David Talbot: Allen Dulles, CIA and Rise of America's Secret Government

[James DiEugenio]

Jim - what are your thoughts on this document?

179 pages

What is this Dave?

Has it been declassified since? I don't think its the one that CIA is still holding back.

BTW, in relation to your other post, Dulles was so determined to trick Kennedy on the feasibility of the plan that he would not let him take the designs with him to study overnight. After the meeting, he rolled them up and put them under his arm and told JFK they could not risk him taking them with him.

What utter crap.

Dulles knew that as an ex navy guy, if JFK actually studied these by himself for about an hour, and then called in someone like Red Fay, he would have cancelled the whole thing the next day.

But in my view, all these discussions about the plan get too bogged down in the air conflict. As Kirkpatrick wrote in his excellent report, so what?

Even if Castro's Air Force had been neutralized, the operation would have failed due to bad planning, lack of surprise, failed defections, and overwhelming odds, See, the CIA told JFK they would be able to get into the beach undetected. Not so. There was a very small patrol there that night since Castro had gone to high alert 48 hours earlier. And they saw the flotilla coming in. As Kirkpatrick writes, within 10 hours of the landing, Castro had the invasion force out manned and outgunned--he had tanks, cannon and mortar.

Why?

In addition to the lack of surprise, the CIA had failed to blow the bridges to the landing site. Which is so ridiculous that it really suggests not just incompetence but sabotage. I found this out by interviewing a veteran of the operation who was infiltrated into Cuba as part of the advance team. He said the communications were so bad that they never got the signal or the coordinates for the demolition of the bridges. Without that done, Castro had no problem getting his heavy artillery and armor to the landing zone. And of course, the whole Nino Diaz diversionary landing somehow went awry. (Or did it? More sabotage?)

Meanwhile, the CIA had done such a bad job in surveilling the new site, they were unaware of the reef problem that existed there. So two supply ships sunk as the force was landing.

It was an unbelievable bad job of preparation and surveillance in advance. It was so bad that as the Kennedys found out more about it--and believe me Kirkpatrick's report is a no holds barred expose of incompetence--they decided that Dulles and Bissell never thought it had chance of succeeding. They were relying on him caving in on his pledge. Kennedy himself said this to Fay--its in his book.

But architecturally, any military strategist knows that in an amphibious operation--whether you have the air or not--you have to have a significantly higher number of troops than the enemy; since you know that--unless you have total surprise--you are going to lose a lot of men coming up the beach. Kirkpatrick was unrelenting in his report on this issue. He was deliberately trying to tell Kennedy that no realistic analysis of the plan could have missed this point. Therefore, the CIA was not being objective about its prospects. Because that was not the point.

And let us not forget, the operation completely morphed from the time of the election to the time Eisenhower left office. It was originally designed as a multi stranded guerrilla operation. It changed to the strike force concept for the new administration. Why?

Two reasons I think. First, the CIA knew that Castro was being absolutely methodical in rounding up the resistance to his regime at this time period., In fact, by the time of the landing, there was little or no effective resistance left. Second, in light of that, they felt that they could manipulate Kennedy into launching such a strike force, and then reversing himself when he was facing disaster.

They miscalculated. And yes, there were voices trying to get JFK to cave, like Burke and Nixon himself. Cabell went to CIA HQ and tried to get Marchetti to write a report telling Kennedy there were MIGS in Cuba strafing the beach. But Marchetti knew that there were no MIGS there. So he would not sign off on a phony report.

Edited August 25, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[David Josephs]

Good post, David.

Although I'd frame this differently; you write -- "There was nothing he could do to stop a then treasonous staff doing the bidding of the CIA/Military."

In regards to SE Asia I think it was the CIA/Military doing the bidding of his treasonous staff.

Pretty sure it was not Lodge who told the Military/CIa to kill Diem but the Military telling Lodge to set Diem up by reasuring him if he resigned he wouldn't be killed...

http://www.ctka.net/2015/chapter6_3c.pdf

NOVEMBER 1st – 22nd

On November 1st Diem is assassinated in Vietnam after Ambassador Lodge tells him at 4:30pm local time that if he resigns he and his brother would have safe passage out of the country - Diem-Lodge last phone call http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/vn23.pdf . On November 2nd Diem does just that. Saigon radio broadcasts that Diem had committed suicide with his brother at 10:45am local time.

