A Christmas Miracle: The Collapse of the Soviet Union on this day in 1991

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

 

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

Thirty four years ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. 

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. 

 The last day of the Soviet Union was Christmas day. 

Let that sink in.

 Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. 

Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." 

Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fail to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen to remember. 

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the  same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Criminally, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

This is why Ukraine is celebrating the end of the Soviet Union over social media this Christmas.

On this day in 1991, the Soviet Union finally ceased to exist. A moment that went down in history as a triumph of liberty.

Its dissolution ended a regime built on repression, censorship, political terror, genocidal famines, mass deportations, and the systematic erasure of… pic.twitter.com/4xVa7YhpYe

— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) December 26, 2025

People of goodwill should join them in celebrating the end of this evil regime. 

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. 

The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over seven million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must also continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

 

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

Thirty three years ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was Christmas day. Let that sink in.

 Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. 

Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." 

Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fail to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen to remember. 

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the  same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Criminally, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over seven million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  

U.S. Senate approves aide for Ukraine: A great day for freedom. Bad day for Putin, Xi, Khamenei, Castro and other autocrats."

Slava Ukraini!

The United States Senate approved aide for Ukraine tonight. I quoted President Zelensky on X and recognized that it was a "great day for freedom. Bad day for Putin, Xi, Khamenei, Castro and other autocrats."

The United States has an obligation with regard to Ukraine. When negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow broke down on removing nuclear weapons from Ukraine in September 1993, Washington engaged in a trilateral process with Kyiv and Moscow. This resulted in the January 1994 Trilateral Statement. Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear warheads to Russia. 

Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Abandoning Ukraine in the short term may appear to guarantee peace, but appeasement will encourage more aggression, and more war.

This is not Moscow's first genocide against Ukrainians. Please watch the documentary 20 Days in Mariupol to get a glimpse of the brutality of this war launched by Putin in February 2022, and share it with others. It is free and available online.

A coalition of Cuban and Cuban American groups on January 18, 2024 made public an open letter titled "Ukraine must not be abandoned."  

In the letter, Cuban American members of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC), a coalition of pro-democracy and human rights organizations that operate inside and outside Cuba, have called on the U.S. Congress “to expedite its proceedings and vote for the national security supplemental, which would provide Ukraine the desperately needed security assistance to thwart Russia’s onslaught.”

Cuban democrats are closely watching the events unfolding in Ukraine, and Havana's involvement in this unjust war, but lessons are also being learned from the example set by Ukrainians. 

We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

“Requiem for the Forgotten” a composition by Frank La Rocca was premiered on.March 15, 2024 at the Epiphany Church in Miami, Florida.  It also included a new hymn, “Offertory for Ukraine,” written by poet James Matthew Wilson to honor Catholic martyrs persecuted under Soviet communism, and by Putin today.

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

 

Thirty two years ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was on Christmas day. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fails to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen not to forget:  

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the very same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Sadly, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over 6.8 million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  

Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison for standing up against Putin's tyrannical regime.

 "As Vladimir Bukovsky once noted, it’s a remarkable feature of Russian history that even in the absolute darkest periods of repression and propaganda you always find people who are willing to stand up against tyranny — and that’s what we see today.” —Vladimir Kara-Murza, Geneva Summit opening (2018)

Vladimir Kara-Murza: Russian prisoner of conscience

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian prisoner of conscience. He has been jailed and in the past poisoned by Putin's criminal regime.

On Monday, April 17, 2023 Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison for standing up against Putin's tyrannical regime by speaking truth to power. 

His "crime"?: Refusing to remain silent, and be complicit in Putin's crimes. This included speaking out against the war in Ukraine.

Five years earlier in February 2018 he quoted Vladimir Bukovsky and warned of the high cost Russian dissidents were then paying for exercising their fundamental human rights. It was the tenth gathering of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy.

