Phil Ochs Quotes
The only way to Cuba is with the CIA.
Ochs, Phil. Liner notes. Tape from California, A&M Records, 1968.
A major fan base for the Miami teams were Cuban Americans who react badly to any statement that could be favorable to Fidel Castro. This quotation is an example of a grey and evolving area in American law—the political freedom of speech rights of employees of employees of private corporations. See {627664} for his later statement.
talks toward normalizing relations with Cuba One of the many alternative theories about the assassination of President Kennedy, was that it was done by fanatic Cubans who resented Kennedy for not sending more military assets to support the Bay of Pigs operation, for not supporting the Cuban militants to make another invasion attempt. If they had found out that Kennedy was secretly negotiating with Castro, they would have seen this as a betrayal. Attwood had secretly met with the Cuban Government Representatives and was to have briefed President Kennedy, but the president was assassinated first. His death ended the mission to normalize Cuban relations, so if that was the motivation for an assassination, the Cuban exiles might have been successful in derailing relations with Cuba. However, there has been no direct evidence found for this speculative theory.
This was the first American initiative for the assassination of Fidel Castro.
This advice made Kennedy more amenable to the Central Intelligence Agency plan and recommendation later for the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba. Eisenhower was not endorsing the Cia plan for the Bay of Pigs—just opining on the desirability of overthrowing the Castro government.
In April of 1962, President Kennedy convened a meeting of top advisors at the State Department to discuss the proposed CIA plan for the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The senator was the lone dissenter from the plan:
Johnson tasked Clark with finding out what the FBI knew of this story. The story was true. Worse, the CIA had hired members of the Mafia to do the assassination. (The Mafia resented Castro as he ended the Gambling Mecca that Cuba had been when his revolution succeeded. Before the Castro revolution, he Mafia got a “piece” of the profits from each Cuban casino for “protection.”) It might have been that the Kennedy Assassination was retaliation by Castro. However, the CIA withheld this from the Warren Commission and Robert Kennedy never revealed it even though he was a member of the Commission and the Commission had security clearance. See {637465}.
See {637464} for the trigger for the FBI to write this report. It was the report that verified that the CIA had hired the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro which President Johnson had heard but the CIA never revealed it to Johnson or the Warren Commission investigations JFK’s assassination. The full document was kept secret and was not yet declassified in 2014 when this quotation was entered in the collection.
The Cold War was ended and we were at peace with Russia and many people think the continuing hostility is counter-productive.
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer) and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and 1970s and released eight albums.
