In Castro's Secrets, Brian Latell, former CIA agent, describes the clandestine war between the United States and Cuba waged by the CIA and its anti-Castro Cuban auxiliaries and associates in organized crime against the intelligence service of the Castro regime. The spies and saboteurs on Castro's side were much better at their jobs, while those enlisted in the service of the CIA were often inept.

Only with the defection of high-ranking Cuban intelligence chiefs, such as Antonio "Tiny" Aspillaga in the late 1980s did the CIA gain an accurate window into the world of Cuban spycraft. Only then did the North Americans learn how badly they had been deceived and manipulated by Cuban double agents and false leads over the years. Aspillaga also provided missing pieces in the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, such as the so-called "Armageddon letter", a message from Fidel Castro to Premier Khruschev demanding that he unleash the Soviet nuclear arsenal against the United States if the Yankees invaded his island.

In Latell's account, the Castro regime was well aware of the campaign of small raids to sabotage crops, transportation links, factories and other facilities and to infiltrate agents and guerillas into Cuba. Some of these activities crossed the line into terrorism, and most of them constituted acts of war, so they were, of course, disavowed by the U.S. government. Castro was also well-informed of CIA plots on his life. These plots sound like they were inspired by Ian Fleming's James Bond but hatched under the influence of Timothy Leary's LSD.

Latell writes that the Cuban regime knew about Lee Harvey Oswald but apparently didn't regard him as having much potential in their service. He made a trip to Mexico City in the autumn of 1963 and demanded to be admitted to the Cuban consulate. He spoke of his devotion to Fidel and brandished documents showing his membership in Fair Play for Cuba committees in Dallas and New Orleans and news clippings from those cities, but the consulate guards still wouldn't let him in. Frustrated and hurt, he stormed off but shouted something to the effect of "I'm going to shoot Kennedy when he comes to Dallas!"

According to Latell, Aspillaga says the consulate took note of Oswald's outburst. He was still a young spy in training in 1963. One of his duties was to monitor Voice of America and CIA broadcasts from Florida, but he claims that on the morning of November 22, 1963 he was instructed to drop all that and focus exclusively on commercial broadcasting from Texas.

Latell states that there is no evidence that Castro had a hand in the assassination of President Kennedy, but he suggests that the Cuban leader knew of Oswald's threat to the President's life and failed to warn him. But how credible was Oswald and was it Castro's responsibility to warn Kennedy? Given that the FBI had a file on Oswald and didn't see fit to share it with the Secret Service, we can hardly blame Fidel Castro, a target of our assassination plots, for not warning JFK.

Latell's book is entitled Castro's Secrets, but it might more aptly be named The CIA's Secrets. He speculates that President Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy must have known and approved of the clandestine operations against Cuba, but that is by no means certain. It's entirely possible the Agency conducted the most sensitive operations without Presidential authorization for the sake of plausible deniability. After the Bay of Pigs, President Kennedy would never again place complete trust in his intelligence chiefs. And after the Cuban Missile Crisis it seems highly unlikely that he would promote any action that would risk going to war over Cuba and violating the deal he had made with Khruschev to avert World War III.

We must extend Latell the benefit of the doubt, but the CIA is in the business of deception, as is the Cuban intelligence service. While the clandestine war may be less bloody as the Castro brothers approach the end of their lives, by natural means, there is still a state of conflict between the United States and Cuba that makes objective accounting difficult. Twenty or thirty years hence, it may be possible to collect enough factual evidence to create an accurate account. ( )

I've never done any looking into the Kennedy assassination previously, I'd simply heard the same bits and pieces everyone hears growing up. So this book was incredibly enlightening to a whole world of stuff I didn't know about. It also went nicely in hand with a previous Early Reviews book I read about the American propaganda war against Cuba. The two of them together give a very informed picture of what went on in those days.

