(From March 24-25)
Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) has learned from knowledgeable sources in the Pentagon that the U.S. Special Operations Command has recently been tasked to come up with a covert operation designed to snatch the secret archives complied over five decades by former Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Our sources report that among Castro's archives are documents proving the collaboration of top U.S. Mafia figures, including Mafia financial boss Meyer Lansky, with the CIA in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. Castro apparently kept track of many of those involved in the assassination of Kennedy because they were also actively involved in anti-Castro plots associated with right-wing Cuban exiles that were organized out of Miami, New Orleans, Houston, and Dallas, cities where the Mafia was extremely active.
WMR has learned that Castro's extensive archives have been secured in a well-protected facility on the Isle of Youth (formerly the Isle of Pines) off the southwest coast of Cuba.
In addition to documents that point to the mob's and CIA's involvement in the Kennedy assassination, including the roles played by the Canadian Bronfman family and their wealthy attorney, the CIA-connected Louis Bloomfield of Montreal, the Castro archives reportedly contain a wealth of information about Cuban support for Angola's government and liberation movements in Africa and Latin America. The archives also have details about the role of the CIA in the Angolan civil war and the coups that toppled Chilean President Salvador Allende and other leaders, as well as Henry Kissinger's infamous Operation Condor that “disappeared” thousands of leftist, student, and labor leaders in Latin America.
The plans by the U.S. Special Operations Command to surreptitiously land on the Isle of Youth and secure the Castro archives may have something to do with the recent arrest of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor as he was boarding a plane in Havana. Alan Phillip Gross of Potomac, Maryland was arrested on December 5 last year and charged with espionage. Gross entered Cuba on a tourist visa but began working on projects designed to provide Internet technology services for Cuban Jewish communities. Gross worked for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) of Bethesda, Maryland, a State Department contractor that specializes in bringing high-technology services to “civil society organizations.” Gross is reportedly a satellite technology expert.
Gross reportedly made a number of trips to Cuba before his arrest. Throwing doubt on claims that Gross was in Cuba to help provide Internet access to the Cuban Jewish community, several prominent members of Cuba's Jewish community said they never met Gross. In addition, Cuba's small Jewish community was already receiving computer and Internet assistance from ORT, a non-governmental organization.
Gross's mission in Cuba has been clouded in mystery. Cuba said Gross was illegally distributing satellite communications equipment, which would be important for in-country support in a mission to secretly insert a U.S. military team in Cuba to spirit away Castro's archives.
Due to Gross's visibility with Jewish groups in the United States, his arrest has affected on-going talks between Washington and Havana designed to improve relations between the two nations.
DAI's website states the company started operations in 1970 and by 1980 was active in Sudan, the then-Zaire, Tanzania, and Indonesia. In a move that mirrors that of Barack Obama and his mother Ann Dunham, DAI extended its development operations from Indonesia to Pakistan and by 1982 the firm was fully active in that nation at a time the U.S. was using Pakistan as a base to support the Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. DAI is also active in Jordan, Palestine, Mexico, and South Africa.
The arrest of Gross in December came as former President Fidel Castro began to reassert control over the government, particularly through the appointment as Vice President of the Council of State of Ramiro Valdes Menendez, a Castro loyalist and former Interior Minister who understands the need to protect the Island of Youth archives from being snatched by the United States or other non-state players.
In April 2003, a Cuban man hijacked an Antonov-24 from the Isle of Youth and, after a brief landing at Havana's Jose Marti International Airport where some women and children passengers were released, was allowed to fly to Key West. The hijacker, who threatened to blow up the plane with two hand grenades, was eventually granted asylum in the United States after the ritualistic debriefing by FBI and CIA personnel.
