Via Free Republic and a blog called Milfuegos, I learn of the latest conspiracy theory from Wayne Madsen: Was Ted Cruz's father involved in the assassination of President Kennedy?

... there is a strong reason to believe that Cruz was associated with Central Intelligence Agency's anti-Castro operations.

Furthermore, a Cuban hired by alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and who bears a striking resemblance to Cruz is seen in an iconic photograph of Oswald and a group of Cubans Oswald hired who were distributing "Hands off Cuba!" pamphlets in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. The photo of Oswald and other Cubans he hired for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was taken outside the International Trade Mart in New Orleans on August 16, 1963. WMR [the Wayne Madsen Report] has been informed by a source that the individual to Oswald's left is none other than Rafael Cruz.

I wouldn't exactly say that the unidentified young Cuban bears astriking resemblance to Rafael Cruz:

Even some of the Free Republic commenters say that the ears and hairline look all wrong.

But then who is it???

G. Robert Blakey, the Special Attorney at the Department of Justice in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section from 1960 to 1964 and the chief counsel of the House Special Committee on Assassinations, affirmed that the men seen with Oswald passing out pamphlets at the trade mart on August 9 were never identified. In fact, Blakey told PBS'sFrontline in 1993, "when he [Oswald] distributed the literature, one of the two people was hired. The other person we've never been able to identify."

But wait, there's more (emphasis in original):

In 1957, Rafael Cruz, a former salesman for the U.S. intelligence-linked RCA Corporation, left Cuba for the United States. Cruz claims he fought with Castro against the fascist government of Fulgencio Batista but soured on the revolution. However, Cruz left Cuba two years before the Castro revolution.

... In 1959, Cruz married Julia Ann Garza and, after Cruz graduated from the University of Texas in 1961, the couplemoved to New Orleans from Dallas after the birth of their second daughter on November 18, 1962.

Cruz was in New Orleans during 1963, the year that New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison claimed his city was the focal point for the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. The plot involved a number of Cuban exiles.

Whoa if true!

I was vaguely aware of Madsen's name before this. I see that he's a wee bit out of the mainstream:

In 2014 Madsen self-published a book that said that both Israel and Saudi Arabia were intimately involved in planning and carrying out the 9/11 attack on the United States as a "false-flag" attack.

Madsen has reported that Obama is gay. The Nation writing on that conspiracy theory reported that Wayne Madsen "is the source on Obama’s visits to the bath house and who revealed how Obama used basketball pickup games to pick up men. Obama, Madsen says, had homosexual trysts with Representative Artur Davis, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Senate majority leader Bill Frist!" ...

In 2012 Madsen self-published a book Manufacturing a President that said that Barack Obama was a creation of the CIA....

On April 25, 2009, Madsen said that unidentified journalists from Mexico and Indonesia had spoken to some unidentified UN World Health Organization officials and scientists believed the 2009 new H1N1 strain of swine flu virus appeared to be the product of U.S. military sponsored gene splicing....

On June 9, 2008 he reported that unnamed "GOP dirty tricks operatives" had found a Kenyan birth certificate registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr. on August 4, 1961....

In a 2008 ArabNews article ... Madsen says that the prostitution firm that entangled [Eliot] Spitzer in a call girl ring, is seen as a front for Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad.

I'm amused by this conspiracy theory. I don't believe it. However, I really, really hope Donald Trump tries to spread it.

(Crossposted at No More Mr. Nice Blog)