Latell, now a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Institute
for Cuban and Cuban American Studies, obtained the information from
Aspillaga after interviewing him for a new book about Castro’s intelligence
operations.
According to the book, “Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence
Machine,” Aspillaga told his CIA debriefers: “Castro knew. They
knew Kennedy would be killed.”
Latell also writes that Oswald was refused a visa to visit Cuba at the
country’s embassy in Mexico, and promised to shoot President Kennedy to show
he was a true revolutionary. The book says: “Fidel knew of Oswald’s
intentions and did nothing to deter the act.”
The author told The Miami Herald: “I don’t say Fidel Castro ordered the
assassination, I don’t say Oswald was under his control. He might have been,
but I don’t argue that, because I was unable to find any evidence for that.
“But did Fidel want Kennedy dead? Yes. He feared Kennedy. And he knew
Kennedy was gunning for him. In Fidel’s mind, he was probably acting in
self-defence. Everything I write is backed up by documents and on-the-record
sources.”
The book also claims that five months after the assassination, Castro admitted
that Oswald had threatened to kill Kennedy during his visit to the Cuban
embassy in Mexico.
Castro was said to have made the admission in a conversation with an FBI spy,
Jack Childs, who was undercover in the Communist Party USA.
Childs reported to his FBI handlers that Castro had described how Oswald “stormed
into the embassy, demanded the visa, and when it was refused to him headed
out saying ‘I’m going to kill Kennedy for this!'”
Another defector from Cuban intelligence, Rodriguez Ladera, said the Cuban
embassy in Mexico was a centre for spying operations against the United
States and anything that happened there was reported directly to Castro.
He said: “It caused much comment concerning the fact that Oswald had been
in the Cuban embassy,”
CIA wiretaps also revealed that Cuban intelligence already had detailed
knowledge of Oswald’s background in the hours immediately after the Kennedy
shooting, the book said.
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