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Fabian Escalante and Conclusions of Cuban Intelligence Study

In 1960, Fabian Escalante was Chief of Counterintelligence with Cuba’s Department of State Security—Cuba’s counterpart of the CIA, known as G-2. He actively oversaw counterintelligence tactics regarding efforts to “double” Cuban intelligence agents and otherwise falsified intelligence matters regarding Castro and Cuba.

In 1976, Escalante became head of the whole Department of State Security—the equivalent of CIA Director. In that capacity, which coincided with the investigations being conducted by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Escalante cooperated with U.S. investigators who were sent to meet with him.

In 1995, Escalante authored the book, The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Castro, 1959–62. He then published JFK: The Cuba Files in 2006, detailing reports from Cuban counterintelligence agents who had successfully infiltrated anti-Castro groups in Miami.

He had also become head of the Cuban Security Studies Center in 1993. In that capacity, Escalante led a major study based on information that was available to him from his unique positions of power. So the conclusions of such a serious intelligence study are not something to be taken lightly.

Here’s what happened according to our judgment. The hawks never supported, they didn’t understand this strategy, didn’t agree. Anything that didn’t agree with a new invasion of Cuba, they didn’t agree with. We think the hawks felt themselves betrayed. According to our judgment there were two strategies to be followed by the US: (1) from the administration; (2) and one from the CIA, the Cuban exiles, and the Mafia—and even they had their own independent objectives. Around that on the part of this latter group, there developed this need to assassinate Kennedy. It seemed to them that Kennedy was not in agreement to the new invasion.⁵³⁷

Author Dick Russell attended a special conference in Nassau between U.S. researchers and Fabian Escalante and detailed some of his revelations:

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, [agent Richard Case] 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.⁵³⁸

⁵³⁷ Fabian Escalante, Cuban Officials and JFK Historians Conference, December 7, 1995: spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKescalante.htm

⁵³⁸ The Man Who Knew Too Much; dickrussell.org/articles/richard.htm