Aspillaga at Lourdes?

The original cover story for the Dealey Plaza Operation was a Northwoods type plan to blame the assassination on Castro and the Cubans, and the fact that this cover story is still being promoted by the same people today is clear evidence the intelligence network that killed President Kennedy is still functioning today.

If the Cuban government had anything to do with the assassination then the US government was complied in covering up the fact, but it is much more clear that those who attempt to blame Castro for the assassination are closer to the culprits themselves.

About the Author - BRIAN LATELL began tracking Cuba for the CIA in the early 1960s. Today, as Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami,[BK Notes: aka JMWAVE] he continues as one of the most distinguished and frequently quoted experts. For a quarter century he taught Cuba and Latin America as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. A former National Intelligence Officer for Latin America and Director of the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, he has written for the Washington Post, Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal, Time, and many other American and international publications. His After Fidel has been published in eight languages.

Since he is the resident University of Miami scholar on Cuban and JFK assassination matters, I publicly ask him to please tell us about any records there are at the University archives about the Conference of Cuban Journalist that was held there over a six week period during the summer of 1963, and why there is no information about this conference available at all?

In addition, beside these plugs from other previously exposed CIA assets, I'd also like to call attention to the fact that Lattell's primary source - Aspillaga, may be able to lead us to a Cuban/Soviet copy of the Air Force One radio transmission tapes that our government has apparently lost.

At Salon.com, Jeff Morley wrote: “Latell’s most intriguing contribution is the testimony of Florentino Aspillaga, a career General Directorate of Intelligence officer who defected to the United States in 1987. Latell interviewed him extensively in 2007 and 2008, and found him unusually credible on the workings of the Cuban security forces. Aspillaga told Latell that on Nov. 22, 1963, he was manning a Cuban radio monitoring station that usually focused on Miami or Langley. His bosses, he said, made an unusual request that day: monitor the airwaves in Texas. Soon came the shocking news that JFK had been killed in Dallas.”

“Castro knew,” Aspillaga is quoted as saying. “They knew Kennedy would be killed.”
If Castro knew JFK would be killed, he could have learned of the plot from the anti-Castro groups that his G2 had penetrated, but knowing JFK was visiting Texas and asking COMIT agents to focus on Texas is not expressing foreknowledge of the assassination, only that JFK was there. So Aspillaga’s conclusion is off, and intentionally misinterpreted by the CIA disinformation agent – Latell, but it is important nonetheless in that it indicates they were intentionally targeting the Texas communications, as we are just beginning to study in depth today.

I’d like to know – did Aspillaga work at the Cuban radio communications facility at Lourdes?
If Castro learned of the assassination from radio communications, and he had instructed his radio operators to listen specifically to Texas broadcasts, perhaps the Cubans have a copy of the Air Force One radio transmissions that our government has apparently lost.

If Latell’s primary source – Aspillaga did work at a Cuban radio base station that attempted to intercept American radio communications, then he probably worked at Lourdes radio communications intercept center, which was set up by the Soviets and used the state-of-the-art equipment the Russians had developed.

I had previously considered the idea that this Cuban facility listened in and probably recorded the Air Force One radio communications, and wondered if it was feasible to ask the Cubans for their copy of the AF1 radio communications they taped. Towards that end I exchanged emails with Dave Emery, an American radio communications specialist who had written a research article on the Cuban radio intercept station at Lourdes.

I told Emery about the missing Air Force One radio transmission tapes and asked him if the NSA or the Cubans at Lourdes would likely have a copy.

He responded: I find it rather surprising, even amazing, that the NSA would admit to having ever had a copy of that traffic. I believe they no doubt did (have it), but there I quite a bit of sensitivity to a US government agency intercepting high level US traffic, and it is not clear to me under what operational directive they ran such a Mystic Star monitoring operation.

Back then it would have actually taken an operator or two dialing in frequencies on the R-390As and recording everything on tape – and I am most intrigued if you got them to admit to having assigned such to Mystic Star in November 1963.

