The Information Council of the Americas (INCA) was a right-wing anti-communist propaganda organization founded in 1961 based in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The idea of INCA came from its founder Edward S. Butler, a veteran of the US military with an interest in psychological warfare. [1] Alton Ochsner served as its president. [2] Other members include Seymour Weiss, [3] Philip Hannan, Walker Percy, and Herbert E. Longenecker. [4] Funding was provided by, among others, Patrick Frawley and William B. Reilly of the Reilly Coffee Company. H.L. Hunt was approached as a potential donor, although he declined to donate. [4] [5] The Mayor of New Orleans, deLesseps Story Morrison, endorsed INCA at the behest of Butler in order to boost the groups membership. He called on citizens to support INCA "with vigor". [4]
INCA was particularly fixated on Fidel Castro of Cuba. It produced what it called "truth tapes" to push their anti-Castro message and to warn people about the spread of communism in Latin America. [2] [6] The Council claimed to broadcast to over one hundred radio stations across sixteen Latin American nations. [7] Both before and after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, INCA seized on Lee Harvey Oswald as a subject of their anti-Castro propaganda. After Oswald was arrested following a scuffle in the street with the anti-Castro Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE), Oswald was invited to debate Butler of INCA and Carlos Bringuier of the DRE on WDSU radio. [8] After the assassination, the tape of the debate was released by INCA as "Oswald: Self-Portrait in Red". [9] On 24 November, two days after Kennedy was killed, Butler was called in to testify by the United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security, which was probing Oswald's communist links. [10] In 1966 INCA produced a television program narrated by Butler entitled "Hitler in Havana", which suggested that Castro had culpability in the assassination of President Kennedy. [11]
The Council was concerned by what it believed to be the presence of communist ideas on college campuses. In February 1966 Butler participated in a debate organized by the Liberals Club at Tulane University on the subject of the Vietnam War. [12] In 1969 it sponsored a six-day conference, the National Student Conference on Revolution, at the University of Chicago. [13]
The group established a relationship with Juanita Castro, the sister of Fidel Castro. In January 1965 she spoke at a dinner organized by INCA [14] and received a trophy presented to her by their president Alton Ochsner. [15]