Bookmarking that one, thanks for posting.

For one thing, it makes clear WHY Cuba turned to the Soviet Union for protection from the U.S., and got Soviet nuclear weapons installed in Cuba--which precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis (closest the world has ever come to nuclear war). The U.S. threat against Cuba was on-going--not just the Bay of Pigs invasion, but before and after that failed invasion, including hundreds of acts of sabotage and murder by CIA operatives--attacks including aerial bombings, explosions and shootings, against Cuban farms and farmers, literacy program workers and students, industrial plants, tourist facilities, boats and more, and U.S. heavy pressure activity in Latin America and worldwide to destroy the Cuban economy. In addition, there was a specific plan to invade Cuba once again, or try to.

It is beyond question that Cuba would never have attacked the U.S. with nuclear missiles or any other weapons. The leaders of Cuba were not insane. But they did feel profoundly threatened, with voluminous justification. The missiles were a deterrent. (Same story with Iran today, in my opinion. Leaders not crazy; on the contrary, leaders are quite sane as to judging U.S. intentions and are seeking a deterrent. Why they are not allowed to have nukes, when we, who invaded Iraq, do, puzzles me to this day.)

I read this time-line through 1964. I'll read the rest later. It is weak on the JFK assassination. I would recommend the following as a supplement: James Douglass' "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters." Douglass makes a completely convincing case, that, a) JFK was dramatically CHANGING his world view in the months between the Cuban Missile Crisis and his assassination--he was changing from a "Cold Warrior" into an advocate of world peace (and so was his brother); b) his view of Cuba, and of the Soviet Union, was greatly diverging from the CIA and the MIC during that period; and c) he was assassinated, by the CIA, because of this. Douglass nails the CIA for JFK's assassination up to CIA operations chief Richard Helms, who is mentioned in this time-line and was actively involved in the CIA's dreadful deeds against Cuba.

We REALLY need to understand this, in reviewing JFK's and RFK's actions and views with regard to Cuba, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and the worldwide movement for self-determination and social justice that peaked during the 1960s. They were in the PROCESS of changing--of trying to see beyond the Cold War paranoia to a better world. The threat of nuclear war that they had directly faced affected them profoundly. They were therefore a threat to the CIA--which was fomenting war all over the world--and to the MIC, which fed on war then and is still feeding on it. JFK stood alone, except for RFK, in resisting the Joint Chiefs' demand that he nuke Russia and Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He considered it unthinkable. They considered all-out nuclear war to be "winnable." (Douglass is working on a second book, about RFK's assassination. I don't know if he believes, as I do, that RFK was also taken out by the CIA. We shall see. But he certainly believes it, and proves it beyond doubt, as to JFK.)

The time-line writer, Jane Franklin, glides over too many facts during this period, and ignores them or doesn't seem to get their import--JFK's Russian Wheat Deal (saving Russia from a failed wheat harvest), the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which he negotiates with 'arch-enemy' Krushchev, his backchannel contacts with Krushchev and Castro (to get around the CIA), his plans for the 1964 election (a platform of world peace), and the CIA's on-going disobedience of the President on many matters including the CIA/Miami mafia's continued violent attacks on Cuba.

All of this and more is WHY Fidel Castro exclaimed repeatedly, upon hearing of JFK's assassination, "This is very bad news!" The person he was exclaiming this to was JFK's personal representative to Castro, on a private, get-around-the-CIA mission, in furtherance of world peace.

This is nevertheless an instructive time-line--despite its big blind spot. It was originally published in 1992, later republished in 1997. Franklin cannot have read Douglass' book.

Reading through the many attempts on Castro's life, by the CIA and its Miami mafia operatives, is haunting. Assassination was the modus operandi of this gang of evil-doers. That's what I'm seeing in--or in the shadows of-- this time-line: The ghosts of OUR leaders and "why they died."

Another book a highly recommend is "The Untold History of the United States" which of course is not just about JFK but makes it very clear that Kennedy had felt bamboozled by the Military and no longer believed anything the Generals said and was wanting to peaceful terms with Cuba. Also, of course, he and Kruschev had both made peaceful overtures to each other.

[center]Kennedy Sought Dialogue with Cuba

INITIATIVE WITH CASTRO ABORTED BY ASSASSINATION,
DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW

Oval Office Tape Reveals Strategy to hold clandestine Meeting in Havana; Documents record role of ABC News correspondent Lisa Howard as secret intermediary in Rapprochement effort

Posted - November 24, 2003[/center]
Washington D.C. - On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the eve of the broadcast of a new documentary film on Kennedy and Castro, the National Security Archive today posted an audio tape of the President and his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, discussing the possibility of a secret meeting in Havana with Castro. The tape, dated only seventeen days before Kennedy was shot in Dallas, records a briefing from Bundy on Castro's invitation to a U.S. official at the United Nations, William Attwood, to come to Havana for secret talks on improving relations with Washington. The tape captures President Kennedy's approval if official U.S. involvement could be plausibly denied.