One supposes that once the news of the assassination became known within NSA (ASA/AFSS/NSG etc.) monitoring facilities some of the operators looked for the Mystic Star traffic and listened to it (military discipline aside, I am sure there were people curious enough to break the rules under the circumstances). And given that the intercept positions had tape gear, probably there were tapes made on the QT. But for anyone to admit to their existence is quite another matter.

I do know that continuous Crown patches on the AF-1 primary and secondary hi frequencies were almost certainly recorded by WHCA at the White House com center and probably also at Andrews com center Mystic Star operators.

It seems inconceivable that these tapes weren’t carefully saved, and probably played over by insiders many times. Of course considering the various conspiracy theories (and remotely possible also the presence of a real conspiracy) it follows that these tapes may have been edited or deliberately destroyed, or locked up under seal for another 50 years or whatever.

I have almost total certainty that WHCA and or the 89th SAM com operators had such tapes from the actual radios used to communicate with the plane – I would not consider it even remotely conceivable they weren’t routinely taping the lines.

While I know that I unlikely, I’ve considered the possibly that the Cubans/Russians picked it up and may have intercepted the traffic. Whether this was done from Cuba at Lourdes or from the Soviet Embassy in Washington (or both) is less clear. Frankly considering what sometimes was said over Mystic Star in the clear in that era, it seems beyond doubt that the Soviets would have found it worthwhile to assign operators to routinely monitor the traffic and almost certainly record what they intercepted on tape for later translation, playing for leadership and whatever. The recent Mitroysin Archive book specifically mentions Soviet monitoring of VIP communications from aircraft, including such monitoring from the Soviet diplomatic facilities in the DC and NY areas.

And whilst the Russians were sometimes slow on the uptake and the Mitroshin stuff mentions the Kissinger era, I find it rather hard to believe that they didn’t know about and follow Mysitc Star practically from its inception.

G. Robert Blakey: "I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence] Agency and its relationship to Oswald.... I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to you on one point, you may reject all of his testimony.... We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation.... We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency. Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story. I am now in that camp." --Robert Blakey, staff director and chief counsel for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, statement from 2003

Richard Sprague: "If he had it to do over again, he would begin his investigation of the Kennedy assassination by probing 'Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.'" --Richard Sprague, first staff director and chief counsel to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, statement to Sam Anson of New Times magazine, cited by Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation


Editorial Reviews
Review

“An insider's look at Castro's Cuba, and its tortured relationship with America, from one of the most knowledgeable Cuba experts around. Brian Latell draws on exclusive interviews with Cuban spies and troves of declassified documents to provide the most authoritative account yet of the decades-long U.S. Cuba intelligence war.”--Michael Dobbs, author of One Minute to Midnight: JFK, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

“I have been waiting more than 35 years for this book. Since my service as a member of the Senate’s Church committee I have never believed Fidel Castro’s denials of prior knowledge of the Kennedy assassination. Brian Latell has performed a national service by writing a book that lays bare the duplicity of the Cuban government.”--Robert Morgan, former US Senator

"No one knows more about Cuban intelligence than Brian Latell. In this page-turner, he not only tells compelling stories that reveal the strength of Cuban actions in Le Carre's world of spy vs. spy but raises unsettling questions about Lee Harvey Oswald's Cuban connections. By the end, the reader is asking, What did Fidel know and when did he know it?"--Timothy Naftali, Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism

"A remarkable look at Fidel Castro's intelligence machine. This is a must read for anyone curious about the long history of Fidel Castro's intelligence preoccupation with the U.S. "--Frederick P. Hitz, former Inspector General of CIA and author of The Great Game

“Castro’s Secrets is a must read for anyone who cares about how JFK died, how Fidel Castro lied to a congressional investigating committee, and whether the CIA is still covering up crucial knowledge.”--G. Robert Blakey, Former Chief Counsel and Staff Director to the House Select Committee on Assassinations

"In this provocative book, Brian Latell brings to bear all his experience and knowledge as a former intelligence analyst on Cuba for the CIA. This is a book that should be read, regardless of whether one agrees with Latell about Castro’s complicity in JFK’s assassination."-- Max Holland, author of The Kennedy Assassination Tapes