What do you think?
Rate this book
JFK: The Cuba Files: The Untold Story of the Plot to Kill Kennedy
“These Cuban files [on the Kennedy assassination] add new pieces to the puzzle and give us a clearer picture of what really happened.” Oliver Stone, director of "JFK."
Amid continuing speculation over Cuban involvement in the most famous political crime of the 20th century, this book reveals for the first time Cuba’s own report into the Kennedy assassination. With compelling logic, Fabián Escalante, who directed Cuba’s investigation, describes how Cuban intelligence uncovered a conspiracy against President Kennedy among those who felt betrayed by the Bay of Pigs debacle: the Cuban exiles, the Mafia, and the CIA.
Fabián Escalante is a former head of Cuban counterintelligence and a respected and sought-after authority by US researchers on CIA activities against Cuba.
Published as part of the series "The Secret War."
Amid continuing speculation over Cuban involvement in the most famous political crime of the 20th century, this book reveals for the first time Cuba’s own report into the Kennedy assassination. With compelling logic, Fabián Escalante, who directed Cuba’s investigation, describes how Cuban intelligence uncovered a conspiracy against President Kennedy among those who felt betrayed by the Bay of Pigs debacle: the Cuban exiles, the Mafia, and the CIA.
Fabián Escalante is a former head of Cuban counterintelligence and a respected and sought-after authority by US researchers on CIA activities against Cuba.
Published as part of the series "The Secret War."
261 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2005
67 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 6, 2018
“Nisan 1963’te Oswald, ailesini terk ederek New Orleans’a yerleşiyor, burada eski dostları, her ikisi de CIA ajanı ve Kübalı göçmenlerin içinde faaliyette olan, Guy Banister ve David Ferrie’yle yeniden buluşuyor. ABD dışı kaynaklara göre de, bu sıralarda en az bir kez, göçmen Kübalıların eğitildiği kamplarda görülüyor.
Şu rastlantıya bakın ki aynı ay içerisinde, Nisan 1963’te, Florida yakınlarındaki Bimini Adası’nda, üst düzey CIA yöneticilerinin, Kübalı göçmenlerin ve Mafya temsilcilerinin katıldığı bir toplantı düzenleniyor. Konusu: Fidel Castro’nun öldürülmesi ve Beyaz Saray’daki ‘Pembe’nin tasfiyesi!”(s.243)
Şu rastlantıya bakın ki aynı ay içerisinde, Nisan 1963’te, Florida yakınlarındaki Bimini Adası’nda, üst düzey CIA yöneticilerinin, Kübalı göçmenlerin ve Mafya temsilcilerinin katıldığı bir toplantı düzenleniyor. Konusu: Fidel Castro’nun öldürülmesi ve Beyaz Saray’daki ‘Pembe’nin tasfiyesi!”(s.243)
October 3, 2012
Here is yet another essential book for all those who inquire after the truth behind the coup d'etat in America of 1963. Escalante was part of the Cuban Department of State Security during the 1960's.
He directed the investigations that the Cuban government undertook at the request of the U.S. Select Committee of the House of Representatives in 1978, when the case of the JFK assassination was reopened. From 1976 to 1982 he was head of the Cuban State Security Department (G-2).
As a recognised authority on the CIA this author is ideally placed to analyse the machinations of the U.S. intelligence operatives that conducted the anti-Kennedy conspiracy, bringing together the Cuban exile and Mafia personnel into the plot that would lead a trail to Havana.
Escalante picks the bones out of the Oswald sheep dipping process in New Orleans and Mexico City as well as the little known letters to Oswald from Cuba, that once the lone nut scenario was decided upon, got swept under the carpet.