The SITUATION in Saigon. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/vn24.pdf

Yet I do see where you are going with that... Bundy, Harriman, et al: "staff" imo was on the same level as those in the Military making these decisions... That Facilitator/Sponsor crossover level which is hard to define. But one can see where Bundy would be at both conversations - the Sponsors decisions and the Facilitators planning....

Edited August 26, 2015 by David Josephs

[David Josephs]

Jim - what are your thoughts on this document?

179 pages

What is this Dave?

Has it been declassified since? I don't think its the one that CIA is still holding back.

BTW, in relation to your other post, Dulles was so determined to trick Kennedy on the feasibility of the plan that he would not let him take the designs with him to study overnight. After the meeting, he rolled them up and put them under his arm and told JFK they could not risk him taking them with him.

What utter crap.

Dulles knew that as an ex navy guy, if JFK actually studied these by himself for about an hour, and then called in someone like Red Fay, he would have cancelled the whole thing the next day.

But in my view, all these discussions about the plan get too bogged down in the air conflict. As Kirkpatrick wrote in his excellent report, so what?

Even if Castro's Air Force had been neutralized, the operation would have failed due to bad planning, lack of surprise, failed defections, and overwhelming odds, See, the CIA told JFK they would be able to get into the beach undetected. Not so. There was a very small patrol there that night since Castro had gone to high alert 48 hours earlier. And they saw the flotilla coming in. As Kirkpatrick writes, within 10 hours of the landing, Castro had the invasion force out manned and outgunned--he had tanks, cannon and mortar.

I don't know if this is that last part of the IG report... Don't think so. I will email you the doc if you like...

Here is the TOC and Helms' note.

[Cliff Varnell]

Speaking of the accounts of professional prevaricators...

From The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service, David Atlee Phillips, pg 108:

<quote on>

It was just after four in the morning [Monday, April 17] when I next returned to Cliff's [pseudonym for higher up] office. I stood in the doorway and listened while Cabell and Bissell spoke insistently on the telephone, often exchanging the instrument. They were trying to convince Rusk that landing craft of the Brigade must have air cover over the beach. a task impossible for the Brigade B-26's several hours away in Nicaragua. Cabell asked that navy fighters of the U.S.S. Boxer, about fifty miles from the beach, be authorized to protect the invasion force. Rusk would not agree.

This time Cabell decided he must talk to President Kennedy. We waited for the call to go through to Glen Ora [JFK's Virginia place] and for the President to be awakened.

Cabell talked to Kennedy. The conversation lasted for some time. Obviously the President was asking a number of questions, which Cabell answered

in detail. He presented his case for air cover from the Boxer but as he did so I thought to myself: if only Dulles were here to sell this one. Cabell's voice

dropped lower and lower; it was mostly, Yes, yes, sir now. The conversation ended. Cabell put the telephone into its cradle.

"The President says no deal," Cabell said, looking at Bissell. Then he turned to the rest of us, "I guess," Cabell said, "we'll just have to be headsy-headsy about this."

Headsy-headsy?

<quote off>

Is there any truth to this 4am phone call from Cabell to Kennedy?

Edited August 26, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

Good post, David.

Although I'd frame this differently; you write -- "There was nothing he could do to stop a then treasonous staff doing the bidding of the CIA/Military."

In regards to SE Asia I think it was the CIA/Military doing the bidding of his treasonous staff.

Pretty sure it was not Lodge who told the Military/CIa to kill Diem but the Military telling Lodge to set Diem up by reasuring him if he resigned he wouldn't be killed...

Joseph Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, pgs 334-5

<quote on>

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.”

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate “with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy.” By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general.”

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman.”

At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Sagon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal.

According to Corson, “John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters,” although Dunn’s role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodge for “special operations,” could act without hindrance.

