American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us Read Online Free PDF Page A

president to come here.” I guess he has pretty good “intel.”
    And I looked right back at him and said, “Well, Mr. President, you’ll find that I defy most everything.”
    Castro laughed. Who knows, maybe he felt this was something we had in common.
    The whole conversation, on my part, was in English and interpreted to him by a lady in Spanish. But I don’t think he really needs her. Because now and then, I’d say something that was funny and he’d laugh before the interpretation happened. As good as Castro is at masking the fact, I think he understands English very well. Let’s put it this way: I’m sure he does English far, far better than I do Spanish.
    We covered a lot of ground in our conversation. Just as I have great pride in Minnesota, he has the same for Cuba. He was extremely proud of the fact that they have the highest literacy rate of any Latin-American country in the hemisphere. He’s also proud that they have the best medical care. I found him very engaging. He’s a master of hyperbole. I told him that I felt the U.S. boycott was wrong. It did nothing positive for either of our countries, and it was time for America to get over it. His questions of me were mainly about my political future. He was interested in the fact that I was an independent and didn’t belong to either of the two major parties. A kind of rogue element being the governor of a state.
    Time passes very quickly when it’s only an hour and you’re sitting with Fidel Castro. He’s so perceptive. At one point I glanced at my watch and immediately Castro said, “I’m sorry, do you have to be somewhere?” I said, “No, sir. But I’m only here a short time with you, and there are some personal questions I wanted to ask you before our hour is up. So I was just checking my watch to see how much more time I had. So—can I ask you one?”
    His answer was, “Ask me anything you’d like.”
    I told him about how I was only twelve years old when John F. Kennedy was killed. And how later, as an adult, I started studying the murder. I told him that I came to not believe the Warren Commission, or what my country has portrayed as what happened. I said, “Naturally, in studying this, there are a few scenarios where you come up very strongly as being a part of it, that Oswald was somehow linked to you. You were around back then, and much older than I was, and more involved—I would like to know your perception of what happened to John F. Kennedy.”
    For the next twenty minutes, I couldn’t stop him from talking. First of all, he said it was an “inside job,” meaning that the assassination was orchestrated from within the United States. He very intently stared at me and said—which also told me that he was aware of my military background—“You know as well as I do, Oswald couldn’t make the shots.” Then he went on to explain the reason he knew that. During the Cuban Revolution, he was the main guy who taught and carried out sniper work. Knowing all he did about this, he knew Oswald couldn’t have accomplished the job with the antiquated Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that he used.
    Then Fidel described why it was an inside job. First of all, he said, he was very close to the Soviet Union at that time. “The Soviets didn’t do it,” he stated emphatically. In fact, the Kremlin leaders had told him about Kennedy: “You can talk to this man.” Apparently the Russians were pleased that Kennedy had enough of an open mind to at least consider their side’s position, on Cuba and other matters. Besides, neither country wanted another nuclear confrontation like the Cuban Missile Crisis.
    Secondly, Castro said, “ I didn’t do it.” Again his gaze was penetrating. He went on, “I’m not suicidal crazy. Why would I destroy my Cuba, the country I love so much. If I would have ordered