Pie in the sky

THE Kennedy assassination was planned by a Cuban double agent who looked like Yosemite Sam and a 6ft 4ins tall ginger black man. As conspiracy theories go, it's right behind Elvis in the queue at my local Netto, but these are the key accusations levelled at former feds in Havana in this jokey, but enjoyable investigation.

The documentary opens with tapped phone conversations from the Cuban embassy in Mexico City on the day of the President's murder.

"Wonderful news," cries one Castro staffer. "Three shots to the head? Perfect!"

Fast forward 40 years and our film-maker - an amused German called Wilfried Huismann - is in Havana, chatting amiably to Fabian, a retired Cuban agent. At risk of spoiling the mood somewhat, he accuses his host of killing the President of the United States.

The former spook is deeply amused. Not only did Cuba have nothing to do with JFK's death, but Nasa's greatest exploit is a myth too.

"Were they actually on the moon? Apparently yes, but I'm not so sure," he offers, cleverly changing the subject.

"One day we will know whether or not they really did land on the moon."

Our tactful Teuton has another go. Why did Fabian catch a plane out of Dallas within an hour of Kennedy's death? Was Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone or did he have a hotline to Havana? "He could have been killed by North Americans, Germans or Japanese. I don't know," he says. "Because I wasn't there."

Huismann's main source of information is another retired agent by the name of Oscar Marino. Oscar is happy to be named on international television and may well be an entirely reliable witness. We should probably read nothing into the fact that he insists on being interviewed in the dark, from the back seat of a moving taxi.

Oscar lets slip that Castro liked the look of Lee Harvey Oswald. "He was ideologically unsound and psychologically unstable." Kindred spirits, clearly.

The would-be assassin was apparently chatted up by Rolando - a cartoon cowboy with a ten gallon hat and wispy beard down to his belly. The deal was sealed when a red headed black man handed Oswald $6,000 in a brown envelope in Mexico City.

"Black people don't have red hair," points out Fabian, this time almost crying with laughter at his interviewer's line of inquiry.

"I had a good chuckle when I read your question. Maybe he could have dyed his hair but he would be quite conspicuous.

"I wouldn't use him as an agent," he adds, quite reasonably.

This entertaining documentary treads a line somewhere between revelation and outright farce. We learn of Bobby Kennedy's obsession with having Castro killed, and Fidel's fairly understandable retort, recorded by a Colombian journalist: "If the US don't stop with their terrorist attacks against me, they could become targets of similar attacks."

One former Kennedy aide reveals that the tragic leader's successor, Lyndon B Johnson, was convinced that Cuba did the deed. LBJ apparently told colleagues: "We simply must not allow the American people to believe that Fidel Castro could have killed our president."

Just when Huismann's theory begins to gain some credibility he shoots himself in the foot with the accuracy of a sniper from a grassy knoll.

His sources are way too shifty and when he finally collars one of the key agents in the street with tales of orange afros and Warner Bros goons, he can hardly keep a straight face himself.

Good fun this - but more pie in the sky than private eye.