Sage 2-Tuesday, September 19,1978-The Michigan Daily CUBAN LEADER DENIES ACCUSA TION: Castro linked to JFK WASHINGTON (AP)-The House assassinations committee, in a cautiously worded statement, said yesterday it has been told there may be some support for a report that Fidel Castro knew in advance of an assassination threat against President John Kennedy. Castro has called the report "ab surd." Rep. 'Louis Stokes,' (D-Ohio), the. committee's chairman, refused to go beyond an ambiguous statement that said an unspecified source had infor- med the panel that the story might have substance. A 4ND STOKES and committee chief counsel G. Robert Blakey stressed that the committee itself was not vouching for the truthfulness of the report, only passing on the opinion of the unnamed source. Blakey's statement said the story was written by Comer Clark in the tabloid National Enquirer. The story said the Cuban consulate in Mexico City told Castro that Lee Harvey Oswald had threatened Kennedy's life. Blakey said the committee in- vestigated the writer's reputation for truthfulness and "frankly, it was not good." But Blakey said the committee did not ignore the story because of the in- formation that it was supported by reliable government sources. THE COMMITTEE'S prepared statement said it "has been informed that the substance of the story is sup- ported 'by highly confidential, but reliable, sources available to the U.S. government." The committee issued the statement as it released an interview with the Cuban president in which Castro vehemently denied the report. "This is absurd," the committee quoted Castro as saying in the inter- view. "It has been invented from beginning to end. "It would have been our moral duty to inform the United States," Castro said. CASTRO, TWO former Cuban con- suli. in Mexico City and a consulate secretary all denied in statements or testimony to the committee that Oswald made the threat when he tried to get a visa for entry into Cuba. Former Consul Alfredo Mirahal Diaz said the story is "completely absurd. It is completely false. It is a lie." And former Consul Eusebio Azcue Lopez said Oswald was angry and discour- teous but'made no assassination threat against Cuba. Earlier yesterday, Azcue said he believes a man who identified himself as Lee Harvey Oswald and angrily demanded a visa for Cuba in 1963 was not the same man named later as Ken- nedy 's assassin. BUT AZCUE, now retired, told the committee he could be convinced he was wrong by scientific evidence. Committee sources said such evidence was forthcoming. Azcue, testifying through a tran- slator, told the committee the Oswald who came to his consulate in Mexico City was a "cold, hard" man, thinner than Kennedy's accused assassin. He said the man demanded an im- mediate visa for entry to Cuba and became unpleasant when told it would require prior approval from Havana. Azcue's recollections have caused speculation that a second man might iling have posed as Oswald in an elaborate conspiracy scheme. "Fifteen years have gone by, so it is very difficult for me to guarantee it in a categorical sense," Azcue said, "but my belief is that this gentleman was not, is not, the person who went to the consulate. "I had a clear picture because we had had anunpleasant discussion," Azcue said. "He had not been pleasant to me." But sources say a handwriting expert will testify that the signature on the visa application was written by the same Oswald named by the Warren Commission as Kennedy's lone assassin. Azcue was asked if such test- mony would change his mind. "UNDER SUCH circumstances I would have to accept that I was seeing visions," the former consul replied. Another Cuban employee, the secretary who dealt with Oswald at the consulate, said she is certain he is the same man named by the Warren Com- mission, according to a transcript of testimony released by the committee. Mrs. Sylvia Tirado Bazan said she recognized Oswald's picture in newspapers after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. She said she then looked at the pic- ture on Oswald's visa ap- plication-dated Sept. 27, 1963-and "I saw that it was the same man." Do a Tree a Favor:. Recycle Your Daily . U Can't start the U F, day without it? P-0 Il- 11 , j rNirr..rtiss+ss +.. w ;Idlgfrvii pip Ad Yiod OMAJ.1.1 PApt O"PAR 1.1151, ' * 0,114 fist 7 i 0) V i i I / 11 ., t Y ' :_ .yam ;,,,.