Within the thousands of documents are tales of assassination plots, surveillance and other covert activities..

With regard to Cuba, some of the documents demonstrate CIA plots to use the mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro. Others pertain to rewards for Castro’s assassination. In one such instance, the CIA offered an award of $.02 to whomever killed Castro. In another instance, they offer over $100,000.

Regarding Lee Harvey Oswald, nothing particularly noteworthy was revealed. The FBI apparently had a wiretap on Oswald and learned that he had been in communication with the government, but this hardly demonstrates that Oswald’s decision to assassinate the president came from the Russians. Instead, the documents only indicate that Oswald was far from proficient in the Russian language.

Beyond those topics, various other interests are addressed. An internal report from the FBI in 1964 documented evidence that Lyndon Johnson was a member of the Klu Klux Klan at the beginning of his political career. The documents also show significant infighting between the FBI and the CIA and increasing concern from the FBI that the CIA was violating its legal limits and operating within the U.S. Lastly, documents in this release also show the FBI’s interest in alleged sex parties that President Kennedy participated in alongside his brother-in-law Peter Lawford and friend Sammy Davis, Jr. However, upon further investigation, the FBI found these allegations conspicuous at best.

For those looking to find a smoking gun that demonstrates that someone other than Oswald was involved in the assassination, an intriguing deposition was held before the Commission on CIA Activities in 1975 by Richard Helms, then Deputy Director of Plans at the CIA when President Kennedy was murdered.

In the exchange, David Belin, a lawyer associated with the commission, confirms that Helms was indeed a part of the assassination. After Helms answers in the affirmative, Belin asks: “Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any ways shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or…”

Before the question can be continued or Helms’s answer given, the document abruptly stops.

In an attempt to limit loss of life and injury, about one million people were evacuated before the storm, including tens of thousands of tourists. Still, the storm and its after-effects killed 10 people and caused monumental physical damage. No major injuries were reported outside of the fatalities.

Storm surges partially engulfed northern villages and left entire communities homeless. Trees and telegraph poles collapsed throughout the island, making communication with remote towns increasingly difficult. In Havana, the streets flooded up a street about six blocks from the shore that people often use as a reference point in the city. At the shore, water and debris came over a seawall and contributed to the devastation.

Street flooding prompted emergency services to go from home to home on boats to rescue the elderly and sick. Havana’s cherished neighborhood of Vedado was underwater for days. Additional damage included large power outages in Havana and in the central province of Camaguey. It could take weeks for power to be restored, and the government says it is working around the clock to restore major transmission and power lines.

Despite the damage in Havana, the storm only skimmed the city. The cities under the eye of the storm, Caibarién and Cayo Coco, experienced more extensive devastation. The roof of the international airport in Cayo Coco caved in during the storm.

The aid and relief efforts will take weeks, if not months, to mitigate the devastation. Food and water are in low supply; the United Nations’ preliminary report suggested that 3.1 million Cubans did not have running water after the storm. As of Sept. 18, some 26,000 people were in shelters. The Cuban government agreed to finance 50 percent of the cost of materials to rebuild or repair homes Irma damaged, yet the details of this arrangement are unclear and could leave significant cost on the victims of the hurricane.

The Cuban government has refused aid from large, American-based charity organizations in the past, for political reasons, so little U.S.-based aid is available to Cuba. Cuba’s main need is food. However, the Cuban government would need to approve any food shipments from American organizations. To receive aid from the U.S., Cuba must request help, which the nation has yet to do. The American organizations Catholic Charities and the Cuban American National Foundation are raising funds to help Cuba, but the strict travel restrictions make other kinds of aid difficult. Because of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, the island is not able to join the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, both of which would provide infrastructure loans.

Venezuela’s government sent 7.3 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba. The U.N. is providing large amounts of food, roofs, mattresses and other necessities

Photo Courtesy of ABC News.