The book culminates in it's final chapter, 'In Search of the Assassins' where Escalante lists a number of operatives that I have on my list of Dealey Plaza mechanics, i.e. Charles Harrelson, Jack Lawrence and Roscoe White (Badgeman). Weight is given to disclosures in the book 'Double Cross' that places Richard Cain and Chuckie Nicolletti on the sixth floor of the TSBD, where "it was Cain and not Oswald who fired from the fateful window on the sixth floor." See www.oswald-innocent.com
All the main suspects are fingered in 'JFK:The Cuba Files'. David Atlee Phillips, Richard Helms, Howard Hunt, Frank Fiorini (Sturgis), David Morales, Mayor of Dallas Earl Cabell, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon as well as a host of support staff from the Cuban exile community.
The book does not include any Index, which is it's only negative point.
He directed the investigations that the Cuban government undertook at the request of the U.S. Select Committee of the House of Representatives in 1978, when the case of the JFK assassination was reopened. From 1976 to 1982 he was head of the Cuban State Security Department (G-2).
As a recognised authority on the CIA this author is ideally placed to analyse the machinations of the U.S. intelligence operatives that conducted the anti-Kennedy conspiracy, bringing together the Cuban exile and Mafia personnel into the plot that would lead a trail to Havana.
Escalante picks the bones out of the Oswald sheep dipping process in New Orleans and Mexico City as well as the little known letters to Oswald from Cuba, that once the lone nut scenario was decided upon, got swept under the carpet.
The book culminates in it's final chapter, 'In Search of the Assassins' where Escalante lists a number of operatives that I have on my list of Dealey Plaza mechanics, i.e. Charles Harrelson, Jack Lawrence and Roscoe White (Badgeman). Weight is given to disclosures in the book 'Double Cross' that places Richard Cain and Chuckie Nicolletti on the sixth floor of the TSBD, where "it was Cain and not Oswald who fired from the fateful window on the sixth floor." See www.oswald-innocent.com
All the main suspects are fingered in 'JFK:The Cuba Files'. David Atlee Phillips, Richard Helms, Howard Hunt, Frank Fiorini (Sturgis), David Morales, Mayor of Dallas Earl Cabell, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon as well as a host of support staff from the Cuban exile community.
The book does not include any Index, which is it's only negative point.
August 1, 2025
Escalante worked for the Cuban Department of State Security when JFK was assassinated. When the US Select Committee of the House of Representatives was reopened in 1978, he was asked to direct investigations that the Cuban government conducted related to JFK. I've read other books about the assassination, this one in particular paints the Cuban activities of Oswald in a clearer way. My take from the book, is that Oswald was to look like he was acting on behalf of Fidel Castro and the Cuban government. Kennedy's assassination would then pave the way for a direct US military takeover of Cuba. Escalante implies Oswald was a CIA operative, most likely thinking he was developing pro-Castro ideology so he could be inserted into Cuba. Basically what I've read before, JFK's death planned by Anti-Castro Cubans, the mafia, anti-Kennedy political establishment. US government hardliners were upset Kennedy wanted to develop talks with Castro, versus their idea of hawkish military intervention. A quick read, and perhaps a piece of the puzzle.
January 1, 2018
Who knows who's lying? Escalante, Cuban head of counter-terrorism (Jesus I guess he never got much time off) was inside government while Cuba watched in horror as the Miami Cuban mafia worked with US spy agencies to sabotage Fidel's communist project by any means necessary. Against all odds, it didn't work. The exiles and their partner spies went crazy with rage against Kennedy. So they got a crazy right wing ideologue with a past in the USSR to pose as a Fidelista and carry out the death sentence. It worked, and they got away with it.
The book reads like a spy thriller. Escalante doesn't understand free press (lacking in his Cuban experience) and blames the right-wing tilt of US newspapers on our government rather than on the fact that our journalists and publishers were even more brainwashed in that era. But reading this Cuban take on the assassination is eye-opening.
The book reads like a spy thriller. Escalante doesn't understand free press (lacking in his Cuban experience) and blames the right-wing tilt of US newspapers on our government rather than on the fact that our journalists and publishers were even more brainwashed in that era. But reading this Cuban take on the assassination is eye-opening.
August 13, 2024
Largely an apologist for the Cuban Revolution leaders— Castro et al— throughout the book. Lots of acronyms and characters haphazardly introduced throughout which was very difficult to follow. Not many answers to the questions posed in the title.
May 1, 2025
El autor de este gran libro estuvo en la "sala de máquinas" del espionaje y contraespionaje de los agentes cubanos, antes, durante y después del magnicidio de Dallas.
June 2, 2025
I'm going to have to re-read this after getting some yarn, thumbtacks, and a corkboard.
January 26, 2022
El autor de este libro, el general Fabián Escalante, es un antiguo miembro del servicio secreto de Cuba, por tanto tenemos la historia de la trama del asesinato de JFK desde el punto de vista castrista.
La trama cubana desde luego es parte de la clave del entramado, a pesar de las falsas conclusiones a las que llegó la Comisión Warren que determinó que no había existido trama extranjera de ningún tipo (ni cubana ni rusa). Desde un primer momento se utilizaron pruebas burdas que pretendían involucrar al régimen castrista en el magnicidio, que enseguida se descubrieron falsas y que se desecharon pronto a la vista de lo ridículas que resultaban. No obstante, todavía hoy día se sigue tirando del hilo de la posible culpabilidad cubana en multiples posibles teorías (véase por ejemplo JFK: Caso Abierto. La historia secreta del asesinato de Kennedy).
Pues bien, Escalante hace un estudio de todos los intentos de la CIA de acabar con Castro y su régimen desde el año 1959, e indicar que Cuba no tenía el poder de acabar con el presidente de los Estados Unidos, llevando los hilos de la conspiración hacia sectores cubanos en el exilio ("la mafia cubana de Miami", la llama) y la mafia expulsada por la revolución castrista del dominio de las salas de juego y la prostitución en la isla.
La cuestión es que el autor tampoco tiene ninguna prueba de inculpación (todo el entramado está en el tejado de la CIA y sus papeles "clasificados"), y principalmente el libro es bastante aburrido.
La trama cubana desde luego es parte de la clave del entramado, a pesar de las falsas conclusiones a las que llegó la Comisión Warren que determinó que no había existido trama extranjera de ningún tipo (ni cubana ni rusa). Desde un primer momento se utilizaron pruebas burdas que pretendían involucrar al régimen castrista en el magnicidio, que enseguida se descubrieron falsas y que se desecharon pronto a la vista de lo ridículas que resultaban. No obstante, todavía hoy día se sigue tirando del hilo de la posible culpabilidad cubana en multiples posibles teorías (véase por ejemplo JFK: Caso Abierto. La historia secreta del asesinato de Kennedy).
Pues bien, Escalante hace un estudio de todos los intentos de la CIA de acabar con Castro y su régimen desde el año 1959, e indicar que Cuba no tenía el poder de acabar con el presidente de los Estados Unidos, llevando los hilos de la conspiración hacia sectores cubanos en el exilio ("la mafia cubana de Miami", la llama) y la mafia expulsada por la revolución castrista del dominio de las salas de juego y la prostitución en la isla.
La cuestión es que el autor tampoco tiene ninguna prueba de inculpación (todo el entramado está en el tejado de la CIA y sus papeles "clasificados"), y principalmente el libro es bastante aburrido.
October 23, 2020
"Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all the caterpillar might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away at its hookah without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said:
'So you think you're changed, do you?'
'Yes, sir,' said Alice, 'I can't remember the things I used to know'-
Alice's Adventures Under Ground MS
Lewis Carroll
'So you think you're changed, do you?'
'Yes, sir,' said Alice, 'I can't remember the things I used to know'-
Alice's Adventures Under Ground MS
Lewis Carroll
October 17, 2013
Good to read something from the Cuban perspective
September 21, 2014
America's theories on the assassination seem naive in retrospect; the Cuban perspective lays out what should have been obvious to everyone at the time. Super smart analysis by Escalante.
April 30, 2015
It was okay but same old theories. We will never know
April 13, 2015
Must read. Essential.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews