26 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must-Read Jaw Dropper, October 29, 2008
This review is from: Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder (Hardcover)
This book is a jaw dropper.
From Cuban intelligence agent Maria Luisa Calderon's intercepted telephone conversation (tape recorded just ninety minutes after the shots in Dallas and best appreciated in its original audio form) to multiple reports of Cuban agents stationed at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City packing up and blowing town shortly after the Kennedy murder, "Brothers In Arms" doesn't just light a powder keg under the question of Cuban complicity in the Kennedy assassination, it sets off a nuclear explosion.
If anyone else had authored this book, I might have had considerable doubts about the veracity of the remarkable new information presented. The material presented in "Brothers In Arms," however, comes largely from the work of investigative journalist Gus Russo, who I've known and admired for many years and who has had far more face-to-face time with officers of the Dallas Police, FBI, CIA, and Secret Service, as well as presidential advisers, U.S. congressional investigators, and numerous foreign intelligence service officers than anyone I know.
In some paranoid corners of the so-called "JFK assassination research community," Russo's contacts and connections make him the enemy. The reality, of course, is that Russo's connections give him unprecedented access to perhaps the only people who can still shed light on the questions surrounding Oswald's horrific deed.
One person who proved central to Russo's research was German documentary filmmaker and investigative reporter Wilfried "Willi" Huismann, who persuaded the German television network WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln) to underwrite new research into the labyrinth of foreign intrigue surrounding the Kennedy case. The result was the 2006 German television documentary "Rendezvous with Death" which received rave reviews in Europe but was never broadcast in the United States.
Huismann, Russo, and their collaborators assembled a treasure trove of documentation from KGB, Cuban, Mexican Secret Police, and recently unredacted U.S. government files to support the film's thesis. The essence of that documentation is presented in "Brothers In Arms" - all of it intriguing and delivered in a richly readable form.
There will no doubt be cynics and others who will point to the inconsistencies in the various accounts presented in "Brothers in Arms;" eager to dismiss Russo and Molton's work as too fantastic to believe, or worse, an effort by "the enemy" to once again blame Kennedy's death on the Fidel Castro. That would be a mistake.
The conspiracy zanies are already out in force condemning Russo and Molton's work as preposterous poppy-cock because it dares to cross their own zealous agenda - Oswald was used (wittingly or unwittingly) by rogue elements of the CIA to assassinate Kennedy and blame the crime on the Castro regime.
This has been a common theme in conspiracy literature since first suggested, oddly enough, by Soviet Radio TASS in the hours after the assassination, and later embraced by a legion of left-leaning conspiracy authors and theorists.
I don't profess to have an answer to the why behind Oswald's deed. But, I'm always fascinated by well-researched and impeccably realized works like "Brothers In Arms."
Consider the comment made by Jeremy Gunn, the Assassination Record Review Board's (ARRB) chief intelligence analyst, regarding a lead on Fabian Escalante Font, an intelligence officer in Castro's secret service, provided to the board by Gus Russo. Gunn told Russo, "The single most interesting part of the story is Mexico City, and the single most tantalizing lead we received was your report on Escalante, which we followed up aggressively. I went to CIA and saw their file on him [Escalante], which I can't discuss because it's classified. All I will say is that I saw some things there that made my jaw drop. Bottom line; follow Escalante, especially where he was before the assassination."
As a result of Gunn's comments and Russo's work on the Cuban question, a swell of new interest in declassifying the files on Escalante and other Cuban agents has been taking place behind the scenes for the last two years at the National Archives as official new demands are made for foreign governments to come clean with what they know. That is hardly the kind of action that results from fantasy-based conspiracy theories without teeth.
Of course, there will always be those who hope to dissuade the public from reading books like "Brothers In Arms" by stuffing book review forums like this with "reviews" filled with ad hominem attacks and supposed "facts" culled from conspiracy forums, books, conferences, and clubs. Those who post such tripe have so little faith in their fellow man that they don't believe you to be capable of deciding for yourself what is real, believable, or truthful. They've made up their own mind and now they hope to decide for you too.
Is "Brothers In Arms" the final chapter to the story of Lee Harvey Oswald? The authors believe it is. For myself, I am always a bit skeptical of any final solution to the Kennedy assassination. I've read plenty of so-called final solutions over the past three and a-half decades, and no doubt so have you.
However, after forty-five years, the passing of many of the principal players, and access to millions of pages of documentary evidence, one eventually gets to the point of asking: How much evidence constitutes enough proof?
Russo and Molton are convinced that the conclusions presented in "Brothers In Arms" finally explain the disparate actions of all the key players before, during, and after the events of Dallas given human memory, the propensity to exaggerate, and the woeful incompleteness of the written record.
I believe they've come as close as anyone to explaining why Oswald might have pulled the trigger in Dallas. Moreover, their book represents the first believable, unified conspiracy theory written about the Kennedy assassination to date.
