FREE CUBA COMMITTEE = RFK DOCS

FREE CUBA COMMITTEE – RFK DOCS

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/RFKAG-219-004.aspx

Here’s a more in depth report on RFK docs regarding the Free Cuba Committee released by the JFK Library. At first glance, I didn’t review the bulk of the Oct. 62 missile crisis docs, that I’m not familiar with, but instead focused on a few that I thought might be connected to JFK assassination.

The Cuban Counter-revolutionary Handbook looks useful.

Title:6-11: Cuba: Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba

Date(s) of Materials:1963: 11 April-23 August, undated

Extent:88 digital pages

Series Name:

Attorney General's Confidential File

Series Number:09.

Collection:

Papers of Robert F. Kennedy. Attorney General Papers

Contributor:

Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba (U.S.)

Place(s):

Cuba

Soviet Union

Subject(s):

Cold War

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

International relations

Digital Identifier:RFKAG-219-004

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/RFKAG-219-004.aspx

[BK Notes – I put these docs in chronological order.]

RFIAG-219-004-p0010

STATIONARY LETTERHEAD

CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A FREE CUBA

Suite 617 Albee Building, 1426 G Street, NW

Washington 5, DC

Phone 783-7505

SECRETARY

Daniel James

Members

Mariada Arensberg, Murray Baron, Joesph Beirne, Nicholas Duke Biddle, Irving Brown, Adm. Arleigh A. Burke (Ret.), Dickey Chapelle, Leo Cherne, Ernest Cuneo, Christopher Emmet, John Fisher, Dr. Russell H. Fitzgibbon, Dr. Harry Gideonse, Francis R. Grant, Paul Hall, Hal Hendrix, Sal B. Hoffmann, Dr. Sidney Hook, Brig. Gen. Frank L. Howley (Ret.), Dr. Harry Kantor, Rev. John LaFarge, S.J., Clare Booth Luce, Eugene Lyons, Brig. Gen. S.L.A. Marshall (Ret.), Henry Mayers, Arthur G. McDowell, Benjamin F. McLaurin, Dr. Hans J. Morgenthau, Edgar Ansel Mowrer, John O’Rourke, Bonaro Overstreet, Bishop James A. Pike, Virginia Prewett, Victor Riesel, Dr. John P. Roche, Dr. Robert Strausz-Hupe, Dr. Frank Tannenbaum, Edward Teller, William Vanden Heuvel, Vice Adm. Charles Wellborn, Jr. (Ret.), Dr. Arthur P. Whitaker (incomplete)

[BK Notes: A copy of this same letterhead, with the names down the left side of the paper, is also in Harry Dean’s manuscript]

RFKAG-219-004-p.0011

THE NEW YORK TIMES – MAY 10, 1963

44 In U.S. Establish Committee to Fight Communism in Cuba

By Peter Kihss

PORTLAND MAINE PRESS-HERALD –

Group Dedicated To A Free Cuba Embarks On Long, Difficult Road

By a coincidence, in the very week in which Life magazine publishes its exciting k25-page account of the April 1961 invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, 44 prominent Americans assembled to form a new group dedicated to overthrow of the Castro regime….

OTHER CLIPS – RFKAG-219-004-p.0012-0013-

RFKAG-219-004-p.0023

p.10 of THE WASHINGTON DAILY-NEWS, FRIDAY JUNE 7

COLUMN BY VIRGINIA PREWETT

Action Now Is Urged To Oust Castro

[BK Notes: Virginia Prewett was one of David A. Phillips’ media assets who acknowledged knowing both Phillips and “Maurice Bishop.”]

A capsule referendum of the U.S. non-governmental leadership has urged President Kennedy to publicize the full facts of the U.S.-Cuba position and to remove both Fidel Castro and the Soviet presence from Cuba “without delays.”

New York’s Freedom House and other specialists recently disclosed that 25 seasoned U.S. military, Inter-American agreed that: Washington’s withholding of information on Cuba “hinders the formation of American public opinion rather than obstructing the enemy.” The meeting demanded publication of “the correspondence between Nikita Khrushchev and the President during the October confrontation.” … Did Bay of Pigs prisoner exchange serve as a cover for a Tito-style reconciliation with Castro?....

ALSO – JERSEY CITY, NJ, JERSEY JOURNAL – MAY 29, ’63

THE FREEDOM HOUSE has another committee “Free Cuba” in their headquarters in the Freedom House, 20 W. 40^th St. New York 18, and among them are Harry D. Giddeon, Leo Cherne, George B. Ford and others. A list will show you that the members are Americans, not Cubans….

[BK Notes – From USSR Oswald wrote three letters to Leo Cherne at the International Rescue Committee, seeking financial help to return home.]

ALSO – KEY WEST, FLA. CITIZEN – MAY 24, ’63

IN WASHINGTON – By Ralph De Toledano

Six days before President Kennedy admitted to the American people that the Soviets had implanted medium and intermediate range missiles in Cuba, White House aide McGeorge Bundy….told a TV audience that “There is no present likelihood” that the Castro Communists and the Kremlin would “attempt to install a major offensive capacity on the island”….

RFKAG-219-004-p.0074

FREE CUBA NEWS – PUBLISHED BY CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A FREE CUBA – Vol. 1, No. 2, May 11, 1963. Editor Daniel James (cover)

Also – Vol. 1, No. 10, July 20, 1963 (cover)

p. 7 – ARMS SHIPPED FROM MARIEL TO CARIBBEAN POINTS

Cuba’s leading naval base and chief Russian port of entry, Mariel, on the north coast, is now reportedly fulfilling the role of a center for smuggling arms into a number of  Caribbean countries. In mid-July, 84 truckloads of arms, spotted in Santa Lucia, were loaded onto PT boats in Mariel for shipment to various Caribbean points. Such shipments are frequent, according to Pinar del Rio fisherman, Angel Fundora, who is now in this country.

RFKAG-219-004-p0007

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

Proceedings and debates of the 88^th Congress, First Session

What Can We Do About Cuba?

Report of a Freedom House Conference

Speech of Hon. Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut in the Senate of US

Monday, June 10, 1963

RFKAG-219-004-p.0003.JPG

June 28, 1963

From: John P. Rocha

Subject: Committee for a Free Cuba

On June 20, 1963, I attended a meeting of the Citizens Committeee for a Free Cuba in New York. I joined the committee originally because I supported the statement of goals that it published, because several of my commnderos? in what might be called the “Betancourt-Bosch” tendency in Latin American policy were involved…The luncheon speaker, the Venezuelan Ambassador to the U.S., gave an address which was right down the ADA line…Clare Booth Luce, Leo Cheren proposed that a special committee be set up to redraft the proposalk. I was made a member…This leaves the future of the committee thoroughly obscure. It exists now because Dan James got $40,000 and a promise of another $40,000 from a Puerto Rican businessman named Bosh (no relation to the Dominican…) The key question is, What is James up to?...

RFKAG-219-004-p0002

Handwritten note: Call to Ralph Dungan 8/15k to call back

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

BUREAU OF INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS

COORDINATOR OF CUBAN AFFAIRS

DATE – August 8, 1963klj

TO: Justice – Mr. Nolan

I am enclosing material on the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba which we discussed on the phone the other day.

Signed

John Hugh Crimmins

Rm. 6263 klARA

Code 182, x4588 or x4795

RFKG-219-004-P0001K.JPG

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

LOGO

6-11 

Handwritten

August 23, 1963

File Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba

RFKG-219-004-P0001K.JPG

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

LOGO

6-11 

Handwritten

August 23, 1963

File Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba

Last action – call to Sam Baron, wk of 8/19 to say that Administration was mildly disapproving but not really against this outfit. Suggested that he contack John Crimmins office and appointment made for him there with Bill Bowdler – agreed with Walter Sheridan that it might be helpful to have Sam Shoup.? We should not be in postion of supporting or even strongly encouraging this, however.

Signed – RFK?