Excerpt: Castro on the assassination, 23 Nov., '63

CONCERNING THE FACTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE TRAGIC DEATH OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

November 23rd, 1963

by Fidel Castro


"...But there are new ingredients. In fact a whole series, a whole propaganda chain, distributed in doses.

First that he is a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee which was false. Later a man who lived in the Soviet Union. Afterwards, a whole series of insinuations in several cables. Today, he is not only all that, he is also a Communist and a very willing Communist at that, he admits it. In fact all this is really very strange.

Their description is not that of a fanatic. But that of an individual with a number of characteristics that really fit what U.S. reaction wants like a ring on a finger, that fit the worst Policy of the United States; a person who seems to have been expressly made for this purpose, expressly made for specific ends: to create hysteria, to unleash an anti-Soviet, anti-Cuban, anti Communist, anti-progressive, anti-liberal campaign in the United States; to eliminate a President whose Policy collided head on with the Policy promoted by the most Reactionary circles in the country after the nuclear test ban treaty, after several speeches which were unanimously attacked for being weak toward Cuba.

What can have been the motives for the assassination of President Kennedy? What can there be behind all this? We cannot affirm anything because we do not have other elements for judgment: both the personality of the individual and the propaganda being carried out are suspicious, everything is suspicious.

We cannot categorically affirm what is behind all this, but we do affirm that it is suspicious; that we must be careful, that we must be vigilant, that we must be alert. Because this man may be innocent, a cat's paw, in a plan very well prepared by people who knew how to prepare these plans; or he may be a sick man and if so, the only honest thing is to hand him over for a medical examination and not to be starting a campaign extremely dangerous to world peace; or he may be an instrument very well chosen and very well trained by the Ultra-Right, by Ultraconservative reaction of the United States with the deliberate aim of eliminating a President who, according to them, did not carry out the Policy he should have - more warlike, more aggressive, more adventuresome Policy. And it is necessary for all people of the United States themselves to demand that what is behind the Kennedy assassination be clarified.

It is in the interest of the U.S. people and of the people of the world, that this be made known, that they demand to know what is really behind the assassination of Kennedy, that the facts be made clear: whether the man involved is innocent, sick or an instrument of the reactionaries, an agent of a macabre plan to carry forward a Policy of war and aggression, to place the Government of the United States at the mercy of the most aggressive circles of monopoly, of militarism and of the worst agencies of the United States. It is in our interest, in the interest of all people and of the U.S. people that we demand this."

Can you believe he said it like this literally within the first 36 hours?

The entire speech is reproduced in M. Schotz, History will not Absolve Us (1996: 51-86).

Read aloud on BlackOp Radio http://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black644b.mp3.