USA Had No Prior Knowledge Of The Attack On The Cubana Aviation Airplane

USA Had No Prior Knowledge Of The Attack On The Cubana Aviation Airplane
/ 14ymedio
Posted on June 7, 2015

14ymedio, 5 June 2015 — For the second time in 10 years, the US State
Department has declassified the same "secret" document. Now, with fewer
redactions and many fewer censored lines, the 1976 memorandum addressed
to the secretary of state of that time, Henry Kissinger, says exactly
the same thing: "The United States had no previous knowledge of the
attack," and Luis Posada Carriles figured among the suspects at that time.

The 12-page document has been public since 2005 but has resurfaced as a
result of a perhaps political initiative motivated by the Office of the
Historian of the State Department. It is a compilation of the data
available two weeks after the destruction in mid-flight of a Cubana
Aviation plane flying from Barbados to Havana on 6 October 1976.
Seventy-three passengers died.

Signed by Harold H. Saunders, director of the State Department's Bureau
of Intelligence and Investigations, and the deputy secretary of state
for Interamerican Affairs, Harry W. Schaludeman, the memorandum
reflected Washington's concern and its desire to distance itself from an
act it didn't approve of. The two senior officials developed "a strategy
to counteract the false accusations that involve the U.S." in the
attack, that Fidel Castro had launched soon after the tragedy.

"The CIA had had relationships in the past with three of the people
allegedly implicated, but the participation of these people, if
confirmed, would have been without the knowledge of the CIA," the
authors said. Above all, it they were concerned with the relationship
with the Cuban Luis Posada Carriles, who had worked with Venezuelan and
U.S. counterintelligence services. "It is hard for Fidel Castro to
imagine that these people acted independently of the United States," the
officials emphasized.

It is noteworthy that the U.S. intelligence services offered no concrete
information about the identity of those responsible for the attack.
Instead, they note they are very concerned about "the danger for the
United States represented by Cuban activists in exile."

Source: USA Had No Prior Knowledge Of The Attack On The Cubana Aviation
Airplane / 14ymedio | Translating Cuba -
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