Vladimir Kara-Murza is the 2018 recipient of the Geneva Summit Courage Award, and in his address upon receiving the award did not ask for help from the world's democracies to rid Russia of Putin, something he said Russians would do themselves, but he did request that they not help, or legitimize Putin's regime and outlined what not to do.

The Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy will be meeting on May 17, 2023, and although Vladimir will not physically be there with those present, his courageous example, and spirit will be. 

Vladimir Kara-Murza delivered these remarks on Monday at the closing session of his trial in Moscow.

Read this piece in Russian.

MOSCOW CITY COURT — Members of the court: I was sure, after two decades spent in Russian politics, after all that I have seen and experienced, that nothing can surprise me anymore. I must admit that I was wrong. I’ve been surprised by the extent to which my trial, in its secrecy and its contempt for legal norms, has surpassed even the “trials” of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and ’70s. And that’s not even to mention the harshness of the sentence requested by the prosecution or the talk of “enemies of the state.” In this respect, we’ve gone beyond the 1970s — all the way back to the 1930s. For me, as a historian, this is an occasion for reflection.

At one point during my testimony, the presiding judge reminded me that one of the extenuating circumstances was “remorse for what [the accused] has done.” And although there is little that’s amusing about my present situation, I could not help smiling: The criminal, of course, must repent of his deeds. I’m in jail for my political views. For speaking out against the war in Ukraine. For many years of struggle against Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship. For facilitating the adoption of personal international sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against human rights violators.

Not only do I not repent of any of this, I am proud of it. I am proud that Boris Nemtsov brought me into politics. And I hope that he is not ashamed of me. I subscribe to every word that I have spoken and every word of which I have been accused by this court. I blame myself for only one thing: that over the years of my political activity I have not managed to convince enough of my compatriots and enough politicians in the democratic countries of the danger that the current regime in the Kremlin poses for Russia and for the world. Today this is obvious to everyone, but at a terrible price — the price of war.

In their last statements to the court, defendants usually ask for an acquittal. For a person who has not committed any crimes, acquittal would be the only fair verdict. But I do not ask this court for anything. I know the verdict. I knew it a year ago when I saw people in black uniforms and black masks running after my car in the rearview mirror. Such is the price for speaking up in Russia today.

But I also know that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate. When black will be called black and white will be called white; when at the official level it will be recognized that two times two is still four; when a war will be called a war, and a usurper a usurper; and when those who kindled and unleashed this war, rather than those who tried to stop it, will be recognized as criminals.

This day will come as inevitably as spring follows even the coldest winter. And then our society will open its eyes and be horrified by what terrible crimes were committed on its behalf. From this realization, from this reflection, the long, difficult but vital path toward the recovery and restoration of Russia, its return to the community of civilized countries, will begin.

Even today, even in the darkness surrounding us, even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people. I believe that we can walk this path.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/10/vladimir-kara-murza-final-statement-court/

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

Thirty years one ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was on Christmas day. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fails to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen not to forget:  

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the very same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Sadly, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over 6.8 million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  

John F. Kennedy was killed 59 years ago today. Did Fidel Castro get him first?

Fifty-nine years ago, on November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. At 12:30pm Central Standard Time, the Kennedys in their convertible limousine turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. As they were passing the Texas School Book Depository, President John F. Kennedy was shot twice and slumped over toward First Lady Jackie Kennedy. The governor of Texas was also hit. At 1:00pm, President Kennedy was pronounced dead.

On the 59th anniversary of this political assassination the spin doctors and agents of influence continue to cloud the circumstances leading up to the murder of America's 35th president. However, the question that needs to be asked looking back to that fateful day: who benefited most from his death? Cui bono?

Following the Bay of Pigs debacle in April 1961 the White House initiated Operation Mongoose. President Kennedy's brother and Attorney General of the United States, Robert Kennedy, headed up the sustained effort to topple the Castro regime and this included the assassination of Fidel Castro.

