NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, March 31, 1995
5B
Three men shot JFK, Castro says
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Cuban President Fidel Castro conducted his own ballistics tests and decided it took about three people to assassinate President Kennedy, according to an informant cited in FBI documents.
Castro, who considered himself a sharpshooter, attempted to recreate the shooting using a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight, states a memo to the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover from the special agent in charge in New York. The Warren Commission concluded that the shooting was the act of one man, Lee Harvey Oswald.
In the memo, dated June 12,
1964, the agent quoted an
unnamed FBI informant that
conducting the tests was Castro's own idea to prove to himself
that it could not be done and that
when Castro and his men could
not do it, Castro concluded
Oswald must have had help.
His letter and the agent's memo were among more than 10,000 pages of previously secret documents related to Kennedy's assassination that were released yesterday under a 1992 law. The materials were transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration.
- Castro, based on his findings, speculated that the assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, was probably the work of three people, Hoover wrote in a 1964 letter to J. Lee Rankin, general counsel for the Warren Commission.
According to Hoover, Castro also said that when Oswald was refused a visa at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City several weeks before the assassination, he left saying, "I'm going to kill Kennedy for this."
Oswald was arrested shortly after the shooting in Dallas. He denied any involvement and was shot to death by Jack Ruby before he could be tried.
Cuba has long maintained that Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA. But some people in the United States believe Castro ordered Oswald to kill Kennedy after discovering a CIA-mob plot to assassinate him.
and some of its contents have been known since the mid-1970s. This was the first time the paragraphs recounting Castro's statements have been made public.
Existence of the Hoover letter
The letter was based on information gleaned by an FBI informant in Cuba; his name was not included in the letter.
"Castro is said to have expressed the conclusion that Oswald could not have fired three times in succession and hit the target with the telescopic sight in the available time, that he would have needed two other men in order for the three shots to have been fired in the time interval," Hoover wrote. "The source commented that on the basis of Castro's remarks, it was clear that his beliefs were based on theory as a result of Cuban experiments and not on any first-hand information in Castro's possession."
The FBI's own tests, using the same gun as Oswald, determined that three shots could have been fired by one person within the five to six seconds it took. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald, acting alone, killed Kennedy with a rifle from a sixth-floor window at the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas.
Since then, numerous conspiracy theories have surfaced, revolving around whether Oswald was the lone gunman and, if he was, whether he might have been acting at others' behest.
The documents released yesterday concerned Oswald's connections to the Cuban or Soviet governments. Both governments thought Oswald was unstable, the documents indicated.
For example, Soviet officials acknowledged to FBI informants that Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union but said he was never given citizenship and that he belonged to no Soviet organizations. They described him as "a neurotic maniac who was disloyal to his own country and everything else."
Soviet officials also believed the assassination was not the work of one man and that Oswald was under the influence of ultraright elements.
Timeline of U.S. interventions in Haiti
SOURCES: World Book, Europa World Year Book, Facts on File; research by PAT CARR
Aristide returned Oct. 15 to begin
Politician Jean-Claude Roy, who saw his friend and fellow conservative assassinated last week, was highly skeptical. "A stable and secure environment?" he asked. "Sure, for the Americans. But not for us Haitians."
American troops landed Sept. 19 to oversee a deal by which the military regime agreed to step down peacefully and turn over power to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom they had overthrown three years earlier.
Ron Coddinaton and Tim Goheen/KNIGHT-RIDDER TRIBUNE
Clinton to oversee transfer of Haiti mission to U.N. forces
Soldiers to face high crime rate political unrest
The Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — "Operation Uphold Democracy" is ending in triumph for President Clinton, who arrives today to transfer responsibility for the U.S.-led mission to the United Nations.
But as Haiti gears up for June elections, the smaller U.N. force will have to deal with a new kind of insecurity resulting from political killings, a frightening crime wave and the unfinished business of economic recovery.
The new violence has raised doubts about whether the American intervention has produced the secure and stable environment that U.N. resolutions set as a precondition for the handover to the smaller U.N.force.
re-establishing democracy, which will get a crucial test in June 4 legislative elections.
Clinton was to make an 11-hour visit to the island today to oversee the transfer of responsibility to 6,000 U.N. peacekeepers and 900 policemen. The force will still have 2,500 Americans — down from a peak of 21,000 — and will be led by U.S. Gen. Joseph Kinzer.
U. S. officials, while acknowledging that Haiti remains a deeply troubled country; said that Haiti had come a long way from the period last year when Haitians were fleeing by the thousands from the brutal military regime.
"Haiti today is a nation where people are building roads to get to market rather than boats to escape terror," said deputy national
three political killings and one
botched attempt.
a pro-Aristide legislator and a driver for a grass-roots peasant organization that played a key role in the president's election were shot earlier this month.
This week, Aristide's most scatting critic, Mireille Durocher Bertin, was gunned down just daws
"Haiti today is a nation where people are building roads to get to market rather than boats to escape terror."
security adviser Sandy Berger at a congressional hearing in Washington.
Sandy Berger deputy national security adviser
But lawlessness continues while the Haitian army killing machine, blamed for up to 4,000 deaths during its brutal three-year reign, is shut down.
This month has seen a surge of armed robberies, ambushes, muggings and burglaries — along with
after she announced the formation of an opposition party.
U. S. and Haitian officials arrested five people last week after learning details of an assassination plot targeting several people, including Bertin, a lawyer. But on Tuesday, gunmen pumped bullets into her car as she was riding down a busy downtown street.
The brazen assassination was an affront to U.S. efforts to downplay the magnitude of spiraling crime, even as others, such as Bertin's friend Roy, scoff.
"The Americans continue to say that there is security, stability," said Sarah DeCosse of Human Rights Watch-Americas. "That does not exist. Even before the assassination, it didn't exist."
The disbanding of the Haitian army has left hundreds of soldiers unemployed and scores of weapons missing. Many former soldiers have been blamed for the violence, and some fear the attacks could disrupt the June 4 elections.
Resentment also has been building because the intervention has failed to improve living standards. Haiti's economy, already the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, was destroyed by three years of international sanctions. Food prices have yet to drop since sanctions were lifted.
Three-quarters of Haitians are unemployed or underemployed, and few new jobs have been created. In December, 45,000 new graduates will job the market.
In the past week, protesters have called for the firing of Prime Minister Smarck Michel and an end to his World Bank-backed plans to restart the economy through austerity measures.
Suffering aggravated by the crime wave also has led to brutal attacks on accused thieves. In one week this month, at least a dozen people were stoned, clubbed and hacked to death.
At the scene of the shooting of a youngman — killed because he witnessed a robbery — the crowd harangued the American soldiers whom they had welcomed as saviors in September.
"Why aren't you doing something about all these killings?" people shouted.
That dissatisfaction and anti-American sentiment likely will be reflected at the June 4 balloting.
944 Mass.
832-8228
Red Lyon Tavern
The University of Kansu
School of Fine Arts
Department of
Music and Dance
University Dance Company with the Cohan / Suzeau Duet Company
.
Ballet - Modern - Jazz
8:00 p.m.
Thursday & Friday
April 6 & 7, 1995
Lied Center
General admission tickets are on sale in the KU box offices: Murphy Hall, 864-3982; Lied Center, 864-ARTS, SUA Office, 864-3477; public $6, students and senior citizens $3; both VISA and MasterCard are accepted for phone orders.
O
The University Dance Company is partially funded by the KU Student Senate Activity Fee.
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