Solares Hill, the free weekly paper subsumed into the Key West Citizen's empire has not been my favorite paper for a while. I used to enjoy the Thursday read when Nancy Klingener used to edit the paper. She was the best to come after David Ethridge got tired of running the paper and faded away to retire someplace Up North. These days I feel the paper is being edited by a reporter, and to me that's not a great thing. A good reporter isn't necessarily a good editor and it shows in the weak articles Solares Hill seems to be ready to settle for. there are those who will tell it was only great decades ago when everything in key west was great and it has all been polluted mercilessly by outsiders and people of low morals from elsewhere.
Be that as it may Solares Hill has been off on a bizarre tangent all it's own lately, reporting sporadically on the Key west links to the John F Kennedy assassination in Dallas lo those many years ago. This past week (Solares Hill appears nowadays as a supplement to the Sunday Citizen)the paper offered a solution to the enduring mystery of who killed the President in 1963. In various articles over the past couple of years the paper has woven an incredibly complex tale drawing in various Cuban exiles and anti-Castro personalities in South Florida and the Keys, including the training on No Name Key of the potential Bay of Pigs invaders and it talked at some length about the CIA front company operating on Stock Island to monitor Cuba and infiltrate agents onto the island. The articles are numerous and the links are incredibly complex.
If I have it right Solares Hill suggests that Cuban exiles posing as Communist sympathizers of Castro hoodwinked Lee Harvey Oswald to murder the President, and they were planning in spiriting him away after the assassination, a plan thwarted by Oswald's early arrest. Apparently the murder involved Cuban exiles who were angry about Kennedy's lack of enthusiasm for an invasion of Cuba and hoped to pin the murder on Castro, thus prompting an all out retaliation by the US. They were apparently backed up (this is a complicated long drawn out story and I may be missing some key points here) by members of the mob who were also keen to get back to Cuba to pick up where they had been forced to leave off by the fall of the Batista government.
One can well imagine the Mob doing the deed and saying nothing, but it's harder to imagine the Cuban exile keeping their mouths shut about such a monumental thing. It appears word did leak out, but I suppose the Anglo press in the US isn't going to pick up the hints and rumors that Solares Hill's correspondents have managed. I find the story fascinating, I confess, even as I wish Solares Hill would give this sort of coverage to the daily dramas of the Keys, more consistently and more forthrightly than they have lately. Nevertheless I also hope they get recognition for this crazy plausible tale of who it actually might have been that organized the unsolved mystery of who killed Kennedy.
Be that as it may Solares Hill has been off on a bizarre tangent all it's own lately, reporting sporadically on the Key west links to the John F Kennedy assassination in Dallas lo those many years ago. This past week (Solares Hill appears nowadays as a supplement to the Sunday Citizen)the paper offered a solution to the enduring mystery of who killed the President in 1963. In various articles over the past couple of years the paper has woven an incredibly complex tale drawing in various Cuban exiles and anti-Castro personalities in South Florida and the Keys, including the training on No Name Key of the potential Bay of Pigs invaders and it talked at some length about the CIA front company operating on Stock Island to monitor Cuba and infiltrate agents onto the island. The articles are numerous and the links are incredibly complex.If I have it right Solares Hill suggests that Cuban exiles posing as Communist sympathizers of Castro hoodwinked Lee Harvey Oswald to murder the President, and they were planning in spiriting him away after the assassination, a plan thwarted by Oswald's early arrest. Apparently the murder involved Cuban exiles who were angry about Kennedy's lack of enthusiasm for an invasion of Cuba and hoped to pin the murder on Castro, thus prompting an all out retaliation by the US. They were apparently backed up (this is a complicated long drawn out story and I may be missing some key points here) by members of the mob who were also keen to get back to Cuba to pick up where they had been forced to leave off by the fall of the Batista government.
One can well imagine the Mob doing the deed and saying nothing, but it's harder to imagine the Cuban exile keeping their mouths shut about such a monumental thing. It appears word did leak out, but I suppose the Anglo press in the US isn't going to pick up the hints and rumors that Solares Hill's correspondents have managed. I find the story fascinating, I confess, even as I wish Solares Hill would give this sort of coverage to the daily dramas of the Keys, more consistently and more forthrightly than they have lately. Nevertheless I also hope they get recognition for this crazy plausible tale of who it actually might have been that organized the unsolved mystery of who killed Kennedy.
2 comments:
I have had a long term interest in the local connections to the Kennedy assassination. Piqued initially by two things. My father got a job as a body double for Cliff Robertson who played Kennedy in the movie PT 109 which was filmed on Munson's Island. Munson's is now called Little Palm Island. My mother told me that my parents used part of these proceeds to get married. I also grew up in and my mother still lives in a home purchased from George Faraldo the former Key West airport manager. George reported to the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he had seen Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby together at the Key West airport on their way to Cuba. My brother also had a law professor at the U.M. who was on the Warren Commission and said there was no conspiracy. We have had spirited debates about this topic and I read lots of the available literature both pro and con. Three figures, stories standout to me as a result of that effort. George de Mohrenschildt, Richard Case Nagell and Frank Sturgis. George de Mohrenschildt was alledgly Lee Harvey Oswald's best friend and he continued to be connected to international incidents long after the JFK assassination. Such as arms trafficker Adnan Khashoggi and Poppa Doc Duvalier in Haiti. There is a really interesting book written by Dick Russell about Richard Case Nagell. Frank Sturgis was one of the Watergate Burglars and trained commandos for the Bay of Pigs. Nixon's is famously quoted by H.R Haldeman in his memoir to "Tell Ehrlichman this whole group of Cubans [Watergate burglars] is tied to the Bay of Pigs.' After a pause I said, 'The Bay of Pigs? What does that have to do with this [the Watergate burglary]?' But Nixon merely said, 'Ehrlichman will know what I mean,' and dropped the subject." E. Howard Hunt is also alleged to have given a death bed confession. I seriously doubt if anyone will ever Know the truth about this case but, I did learn a lot researching it.
Mark Howell is both an excellent writer and an excellent editor, and he's not a bad reporter. The problem is that the Citizen is severely overloading him by having him do all three week in and week out. Too bad newspapers can't afford to hire more help -- would really give a boost in the "quality" department.
Note, though, that during the last few years under Mark, Solares Hill has received 8 first place Florida Press Club and Society for Professional Journalism awards (and 9 more second and third place ones)....
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