Convinced by the Communists? Some theorize Soviets or Castro inspired Oswald to kill JFK

Convinced by the Communists? Some theorize Soviets or Castro inspired
Oswald to kill JFK
By Elisha Fieldstadt, NBC News

In 1961, the U.S. attacked newly socialist Cuba in the unsuccessful Bay
of Pigs Invasion.
In 1962, Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev allied his country with
Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro and constructed missiles on Cuban soil
pointing at America — threatening to fire until the U.S. promised never
to invade again.
In 1963, the president of the United States was assassinated.
Coincidence?
"When Castro chose an alliance with the Soviet Union, it was more than
our intelligence service could stand … it's 90 miles off our shores,"
said Bryan Ghent, an expert in the assassination of John F. Kennedy at
Winthrop University.

So after JFK was shot, some couldn't help but make a connection.
"Right wing activists very shortly after the assassination started
blaming communism and Castro," said John McAdams, the author of "JFK
Assassination Logic: How to Think about Claims of Conspiracy."
Both Castro and Krushchev provide a path into what Ghent calls the
"wonderful rabbit hole" of speculating and circular thinking around who
killed Kennedy.
INTERACTIVE: 'Everything changed': Remembering JFK, 50 years past
According to a recent Gallup poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that
Lee Harvey Oswald, the man ID'd by the Warren Commission as the lone
gunman who killed Kennedy, did not act alone or at least conspired with
a person or group of people to kill the president on Nov. 22, 1953.
While a majority believes that the mob or sects of the U.S. government
were involved, 5 percent believe Castro was to blame, and 3 percent
continue to implicate the Soviet Union.
This week, as the nation observes the 50th Anniversary of John F.
Kennedy's death, NBC News will explore some of the most compelling
conspiracy theories that have fueled books, investigations and countless
conversations about Kennedy's death for the last half century.
The Soviet connection
"Russia and Cuba have fascinating links to the assassination, but it
begins with Lee Harvey Oswald," Ghent said.
Immediately following a three-year tour in the Marines, Oswald lived in
the Soviet Union from 1959 to 1962, intending to defect. He met his
Russian wife, Marina Prusakova, whose uncle was an official in the
Russian Interior Ministry, and "was surrounded by a lot of KGB
informants during his time there," Ghent said.

"The KGB denies that," but "of course they would," he added.
Some speculate that Oswald traded military secrets for a position in the
KGB, and then returned to the U.S. upon its orders to kill Kennedy,
Ghent said. Most who say Oswald traded U.S. intelligence for the good
will of the KGB believe that he was recruited to be a spy when he was
stationed near a CIA base in Atsugi, Japan in 1957, Ghent said.
The U.S. government has always denied that Oswald was an agent.
Still, others think that Oswald "was replaced by a Russian agent who
looked like him in order to assassinate our president," said Ghent.
Oswald's body was exhumed in 1981 to prove that he was the same man that
entered the Marines.

"The teeth matched," Ghent said, "but the body was missing a surgical
scar that was on his military records."
Some people believe Oswald is alive and well and living in Ohio, McAdams
said.

The Cuba connection
Still, some experts say Oswald had a more direct relationship to Castro
and was a strong believer in Castro's vision for Cuba.
"Castro was the only person in the world who Oswald held in high esteem
publicly," said Ed Epstein, author of "The JFK Assassination Diary."
Oswald was arrested for handing out pro-Castro leaflets in New Orleans
during his time involved with a group called Fair Play for Cuba. Shortly
after that he spoke out in a radio interview and later, a debate,
unabashedly defending the Cuban leader and his Marxist beliefs.
"Castro was charismatic and Oswald was looking for new adventure,"
explained former CIA agent Brian Latell, author of a new book, "Castro's
Secrets: The CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine."
Latell doesn't think that Castro directly ordered Kennedy's death, but
believes he had knowledge of Oswald's plan and purposefully didn't stop it.
WATCH: NBC News archive video on the Kennedy legacy
"The Cuban intelligence had quite a big file on Oswald," even though
Castro denied having ever heard of him, Latell said.
Just seven weeks before the assassination, Oswald took a trip to Mexico
City to visit the Soviet Embassy there. He also went to the Cuban
Embassy in an attempt to gain access to Cuba "to fight in the mountains
with Fidel," according to Latell. Oswald allegedly left the Cuban
Consulate yelling, "I'm going to kill Kennedy."
"That report is solid gold," Latell said.
What does Latell think? Officials at the consulate took advantage of
Oswald and inspired him to assassinate Kennedy, he said.
Epstein isn't convinced that Cuban intelligence persuaded Oswald, but
through research has found that Kennedy's plot to take out Castro was
moving "completely in tandem" with Oswald's plot to kill Kennedy.
"If they had called off the plots against Castro, Oswald would not have
shot Kennedy," he said.
Others don't believe Oswald was at the Cuban Embassy at all, but think a
lookalike was sent to the embassy to implicate Oswald and Castro, Ghent
said.

"Can you see why this is so endlessly fascinating?" he asked. "Every
door opens ten more until you forget how you got there."
McAdams had a different take on the allure of conspiracy. "Whoever you
dislike, you blame them for killing Kennedy," he said.

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