According to a CNN report by Jake Tapper the CIA and the U.S. State Department may have been trying to supply Syrian jihadists with Libyan arms from Benghazi when the operation blew up in their face last September.
The UK Telegraph summed it up best: “The CIA has been subjecting operatives to monthly polygraph tests in an attempt to suppress details of a US arms smuggling operation in Benghazi that was ongoing when its ambassador was killed by a mob in the city last year, according to reports.”
“Same as it ever was,” say some Cuba-watchers. “Déjà vu all over again say,” say others.
“Me and my staff were all Fidelistas,” boasted Robert Reynolds, the CIA’s “Caribbean Desk’s specialist on the Cuban Revolution” from 1957-1960. Reynolds was visiting Cuba and chumming it up with Fidel himself at the time of his boast, during a conference” in 2001.
“Everyone in the CIA and everyone at State was pro-Castro, except (Republican) ambassador Earl Smith.” (CIA operative in Santiago Cuba 1957’59, Robert Weicha.)
“Don’t worry. We’ve infiltrated Castro’s guerrilla group in the Sierra Mountains. The Castro brothers and Ernesto “Che” Guevara have no affiliations with any Communists whatsoever.” (crackerjack Havana CIA station chief Jim Noel 1958.)
Oh, I know, I know: for over half a century your professors, Hollywood, the media, etc. have all hammered away that Batista was “a U.S. backed dictator!” and that, while fighting Batista, the Castro rebels also fought heroically and David-like against brutal and Goliath-like “Yankee imperialism!” But actually:
"Without U.S. help Fidel Castro would never have gotten into power,” flatly testified former U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, Earl T. Smith during Congressional testimony in 1960.
“I think it is a form of a cover-up, and I think it's an attempt to push it under the rug, and I think the American people are feeling the same way," says (Republican) Congressman Frank Wolf who represents the district that contains CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia about the Benghazi attack. "We should have the people who were on the (Benghazi) scene come in, testify under oath, do it publicly, and lay it out. And there really isn't any national security issue involved with regards to that.”
Indeed. And something very similar happened two years after the State Department and CIA’s darlings took power in Cuba and quickly converted the island into a Soviet satrapy and armory, and playground for Che Guevara’s KGB-mentored firing squads.
Senator DODD. “Well, would you say that these things that occurred also showed that the State Dept. was anxious to replace Batista with Castro?
(Former U.S. Amb. To Cuba) GARDNER. “I think they were.”
Arthur Gardner and Earl Smith were the two U.S. ambassadors to Cuba who warned about Castro and Che Guevara’s covert Communism (and thus lost their jobs.) In 1960 they testified under oath to the Media/State Department collusion and campaign that brought Castro to power:
Senator DODD. You have been quoted, Mr. Gardner, as referring to, "Castro worship" in the State Department in 1957. ... you are quoted as saying you fought all the time with the State Department over whether Castro merited the support or friendship of the United States. Would you explain....
Mr Gardner: "I feel it very strongly, that the State Department was influenced, first, by those stories by (the New York Times') Herbert Matthews, and soon (support for Castro) became kind of a fetish with them."
Senator Dodd: (in preparation for his post) your successor as Ambassador to Cuba, Earl Smith was actually (sent by his State Dept. superiors) to be briefed by New York Times' Herbert Matthews?
Mr. GARDNER. "Yes, that is right."
Senator Eastland: "Mr Smith, you had been warning the State Department that Castro was a Marxist?'
Mr. Smith: "Yes, sir....
Senator Eastland: "Would you say that the American Government then, including all of its agencies, was largely responsible for bringing Castro to power?"
Mr Smith: "The State Department played a large part in bringing Castro to power. The press, and other Government agencies (CIA), members of Congress are also responsible.”
Oh I know, I know, Steven Soderbergh’s critically- acclaimed (and publicly-snubbed) movie Che shows one scene where, amidst the thunder of bombs and hail of bullets, Che Guevara laments how the U.S. is intervening on Batista's side. In fact: at the very time of Che's lament as depicted in the movie, the Batista regime was under a U.S. arms embargo!Batista was subsequently denied exile in the U.S. and banned from even setting foot in the country that “backed” him.
The movie also shows Che Guevara broadcasting his Pattonesque military triumphs over “Radio Rebelde.” This sophisticated radio equipment was in fact smuggled into Cuba and presented to Che Guevara in the fall if 1957 by the CIA!
Sounds insane, I know. But full documentation appears in a spanking new book.
“But come on. Humberto?!” Some say. “What about all those CIA assassination attempts against Castro? Hunh?!”
Thought you’d never ask. So here’s the late E. Howard Hunt, who while code-named "Eduardo" was head of the CIA "Cuba Project's" political division in the early 60's. "So far as I have been able to determine no coherent plan was ever developed within the CIA to assassinate Castro, though it was the heart's desire of many exile groups."
No here’s some other interesting (but seriously under-reported) findings from the famous Frank Church Committee: “In August 1975, Fidel Castro gave Senator George McGovern a list of twenty-four alleged attempts to assassinate him in which Castro claimed the CIA had been involved…The Committee has found no evidence that the CIA was involved in the attempts on Castro’s life enumerated in the allegations that Castro gave to Senator McGovern.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member