Donaldson on ABC's This Week on JFK Assassination: I'd Like to Ask Castro 'Did You Do It?'

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By Seton Motley (Bio | Archive)
April 19, 2009 - 11:11 ET
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ABC's Sam Donaldson let a little of his inner-conspiracy theorist out this morning on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. 

In a discussion of President Barack Obama's lessening the sanctions on Fidel Castro's Cuba, Donaldson began his analysis with one of a number a Kennedy-Truther notions that have been knocking around ever since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

Ever since Lee Harvey Oswald first squeezed the trigger, there have been numerous others for whom he was the alleged fall guy.  The Grassy Knoll, the Zapruder films, etc. 

Then-Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson has been mentioned, as has the Mafia, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, Howard Hunt and the Eastern Bloc of Soviet States, or some cabal of some or all of the above.

Another wild card in this crazy deck was Cuba's El Presidente, Castro.  The theory being that Castro was upset with JFK's woefully planned and executed Bay of Pigs attempt at ending his nascent dictatorship, and therefore exacted his revenge by executing the 35th President.

Donaldson's buy-in for this house-of-cards game is apparently the Castro connection.

To wit:

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"You (George Will) mentioned the assassination.  At his (Castro's) dying breath I'd like to be at his bedside and say 'Did you do it?'  Meaning November 22, 1963."

In reaction to the groaning of his fellow panelists, Donaldson said:

"Look, I again....  Wait a moment, I think it's still open."

Donaldson's a good guy, and a friend of the Media Research Center and it's President and Founder Brent Bozell.  Which is just another small part of why this is a might disturbing.

Sam, Reality on Line One.  You should take the call. 

Audio available here.

—Seton Motley is Director of Communications for the Media Research Center and Contributing Editor for NewsBusters.org.


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I'd like to ask Sam....

April 19, 2009 - 11:21 ET by supercon

Are you an idiot?

 

Because with a name like Obama... you know it has to be good.

Donaldson's next gig

April 19, 2009 - 11:22 ET by 10ksnooker

Moonbats in space.

 

The tea partes must have shook the liberals brains loose and it fell out their ears without them noticing.

Kennedy-Castro conspiracy

April 19, 2009 - 12:45 ET by art341

In most cases denying the existence of a conspiracy is the rational and correct thing to do.  Once in a great while, a very great while, an event is the result of a conspiracy.  Lincoln's assasination was definitely a conspiracy.

 The case of Oswald and Kennedy is a possibility.

Oswald lived three years in Russia at a time when westerners didn't just pop in for a little visit, let alone set up housekeeping.

The USSR-Cuba connection is well established.

After his return to the US Oswald worked for the "Fair play for Cuba" committee. There are movies of him handing out pro Cuba leaflets on street corners in New Orleans.  Two weeks before the Kennedy killing Oswald traveled to Mexico City and visited the Cuban Embassy.

This set of facts is far more suspicious than anything anybody has dreamt up favoring LBJ, the mob, or the CIA acting alone or in conspiracy.

 When we get to motive we find that Castro pulls out to a clear lead.  His hatred for Kennedy and US is well known.  The Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis really rubbed him.  Kennedy had tried to have Castro assisinated (remember the "Caper of the exploding cigar"? or the even more amusing attempt to have the hair in his beard fall out?)  Recently opened Russian documents contain messages from Castro to Kurschev demanding he Nuke the US.

Nothing's proven of course, but it's worth some head scratching.  I agree with Donaldson, I'd like to ask that question of Castro as he lies on his deathbed.

art... Me too. Doubling

April 19, 2009 - 14:38 ET by bigtimer

art...

Me too.

Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart

Oswald was a loner; Castro has already denied involvement

April 20, 2009 - 13:49 ET by lotr

And this is testified to by everyone who knew him on a personal level.  There is no documentation nor evidence that this man had any accomplices whatsoever.  What we do know about him (external to the JFK assassination, and based upon hard evidence, documentation and testimony) is that at the time of his death he was a left-wing extremist, a loner, a marine-trained sharpshooter, a wife-beater, a gun-owner, a potential right-wing political assassin, a "hunter-of-fascists," a chance employee of the Texas School Book Depository, and a cop-killer.  The "set of suspicious facts" you refer to are all easily explained by the above set of facts.

As they say, truth is stranger than fiction.  And the truth is that in 1963 a lone radical leftist really did assassinate the president.