The possibility of a meeting in Havana evolved from a shift in the President's thinking on the possibility of what declassified White House records called "an accommodation with Castro" in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Proposals from Bundy's office in the spring of 1963 called for pursuing "the sweet approach…enticing Castro over to us," as a potentially more successful policy than CIA covert efforts to overthrow his regime. Top Secret White House memos record Kennedy's position that "we should start thinking along more flexible lines" and that "the president, himself, is very interested in [the prospect for negotiations]." Castro, too, appeared interested. In a May 1963 ABC News special on Cuba, Castro told correspondent Lisa Howard that he considered a rapprochement with Washington "possible if the United States government wishes it. In that case," he said, "we would be agreed to seek and find a basis" for improved relations.

The untold story of the Kennedy-Castro effort to seek an accommodation is the subject of a new documentary film, KENNEDY AND CASTRO: THE SECRET HISTORY, broadcast on the Discovery/Times cable channel on November 25 at 8pm. The documentary film, which focuses on Ms. Howard's role as a secret intermediary in the effort toward dialogue, was based on an article -- "JFK and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation" -- written by Archive Senior Analyst Peter Kornbluh in the magazine, Cigar Aficionado. Kornbluh served as consulting producer and provided key declassified documents that are highlighted in the film. "The documents show that JFK clearly wanted to change the framework of hostile U.S. relations with Cuba," according to Kornbluh. "His assassination, at the very moment this initiative was coming to fruition, leaves a major 'what if' in the ensuing history of the U.S. conflict with Cuba."

Among the key documents relevant to this history:

• Oval Office audio tape, November 5, 1963. The tape records a conversation between the President and McGeorge Bundy regarding Castro's invitation to William Attwood, a deputy to UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, to come to Cuba for secret talks. The President responds that Attwood should be taken off the U.S. payroll prior to such a meeting so that the White House can plausibly deny that any official talks have taken place if the meeting leaks to the press.

• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Mr. Donovan's Trip to Cuba," March 4, 1963. This document records President Kennedy's interest in negotiations with Castro and his instructions to his staff to "start thinking along more flexible lines" on conditions for a dialogue with Cuba.

• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Cuba -- Policy," April 11, 1963. A detailed options paper from Gordon Chase, the Latin America specialist on the National Security Council, to McGeorge Bundy recommending "looking seriously at the other side of the coin-quietly enticing Castro over to us."

• CIA briefing paper, Secret, "Interview of U.S. Newswoman with Fidel Castro Indicating Possible Interest in Rapprochement with the United States," May 1, 1963. A debriefing of Lisa Howard by CIA deputy director Richard Helms, regarding her ABC news interview with Castro and her opinion that he is "ready to discuss rapprochement." The document contains a notation, "Psaw," meaning President Kennedy read the report on Howard and Castro.

• U.S. UN Mission memorandum, Secret, Chronology of events leading up Castro invitation to receive a U.S. official for talks in Cuba, November 8, 22, 1963. This chronology was written by William Attwood and records the evolution of the initiative set in motion by Lisa Howard for a dialogue with Cuba. The document describes the party at Howard's Manhattan apartment on September 23, 1963, where Attwood met with Cuban UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga to discuss the potential for formal talks to improve relations. In an addendum, Attwood adds information on communications, using the Howard home as a base, leading up to the day the President was shot in Dallas.

• White House memorandum, Secret, November 12, 1963. McGeorge Bundy reports to William Attwood on Kennedy's opinion of the viability of a secret meeting with Havana. The president prefers that the meeting take place in New York at the UN where it will be less likely to be leaked to the press.

• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Approach to Castro," November 19, 1963. A memo from Gordon Chase to McGeorge Bundy updating him on the status of arrangements for a secret meeting with the Cubans.

• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Cuba -- Item of Presidential Interest," November 25, 1963. A strategy memo from Gordon Chase to McGeorge Bundy assessing the problems and potential for pursuing the secret talks with Castro in the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination.

• Message from Fidel Castro to Lyndon Johnson, "Verbal Message given to Miss Lisa Howard of ABC News on February 12, 1964, in Havana, Cuba." A private message carried by Howard to the White House in which Castro states that he would like the talks started with Kennedy to continue: "I seriously hope (and I cannot stress this too strongly) that Cuba and the United States can eventually sit down in an atmosphere of good will and of mutual respect and negotiate our differences."

