Fix the Bus

One of the things you learn when you study the Kennedy assassination as it pertains to New Orleans is that nobody knows anybody. Cuban operatives and suspected individuals walk around in an isolated vacuum. Certainly no one knew Oswald in a meaningful way.

Carlos Bringuier was a Cuban expat who came to New Orleans in 1961. He was trained as a lawyer in Cuba. In the United States he was working as a manager at a clothing store, Casa Roca on Decatur Street. While working at the store he first came into contact with Lee Oswald on 8/5/63. LHO had come into the store in order to ingratiate himself with the anti-Castro movement.

Carlos Bringuier was a man of some note in New Orleans in the anti-Castro movement. He was the head of the New Orleans chapter of the DRE. He had also been affiliated with Sergio Aracha-Smith and the Cuban Revolutionary Council.

Indeed, CB’s old office was at 544 Camp Street; this was the same address found on some of LHO’s FPCC leaflets.

On 8/5/63 Bringuier spoke briefly with Oswald. A few days later on 8/9/63 CB had a street scuffle with Lee Oswald as LHO was handing out pro-Castro leaflets on Canal Street. CB was angry that LHO had deceived him. Both men were subsequently arrested. They debated on radio later in the week.

After the assassination, Carlos Bringuier was called to testify before the Warren Commission. His testimony is important in cementing LHO in your mind as a Castro sympathizer and sneaky operative.

In his testimony, CB comes off as believable. His video at the time shows him to be a believable person. He is convincing, but is he telling the truth about everything?

Maybe not.

Attorneys, politicians and political operatives are not the same as regular people. They have to be evaluated not within the context of regular people but of politicians. Furthermore, CB was trained as a lawyer. My experience has taught me that a person’s profession gives forth a sense of invulnerability about the particular field in which that individual trains. That’s why the mechanic has the worst car in town. That’s why you can’t find a Band-Aid in a doctor’s house. That’s why lawyers often feel they are above the law. I suspect CB is no different.

I suppose it is possible that CB had never met LHO before, but it would be a stretch to believe such. They knew so many people in common. How would it be possible for CB to not know of LHO prior to August 1963? I have included two PDF files for you to peruse.

One other point: CB in his testimony is asked to identify men surrounding LHO when he was outside the Trade Mart. I believe that one of the men photographed was George Joannides. It would be extremely unlikely that CB had never met George Joannides, yet CB was unable to identify none of the men save one in the two photographs. I suppose it’s possible that CB had met GJ and that he felt none of the men resembled him.

His fellow Cuban, Orest Pena, who owned a bar a few doors down from CB, has this to say about CB.

Mr. LIEBELER – What about Bringuier?
Mr. PENA – What I think about Bringuier? He is just trying to get big name, collecting big name to make himself big when he come back to Cuba. Be one of the bosses. That’s my point of view. I told you he don’t like the United States and what I told you about; you can bring him here and tell him that Orest Pena told you that. I will stand a lie-detector test and invite him to take one, and I invite De Brueys, too, to ask De Brueys if that’s true or not true he went to my place and tried to intimidate me. If he say no, I take a lie-detector test and he take a lie-detector test and maybe you will find one Communist in the FBI.
Mr. LIEBELER – You think that Bringuier is using his association with Oswald to give himself a big name in connection with that?
Mr. PENA – That’s what it is.
Mr. LIEBELER – As far as you know, Bringuier doesn’t have any evidence that there was a pro-Castro plot to assassinate the President.
Mr. PENA – No; I don’t know. See, Bringuier know Oswald very well. He told me one time I don’t know if that is true or not–he said that Oswald brought him some kind of manual or a book. I believe he still have the book. And Bringuier has his own organization here. They call it–
Mr. LIEBELER – DRE?
Mr. PENA – Cuban something.
Mr. LIEBELER – Is that the DRE?
Mr. PENA – Yes; something.
Mr. LIEBELER – Cuban Students Directory?
Mr. PENA – He said Oswald came to infiltrate in his organization.
Mr. LIEBELER – And that Oswald came to his store?
Mr. PENA – Yes. That’s what he told me. Before, I used to talk to him, go there or he came to my place.
Mr. LIEBELER – You and Mr. Bringuier are not too good friends any more; is that right?
Mr. PENA – We was quite close until–when they started the blockade in Cuba, the way he spoke about President Kennedy. And I pulled a little bit out. I even used to give him sometimes more than $2. I don’t know. He collected to send to Miami, if he don’t send it somewhere else. That’s what he said.
Mr. LIEBELER – Do you have anything else that you want to tell us at this time, Mr. Pena, that I haven’t asked you about that you think we should know about?
Mr. PENA – No.
Mr. LIEBELER – You can’t think of anything?
Mr. PENA – I tell you, Bringuier don’t do many things that he will tell you. He don’t like America. Time will tell. He is one of the guys that–do you remember when they were saying, “Yankee, go home,” in Cuba? He was in Cuba at that time. He was calling, “Yankee, go home.”
Mr. LIEBELER – Has he ever favored Castro that you know of?
Mr. PENA – Oh, of course.
Mr. LIEBELER – Who, Bringuier?
Mr. PENA – Yes. He said not?
Mr. LIEBELER – I am asking you did he ever favor Castro.
Mr. PENA – I was in Cuba. I left Cuba very long time ago. I never was involved in any kind of politics. I didn’t like Batista, but I wasn’t in any organization.
Mr. LIEBELER – You didn’t know of any.
Mr. PENA – What I know about people, what I hear in my place, or what I hear other people talking, and what I hear about Bringuier was, when Castro stared with his revolution of Cuba, he was one of the Cubans in the revolution calling, “Yankee, go home.”
Mr. LIEBELER – You don’t think that Bringuier is in favor of Castro at this time?
Mr. PENA – He? No, no. He hate Castro and he hate Russia, but he hates America as much, too. He just want to go back to Cuba and be one of the bosses.
Mr. LIEBELER – Be a big man?
Mr. PENA – Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER – All right, Mr. Pena. I want to thank you very much for coming in.

I want to believe CB, yet reality is suggesting that I should not.

CB chose a life of lies. He chose to affiliate with CIA officers whose stock in trade is deception. Politicians and CIA officers lie like the eagle soars, as effortlessly as we breathe. They have been doing it so long, they don’t realize they are doing it. Telling lies becomes natural, so natural that we believe their lies. Regular people give themselves away when they lie because we do it so infrequently; we’re not good at it. Politicians and intelligence operatives on the other hand are good at lying.

Philosophically speaking most regular people believe that there is an objective truth out there independent of our own existence. The intelligence operative and the politician do not think this way. Their subjective truth, they believe, is the truth. If they say it, it is so. We find facts and construct an edifice of truth based upon our observations; the politician decides the truth first, then constructs “facts” to support it.

Beyond all this, the larger picture painted suggests that Lee Oswald was indeed an intelligence operative of some sort. He was not an average bumpkin; nor was he Forrest Gump.

FPCC

Cuban Connections

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