Read Legacy of Secrecy for Free Online Page B

Daniel to talk to Fidel on his behalf. But Fidel had
    kept Daniel cooling his heels in Havana for weeks. Daniel had finally
    gotten to see Fidel on November 21, the day before JFK’s trip to Dallas.
    No real progress was made, but Fidel was intrigued enough by Daniel’s
    message from JFK that he invited the journalist to a follow-up lunch on
    November 22, at Castro’s villa at Varadero Beach.21 However, Daniel
    could not securely communicate directly with JFK or Bobby about his
    talks with Castro, so the Kennedys had no way to know that Daniel was
    finally speaking with the Cuban leader.
    Even while JFK was making his final attempts to reach a peaceful
    solution with Castro, he continued his efforts to overthrow the Cuban
    leader. As the date for the coup approached, Almeida indicated to Harry
    that he wanted JFK’s personal assurance that the President would fully
    support the coup once it began. On November 18, 1963, following JFK’s
    long motorcade in Tampa, the President had gone to Miami to deliver a
    speech, several lines of which were written specifically to reassure Com-
    mander Almeida that he had JFK’s personal backing. A CIA report from
    1963, uncovered years later by Congressional investigators, confirms
    that in “Kennedy’s speech of November 18, 1963 [in Miami], the CIA
    intended President Kennedy’s speech to serve as a signal to dissident
    elements in Cuba that the US would support a coup.” The CIA report
    states the wording was intended for “dissident elements in the Cuban
    Armed Forces [who] must have solemn assurances from high-level US
    spokesmen, especially the President, that the United States will exert its
    decisive influence during and immediately after the coup.” 22
    Years later, according to Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Sy Hersh,
    CIA officer Seymour Bolten told a Congressional investigator that he
    had personally delivered the key paragraph written for JFK’s speech.
    Declassified files withheld from Congress and not seen by Hersh con-
    firm that Bolten’s supervisor was an important part of AMWORLD and
    the JFK-Almeida coup plan.23 (Bolten’s son, Joshua, became a cabinet
    official for President George W. Bush.)
    16
    LEGACY OF SECRECY
    According to a formerly top-secret memo sent by JFK’s CIA Director
    John McCone on the morning of November 22, 1963, the date for the
    coup was “scheduled for” December 1, 1963, just ten days later.24 Both
    that specific date and the general timing were important. First, as out-
    lined by CIA memos and Bobby’s top Cuban exile aide, Harry Williams,
    Fidel was launching a military draft around that date that would soon
    dilute Commander Almeida’s loyal army units and allow for the intro-
    duction of army spies under Fidel’s control. This was part of an ongoing
    trend noted in a cable to the CIA’s Director, whereby top Cuban “officers
    such as . . . Almeida who [are] not completely reliable politically are
    slowly being isolated from troops [by the] current Regime.”25 Second,
    as a Kennedy aide who worked on parts of the JFK-Almeida coup plan
    told us, JFK and Bobby were determined to have the Cuban situation
    resolved by the end of 1963. They didn’t want US troops fighting in
    Cuba over the holidays, so that part of the operation would have to be
    completed well before Christmas. Lastly, since the final versions of the
    “Plan for a Coup in Cuba” called for the use of US air power, the coup
    had to occur before the Pearl Harbor anniversary of December 7, so as
    not to raise the specter of that event and saddle the United States with
    accusations of a Japanese-style sneak attack.26
    As noted earlier, Almeida’s wife and children had already left Cuba
    on a pretext, and CIA operatives kept them under discreet surveillance
    in another country. Bobby had Harry Williams assure Almeida that he
    and the CIA would guarantee the family’s safety and security if Almeida
    were killed or captured in the coup. At the time, Bobby,