J.F.K.: CASE REOPENED

Letters

Uncovering the Cover-ups

I wish to compliment Vanity Fair and Anthony and Robbyn Summers for the excellent piece on the J.F.K. assassination ["The Ghosts of November," December]. I served with the C.I.A. as a paramilitary specialist, training Cuban exiles during the period immediately preceding John F. Kennedy's murder. As an active participant in the Agency's secret war against Cuba in the early 60s, I have long felt the dynamics of the president's assassination lay deeply rooted in our covert operations.

I have testified and will verify under oath, from direct personal observation and experience, that:

1. "Colonel" John Roselli's presence at the Miami C.I.A. station, as the front man for Mafia bosses Santo Trafficante and Sam Giancana, was a real and thriving one well into the late summer of 1963. I trained several of his Castro sniper hit teams and rubbed shoulders with him in the halls of station headquarters.

2. The dislike for President Kennedy among many key C.I.A. paramilitary officers at the station was intense and visceral. Most of our Cuban operatives openly expressed their hatred for Kennedy for his handling of the Bay of Pigs and the October 1962 missile crisis.

3. Our paramilitary training was intensified in the early fall of 1963, and we began preparing commando raids on major targets in Cuba that had previously been ruled off-limits.

4. All the while this was going on, the intelligence reports coming into the station from the infiltration teams we had placed inside Cuba said essentially two things: Castro had a firm political and military grip on the country that was being strengthened daily with Soviet aid, and there was no longer any significant support among the Cuban populace to topple Castro.

These questions then arise: Did the Kennedys discover that, as with the Bay of Pigs, they were being led down a primrose path by the C.I.A., and were making plans to abort the whole secret war? And, in the mind-set of the C.I.A./Cuban/Mafia militants and the far-right Cold Warriors in Washington, might that justify getting rid of the president? A few of my C.I.A. counterparts, who know far more than I about these matters, are still alive and able to give testimony. They should not be allowed to go to their graves with the answers to these and other questions.

BRADLEY E. AYERS

Saint Paul, Minnesota

I'd like to clarify two important points raised by Anthony and Robbyn Summers when they cited the research of Thom Hartmann and myself. Though the article was excellent, it didn't clearly outline the nature of the Kennedy brothers' 1963 plan to eliminate Castro's government. There is much evidence that the Kennedys were never fully informed of the C.I.A.-Mafia assassination plots against Castro. Congressional testimony shows that when Robert Kennedy was told of the plots by the C.I.A. in May of 1962 he was informed they had been stopped when in fact they continued almost until his brother's death.

Next, the article refers to Robert Kennedy's support for a coup against Castro in November of 1963 as a "murderous scheme." However, the Kennedy brothers' strategy and goals (according to June 1963 State Department guidelines) were greatly different. As the guidelines say, the operation was to exclusively involve "Cuban nationals dedicated to the idea that the overthrow of the Castro/Communist regime must be accomplished by Cubans inside and outside Cuba working in concert." The Kennedys' goal was freedom and eventual democracy for all Cubans. They were helping Cuban-exile leaders support a coup by dissident Cuban officials who had the backing of a large segment of the population in Cuba. That's a far cry from the C.I.A.'s approach of sending in hit men to murder Fidel.

LAMAR WALDRON

Marietta, Georgia

ANTHONY AND ROBBYN SUMMERS REPLY: According to Mr Waldron's own research, it was fully expected that Castro would die in the R.F.K.-approved coup operation planned in November '63. If so, it is surely hairsplitting to differentiate between a plan using C.I.A. killers and one that involved local Cubans.

After all the 1993 media fireworks in praise of Gerald Posner's polemic, your printing of the Summerses' fine J.F.K. piece requires congratulations for courage and intelligence.

The Summerses were kind enough to mention my optical-density measurements of the J.F.K. autopsy skull X-rays. One other critical finding bears brief mention. There is no bullet entry hole on the frontal X-ray where the House Select Committee on Assassinations placed it during its review in 1977-78; worse than that, the density measurements show no candidate for a hole anywhere near its selected site. Absent an entry hole at this site, the only other candidate for a posterior bullet entry hole in the skull that has ever been seriously proposed is the one unanimously and repeatedly endorsed by the three physicians at the autopsy. If the autopsy doctors' bullet entry site is granted, then there remains no explanation for the array of bullet fragments along the top of the skull. The only reasonable conclusion is that these fragments derive from a seoond bullet. Amazingly enough, the autopsy doctors were never asked about this obvious paradox. The Warren Commission and The Journal of the American Medical Association dared not face the dilemma.

DAVID W. MANTIK, M.D., PH.D.

Rancho Mirage, California

A Liam in Winter

You couldn't have chosen a better subject for your Christmas-issue cover than Liam Neeson and his fabulous bedroom eyes ["The Liam King," by Johanna Schneller, December].

VICTORIA C. DRAKE

Chicago, Illinois

I have followed Liam Neeson's career from The Bounty to Schindler's List. This man has incredible talent. I am so glad to finally see that he is receiving the recognition that he deserves.

SHERI L. PITCHER

Portland, Oregon

Extended Hitch

Christopher Hitchens's article on Africa ["African Gothic," November] was thrillingly good. You can count the number of truly gifted international journalists on the fingers of a single maimed hand, and Hitchens is one of them.

I urge you to give him more money, more pages, and a bathrobe.

TED MOONEY

New York, New York

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