<quote off>

http://www.ctka.net/2015/chapter6_3c.pdf

NOVEMBER 1st – 22nd

On November 1st Diem is assassinated in Vietnam after Ambassador Lodge tells him at 4:30pm local time that if he resigns he and his brother would have safe passage out of the country - Diem-Lodge last phone call http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/vn23.pdf . On November 2nd Diem does just that. Saigon radio broadcasts that Diem had committed suicide with his brother at 10:45am local time.

The SITUATION in Saigon. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/vn24.pdf

Yet I do see where you are going with that... Bundy, Harriman, et al: "staff" imo was on the same level as those in the Military making these decisions...

With all due respect, David, I don't believe that for one minute.

Who set the rules of engagement for the CIA's allies in Laos?

The CIA? The military?

No, the "Ambassador-at-Large" at Foggy Bottom named W. Averell Harriman.

Harriman was sovereign. The Military wasn't.

That Facilitator/Sponsor crossover level which is hard to define. But one can see where Bundy would be at both conversations - the Sponsors decisions and the Facilitators planning....

Bundy was a snot nosed kid.

Ave Harriman and Johnny D Rockefeller 3 had been calling shots for a long long time.

[Steven Gaal]

Russ Baker

link >>>> http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/10/14/bush-and-the-jfk-hit-part-5-the-mysterious-mr-de-mohrenschildt/

"The White Russian émigrés in the United States were motivated by both ideology and economics to serve as shock troops in the growing cold war conflict being managed by Prescott’s friends and associates. No one understood this better than Allen Dulles, the Wall Street lawyer, diplomat, and spy-master-in ascension. Even in the period between the two world wars, Dulles was already molding Russian émigrés into intelligence operatives. He moved back and forth between government service and Wall Street lawyering with the firm Sullivan and Cromwell, whose clients included United Fruit and Brown Brothers Harriman. The latter was at that time led by Averell and Roland Harriman and Prescott Bush."

==============

yes these are the DALLAS CEO's . ,gaal

=

by Herbert Parmet

>> link >> http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1811

"George Herbert (Bert) Walker’s relationship with Averell Harriman went back to 1919, reported Buchanan, when both went to Paris to set up "the German branch of their banking and investment operations, which were largely based on critical war resources such as steel and coal." .....Allegations involving the “father” of what has become the Bush dynasty relate to his association with Brown Harriman and Company, the Wall Street investment banking firm, which evolved from a 1931 merger of W. A. Harriman and Company and Brown Brothers, which was brought together by George Herbert Walker, president of the former, and his son-in-law, Prescott.The younger Bush, by then, was one of the seven directors of Brown Brothers Harriman, a board that included W. Averell Harriman and his brother Roland. - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1811#sthash.mqIhiw4D.dpuf "- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1811#sthash.1BGb7V2E.dpuf

Edited August 26, 2015 by Steven Gaal

[Greg Burnham]

Speaking of the accounts of professional prevaricators...

From The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service, David Atlee Phillips, pg 108:

<quote on>

It was just after four in the morning [Monday, April 17] when I next returned to Cliff's [pseudonym for higher up] office. I stood in the doorway and listened while Cabell and Bissell spoke insistently on the telephone, often exchanging the instrument. They were trying to convince Rusk that landing craft of the Brigade must have air cover over the beach. a task impossible for the Brigade B-26's several hours away in Nicaragua. Cabell asked that navy fighters of the U.S.S. Boxer, about fifty miles from the beach, be authorized to protect the invasion force. Rusk would not agree.

This time Cabell decided he must talk to President Kennedy. We waited for the call to go through to Glen Ora [JFK's Virginia place] and for the President to be awakened.

Cabell talked to Kennedy. The conversation lasted for some time. Obviously the President was asking a number of questions, which Cabell answered

in detail. He presented his case for air cover from the Boxer but as he did so I thought to myself: if only Dulles were here to sell this one. Cabell's voice

dropped lower and lower; it was mostly, Yes, yes, sir now. The conversation ended. Cabell put the telephone into its cradle.

"The President says no deal," Cabell said, looking at Bissell. Then he turned to the rest of us, "I guess," Cabell said, "we'll just have to be headsy-headsy about this."

