Antonio
(Tony) Cuesta was born in Cuba in 1928.
Cuesta was a successful businessman in Havana. He was opposed to the
government of Fidel
Castro and
moved to the United States. He helped to establish two anti-Castro
exile groups: Alpha 66 and Commandos
Liberty. He
worked closely with Eddie Bayo, who was
later involved in Operation
Tilt.
Cuesta
carried out raids on Cuba and was involved in the sinking of the Russian
merchantman Baku. His activities
were reported in Life Magazine in
the spring of 1963 by his close friend, Tom
Dunkin.
Cuesta
was captured during a mission at Monte Barreto in the Miramar district
of Cuba on 29th May, 1966. A member of his
team, Herminio Diaz Garcia, was killed
during the raid. Cuesta, who always vowed that Castro would never
take him alive, attempted suicide by setting off a grenade, which
blinded him and blew off his right hand. Cuesta spent a long time
in hospital as a result of his serious injuries.
In 1978
President Jimmy Carter arranged for a
group of imprisoned exiles to be released. This included Cuesta. Just
before leaving Cuba
Cuesta asked
to see General Fabian Escalante, the
head of Cuba's G-2 Spy Agency. Cuesta told Escalante that he had been
involved in the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy.
He also named Herminio Diaz Garcia and
Eladio
del Valle as
being involved in the conspiracy. Cuesta asked Escalante not to make
this information "made public because I am returning to my family
in Miami - and this could be very dangerous."
After
leaving Cuba,
Cuesta
returned
to Miami. It is believed that with the help of his friend, the journalist
Tom
Dunkin, Cuesta
was working on his memoirs. Both Cuesta and Dunkin died in 1994.
In 1995
Wayne Smith, chief of the Centre for International Policy in Washington,
arranged a meeting on the assassination of John
F. Kennedy,
in Nassau, Bahamas. Others in attendance were: Gaeton
Fonzi,
Dick
Russell, Noel
Twyman,
Anthony
Summers,
Peter
Dale Scott,
Jeremy Gunn, John Judge, Andy Kolis, Peter Kornbluh, Mary and Ray
LaFontaine, Jim Lesar, John Newman, Alan Rogers, Russ Swickard, Ed
Sherry, and Gordon Winslow.
Some high-level
Cuban officials attended the conference. This included Fabian
Escalante, Carlos
Lechuga, former Cuban diplomat, and Arturo Rodriguez, a State Security
official. Escalante revealed
details of Cuesta's confession. He also informed the group they had
a spy in the anti-Castro community in Miami and knew about the plot
to kill Kennedy.
Operation
Tilt: Photographs
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Mary Louise Wilkinson, Miami News (16th March, 1966)
A Cuban exile organization here is talking of commando coordination
to carry the freedom struggle to Fidel Castro's doorstep without violating
U.S. neutrality laws.
The Cuban Representation
in Exile (RECE), created through an exile referendum sponsored by
rum manufacturer Jose Bosch, has spread the word it will listen to
all liberation plans.
"We're aiming at coordinating
men, money and equipment," said Ernesto Freyre, of RECE. "Political
unity may by impossible but coordination of actions is perfectly feasible."
Freyre, former member of
the Families Committee which aided in the 1962 ransoming of Bay of
Pigs invasion prisoners, said future military operations would be
carried out without involving U.S.-registered boats of U.S. departure
points.
Early this month, the non-affiliated
Second Front of the Escambray lost some $40,000 worth of arms and
two U.S.-registered boats when they were stopped by the Coast Guard
and Customs agents 42 miles off the Florida coast.
Last November, RECE teamed
up with Commandos L and the 30th of November groups to machinegun
a Havana waterfront police station and hotel. The raiders, who came
from "somewhere in the Caribbean," were not stopped by U.S.
authorities.
"Separate paths have
led us nowhere," noted Tony Cuesta, of Commandos L which reportedly
lost $57,000 worth of equipment to U.S. confiscation several years
ago.
