John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy
Max Holland, expert historian of the JFK assassination, in 1994 published a scholarly work, “Making Sense of the Assassination,” that makes the case that Lee Harvey Oswald’s motivation to murder John Kennedy was revenge, a direct response to the Kennedy administration’s many attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Holland writes the CIA made eight separate assassination attempts on Castro’s life, and that Robert Kennedy zealously pushed for those attempts. He says Oswald’s motive to respond to these assassination attempts was overlooked by the Warren Commission because neither the CIA nor Robert Kennedy cooperated to give the commission full information. Holland quotes one staff member of the Warren Commission, Burt Griffin, as saying, “The fact that we could not come up with a motive for Oswald was a great weakness in the report.”
In September, 1963, Holland reports, Castro responded to the attempts on his life in statements given in a widely reported AP interview. He said, “United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders they themselves will not be safe.” At that time, Oswald was keenly aware of everything reported from Cuba. He was living in New Orleans wearing a “Hands Off Cuba” placard and distributing “Fair Play for Cuba” leaflets. In response to Castro’s interview, writes Holland,
“Oswald developed a new impulse–he had to get to Cuba immediately, to help defend a revolution that seemed in imminent danger again. He arranged to send his family back to Dallas, and on September 25th, left for Mexico City and the Cuban embassy there.
Lee Harvey Oswald was in New Orleans passing out "Fair Play For Cuba" leaflets when Fidel Castro gave his interview warning U.S. leaders against, "aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders."
“Oswald presented himself as a ‘friend of Cuba,’ but justifiably suspicious of all North Americans, the Cuban consul refused to issue him a visa. Oswald returned to Dallas nearly penniless and embittered at not being recognized for who he truly was. After two weeks of job-hunting a friend of Marina’s got him a job at the Texas School Book Depository as an order filler. By now, Dallas newspapers were reporting almost daily about the impending visit of President Kennedy to Texas, though details about the itinerary were still sketchy. The opportunity to subject Kennedy to the same dangers plaguing Castro was slowly forming itself.”
“The fact is,” Holland writes, “that Oswald had no accomplices and there was no conspiracy. No information that has come to light since 1964 reasonably allows for any other conclusion. If the word ‘conspiracy’ must be uttered in the same breath as ‘Kennedy assassination,’ the only one that existed was the conspiracy to kill Castro and then keep that effort secret after November 22nd.”
Holland writes,
“Absent a confession, and denied CIA information that shed light on Oswald’s motives, the Commission staff decided that it could not ascribe to Oswald “any one motive or group of motives.” The Report gave ample details about Oswald’s political activities but in a detached, clinical manner.” …
Chief Justice Warren personally wrote Robert Kennedy on 11 June 1964, informing him of the Commission’s progress and asking Kennedy if he was “aware of any additional information relating to the assassination” of his brother “which has not been sent to the Commission.” In particular, Warren emphasized the importance of any information bearing on the question of a domestic or foreign conspiracy.
When Kennedy responded he was no more forthcoming than the CIA. All the information in the possession of the Justice Department (emphasis added) has been sent to the Commission, Kennedy wrote, which was a restrictive interpretation of Warren’s request and inaccurate anyway, since Kennedy knew the FBI was aware of some of the assassination plots. RFK went on to say that he had “no suggestions to make at this time regarding any additional investigation which should be undertaken by the Commission prior to the publication of its report . . . .”
Kennedy’s outward mien during these months comports with what might be expected of a man tortured by knowledge he, almost alone, carried. William Manchester reports that many of the Kennedy clan were crushed by the assassination but then righted themselves after the funeral. But during the spring of 1964, a “brooding Celtic agony . . . darken[ed] Kennedy’s life.” He was nonfunctional for hours at a time and to those closest to him seemed almost in physical pain. What genuinely sent him reeling? The “tragedy without reason” of his brother’s death,” as RFK’s biographer, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. later put it? Or was the death, topped by the shattering realization that somehow, the Kennedys’ fixation on Castro had inadvertently motivated a political psychopath? During these black months Robert Kennedy exhibited a great interest in the work of Greek tragedians, underlining one passage from Aeschylus: “All arrogance will reap a harvest rich in tears. God calls men to a heavy reckoning for overweening pride.” …
If the CIA is to be blamed for effectively lying by omission, then surely Robert Kennedy deserves similar censure for not divulging everything he knew to the Warren Commission. By withholding information that went to Oswald’s motive, Robert Kennedy helped prepare the stage for later revelations that condemned the Warren Report to disbelief.
Given all this dissembling, how should the Commission’s 888-page report be remembered? Can the omissions be put into perspective, and the Warren Commission given its due? As Gerald Posner makes exhaustively clear, the fact is that Oswald had no accomplices and there was no conspiracy. No information that has come to light since 1964 reasonably allows for any other conclusion. If the word “conspiracy” must be uttered in the same breath as “Kennedy assassination,” the only one that existed was the conspiracy to kill Castro and then keep that effort secret after November 22nd. …
Watergate created a climate of investigation that finally touched theretofore sacrosanct security agencies. Eventually, press revelations forced Congress to launch its first genuine investigations of the FBI and CIA. Twelve years after the Warren Report, first the Rockefeller Commission and then Senator Frank Church’s Select Committee revealed the extent of anti-Castro covert operations, including the assassination plots, and the no less damning fact that the FBI and CIA had lied by omission to the Commission. The impact of these revelations is hard to overestimate. The notion that the CIA had dissembled in the midst of a national trauma was incomprehensible to Americans not schooled in the niceties of compartmentalization and the “need to know.” If the government could lie to itself in this situation–let alone to the public–then anything seemed possible. Healthy skepticism became corrosive cynicism and a milestone in Americans’ disbelief passed by, almost unnoticed. Now the burden of proof shifted decisively and unfairly from critics to defenders of the official story. …
Kennedy’s pursuit of the cold war led him to embrace policies initiated under Eisenhower, including the extreme instrument of assassination, and Castro was pursued with demented vigor. Presidential decisions provoked actions, and actions led to consequences, not all anticipated and intended. Castro didn’t ask for a champion, but he came unexpectedly in the person of Lee Oswald, a bent personality consumed with ambition and political insight into how the cold war was being waged against Cuba. To Oswald, fair play ultimately meant subjecting Kennedy to the same dangers plaguing Castro.
After Dallas the Cold War defined the exigency for withholding relevant information from the Warren Commission, creating a near-mortal wound to its credibility when Frank Church finally revealed that one arm of government had deceived another.