• United Nations memorandum, Top Secret, from Adlai Stevenson to President Johnson, June 16, 1964. Stevenson sends the "verbal message" given to Lisa Howard to Johnson with a cover memo briefing him on the dialogue started under Kennedy and suggesting consideration of resumption of talks "on a low enough level to avoid any possible embarrassment."

• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Adlai Stevenson and Lisa Howard," July 7, 1964. Gordon Chase reports to Bundy on his concerns that Howard's role as an intermediary has now escalated through her contact with Stevenson at the United Nations and the fact that a message has been sent back through her to Castro from the White House. Chase recommends trying "to remove Lisa from direct participation in the business of passing messages," and using Cuban Ambassador to the UN, Carlos Lechuga, instead.

between JFK and Cuba, Lisa Howard. From her Wikipedia:

In April 1963, she traveled to Cuba to make an ABC special on Cuban leader Fidel Castro. During his filmed interview, as well as in private conversation with Howard, Castro made it clear that Cuba was interested in improved relations with Washington. On her return to the United States, she was debriefed by CIA deputy director, Richard Helms. In a secret memorandum of conversation sent to President Kennedy, Helms reported: "Lisa Howard definitely wants to impress the U.S. Government with two facts: Castro is ready to discuss rapprochement and she herself is ready to discuss it with him if asked to do so by the U.S. Government."[2] Subsequently Howard used her Upper East Side apartment for the first meeting between a U.S. and Cuban diplomat, and for phone communications between Castro and the Kennedy administration.

According to her daughter, Fritzi Lareau, Howard became smitten with Castro and viewed herself as a grand player on the stage of history. In order to continue the reconciliation agenda, she set up a meeting between UN diplomat William Attwood and Cuba's UN representative Carlos Lechuga on September 23, 1963, at her Upper East side New York apartment, under the cover of a cocktail party. With Howard's support, the Kennedy White House was organizing a secret meeting with an emissary of Fidel Castro in November 1963 at the United Nations—a plan that was aborted when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

The new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, objected to normalizing relations with Cuba as he feared this would make him appear soft on Communism. Howard continued to work toward better relations, returning to Cuba to do another ABC special in February 1964 and pushing for back-channel communications between Washington and Havana. When Guevara came to New York in December 1964, she hosted a cocktail party for him and arranged a meeting between Guevara and U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy.

In September 1964, Howard helped form a political group called "Democrats for Keating"—a group of liberal Democrats that included Gore Vidal, who opposed Robert Kennedy's bid to become a U.S. senator representing the state of New York. ABC News warned her that her public partisan politics would lead to her dismissal. Howard nevertheless continued to work openly in support of Kennedy's Republican opponent, Kenneth Keating. In the fall of 1964, ABC cancelled her news show and fired Howard.

In 1960 Howard became a correspondent for Mutual Radio Network. Covering the United Nations, she became the first journalist to secure an interview with Nikita Khrushchev. In 1963 she covered the Vienna summit between President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet leader. Later that year she became the anchor for ABC's noontime news broadcast, The News Hour with Lisa Howard.

In April 1963 McGeorge Bundy suggested to President John F. Kennedy that there should be a "gradual development of some form of accommodation with Castro". In an interview given in 1995, Bundy, said Kennedy needed "a target of opportunity" to talk to Fidel Castro.

In April 1963 Howard arrived in Cuba to make a documentary on the country. In an interview with Howard, Fidel Castro agreed that a rapprochement with Washington was desirable. On her return Howard met with the Central Intelligence Agency. Deputy Director Richard Helms reported to John F. Kennedy on Howard's view that "Fidel Castro is looking for a way to reach a rapprochement with the United States." After detailing her observations about Castro's political power, disagreements with his colleagues and Soviet troops in Cuba, the memo concluded that "Howard definitely wants to impress the U.S. Government with two facts: Castro is ready to discuss rapprochement and she herself is ready to discuss it with him if asked to do so by the US Government."

CIA Director John McCone was strongly opposed to Howard being involved with these negotiations with Castro. He argued that it might "leak and compromise a number of CIA operations against Castro". In a memorandum to McGeorge Bundy, McCone commented that the "Lisa Howard report be handled in the most limited and sensitive manner," and "that no active steps be taken on the rapprochement matter at this time."

Arthur Schlesinger explained to Anthony Summers in 1978 why the CIA did not want John F. Kennedy to negotiate with Fidel Castro during the summer of 1963: "The CIA was reviving the assassination plots at the very time President Kennedy was considering the possibility of normalization of relations with Cuba - an extraordinary action. If it was not total incompetence - which in the case of the CIA cannot be excluded - it was a studied attempt to subvert national policy."