his espionage work with a camera.
            

            Representing the Cuban Young Communist League, Jorge Lopez formulated the charges of the Tribunal's fourth day of work.  The CIA, he said, serves as the arm of U.S. imperialist intervention and plunder throughout the world.

            Speaking about the CIA, he added, "Characteristic of the methods used by this apparatus for subversion and espionage are the assassination of political leaders and officials, robbery, fraud, bribery, destabilization, the overthrow of legitimately constituted governments and corruption of every sort."

            Though he pointed out that the list of the CIA's monstrous crimes throughout the world would be endless, Lopez mentioned that among the most notable were the plots carried out to assassinate Congolese nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba; Chilean army chief, General Rene Schneider; and former Chilean foreign minister under the Popular Unity Government, Orlando Letelier -- the latter assassinated in a conspiracy with DINA (the Chilean secret police) and Cuban-born counterrevolutionary terrorists.

            He denounced the CIA plots to murder the top leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, and noted that the U.S. Senate Committee report on U.S. intelligence activities had acknowledged these criminal and illegal plans.

            Lopez emphasized that although the information given by the CIA to the U.S. Senate was designed to demonstrate that the attempts on the Commander in Chief were carried out only between 1960 and 1965, events have proved these declarations completely false.  He gave examples of CIA plots against Fidel Castro after 1965.

            Lopez said that reliable evidence exists to show that the Central Intelligence Agency has planned more attempts on the Cuban leader than were admitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee.

            The Cuban representative charged that international credit agencies such as the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the Inter-American Development Bank and others, serve as colonizers for U.S. imperialism.  He termed the Organization of American States a despicable instrument of the darkest designs of Yankee imperialism.  He denounced NATO as an aggressive military pact used by imperialism, under the direction of the United States, to justify its most flagrant violations of contemporary principles of International Law.  He also characterized SEATO CENTO, the Rio Pact and others as "cold war" instruments which back up aggression against and exploitation of the peoples.

            He condemned the system of military bases maintained by U.S. imperialism around the world, citing as examples the cases of Puerto Rico, Panama and Guantanamo.

PHOTO

Statement by former Cuban consul in Mexico City

            *EUSEBIO AZCUE Lopez, who in September 1963 held the post of Cuban consul in Mexico City, gave the Tribunal full details of the visa request made at that time at the Cuban consulate by a U.S. citizen calling himself Lee Harvey Oswald.

            The witness explained that a person who claimed to be Lee Harvey Oswald presented himself at the consulate for the first time on September 27, 1963 and was taken care of as usual, by Silvia Duran, the Mexican secretary who received visitors.

            She informed the supposed Oswald that in order to apply for the visa he requested he would have to fill out an application form and attack six ID-size full faced photos.

            The person showed documents that made him out to be a member of the Communist Party, USA; a former resident of the USSR; the husband of a Soviet citizen, and a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

            When informed by the secretary that it was obligatory for him to fill out the form, submit it with the six photos and await a reply from the immigration office in Havana, the supposed Lee Harvey Oswald asked to speak with Azcue to try to insist on not going through this procedure.

            The former Cuban consul stated that he attended the person, that it was the first time he had seen the fellow, and that he confirmed what the secretary had told the visitor.  Azcue, according to his testimony, further explained that it was impossible to obtain a visa in that office without prior consultation with the Foreign Ministry, after submitting both the form and the photos.

            After insisting on his visa, pulling out the aforementioned documents to back up his case, the supposed Oswald left the consulate.  "He seemed extremely vexed," said Azcue, who also gave a physical description of the person.

            The former diplomat explained that later this Mr. Oswald formalized his visa request, again insisting on seeing the consul.  Azcue said the man seemed upset, asking how long it would take to get a reply from Cuba.  "I explained to him that if he had someone in Cuba who knew him and would vouch for him, it might shorten the process," Azcue said.

            Oswald returned to the consulate the next day, the 28th of September, to insist once again that he be granted a visa.  Azcue told him that without a USSR visa already stamped in his passport, he could not give him a transit visa for Cuba.  The supposed Oswald became incensed, began shouting and called the people of the consulate a bunch of bureaucrats.  Azcue responded angrily and ordered the man out of the consulate, who walked away muttering and slammed the door.

            On all his visits, the so-called Mr. Oswald discussed only the request for a visa, never going into unrelated matters.  He had no contacts at the consulate other than with Silvia Duran and Eusebio Azcue.

            When in November of 1963, once more in Cuba, Azcue found out that a U.S. citizen named Lee Harvey Oswald had been accused of murdering Kennedy, he immediately remembered the man who visited the Cuban consulate in Mexico and called the Foreign Ministry to alert them.

            Azcue met with Comrades Dr. Raul Roa, then foreign minister, and Nilo Otero, a Foreign Ministry official, and told both about the incidents related to Oswald's visa request.

            Azcue said that a short time later he saw a newsreel on the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby, and realized that the victim bore no resemblance to the man who had visited the consulate.  Late he observed that the photographs turned over to the Warren Commission by the CIA -- photos which supposedly depicted Oswald on his visit to the consulate -- did no picture either the person who had made the visa request at his office or the Oswald accused of assassinating President Kennedy.

PHOTO

Electronic spying by CIA in Cuban consulate and embassy in Mexico City

            *CUBAN ELECTRONICS engineer Nilvio Labrada Vicent also testified before the Youth Accuses Imperialism Tribunal, concerning electronic bugging devices installed by the CIA in the Cuban consulate and embassy in Mexico.

            The expert, who showed the Tribunal and spectators the devices that had been used, told how a very sensitive miniature amplifier had been installed by the CIA behind the telephone dial for purposes of eavesdropping on all conversations in the area of the telephone.

            The instrument, which is a common one used by the CIA in its telephone spying, functions when the receiver is hung up and runs on the voltage from the telephone line.

            He said that the device's microphone could pick up conversations up to six meters away an transmit them, via telephone line, a distance of more than one kilometer, with the desired quality and fidelity.

            When the phone is taken off the hook, the voltage drops below the necessary level, and the equipment stops working so that the user doesn't perceive that he is being checked on.  The equipment can be activated from a distance.

            Labrada Vicent also discussed the remote control radio receivers installed in armchairs in The Cuban diplomatic headquarters.  This equipment is self-charging and I embedded in wood for camouflage, thus facilitating its transportation and installation.

            The radio receivers were designed to pick up conversations in the area where they were installed and to transmit them via radio frequencies.

            With the use of remote control devices it is possible to lengthen the life of the batteries by turning them on and off at will.  This type of check is usually paired with a visual one, to make sure the transmitter is used efficiently.

            Labrada Vicent emphasized that this equipment is similar or identical to equipment discovered and captured on other opportunities; and that the type of component used comes from the United States.

            He emphasizes that the equipment is highly sophisticated, specially designed and manufactured.  He repeated finally designed and manufactured.  He repeated finally that these instruments are among those used by the CIA in their sinister espionage activity.

            Hector Hernandez Pardo and
            Gabriel Molina
            Photos: Liborio Noval
            

DOCUMENT [not readable]  with caption
            The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs turned down an application
for a visa made by U.S. citizen Lee Harvey Oswald on October 15, 1963

End of Page

Copyright 1998-2014 Cuban Information Archives. All Rights Reserved.