"Photograph of Rolando Cubela" HSCA Exhibit, F-424

Object number2012.023.0079

Date09/19/1978

ClassificationsArtifacts

Creator House Select Committee on Assassinations

ObjectHSCA Exhibit

Credit LineGary Cornwell Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumPaper, Foam

Dimensions30 × 40 in. (76.2 × 101.6 cm)

Terms

Collections

DescriptionHouse Select Committee on Assassinations investigation display F-424, "Photograph of Rolando Cubela", mounted on foam-core. This visual was displayed and used as evidence during the House Select Committee hearings. The color image shows five people sitting around a table inside a house. Audio recording materials and a binder are on top of the table. One of the men sitting is named Rolando Cubela, who claimed that he was a part of a plan created by the CIA to assassinate Castro. Interviewing Cubela was meant to assist in the investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald's connections to Cuban and Soviet governments during his visit to Mexico in October 1963. This image is displayed on page 285 in Volume III of the "Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" by the "Hearings before the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, Second Session", and was exhibited on September 19, 1978. At the bottom right corner of the exhibit is a label sticker (with a red border), with typing reading "JFK Exhibit" and hand-written in red ink "F-424".

Curatorial Commentary

Rolando Cubela took part in the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s that ultimately toppled the government of President Fulgencio Batista and triggered the rise of Fidel Castro. Although Cubela was an official in Castro's government, serving at one time as Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Government, he became disenchanted with Castro and began working with the CIA and other enemies of Castro to plot the overthrow of Castro's Communist regime. Cubela was arrested in 1966 for plotting to kill the head of state. He was released from prison in 1979 and went into exile in Spain. - Stephen Fagin, Curator