On December 29, 1962, President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy met with the Bay of Pigs veterans, and over 40,000 Cuban exiles at the Orange Bowl. On that day the returning soldiers gave President Kennedy the flag of Brigade 2506. " I want to express my great appreciation to the brigade for making the United States the custodian of this flag. I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana," stated President Kennedy to all assembled there.

Daniel Harker of the Associated Press interviewed Fidel Castro on September 7, 1963 at the Brazilian Embassy in Havana at a reception, and in it the communist dictator made an explicit threat. “We are prepared to fight them and answer in kind. U.S. leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe.”

It is evident in a White House memorandum from ten days before President Kennedy was killed on November 12, 1963, that the Kennedy Administration was still committed to pursuing an aggressive strategy to topple the Castro regime:

Support of Autonomous Anti-Castro Groups. The question was asked from where would the autonomous groups operate. Mr. FitzGerald replied that they would operate from outside U.S. territory. He mentioned two bases of the Artime group, one in Costa Rica and the other in Nicaragua. Also it was hoped that the autonomous group under Manolo Ray would soon get itself established in a working base, possibly Costa Rica. Mr. FitzGerald said that much could be accomplished by these autonomous groups once they become operational. A question was asked as to what decisions remain to be made. Mr. FitzGerald replied that we were looking for a reaffirmation of the program as presented, including sabotage and harassment. When asked what was planned in sabotage for the immediate future, he said that destruction operations should be carried out against a large oil refinery and storage facilities, a large electric plant, sugar refineries, railroad bridges, harbor facilities, and underwater demolition of docks and ships. The question was also raised as to whether an air strike would be effective on some of these principal targets. The consensus was that CIA should proceed with its planning for this type of activity looking toward January.

Less than eleven months after making his pledge at the Orange Bowl, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

 

On November 29, 1963 in a phone call with President Lyndon Baines Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI revealed Oswald’s links with the Castro regime. "This angle in Mexico is giving us a great deal of trouble because the story is they have this man Oswald getting $6500 from the Cuban Embassy and then coming back to this country with it."

Politico in 2014 reported, "White House aide Joseph Califano, who was part of the anti-Castro plotting, said he was convinced that 'Robert Kennedy experienced this unbelievable grief after his brother’s death because he believed it was linked to his—Bobby’s—efforts to kill Castro.'” 

Lee Harvey Oswald raises his fist after being captured in Dallas, TX

In 1968, Johnson told ABC reporter Howard K. Smith that “Kennedy was trying to get to Castro, but Castro got him first.”

Leo Janos, one of President Lyndon B. Johnson's former speech writers, interviewed him for the July 1973 issue of The Atlantic in which LBJ "expressed his belief that the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy. 'I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger." Johnson said that when he had taken office he found that "we had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean.' A year or so before Kennedy's death a CIA-backed assassination team had been picked up in Havana. Johnson speculated that Dallas had been a retaliation for this thwarted attempt, although he couldn't prove it."

Following the President's assassination within a year Operation Mongoose was scrapped and Fidel Castro would remain in power until 2006, then replaced by his brother Raul in a dynastic succession following a health crisis. General Raul Castro remains the maximum authority in Cuba. Fidel Castro died of old age after causing much suffering in Cuba and around the world in places such as Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Respected German documentary filmmaker Wilfried Huismann in 2006 made the case that Fidel Castro was behind the killing of the 35th president, and explained why.

We settled the question of why in three years of research on this documentary in Mexico, USA and Cuba. Oswald had been an agent for the Cuban intelligence services since November 1962. He was a political fanatic and allowed himself to be used by the Cuban intelligence services to kill John F. Kennedy. It was a Cuban reaction to the repeated attempts of the Kennedy brothers, above all the younger Kennedy, Robert, to get rid of Fidel Castro through political assassination -- a duel between the Kennedys and the Castros, which, like in a Greek tragedy, left one of the duelists dead.

 

Fidel Castro and John F. Kennedy.

 

One last observation: What does it mean that today is the day Vladimir Putin chose to dedicate a statue of Fidel Castro in Moscow with Miguel Diaz-Canel of the Castro dictatorship in attendance, given the probability that Fidel Castro had President Kennedy assassinated on this day in 1963? 