Anyway you cut it, Gus Russo and Stephen Molton's "Brothers In Arms" is a rare, sobering, valuable contribution to factual literature on the Kennedy case and a must read book no matter what you now believe about November, 1963.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Did Castro Kill Kennedy?, March 1, 2010
It's the oldest JFK conspiracy theory in the book: The Kennedy brothers tried to assassinate Castro but, in retaliation, Castro got the President instead. For those who reject the findings of the Warren Commission but don't wish to believe that there was a domestic conspiracy it certainly is a neat little theory. If you reject the Oswald-did-it-alone scenario but just can't bring yourself to go the extra step of accepting the notion that a coup d'etat could take place in America, then you might find some comfort in blaming an enemy overseas. However, if you find yourself more interested in the truth than in a particular theory's psychological appeal, you might ask yourself, "what are the facts?"
In 1975, a Senate Committee headed by Frank Church uncovered the fact that the CIA had made repeated attempts on the life of Fidel Castro. Although evidence suggests that these attempted assassinations began in 1959, the Church Committee "found concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965." (Church Committee: Interim Report - Alleged Assassination plots involving Foreign Leaders, p71) The committee further reported that "the proposed assassination devices ran the gamut from high-powered rifles to poison pills, poison pens, deadly bacterial powders, and other devices which strain the imagination." (Ibid) Perhaps worst of all, the CIA even went as far as hiring members of organized crime to do its dirty work.
President Kennedy did not enter the White House until January 1961. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that the President or his brother were the instigators of plans to remove the Cuban leader that had begun at least a year previously. However, in November of 1961, Kennedy revealed to New York Times reporter Tad Szulc that he was under pressure to order Castro's assassination but felt that for "moral reasons" the United States should not be involved in such activity. (Ibid p138) A few days later, when speechwriter Dick Goodwin asked JFK about his comments to Szulc, he replied "We can't get into that kind of thing, or we would all be targets." (Ibid p139) Robert Kennedy, apparently felt the same way for he was furious when he discovered the CIA's Mafia plots in May of 1962. He summoned two top CIA officials to the Justice Department and sarcastically remarked, "I trust that if you ever do business again with organized crime...you will let the attorney general know." (Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot p86)
The likes of Gus Russo and other proponents of the Castro-did-it scenario would have it that the Kennedy brothers were acting, that their comments were staged to hide their own involvement in the murderous plots. But the Church Committee's exhaustive investigation uncovered no evidence that either Kennedy brother took any part in planning Castro's assassination. White House officials in abundance testified that they "had no knowledge of any assassination plan...and that they did not believe that President Kennedy's character or style of operating would be consistent with approving assassination." (Church Committee report p119) Theodore Sorensen, for example, swore that "such an act [as assassination] was totally foreign to his character and conscience, foreign to his fundamental reverence for human life." (Ibid p120) The testimony of top CIA officials revealed that no one in the agency had personal knowledge of official authorization from the President or the Attorney General. CIA Deputy Director of Plans Richard Helms was fond of hinting that Bobby Kennedy was behind the plots, but would claim no such thing under oath. In fact Helms admitted that he was never told by his superiors to Kill Castro but weakly offered that "No member of the Kennedy administration ever told me that [assassination] was proscribed, [or] even referred to it in that fashion." (Ibid p149) When asked specifically if Robert Kennedy had ever told him to kill Castro, Helms' one-word answer was "No." (Ibid p151) Helms also explained that he did not seek approval "because assassination was not a subject which should be aired with higher authority." (Ibid)
But let us put all of this evidence aside for the moment and ask the most important question of all: Did Castro believe that JFK was responsible for the attempts on his life? For if we are to accept that Castro killed the President in revenge, then it is crucial to know if Castro believed that Kennedy was behind the CIA's plots. Unfortunately for followers of this theory, Castro believed nothing of the sort. In 1984, Tad Szulc had the opportunity to disclose with Castro the details of his remarkable conversation with Kennedy in 1961. Castro listened with interest to Szulc's extraordinary story and told him that it confirmed what he had always believed: That Kennedy had nothing to do with the CIA's murderous scheme. (Talbot p94) Ethal Kennedy, Bobby's widow, also had the chance to set the record straight with the Cuban premier. "I want you know something," She told him, "Jack and Bobby had nothing to do with the plots to kill you." "I know." he replied. (Ibid) And it is here that the Castro theory falls apart. Because if Castro knew that the Kennedy's were not behind the assassination attempts, that the CIA was acting on its own, then there would have been no reason for him to risk the nuclear annihilation of Cuba that would inevitably have followed.
By depending on unreliable and obviously biased sources like the CIA's Sam Helpern, Russo gets it all wrong. In fact, by accepting the Warren commission's non-existent case against Lee Oswald, Russo starts from a false premise. The fact is, the statements and testimonies of six witnesses, Bill Shelley (7H390), Charles Givens (CD5: 329), Eddie Piper (19H499), Carolyn Arnold (CD5:41), Harold Norman (3H189) and Junior Jarman (3H201-2), all corroborate what Oswald told Police and place him on the first floor of the depository building shortly before the assassination and at the time the real gunman was in the sixth floor window.
To be honest, I think the fact that Dale Myers - the Walt Disney of JFK research - gave this book a ringing endorsement is reason enough all by itself to avoid this particular work of fiction.
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