An Historic Anniversary

Unknown to Americans!!

It Doesn't Compute with Cuban Narrative!! 

       Exactly 40 years ago this week -- back on October 6, 1976 -- a DC-8 civilian airplane was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb, murdering all 73 innocent souls on board. This week marked the 40th anniversary of that historic event -- the first and only mid-air terrorist bombing of a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere. It was a Cuban airplane known forever to history as Cubana Flight 455. The 40th anniversary this week was marked in Cuba, the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere. Yet, as historic as Cubana Flight 455 is and as intertwined as it has always been with the United States featured as the major player, Americans to this day are not supposed to really know about it or, if they do, they and the U. S. media are supposed to keep their mouths shut about it. With rare exceptions, that mantra is meticulously adhered to...or else Americans might have trouble meekly capitulating to the Cuban narrative in the United States that, since 1959, has been primarily dictated by only the most visceral remnants of the long-ago overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Cubana Flight 455, you see, is and will remain a prime reason for the haunting veracity of this absolute truth: CUBA SAYS A LOT MORE ABOUT THE UNITED STATES THAN IT SAYS ABOUT CUBA.

      Of all the people on this planet, Peter Kornbluh knows more than anyone about Cubana Flight 455 and other U.S.-Cuban relations that the U. S. government, the mainstream U. S. media, and the most vehement Cuban exiles want to keep hidden for posterity from the American people. Luckily, Mr. Kornbluh is an extremely brave and brilliant investigative journalist with an impeccable reputation for honesty and clarity. He is also, as noted above, the Director of the U. S. National Security Archive in Washington where he heads the Cuba Documentation Project. From that prism and platform, Mr. Kornbluh has declassified a plethora of official U. S. documents that for years had covered up high-level culpability in such historic events as...Cubana Flight 455. That includes the documents and their supporting data that he regularly posts on the U. S. National Security Archive website, a truly informative source.

       This week, to mark the 40th anniversary of the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455 on Oct. 6-1976, Peter Kornbluh posted an additional plethora of material on his National Security Archive. If you dial it up you will see the four glaring headlines that preamble his new documentations:

         ***"Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 40 years later."

         ***"Colgate Toothpaste Disguised Plastic Explosives in 1976 Terrorist Attack."

         ***"Confessions, Kissinger Reports, and Overview of Luis Posada Career Posted."

         ***"National Security Archive Calls on Obama Administration to Release Still-Secret Documents." 

       After those headlines, Mr. Kornbluh's first paragraph is:

                "On the 40th anniversary of the first and only mid-air bombing of a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere, the National Security Archive today called on the Obama administration to declassify all remaining intelligence records on Luis Posada Carriles to shed light on his activities, provide historical evidence for his victims, and make a gesture of declassified diplomacy towards Cuba. Toward that goal, the Archives today re-posted documents implicating Posada Carriles in that terrorist crime and identifying still-secret records to be declassified. Posada currently lives free in Miami. Declassified C.I.A. and F. B. I. files link Posada to the Cubana bombing."    

           As you can note, Peter Kornbluh -- as a democracy-loving American -- staunchly believes that the American government should not routinely use declassified documents to protect government-connected criminals even if it relates to high-level individuals and, yes, even if it relates to Cuban relations.

      This photo is courtesy of Adalberto Roque/Agence France Presse/Getty Images. It shows one of the many anniversary demonstrations honoring the memories of the 73 people killed aboard Cubana Flight 455 on Oct. 6, 1976.

     Ceremonies commemorating the 73 victims of Cubana Flight 455 routinely tie the tragedy to "Posada Carriles" and the "C. I. A." Material uncovered by Mr. Kornbluh and posted on the U. S. National Security Archive support those conclusions, which are no longer seriously denied. But backed by powerful Miami politicians and Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress, Posada remains a free citizen of Miami. As documented by Mr. Kornbluh, Posada -- the most famed and unabashed anti-Castro militant following the triumph of the revolution in 1959 -- for many years was on the U. S. government payroll, starting when he and many other anti-revolutionary zealots were quickly sent to Fort Benning in Georgia to prepare for recapturing the nearby island.

       The pain resulting from terrorist acts is unending for the families of victims. The sister and mother depicted above had been waiting at the airport in Havana for the return of Cubana Flight 455, which included 24 Cuban teenage athletes that were coming home with the Gold Medals they had won in the Central American Championships in Caracas, Venezuela. When this black-and-white photo was taken on Oct. 6-1976, this sister and mother had just been told that Cubana Flight 455 had crashed in the ocean with no survivors.

      This modern color photo was taken by Roberto Leon for NBC News. The mourning, mustachioed Cuban holding up the black-and-white photo of his family is Carlos Cremata. Carlos in the Cowboy outfit is shown standing between his mom and dad, a dad that was in the cockpit of Cubana Flight 455.

     This is one of the many declassified documents re-posted by Peter Kornbluh on the National Archives website, and he this week asked President Obama to declassify many other documents that he has pinpointed as still being hidden.  

        Posada Carriles was one of the most notable anti-Castro zealots quickly put on the U. S. government's payroll after the Cuban Revolution overthrew the Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959. The Brigade 2506 mentioned in the caption above was the unit that attacked Cuba in April of 1961, an infamous event that ended up solidifying revolutionary control of the island from that day till this day in 2016.

Posada was born 88-years-ago in Cienfuegos, Cuba.

Posada at an anti-Obama demonstration in Miami.

In some other cities there are anti-Posada demonstrations.

         In 1976 Emilio Milian was the most popular Cuban-American newsman in Miami. After he complained on the air about such terrorism "against decent, totally innocent Cubans" as highlighted by Cubana Flight 455, he was famously car-bombed. 

      Since 1989 when Jeb Bush was Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's Campaign Manager, a steady stream of Bush-connected Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots {but no moderates} have been elected from Miami to the U. S. Congress. It appears they believe they alone should dictate Cuban policy and also control the Cuban narrative in the U. S. although polls in Miami show that more Cuban-Americans favor President Obama's peaceful overtures to Cuba than the endless animosity preferred by these three members of Congress. On the left above is Mario Diaz-Balart who followed his Havana-born brother Lincoln to Congress from Miami. Rafael Diaz-Balart, their father, was a key minister in the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship. As at the news conference depicted above, the mainstream U. S. media can be used 24-hours-a-day to denounce anything related to Revolutionary Cuba but it would be rare indeed for the U. S. media to criticize anything related to the extremely vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship or to the vile actions of a few extremist Cuban-Americans.

        This iconic photo shows a Cubana DC-8 at the airport in Madrid, Spain in May of 1976. Yes, this is the exact airplane that soon became the ill-fated Cubana Flight 455 on October 6, 1976 -- eternally making it memorable. It is a significant part of U.S.-Cuban history. On this week's 40th anniversary of the terrorist bomb that blew it out of the sky into the ocean, Peter Kornbluh at the U. S. National Security Archives believes Americans have the right to know that history. Moreover, he believes Americans have the right to know the topicality that is associated with that history.

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