 

A Bitter Taste of Freedom: Paying Homage and Demanding Justice for Anna Politkovskaya

“This political line is wholly neo-Soviet: human beings do not have independent existences, they are cogs in the machine whose function is to implement unquestioningly whatever political escapades those in power dream up. Cogs have no rights. Not even to dignity in death.” ― Anna Politkovskaya, Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy.

Anna Politkovskaya  August 30, 1958 - October 7, 2006

Anna Politkovskaya was a journalist who spoke truth to power in Russia. She was a critic of Vladimir Putin. She was shot dead in her apartment on Vladimir Putin's birthday in 2006. Six individuals have been brought to justice, but the mastermind remains free 16 years after her assassination. She is not the only one killed for speaking truth about Putin. Below is a 2011 documentary about this courageous woman who paid the ultimate price for seeking the truth and reporting it.

Below Anna speaks in her own words.

“Putin, having accidentally received enormous power into his hands, administered it to catastrophic consequences for Russia. And I do not like him, because he does not like people. He can’t stand us. He despises us. He believes that we are a means to him only, a means to achieve his own personal power goals. Therefore, he can do anything he wishes to us, plays with us as he pleases, destroys us, if he wishes. For him, we are nothing. And he, having accidentally scrambled to the top, is now a king and a god, whom everybody should worship and fear.”

“We live in an era where normal values have been displaced. The good is called bad, the bad – good”

"People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they think."

She is missed, and remembered. #JusticeForAnnaPolitkovskaya  #JusticeForAnna #EndImpunity

A Bitter Taste of Freedom: Paying Homage and Demanding Justice for Anna Politkovskaya

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting" - Milan Kundera

"People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they think."

 - Anna Politkovskaya  August 30, 1958 - October 7, 2006

Anna Politkovskaya was a journalist who spoke truth to power in Russia. She was a critic of Vladimir Putin. She was shot dead in her apartment on Putin's birthday in 2006. Six individuals have been brought to justice, but the mastermind remains free 12 years after her assassination. Below is a 2011 documentary about this courageous woman who paid the ultimate price for seeking the truth and reporting it.

She is missed. #JusticeForAnna #EndImpunity

Conversations between two men who changed the world: Vaclav Havel & Adam Michnik

"I believe that a man can only be useful to his country when he can look at it clearly." - Pyotr Chaadayev, Russian cultural figure

Adam Michnik, Elzbieta Matynia and Martin Palouš at FIU on 10/15/14

The School of International and Public Affairs at FIU on October 15, 2014 hosted an event of great importance for democracy activists the world over. Beginning in the 1970s following the signing of the Helsinki Accords East German dissidents would meet and discuss human rights, the power of the powerless, and how to confront totalitarianism using nonviolent means.

Two of the intellectual heavy weights at these gatherings were Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik who also engaged in a conversation via correspondence that is the subject of the book  An Uncanny Era: Conversations between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik edited, translated, and introduced by Elzbieta Matynia.

Two books that I would also highly recommend to any pro-democracy activist are Letters from Prison and other essays by Adam Michnik and The Power of the Powerless by Vaclav Havel. Together they will open your eyes and hearts to the opportunities in defending human dignity and resisting tyranny with the power of the powerless that is living in truth.

Adam Michnik is editor-in-chief of the Warsaw daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. Writer and dramatist Václav Havel (1936–2011) was the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. Elzbieta Matynia is professor of sociology at the New School for Social Research in New York City and at the University of Lower Silesia in Wroclaw, Poland. Martin Palouš was the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the United Nations. He was also a founding member of the Civic Forum and one of the first signers of Charter 77. He is President of the Václav Havel Library Foundation in New York and has a close relationship with Florida International University.

Below are video excerpts of the event which touched on advice to Cuban democrats, Eastern European transitions, Lukashenko, Putin and the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine: