Before the communists take over Cuba, Cuba was at the head of Latin American countries and I can show you that in Cuba in 1958 every 37 persons had an automobile and in Russia was 200 persons, In Cuba was 6 persons for one radio and in Russia was 20 persons for one radio, in Cuba was 1 TV set for 18 persons and in Russia was 85 persons for 1 television set, and in Cuba was 1 telephone for every 38 persons and in Russia was 1 telephone for every 580 persons. Cuba was selling the sugar in the American market and was receiving from the U.S. more than one hundred million dollars a year over the price of the world market and the US was paying to Cuba that price in dollars. Right now Cuba is selling sugar to Russia. Russia is paying to Cuba 80% in machinery and 20% in dollars. I think that Cuba right now is a colony of Russia and the people of Cuba and the people of Cuba who is living in Cuba every day who is escaping from Cuba every day they disagree that you are representing the people of Cuba.

The Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) unquestionably identified Oswald, as did Bannister, as just the kind of 'nut' who could be a useful tool in the war against Castro and Fair Play for Cuba subversives.

On August 5, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald visited a store managed by Carlos Bringuier, a Cuban refugee and avid opponent of Castro, and the New Orleans delegate of the Cuban student directorate. Oswald indicated an interest in joining the struggle against Castro. He told Bringuier that he had been a marine and was trained in guerrilla warfare, and that he was willing not only to train Cubans to fight Castro but also to join the fight himself. The next day Oswald returned to the store and left his Guidebook for Marines for Bringuier.

A few days later, a friend of Bringuier's saw Oswald passing out Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets on Canal Street, not far from the store Bringuier managed. He, Bringuier and another exile proceeded to the site of Oswald's mini-demonstration, and Bringuier was enraged when he recognized the pro-Castro demonstrator as the anti-Castro activist wannabe of a few days before. Though no physical violence resulted, some heated words were uttered, a crowd gathered, and Oswald was arrested along with the three Cubans for disturbing the peace.

Lee Harvey Oswald: The principals of thought of the Fair Play for Cuba consist of restoration of diplomatic trade and tourist relations with Cuba. That is one of our main points. We are for that. I disagree that this situation regarding American-Cuban relations is very unpopular. We are in the minority surely. We are not particularly interested in what Cuban exiles or rightists members of rightist organizations have to say. We are primarily interested in the attitude of the US government toward Cuba. And in that way we are striving to get the United States to adopt measures which would be more friendly toward the Cuban people and the new Cuban regime in that country. We are not all communist controlled regardless of the fact that I have the experience of living in Russia, regardless of the fact that we have been investigated, regardless of those facts, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is an independent organization not affiliated with any other organization. Our aims and our ideals are very clear and in the best keeping with American traditions of democracy.

Carlos Bringuier: Do you agree with Fidel Castro when in his last speech of July 26th of this year he qualified President John F. Kennedy of the United States as a ruffian and a thief? Do you agree with Mr. Castro?

Lee Harvey Oswald: I would not agree with that particular wording. However, I and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee do think that the United States Government through certain agencies, mainly the State Department and the C.I.A., has made monumental mistakes in its relations with Cuba. Mistakes which are pushing Cuba into the sphere of activity of let's say a very dogmatic communist country such as China.

Bill Slatter: Mr. Oswald would you agree that when Castro first took power - would you agree that the United States was very friendly with Castro, that the people of this country had nothing but admiration for him, that they were very glad to see Batista thrown out?

Lee Harvey Oswald: I would say that the activities of the United States government in regards to Batista were a manifestation of not so much support for Fidel Castro but rather a withdrawal of support from Batista. In other words we stopped armaments to Batista. What we should have been done was to take those armaments and drop them into the Sierra Maestra where Fidel Castro could have used them. As for public sentiment at that time, I think even before the revolution, there were rumblings of official comment and so forth from government officials er, against Fidel Castro.

Ed Butler: You've never been to Cuba, of course, but why are the people of Cuba starving today?

Lee Harvey Oswald: Well any country emerging from a semi-colonial state and embarking upon reforms which require a diversification of agriculture you are going to have shortages. After all 80% of imports into the United States from Cuba were two products, tobacco and sugar. Nowadays, while Cuba is reducing its production as far as sugar cane goes it is striving to grow unlimited, and unheard of for Cuba, quantities of certain vegetables such as sweet potatoes, lima beans, cotton, and so forth, so that they can become agriculturally independent ...

Ed Butler: Gentlemen I'm going to have to interrupt you. Our time is almost up. We've had three guests tonight on Conversation Carte Blanche, Bill Stuckey and I have been talking to Lee Harvey Oswald, Secretary of the New Orleans Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Ed Butler, Executive Vice-president of the Information Council of the Americas (INCA) and Carlos Bringuier, Cuban refugee. Thank you very much.

Q: Going back to the point about his (Lee Harvey Oswald) apparent pro-Castro activity. Is this an organization with any substance?

A: Every effort was made, both by the FBI in 1963, and by the committee, to establish that the pro-Castro activity in New Orleans had a larger group behind it. Apparently he had a unit of the 'Fair Play for Cuba'. Apparently it had no membership other than Lee Harvey Oswald himself. Indeed, when he distributed the literature, one of the two people was hired. The other person we've never been able to identify. There's just no evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald had other associates in the pro-Castro activity.

Q: Doesn't that argue for the whole thing just being a shell game? I mean a pretense?

A: Oh it surely argues for it being a shell game. Is it a shell game by Lee Harvey Oswald, or a shell game by Lee Harvey Oswald on behalf of someone else? You answer that, I think, not by what happens in New Orleans, but by the consistent train of his character. From Japan to the Soviet Union, to New Orleans to Mexico City, of acting, at least for his own perspective, out of a Marxist or a pro-Castro perspective.

Q: Now, how do you reconcile the fact that there are two contradictory activities going on?

A: I'm not terribly sure that you can reconcile them. The most consistent thing through Lee Harvey Oswald's life is his Marxist position. The effort to talk to the anti-Castro Cubans is an effort either by Lee Harvey Oswald, in his crazed mind, to be engaging in subterfuge activity, or it is, in fact, Lee Harvey Oswald acting on behalf of someone else, infiltrating anti-Castro activities.

The true Lee Harvey Oswald is the Marxist. Oswald engages in a number of activities in New Orleans. He distributes 'Fair Play for Cuba' literature. He apparently is the head of a unit of 'Fair Play for Cuba'. He goes on a radio station and debates on behalf of Castro. All of this indicates his Marxist pro-Castro leanings.

At the same time, Lee Harvey Oswald makes a contact with Carlos Bringuier who is an anti-Castro Cuban leader in New Orleans and this is documented and unquestioned. Which is Lee Harvey Oswald? Is he pro-Castro? Is he anti-Castro? This man is all things to all people.

On Monday, August 12, 1963, Lee and Carlos Bringuier appeared in Second Municipal Court at 1:00 p.m. The charges were dismissed against Bringuier, and Lee was fined $10.00. Marina Oswald confirmed that Lee actually wanted to be arrested. He wanted the exposure. He wanted to get the publicity as a pro-Castroite. She referred to this as "self-advertising." Marina was right, but the question still remains: Why?

Lee was back handing out his Fair Play for Cuba Committee flyers on the streets of New Orleans on August 16. He had hired three men to help with distribution: odd, since he was nearly without funds for himself and his family. They stood in front of the International Trade Mart, whose director, Clay Shaw, would be charged with conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy four years later by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Somebody (probably Lee himself or, possibly, Carlos Bringuier) called WDSU-TV and other members of the New Orleans news media to announce that he was distributing the pro-Castro literature. More self-advertising. That evening's television news broadcast his activity, and the resulting bad publicity made it nearly impossible for him to obtain employment.

Perhaps the single most intriguing story to emerge from the JFK files concerns a career CIA officer named George Joannides. He died in 1990 at age 67, taking his JFK secrets to the grave in suburban Washington. His role in the events leading up to Kennedy's death and its confused investigatory aftermath goes utterly unmentioned in the vast literature of JFK's assassination. Vincent Bugliosi's otherwise impressive 1,600 page book debunking every JFK conspiracy theory known to man mentions him only in an inaccurate footnote. In 1998, the Agency declassified a handful of annual personnel evaluations that revealed Joannides was involved in the JFK assassination story, both before and after the event.

In November 1963, Joannides was serving as the chief of psychological warfare operations in the CIA's Miami station. The purpose of psychological warfare, as authorized by U.S. policymakers, was to confuse and confound the government of Fidel Castro, so to hasten its replacement by a government more congenial to Washington. The first revelation was that Joannides had agents in a leading Cuban student exile group, an operation code-named AMSPELL in CIA files. These agents had a series of close encounters with Oswald three months before JFK was killed.

The second revelation was that the CIA's Miami assets helped shape the public's understanding of Kennedy's assassination by identifying the suspected assassin as a Castro supporter right from the start.

The third revelation, the one that is most shocking, is that when Congress reopened the JFK probe in 1978, Joannides served as the CIA's liaison to the investigators. His job was to provide files and information to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. But far from being a helpful source and conduit, Joannides stonewalled. He did not disclose his role in the events of 1963, even when asked direct questions about the AMSPELL operation he handled.

When the story of the Joannides file emerged, former HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey was stunned by the audacity of Joannides's deception. Blakey, a former federal prosecutor, thought the Agency had cooperated with Congress's effort to look into JFK's murder. Twenty-three years later he learned that the CIA bureaucrat ostensibly assisting his staff was actually a material witness in the investigation. "The Agency set me up," reported the Washington Post.

Blakey, now a law professor at Notre Dame, says Joannides's actions were "little short of outrageous. You could make a prima facie case that it amounted to obstruction of Congress, which is a felony."

Blakey has long argued that organized crime figures orchestrated Kennedy's assassination. The revelation of Joannides's unknown role has given him second thoughts about the CIA's credibility.

"You can't really infer from the Joannides story that they [the CIA] did it," he says. "Maybe he was hiding something that is not complicitous in a plot but merely embarrassing. It certainly undermines everything that they have said about JFK's assassination."

In November 1963, Joannides was serving as the chief of psychological warfare operations in the CIA's Miami station. The purpose of psychological warfare, as authorized by U.S. policymakers, was to confuse and confound the government of Fidel Castro, so to hasten its replacement by a government more congenial to Washington. The first revelation was that Joannides had agents in a leading Cuban student exile group, an operation code-named AMSPELL in CIA files. These agents had a series of close encounters with Oswald three months before JFK was killed.

The second revelation was that the CIA's Miami assets helped shape the public's understanding of Kennedy's assassination by identifying the suspected assassin as a Castro supporter right from the start.

The third revelation, the one that is most shocking, is that when Congress reopened the JFK probe in 1978, Joannides served as the CIA's liaison to the investigators. His job was to provide files and information to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. But far from being a helpful source and conduit, Joannides stonewalled. He did not disclose his role in the events of 1963, even when asked direct questions about the AMSPELL operation he handled.

When the story of the Joannides file emerged, former HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey was stunned by the audacity of Joannides's deception. Blakey, a former federal prosecutor, thought the Agency had cooperated with Congress's effort to look into JFK's murder. Twenty-three years later he learned that the CIA bureaucrat ostensibly assisting his staff was actually a material witness in the investigation. "The Agency set me up," reported the Washington Post.

Blakey, now a law professor at Notre Dame, says Joannides's actions were "little short of outrageous. You could make a prima facie case that it amounted to obstruction of Congress, which is a felony."

Blakey has long argued that organized crime figures orchestrated Kennedy's assassination. The revelation of Joannides's unknown role has given him second thoughts about the CIA's credibility.

"You can't really infer from the Joannides story that they [the CIA] did it," he says. "Maybe he was hiding something that is not complicitous in a plot but merely embarrassing. It certainly undermines everything that they have said about JFK's assassination."

"We are going to kill Castro"

In July 1963, George Efythron Joannides turned 41 years old. He was a 10-year veteran of the clandestine service who presented himself as a lawyer for the Defense Department. He dressed well, spoke several languages and enjoyed the confidence of CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms. In his cables, he was identified as "Walter Newby." To his Cuban friends in Miami he was "Howard" or "Mr. Howard."

Joannides's chief job responsibility in 1963 was handling AMSPELL, a program of CIA support for the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil, also known as the Cuban Student Directorate. By 1962, the DRE was perhaps the single biggest and most active organization opposing Fidel Castro's regime. In Miami, Joannides was giving the leaders of the group up to $25,000 a month in cash for what he described as "intelligence collection" and "propaganda."

In August 1963, the DRE's New Orleans chapter had taken a vocal and very public interest in an itinerant ex-Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald because of his blatantly pro-Castro politicking. Oswald was 23 years old, an erratic but street-smart schemer who knew how to make his way in the world. He lived in the Soviet Union for a couple of years and was married to a Russian woman, the former Marina Prusakova. He wrote letters to left-wing political organizations and drifted from job to job. And then in early August 1963 he attempted to infiltrate the DRE.

Oswald approached Carlos Bringuier, a 29-year-old lawyer who served as the group's spokesman in the Crescent City. Oswald offered to help train DRE commandos to fight the communist government in Cuba. A few days later, when the DRE boys saw him on a street corner passing out pamphlets for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), a notoriously pro-Castro group, they picked a fight with him.

Bringuier took an interest in Oswald. He directed a DRE member to go to Oswald's house and pose as a Castro supporter to learn more about his background. Bringuier also debated Oswald on a local radio program, and sent a tape of the debate to DRE's Miami headquarters. He also sent one of Oswald's FPCC pamphlets. Bringuier went so far as to issue a press release on Oswald, calling for a congressional investigation of the then-obscure ex-Marine. "Write to your congressman for a full investigation on Mr. Lee H. Oswald, a confessed 'Marxist,'" the DRE spokesman wrote on August 21, 1963.

Did George Joannides of the CIA ignore Bringuier's prescient and potentially life-saving call for investigating Oswald? Bringuier, now retired and living in Texas, refused to be interviewed for this article. He said he never received money from the CIA and said he did not know Joannides or "Howard." But other DRE members were more forthcoming.

"He definitely knew about what we we're doing with Oswald," says Isidro Borja, a Miami businessman who was active in the DRE in 1963. "That was what he was giving us the money for -- for information we had."

To get a flavor of the dangerous psychological warfare that George Joannides was waging at that time take a look at the cover of See, a men's magazine from the fall of 1963. "The CIA Needs Men -- Can You Qualify?" asked one headline. Next to this recruitment pitch was a poster, "Wanted Dead or Alive: Fidel Castro for Crimes Against Humanity." The article inside, bearing a byline of a DRE member, was headlined "We are going to kill Castro." In the article, the group announced it was offering a $10 million reward "for the death of the Cuban tyrant."