Headsy-headsy?

<quote off>

Is there any truth to this 4am phone call from Cabell to Kennedy?

Yes, the phone call did take place. However, it wasn't until 4:30 am EST. I have covered this in several presentations both live and on the radio. Here is an excerpt from an article that I wrote about it for my website simply titled, FIASCO:

Yet another example of continued disinformation was only declassified very recently. In November of 1984 Dr. Jack B. Pfeiffer, former Chief of the CIA’s History Staff, unsuccessfully attempted to get his manuscript titled, “The Taylor Committee Investigation of the Bay of Pigs” declassified. The majority of it remained classified for more than 25 years and was only recently approved for release on July 25, 2011—less than 3 years ago from the time of this writing—and more than 50 years after the Bay of Pigs. I have relied on very little from the report itself, other than to show how it is self-impeaching. However, the fact that it even exists remains very relevant to the topic I wish to cover.

It is somewhat reminiscent of the type of report that a former Warren Commission staffer might write today: packed full of details, many of which lack relevance, while presenting evidence in a manner intended to bias the reader to a foregone conclusion. In some instances he completely misrepresents the facts—and does so in one of the most important aspects of this sabotaged operation. He claims that Secretary Rusk had JFK on the phone when Cabell and Bissell told Rusk of the likelihood of disastrous consequences if the D-Day airstrikes were cancelled. That claim is demonstrably false.

Pfeiffer is conflating JFK’s refusal to launch direct US Military intervention (US Navy jets off the aircraft carrier, USS Essex) with the already (by then) cancelled anti-Castro Cuban piloted B-26 D-DAY airstrikes from Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua! That these were two completely distinct and separate “histories” of the operation—one being a part of the original plan and the other prohibited by law and never a part of the plan—is not in question. Why Pfeiffer chose to obfuscate the record, however, remains suspect. In actuality, by the time Rusk finally did call JFK on the phone to put CIA’s General Cabell on the line, it wasn’t until 4:30 on the morning of D-DAY, which was already several hours too late for the B-26’s to have eliminated Castro’s air force on the ground!

Thus, it is evident that by then CIA was no longer requesting that the D-Day pre-dawn airstrikes be reinstated, as it was already too late for that. Rather, they were requesting DIRECT US MILITARY INTERVENTION as Cabell had fighter jets on stand-by from the USS Essex. In other words, they were now requesting exactly what the President had made clear would not be allowed under any circumstances, namely: Direct US Military Intervention, which was never in the plan and which was not expected by the anti-Castro Cubans, as reported by Colonel Jack Hawkins less than a week prior to D-Day in an Emergency Dispatch Cable to Washington."

[American pilots and fighter planes from any US ship, including the USS Boxer or USS Essex, as well as any military personnel from any branch of the US Armed Forces were specifically prohibited from participating in any clandestine operations as per National Security Council Directives.]

Edited August 26, 2015 by Greg Burnham

[Cliff Varnell]

There appears to be a contradiction between the official story for Dulles taking off to Puerto Rico and the official unofficial story that Dulles sabotaged the operation to pressure Kennedy into direct US intervention.

A Crime So Immense

By James K. Galbraith

http://web.archive.org/web/20060904201459re_/utip.gov.utexas.edu/jg/archive/2000/crimesoimmense.pdf

<quote on>

One of the great travesties of the Cold War surfaced on April 29 [2000], when the Washington Post reported the declassification in full of General Maxwell Taylor’s June, 1961 special report on the Bay of Pigs invasion. Partial versions of this document have been available for decades. But only now did its darkest secret spill. Here is what Taylor reported to Kennedy. The Russians knew the date of the invasion. (Therefore, Castro also knew.) The CIA, headed by Allen Dulles, knew that the Russians knew. (Therefore, they knew the invasion would fail.) The leak did not come from the invasion force; it had happened before the Cuban exiles were themselves briefed on the date. Kennedy was not informed. Nor, of course, were the exiles. And knowing all this, Dulles ordered the operation forward.

Was this incompetence? I think not. The evidence points, rather, to treachery.

