[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

“Lee Harvey Oswald…trained with Castro revolutionaries in Minsk during his Soviet
stay.” 398 No mention was made of the role of the mob in the CIA plots.
However, in a January 18, 1971, column, Anderson named John Roselli,
identified as “a ruggedly handsome gambler with contacts in both the American and
Cuban underworlds” as being one of the main conspirators with the CIA in the plots
against Castro. Anderson reported that there had been “six assassination attempts against
Cuba’s Fidel Castro” by the CIA during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and before the
Kennedy assassination. Anderson stated that the last attempted occurred in February or
March 1963 – nine months before Kennedy “was gunned down in Dallas by Lee Harvey
Oswald, a fanatic who previously had agitated for Castro in New Orleans and had made a
mysterious trip to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City.” This has led to a “nagging
suspicion” that Castro “became aware of the U.S. plot upon his life and somehow
recruited Oswald to retaliate against President Kennedy.” 399
In the disclosures so far, Anderson accepted the view of Oswald as a left-
wing extremist, and blamed Castro more than the Mafia for the Kennedy assassination.
Anderson would later acknowledge that Roselli was the source of much of his
information about the plots, and that the story emerged over time. Anderson reported in
July 27, 1975 that Robert Kennedy “was tormented by the terrible thought, according to
intimates, that he may have helped trigger the assassination of his brother” through his
398
Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson, “Senate Aide Scouted Deals for Dodd,”
Washington Post, (March 7, 1967).
399
Jack Anderson, “6 Attempts to Kill Castro Laid to CIA,” Washington Post, (January
18, 1971).
176