House Makes Public Castro Testimony

Cuban President Fidel Castro told House investigators, in a taped interview released yesterday, that it would have been "insane" for him to have conspired to assasinate former President John F. Kennedy '40.

Speaking before House investigators and members of the House Assassinations Committee last April, the Cuban president said his involvement in any murder plot would have supplied the U.S. government with "the most perfect pretext" for an invasion of Cuba.

Kennedy's Nov. 22, 1963 assasination would "have really been a provocation, a gigantic provocation," Castro said.

Castro added that an invasion of Cuba by the United States is precisely "what I have tried to prevent for all these years, in every possible sense."

In the testimony, Castro repeated his previous assertion that unspecified United States citizens deliberately tried to link him with Kennedy's death. Castro said accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's attempts to enter Cuba two months before the assassination were part of this plot.

Robert Blakey, chief counsel for the committee, said yesterday the Cuban government believes the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) circulated an intelligence report suggesting a connection between Oswald and Castro.

According to the report, Oswald hinted to officials at the Cuban consulate in Mexico City that he might kill Kennedy and that Castro knew of his intentions before the assassination.

House investigators also asked Castro to explain a comment he had made in a Sept. 7, 1963 interview with the Associated Press. In the interview, Castro warned that death plots against him could backfire.

Castro testified he did not intend the statement as a threat. "My intention," he said, "was to warn the government that we know about the plots against our lives."

The Cuban leader added, "I did not mean by that, that we were going to take measures, similar measures, like a retaliation."

A Senate assassination investigation revealed that the CIA conspired with American organized crime figures between 1960 and 1963 to assassinate Castro.

One of the chief crime figures involved in these efforts later mysteriously died before he could testify on the conspiracy.

The original Warren Commission investigation into Kennedy's death concluded Oswald acted alone, but later investigators turned up information on possible Cuban involvement unknown to the Commission.