<quote off>

The official story is that Dulles went to Puerto Rico for a long scheduled speech so not to alert Castro that something was up.

But Dulles knew that Castro already knew.

He went to Puerto Rico anyway, and as Phillips said he was sorely missed on D-Day.

Why would Dulles go to Puerto Rico since he knew Castro was already alerted to the impending operation, thus depriving Dulles of a crucial, direct line to Kennedy?

Anybody want to square the circle on this one?

[Cliff Varnell]

[American pilots and fighter planes from any US ship, including the USS Boxer or USS Essex, as well as any military personnel from any branch of the US Armed Forces were specifically prohibited from participating in any clandestine operations as per National Security Council Directives.]

But didn't Dulles bet the ranch on Kennedy ordering US intervention?

Dulles believed Kennedy was going to countermand established US law?

He thought Cabell was going to carry the day, so confident that he could beat it to Puerto Rico yeah Charlie's got this one...??

And that's why my BS-detector is in the red...

[David Andrews]

An interesting exchange of letters in The New York Review of Books (Sept. 30, 2010) concerning the Vietnam withdrawal and the Diem coup. NB, it would be distinctive if JFK distrusted Michael V. Forrestal, as Forrestal was the son of onetime JFK mentor James V. Forrestal.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/sep/30/would-jfk-have-left-vietnam-exchange/

To the Editors:

In his essay “Mac Bundy Said He Was ‘All Wrong’” [NYR, June 10], William Pfaff claims that Gordon Goldstein’s book Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam “should settle for good the controversy over whether President Kennedy, had he not been assassinated, would have enlarged the war or would have withdrawn the still-limited number of American troops in Vietnam.” Pfaff writes that the “Bundy material” collected by Goldstein is “conclusive” and demonstrates that Kennedy had made a decision to disengage from Vietnam. I believe this to be facile in the extreme.

First, Pfaff reports that Goldstein’s book is largely drawn from McGeorge Bundy’s “notes, text fragments, draft memoir passages, and the like” collected by Goldstein, who was assisting Bundy on a memoir that was largely incomplete at the time of Bundy’s death in 1996. While Bundy’s notes written decades after the war are a welcome addition to the historical record, they are by definition not contemporaneous source material. As he did with Goldstein, Bundy told me in my interviews with him that he thought Kennedy would have acted differently than Lyndon Johnson, particularly after the 1964 presidential election. But this remains in the realm of opinion, not documentary evidence of a decision to withdraw from Vietnam.

Second, Pfaff quotes from an Oval Office recording of October 2, 1963, in which Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara is heard telling Kennedy, “We need a way to get out of Vietnam. This is a way of doing it.” The President’s advisers were debating that morning whether to announce the withdrawal of one thousand of the 16,000 US advisers stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963. Kennedy agreed to issue a public announcement of the departure of one thousand advisers. Pfaff thinks this is conclusive proof of Kennedy’s intentions.

Goldstein himself treats this evidence gingerly. And for good reason. For one thing, the full transcript of that October 2 conversation makes it very clear that McNamara and Bundy were also telling the President that they were confident that the South Vietnamese army could repress the Viet-cong insurgency by the end of 1964.

As I wrote in my own biography of Bundy, The Color of Truth (1998), Kennedy himself on October 2 told Bundy and McNamara that he “objected to the phrase ‘by the end of the year’ in the sentence” announcing the withdrawal of one thousand advisers. Why? Because he “believed that if we were not able to take this action by the end of the year, we would be accused of being over optimistic.” McNamara, however, pressed Kennedy to retain the year-end deadline “in order to meet the view of Senator Fulbright and others that we are bogged down forever in Vietnam.” Clearly, McNamara was concerned with political and public relations factors. Elsewhere in the conversation, it becomes obvious that McNamara’s withdrawal plan was contingent on getting the South Vietnamese to fight. General Maxwell Taylor is heard chiming in to say that when he asks his army officers,

"When can you finish this job in the sense that you will reduce this insurgency to little more than sporadic incidents? Inevitably, with the exception of the [Mekong] Delta, they would say, ‘64 would be ample time.’ I realize that’s not necessarily…I assume there’s no major new factors entering [unclear]. I realize that…."

And then President Kennedy interrupts Taylor to say, “Well, let’s say it anyway. Then, ‘65, if it doesn’t work out, [unclear: we’ll get a new date].”

The evidence is obviously murky. There is nothing clear-cut in these conversations one way or the other. But it is probably safe to say that President Kennedy had not made up his mind about Vietnam before he was assassinated. Bundy’s assistant, Michael V. Forrestal, later told CBS in 1971 that on November 21, 1963, Kennedy had told him in the Oval Office that when he got back from Dallas, “I want to start a complete and very profound review of how we got into this country, and what we thought we were doing, and what we think we can do. I even want to think about whether or not we should be there.”

This sounds like Kennedy—but this too is oral history told long after the fact.

Kai Bird
Kathmandu, Nepal

William Pfaff replies:

Mr. Bird writes as if I were the author of Mr. Goldstein’s book rather than its reviewer. It does not consist of material “collected” by Goldstein, but assembled by McGeorge Bundy himself in preparation for writing the memoir for which he engaged Mr. Goldstein’s assistance, and surely included “contemporaneous source material.” With respect to President Kennedy’s decision on escalating the Vietnam War, we are indeed dealing with “murky” (although not that murky, I would say) evidence consisting of what President Kennedy’s associates say was their opinion of his intentions in late 1963.

The President’s post–Bay of Pigs distrust of “expert opinion,” his privately expressed conviction that guerrilla wars are not won by foreign troops, and his repeated referral of his associates to General Douglas MacArthur’s opinion concerning the folly of sending American troops to fight on the Asian mainland suggest that he had made up his mind before 1963 to continue to refuse to send combat forces to Vietnam, but was treading cautiously because of the domestic political situation, and the Pentagon and congressional pressures being placed upon him.

Thus I prefer the relatively disinterested view of Gordon Goldstein, a historian working with Bundy’s own documents, as well as with his subsequent notes and reflections, and personally close to Bundy at the time of the latter’s death in 1996, to the opinion of Michael Forrestal, a committed hawk at the time of the Kennedy assassination.

Forrestal was one of the instigators of the message sent to the Saigon embassy the weekend of August 24, 1963, apparently without the express authority of the President (away at Hyannisport), authorizing Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge to encourage a military coup against the Diem government, if President Diem did not agree to dismiss his brother and close adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu. This eventually resulted in the murder of both President Diem and his brother, which apparently infuriated Kennedy. General Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, subsequently described Forrestal as one of the four “anti-Diem activists” whose weekend maneuver had been an “egregious end-run.” (The lesson drawn from the affair by Bundy was cool: “Never do business on the weekend.” See Stanley Karnow’s Vietnam, Viking, 1983, pp. 286–288.)

It would be unsurprising if Forrestal (by 1971) had convinced himself that Kennedy intended a “profound review” of Vietnam policy following his Dallas trip, and would have decided, as Forrestal among many others recommended, to send American combat troops to Vietnam, but this is speculation, or wishful thinking. After JFK’s assassination, the same people convinced a reluctant Lyndon Johnson to do so, to the subsequent misfortune of everyone concerned. (Shortly before he died in 1989, Forrestal told one of the editors of The New York Review that he had been “all wrong” about the Vietnam War.)

Edited August 27, 2015 by David Andrews

[Cliff Varnell]

Forrestal was one of the instigators of the message sent to the Saigon embassy the weekend of August 24, 1963, apparently without the express authority of the President (away at Hyannisport), authorizing Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge to encourage a military coup against the Diem government, if President Diem did not agree to dismiss his brother and close adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu. This eventually resulted in the murder of both President Diem and his brother, which apparently infuriated Kennedy. General Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, subsequently described Forrestal as one of the four “anti-Diem activists” whose weekend maneuver had been an “egregious end-run.” (The lesson drawn from the affair by Bundy was cool: “Never do business on the weekend.” See Stanley Karnow’s Vietnam, Viking, 1983, pp. 286–288.)

******

The other three "anti-Diem activists" were Averell Harriman, George Ball, and Roger Hilsman.

By sheer coincidence on 11/22/63 the top US government officials on the job in DC were the #2 and #3 guys at the State Dept. -- Ball and Harriman.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[James DiEugenio]

The Pfaff vs Bird exchange is slightly humorous considering what is in Goldstein's book.

Because when Forrestal was telling Goldstein this anecdote, he also added the following : that Kennedy had privately told him that the odds against an American victory over the Vietcong were 100 to 1. (Goldstein, p. 239)

I think that colors the conversation.

[James DiEugenio]

I want to add just two last things to the Bay of Pigs discussion here.

First, as I explain in DB, the whole Dulles understanding that the invasion would fail and rely on Kennedy to cave, that is not the worst part of the treachery involved.

In my view there was something even worse than that. Namely Operation Forty.

In both Kirkpatrick's report and in A Thousand Days, the scene of Manolo Ray and his cohorts begin held under forced detention, incommunicado with the outside world is mentioned but not at all explicated or reviewed. Yet, Schlesinger does explain that when he told Kennedy about this situation, JFK ordered them to be let loose from the Miami airfield. (DiEugenio, p. 50)

Well, it turns out that Schlesinger did not tell the whole story in his book. After talking to a reporter named Sam Halper, who had excellent contacts inside the Cuban exile community, Arthur told DIck Goodwin that the CIA had set up a parallel operation inside the Bay of Pigs headed ostensibly by Luis Sanjenis. It was a hit squad superficially designed to root out communists on the island during the struggle, but it was later meant to be turned on any and all leftists including Ray and his followers. The idea was to purge the new leadership of Kennedy's liberals who Schlesinger had forced Hunt to take, and make Manuel Artime, Howard Hunt's man, the new leader of Cuba. (ibid, p. 51)

This was not just idle chatter. The suspicions about Sanjenis were so serious that Tony Varona ended up firing him. But as Larry Hancock notes, the man then set up his own office with CIA support. Sanjenis was closely allied with Morales and the counter intelligence agency he had set up in advance of the Bay of Pigs. Which was supposed to be then officially incorporated into the Artime government. This was called AMOT, and they had collected files on all the members of the brigade as well as certain people on the island. (ibid)

Hunt was supposed to be the political leader of the Brigade and he was very close to Artime. There is very little doubt then that he knew about Operation Forty. This threat was so real that Ray had written to JC King. He said he feared if the invasion succeeded, he and his cohorts would be killed in the mopping up operation which he knew was called Operation Forty.

From a memo by Dan Hardway for the HSCA, the man who wrote the secret CIA internal report on Operation Forty for DIck Helms was Sam Halpern (not Halper.) Helms assigned Halpern a lot of the dirty work on the Kennedys. Hardway said that, to his knowledge, no one had ever seen this report except controversial journalist Andrew St. George. That is how closely held it was.

So Kennedy was not just being lied to about the operation's possibility of success. He was also being lied to about who would be running Cuba if the operation succeeded. It was not the guy he personally brought into the political junta through Schelsinger, Ray.

It was going to be Hunt's man Artime. And this would be accomplished through murder.

[Cliff Varnell]

I want to add just two last things to the Bay of Pigs discussion here.

First, as I explain in DB, the whole Dulles understanding that the invasion would fail and rely on Kennedy to cave,

Rely on Kennedy caving to Charles Cabell and violate US law?

The official explanation that Dulles went to Puerto Rico so not to alert Castro is null and void.

If Dulles expected to put pressure on Kennedy to go rogue and break American law he wouldn't have gone to Puerto Rico and lose personal control of the situation, would he?

This "official" explanation you're pushing here doesn't make sense, Jim.

[Chris Newton]

There are 23 oral history videos on Vimeo for Brigade 2506, most are in english. I highly recommend anyone interested in what happened to listen to them - for the most part they are unguarded, honest and quite critical of CIA. A lot of them do not blame Kennedy. From what I've listened to, I'm sure there is a lot here not in any other histories.

momentummiami

Edited August 27, 2015 by Chris Newton