It's stunning how much information has come to light in recent years, and that it's still being ignored by most people. Brian Latell did a great job at painting a clear picture, providing witness accounts and bits pulled from the declassified files. ( )

This book tells how badly the CIA underestimated the abilities and talents of Cuba and their spy networks. The CIA wrongly assumed that the Cubans were not capable of a highly complex and multi-faceted operation to spy and run agents. The information is based on a few people that were highly placed in the Cuban version of the CIA who defected and some de-classified CIA documents. It was written by an ex CIA analyst who started tracking the Castro brothers since 1960.

The books discusses the CIA knowledge of how Castro came into power, the means Castro used to try to over throw certain South American countries to make them communist countries, how Castro used fear and intimidation to rule. It also tells how much Castro and the Kennedy brothers hated each other and the means they used to try to get rid of Castro.

This book gives a good explanation of how and why Cuba always knew what was being planned and how the CIA was fooled into thinking that Cuba didn't have the networks for spying.

A really good read! ( )

When starting this book I wasn’t sure if the world needed another volume on the Kennedy assassination. However, Brian Latell (a former CIA analyst) provides some interesting background on the capabilities of the Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence that should come as a reminder that you can never under estimate your enemy. It appears for decades the US was infiltrated with a number of Cuban moles and double agents engaged in games of deception we (the US) believed they were incapable of committing. Too bad for us. As far as Castro’s secrets are concerned, I don’t leave convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was some type of Cuban agent and that Castro knew or should have known that Oswald was going to murder the President. There is lots of conjecture, some breath-taking (but single-sourced) witnesses that the author believes points a knowing finger toward Castro and the DGI, but it remains just another assassination theory. The book also provides some more detail on the type of information that was withheld from the Warren Commission that might have caused them to make some different conclusions (and then again, maybe not). Still, an interesting tale about Cuban intelligence that has largely escaped our understanding of the Cold War intelligence battles. They were a formidable opponent from the 60s to the 90s (and maybe even today). We underestimated them at our own peril. ( )

I am usually quick to dismiss conspiracy theories about President John F. Kennedy's assassination. JFK was murdered by a lone gunman on November 22, 1963. I am convinced of that. But an intriguing book about the ties between Lee Harvey Oswald and Cuba convincingly surmises that Fidel Castro had to know of Oswald's intentions to kill Kennedy.

Kennedy's killer adored the Cuban leader. Now a book details the ties between Oswald, who harbored deep contempt for the United States, and the Cuban dictator. Brian Latell tracked Cuba for the Central Intelligence Agency beginning in the 1960s. His knowledge of Castro is extensive. In Castro's Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Latell details Oswald's obsession with Castro.

Latell tells of Oswald's visit to the Cuban consulate in Mexico City, and is convincing in the belief that Oswald talked with the Cubans about his plans to kill JFK. The book documents how Cuban monitoring of radio transmissions emanating from the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters at Langley, Virginia stopped for a few hours on the fateful morning of the assassination. The monitor was directed to point receivers towards Texas instead.

There's much intrigue in this book about espionage activities both by the CIA and its Cuban counterpart. The General Directorate of Intelligence, commonly known as the DGI, was involved in monitoring United States government activities long before CIA awareness of it. When John Kennedy became president, he and his attorney general brother Robert wanted to topple the Castro government. It was an obsession.

The Bay of Pigs fiasco happened in April 1961. In that well-publicized failure of the CIA, a paramilitary group invaded Cuba with full intentions of overthrowing the government. The failure preceded the Cuban Missile Crisis of the following year. There was great fear that missiles which had been given to Cuba by the Soviet Union would be launched towards cities in the United States. Castro's reaction at the time will shock you.

Whether the whole truth about what Castro knew when JFK was shot dead in Dallas may never be known. Speculation about it is certainly fair game though, and it seems safe conjecture that the Warren Commission investigation into the killing missed the mark when it came to Fidel Castro.

This is a timely book to read as we approach the 50th anniversary of John Kennedy's tragic death. There will be much media coverage of the half-century mark since the killing, and it is doubtful that many of the stories you hear will touch on the subject that Latell covers very eloquently. I highly recommend it. ( )