"What we need today
is a common strategy and a system of operations that doesn't involve
the United States," said Cuesta, whose newly reorganized group
now works closely with RECE.
Today, the commando group
has on its directive board Jose I. Rivero, former owner of the Diario
de la Marina newspaper, and Dr. Jose Alvarez Diaz, exile economist
whose studies have been published by the University of Miami.
Commandos L is seeking
to raise money by issuing "liberation bonds" picturing frogmen
loading arms cases onto rubber rafts. RECE itself maintains a large
mailing list of contributors here and abroad who send in monthly donations
of a dollar or more.
The commando group, with
offices in New York, Washington, Puerto Rico and here, claims to have
consulted American and Cuban exile lawyers to make sure future operations
in no way violate the U.S. ban on Cuban raids.
"We seek to nationalize
the Cuban problem by removing it from the international orbit,"
said Cuesta. "No attacks on Russian shipping, no leaving from
U.S. bases in American-register craft - just Cubans helping Cubans."
Freyre added: "If
a group has a plan and needs money, RECE wants to talk it over with
them. So far, four action groups are coordinating activities through
us. And we expect more."
Both RECE and Commandos
L spokesman said plans would concentrate on providing money and arms
for fighters on the island, rather than "hit-and-run raids from
Florida ports."
(2)
Mary Louise Wilkinson, Miami News (31st May, 1966)
Two Miami exiles who were killed after landing near a heavily populated
Havana suburb were on a mission to assassinate Fidel Castro, the Cuban
government claimed today.
The incident occurred late
Sunday near the Comodoro Yacht Club in suburban Miramar, when Commandos
L, a Miami-based action group, put Sandalio Herminio Diaz and Armando
Romero ashore from a 23-foot boat, the Cuban communiqué said.
Tony Cuesta, 39 - year
- old group leader, and Eugenio Zaldivar Xiques were captured after
being seriously wounded in a gunfight 10 miles off the coast. Two
other crewmen, listed only as "Guillermo" and "Roberto"
(alias Cara Vieja), were missing - and presumed drowned.
In Miami, where Cuesta
has lived since 1960, his wife said she had no further information
about the fate of her husband.
"I hope and pray he
is all right," said Mrs. Cuesta. "But regardless of what
happens, we must continue the fight against Castro. I knew before
he set out that the operation was risky."
According to the Cuban
Interior Ministry communiqué Commandos L launched the infiltration
attempt from Marathon. The Castro officials made their usual claim
that the group was sponsored by the American government.
"The objective, according
to the prisoners' confession, was to assassinate the prime minister
in order to create conditions favorable for an imperialist aggression,"
the communiqué claimed.
Government-controlled newspapers
in Havana carried pictures of material allegedly seized from the boat,
including hand grenades, plastic explosives, submachine guns and anti-Castro
leaflets.
The infiltration try came
immediately after Castro announced an island-wide combat alert against
"imperialist aggressors" following a series of incidents
at the U. S. Naval Base at Guantanamo in which an armed Cuban soldier
was shot and killed.
Last year, Commandos L
teamed up with the Cuban Referendum in Exile (RECE), sponsored by
rum millionaire Jose M. Bosch, to carry out a series of attacks against
Cuba.
However, Ernesto Freyre,
of RECE, denied knowledge of the Sunday raid, stating, "I am
sorry but there is nothing I can say."
In November, the two groups
joined with the 30th of November Movement here to strafe a police
station on the Havana waterfront. Three years ago, Cuesta led a Commandos
L raid against the Russian freighter Baku in a Cuban port which prompted
a Soviet protest note to Washington.
Sunday's infiltration attempt
came on the heels of a claim by the Second Front of the Escambray-Alpha
66 that they raided a naval past at Tarara Beach, same 20 miles east
of Havana, on May 19 and slipped back to a "secret Caribbean
base" without losing men or equipment.
Despite the latest failure,
exile activists here appeared to intensify plans for future anti-Castro
action.
Manuel Antonio de Varona,
former Cuban prime minister and head of the Rescate movement, flew
here from his exile home in New York to coordinate plans for an action
group merger that reportedly included the Second Front.
Varona, who served briefly
as head of the now-defunct Cuban Revolutionary Council, said, "We
must not give Castro a breather. There should be well-coordinated
actions from outside to encourage the people inside to work toward
overthrow of the dictator."
(3)
Tony Cuesta, account
of his release from Cuba in 1978.
October 21, 1978. The chartered Eastern Airlines jet was scheduled
to leave Havana at 2 pm for the flight to Miami, but, to my surprise,
we did not head straight for the airport.
General Enio Leyva drove
Eugenio Zaldivar and me through the Havana traffic. He was a surprisingly
high-level escort for two men who had been languishing in prison for
a dozen years.
I nudged Eugenio. "Tell
me what you see," I whispered. "Tell me what streets we
are driving through."
As Eugenio described the
points of the passing landscape, I realized we were heading in the
direction of the government offices. Why were they not taking us directly
to the airport? I thought I knew the answer. There was someone who
wanted to meet with me before I left Cuba. The same man who 12 years
ago refused permission for the operation that probably would have
saved my sight now wanted to see me–even though I couldn't see
him.
"Let's stop a minute
here. Let's walk a second," General Leyva said softly.
I was assisted out of the
car. Holding my right hand against Eugenio's shoulder, using him as
my eyes, I followed the general into an office building. When I felt
the rara cool breeze of central air conditioning, I knew with certainty
where we were. I knew who wanted to meet with me before I flew away
to exile.
I nudged Eugenio, as if
to say, "Just you wait." We were led to a comfortable room
and seated on a deep-pile sofa. Someone thrust a huge cigar into my
hand and lit it for me; someone else brought me a glass of scotch
on the rocks. The treatment as well as the liquor was dizzying. I
steeled myself.
Suddenly I heard General
Leyva stand up quickly as someone entered the room. Instinctively,
following the good manners taught to me by my parents, I stood also.
General Leyva muttered the words, "El Comandante en jefe."
Then I heard the voice of my enemy - not pouring forth the shrill,
angry demagoguery for which he is infamous. He had engaged the charming,
charismatic side of his personality. He spoke in a low, soft, sweet,
gentle tone. If he had not chosen politics, he could have been a hit
on Broadway, capitalizing upon his melodious voice.
Now I was forced by circumstances
to shake the hand of the one man in the whole world whom I most wanted
to kill.
Nothing could blind my
memories. In the eternal darkness of my mind I could conjure an image
of the man. I could see the bushy beard that so complimented his appearance,
hiding a weak, receding chin. He was 6'3 ½" tall, a giant
as far as most Cubans go. I stiffened my spine, taking advantage of
the phenomenon that had always galled him. I was a half inch taller.
I knew that he was studying
me, too, measuring the effects of prison upon my will, more so than
my appearance. I kept my eyes closed, lest he see darkness behind
the shaded lenses of my glasses. But I did not hide my left arm and
the stump above the wrist. He knew I had lost the hand in a last attempt
to kill him. And he knew that I would have sacrificed my entire being
in exchange for the success of the mission. The only reason he had
not executed me 12 years ago was his fear of my power as a martyr.
(4)
Fabian
Escalante,
Cuban
Officials and JFK Historians Conference
(7th December,
1995)
Eladio Del Valle worked
for two police services - military intelligence and the traditional
police. He was in charge of narcotics. He was also a legislature in
the government - a representative. He was from a little town from
the south of Havana. He was a captain in the merchant marines. In
1958 he was doing business dealings with Santos Trafficante in a little
coastal town south of Havana. There he brought in contraband whose
destination was Santos Trafficante. When the revolution triumphed,
he went to Miami. Eladio Del Valle went to Miami. He settled in Miami,
we don't know the address and he allied himself with Rolando Masferrer
and other Batista supporters and they formed an organization called
the Anti Communist Cuban Liberation Movement. From that moment on,
Eladio was involved in many project against Cuba. But as I told you
yesterday, we managed to penetrate this organization. And we came
to know of a lot of projects, efforts, for an invasion of Cuba in
secret. In order to provide arms to internal rebel groups, they needed
David Ferrie as the pilot on these flights. In 1962 Eladio Del Valle
tried to infiltrate Cuba with a commando group of 22 men but their
boat had an English key - a little island. In the middle of 1962.
Of course, we knew this. I tell you about this, because one of our
agents who was one of the people helping to bring this group to Cuba,
was a man of very little education. They talked English on many occasions
on this little island with Eladio Del Valle told this person, on many
occasions, that Kennedy must be killed to solve the Cuban problem.
After that we had another piece of information on Eladio Del Valle.
This was offered to us by Tony Cuesta. He told us that Eladio Del
Valle was one of the people involved in the assassination plot against
Kennedy. As you know, he was taken prisoner and he was very thankful
to be taken back - he was blind.
He
asked that this information not be public. I am only saying it here,
because he is already dead. It is finished. We didn't have any other
kind of information to give. There are some things you must respect.
He gave us this information and in 1978 we didn't know if it was true
or not. In 1978, we were not aware of the participation of Eladio
Del Valle. We didn't know who he was. Remember that I explained to
you yesterday that when the Select Committee when they came to Havana
- they didn't give us any specific information. They just came to
question us. We didn't know the relationships.
(5)
Dick
Russell,
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1992)
The most intriguing
news to come out of the Nassau conference, however, was Escalante's
revelation about what another leader of the Alpha 66 group allegedly
told him. As we have seen, Nagell would never reveal the true identities
of "Angel" and "Leopoldo" - the two Cuban exiles
who he said had deceived Oswald into believing they were Castro operatives.
Instead, on several occasions when I prodded him, Nagell had cleverly
steered the conversation toward a man named Tony Cuesta - indicating
that this individual possessed the knowledge that he himself chose
not to express. Cuesta, as noted earlier, had been taken prisoner
in Cuba during a raid in 1966.
"Cuesta was blinded
(in an explosion) and spent most of his time in the hospital,"
Escalante recalled. In 1978, he was among a group of imprisoned exiles
released through an initiative of the Carter Administration. "A
few days before he was to leave," according to Escalante, "I
had several conversations
with Cuesta. He volunteered, 'I want to tell you something very important,
but I do not want this made public because I am returning to my family
in Miami - and this could be very dangerous.' I think this was a little
bit of thanks on his part for the medical care he received."
Escalante said he was
only revealing Cuesta's story because the man had died in Miami in
1994. In a declaration he is said to have written for the Cubans,
Cuesta named two other exiles as having been involved in plotting
the Kennedy assassination. Their names were Eladio del Valle and Herminio
Diaz Garcia.
|
Forty
years after John Kennedy's murder in Dallas, the event remains
a part of the American conscious. Polls show the majority
of the public still believes there was some sort of conspiracy
involved in his assassination and the average person thinks
it just might be exposed once the government releases all
the confidential documents some day. Those that deny the
conspiracy question scoff at all this, stating that no conspiracy
could have been good enough that somebody would not have
talked after all this time. After all we all know even successful
criminals feel compelled to tell someone, sometime. Someone
Would Have Talked tackles that objection head on, examining
a number of examples of individuals who talked when they
shouldn't have. Some talked before the assassination and
some afterwards. These are not the people who sold their
stories or whose names you would see in the tabloids. These
are real people, many of them involved in the secret war
against Castro and the U.S. Government project intended
to assassinate him. You find their remarks in reports made
to Police, the FBI and Secret Service. Reports which were
never addressed in any coordinated or proactive criminal
investigation. The records have been released, people have
talked, witnesses have finally revealed the elements of
both the conspiracy and the cover-up, the real history is
here in Someone Would Have Talked and the 1,400 pages of
reference exhibits that come on this CD with it. (Larry
Hancock, JFK Lancer Publications)
|
Someone
Would Have Talked
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