General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Yes, the CIA Director Was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-Up [View all]KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)advocate of the Cuban revolution. LHO had previously (on April 10, 1963) attempted to assassinate that traitorous tight-wing scumbag General Edwin Walker as an openly avowed enemy of the Cuban revolution. (IIRC, Walker was involved in planning and logistics for the Bay of Pigs fiasco and had openly advocated various extra-constitutional means for JFK's removal from office.) So LHO supported the Cuban Revolution and hated its enemies.
All well and good.
But imagine LHO's fury when he heard English-language broadcasts from Radio Havana that assassination attempts on Fidel were ongoing. It does not require a hugely sympathetic imagination to see how LHO's fury could shift to (from his point of view) a golden target of opportunity. (Bugliosi further speculates that LHO may have hoped to gain respect from the Cubans for removing an enemy of the revolution, hoping thereby to speed the issuance of a transit visa so he, Marina and their child could return to the USSR.)
As for why U.S. agencies have been less forthcoming in the years since, never underestimate the bureaucracy's imperative to place itself beyond reproach. So, for example, had the American people learned en masse in1963 about the CIA's illegal and ongoing plots against Fidel, conceivably the CIA could have been destroyed from the resultant public furor. If the American people had understood LHO's real motives, they might have begun to see that LHO had a VERY LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCE, even though his attempts to seek redress for the same were, imo, wrong. The Intel community could simply not afford the risk such disclosures would carry. The 'cover up' was thus more of a CYA effort and not necessarily evidence of any direct involvement in the assassination itself.
Hence my original 'more banal but more evil.'