Castro and communists: the wildest JFK files

President Donald Trump ordered the release of more than 2,800 records related to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but bowed to pressure from the CIA, FBI and other agencies to delay disclosing some of the most sensitive documents for six months.

Even so, the thousands of pages published Thursday evening by the National Archives describe decades of spies and surveillance, informants and assassination plots. The new trove certainly won't end speculation of conspiracies behind Kennedy's killing - or that of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's death two days later at the hands of Texas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

More than a dozen reporters and editors for the Post combed through the documents. Here are some of the wildest things they found.

$100,000 FOR Castro

A 1964 FBI memo describes a meeting in which Cuban exiles tried to set a price on the heads of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Ernesto 'Che” Guevara.

'It was felt that the $150,000.00 to assassinate FIDEL CASTRO plus $5,000 expense money was too high,” the memo noted. At a later meeting, they settled on more modest sums: $100,000 for Fidel, $20,000 for Raul and $20,000 for Che.

Sex parties

A 1960 FBI memo described a 'high-priced Hollywood call girl” who was approached by Fred Otash, a Los Angeles private investigator, seeking information about sex parties involving then-Sen. John F. Kennedy, his brother-in-law actor Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. 'She told the agents that she was unaware of any indiscretions,” the memo said.

In search of Kitty

An FBI file contains information on the bureau's attempt to locate a stripper named 'Kitty,” last name unknown.

According to the file, another stripper named Candy Cane said Kitty had been an associate of Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who killed Lee Harvey Oswald on Nov. 24, 1963.

It was possible Kitty committed suicide.

‘Not worth it'

A draft report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations found it unlikely that Cuba would kill Kennedy as retaliation for the CIA's attempts on Castro's life. 'The Committee does not believe Castro would have assassinated President Kennedy, because such an act, if discovered, would have afforded the United States the excuse to destroy Cuba,” it states. 'The risk would not have been worth it.”

CIA plots FOR Castro

Some of the papers recounted the agency's well-chronicled schemes to kill Castro.

One document, a summary of the CIA's plans to assassinate foreign leaders, recounted how the CIA tried to use James B. Donovan, the American lawyer and negotiator recently made famous by the movie 'Bridge of Spies,” for one plot. He would give Castro a contaminated skin-diving suit while the two negotiated the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners.

'It was known that Fidel Castro liked to skindive. The CIA plan was to dust the inside of the suit with a fungus producing madera foot, a disabling and chronic skin disease, and also contaminating the suit with tuberculosis bacilli in the breathing apparatus,” the paper said.

Donovan didn't go through with it.

Another outlandish plot described talks of prepping a 'booby-trap spectacular seashell” that would be submerged in an area Castro enjoyed diving. The seashell would be loaded with explosives that would go off once lifted.

'After investigation, it was determined that there was no shell in the Caribbean area large enough to hold a sufficient amount of explosive which was spectacular enough to attract the attention of Castro.”

CAR OF COMMUNISTS

The documents show that for years, the FBI used informants to monitor the Communist Party in Dallas - a group that consisted of five or six people, so small they could sometimes hold a meeting inside a car.

JFK's real killer ...

The records reveal a deposition given before the presidential Commission on CIA Activities in 1975 by Richard Helms, who had served as director. After a discussion of Vietnam, David Belin, an attorney for the commission, turned to whether the CIA was involved in Kennedy's killing.

'Well, now, the final area of my investigation relates to charges that the CIA was in some way conspiratorially involved with the assassination of President Kennedy. During the time of the Warren Commission, you were Deputy Director of Plans, is that correct?” Belin asked.

After Helms replied that he was, Belin asked: 'Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or agent ...”

Then, suddenly, the document cuts off.