Donaldson needs to view the strong evidence

April 19, 2009 - 13:24 ET by theBike45

  Sam needs to watch the documentary about the shooting that lays to rest any claims that Oswald had any assistance in physically carrying out the assasination. The remaining issue, as to whether Oswald was Castro's pawn, is so absurd and contradicted by all of the very strong  evidence of Oswald's slight connections to Cuba (he used them to obtain entry into Soviet Union). Oswald was the typical loner assassin. We all know that at this point. His comings and goings in the months prior are completely documented and it's clear that the assasination was a spur of the moment endeavor, occasioned by the President having the bad fortune of coming to Dallas and driving down the street on which Oswald worked.

 

very strong  evidence of

April 19, 2009 - 14:45 ET by SMGalbraith

very strong  evidence of Oswald's slight connections to Cuba (he used them to obtain entry into Soviet Union).

Well, not really. Oswald traveled to Mexico in late 1963 and visited the Cuban Embassy at least twice trying to get a visa application into the country. He told the Cubans that he planned to go to the USSR and then go to Cuba.

When he was turned away the first time, he went to the Soviet Embassy to get additional approval from the Soviets.

Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 after arriving in Finland and obtaining a visa from the Soviet Embassy there.

There's no evidence that the Cubans were aware that Oswald was going to shoot JFK.

However, Castro's threats against JFK made in June of 1963 are interesting. How did those threats manifest themselves? 

 

 

 

 

That relic leftist tyrant

April 19, 2009 - 14:24 ET by Republic1

That relic leftist tyrant would'nt know the truth if it fell out of his disgusting, scraggly beard.   Just ask the bootlickers from the Congressional Black Caucus--Castro's a true progressive wronged by conservative America. 

"I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula." -Muhammad

The evidence, for me, is

April 19, 2009 - 14:35 ET by SMGalbraith

The evidence, for me, is overwhelming that Oswald - and Oswald alone - killed JFK and that his emotional instability made it nearly impossible for him to work with others.

He was just too unstable.

However, it is interesting that in June of 1963 that Castro deliberately told a US reporter at a party at the Brazilian Embassy in Havana that if the Kennedy Administration continued to support attempts against him that he would respond in kind.

The Kennedys continued.

How did Castro respond? And what were those responses? 

 

 

correct -- it was indeed the left-wing extremist Oswald

April 20, 2009 - 13:14 ET by lotr

Beyond any reasonable doubt, I might add.

How did Castro respond?  Below was his reaction to the assassination itself.

STOKES: Mr. President [Castro], I think perhaps in that respect that it might be good for you to tell us what your reaction and that of the Cuban people was to the assassination of President Kennedy.


CASTRO: I have no objection in telling you my reaction. It was a natural and logical reaction. Actually, I felt sad about it. I received that news with bitterness. Reasons? First, I think an event of that nature always produces that reaction even when it is a political adversary. It's kind of a repulsion, a rejection. In the second place, I think I have said before that Kennedy was an adversary that we had sort of become used to. I mean that political, a strong political struggle existed. But, he was a known adversary. He was somebody we knew. [emphasis mine]

That Old Fossil

April 19, 2009 - 15:51 ET by pjbulldog

I'd just be happy to know that the old fossil is finally on his death bed.  (Castro, not Sam)

Castro has already answered this question at length

April 20, 2009 - 13:53 ET by lotr

Sam Donaldson, a "journalist," should really do a little more journalistic research before opening his mouth.  Castro was already interviewed (in 1978 by Louis Stokes, Chair of the House Select Committee) regarding the JFK assassination and LHO.  Below is an excerpt from Castro.

CASTRO:

Who here could have operated and planned something so delicate as the death of the United States President. That was insane. From the ideological point of view it was insane. And from the political point of view, it was a tremendous insanity. I am going to tell you here that nobody, nobody ever had the idea of such things. What would it do? We just tried to defend our folks here, within our territory. Anyone who subscribed to that idea would have been judged insane..absolutely sick. Never, in twenty years of revolution, I never heard anyone suggest nor even speculate about a measure of that sort, because who could think of the idea of organizing the death of the President of the United States. That would have been the most perfect pretext for the United States to invade our country which is what I have tried to prevent for all these years, in every possible sense. Since the United States is much more powerful than we are, what could we gain from a war with the United states? The United States would lose nothing. The destruction would have been here. ... Our position was known after the missile crisis. We were not in a position to make any concessions. That is a known position, but Cuba, the leaders of the Cuban Revolution, have never made that kind of insanity, and that I may asssure you. And the biggest kind of insanity that could have gone through anyone's mind here would have been that of thinking of killing the President of the United States. Nobody would have thought of that. In spite of all the things, in spite of all the attempts, in spite of all the irritation that brought about an attitude of firmness, a willingness to fight, that was translated by our people into a spirit of heroism, but it never became a source of insanity. I'll give you practical reasons. Apart from our ideology, I want to tell you that the death of the leader does not change the system. It has never done that. [emphasis mine]