That whole "canceled" air strikes thing...

[James DiEugenio]

OK, Larry, is that an ad, or are you going to tell us who it  was?

[Larry Hancock]

Actually what it means is that I can't claim to remember names off the top of my head like I used to....well maybe not even then.  So now I'll have to look it up although I doubt it will ring any bells....he was named as a staff member in Bissell's rebuttal to the CIA IG report but got little attention elsewhere that I recall. Bissell did not point out that he only came into the project in its very last stages.

OK, its Captain Jack Scapa...and I have blogged about him before so he's not just mentioned in the book.

He was not assigned to the CIA as a liaison until February, 1961 and he came from the Atlantic Fleet's amphibious training command.

[Robert Montenegro]

13 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

OK, its Captain Jack Scapa...and I have blogged about him before so he's not just mentioned in the book.

He was not assigned to the CIA as a liaison until February, 1961 and he came from the Atlantic Fleet's amphibious training command.

Jesus, this madness surrounding the Bay of Pigs gets weirder and weirder...

According to his own testimony, Captain Jacob “Jack” Scapa, then Assistant Chief of Alans and Operations at the Amphibious Command, Atlantic (PHIBLANT), was selected by the CIA via a computer?!

What kind of Dr. Strangelove horse manure is that?!

Edited September 26, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Robert Montenegro]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

Dennison had learned of the CIA's project primarily because a couple of CIA officers walked into a Navy base under his command and attempted to requisition a couple of large craft for the project...with no authorizations, only stating the President had approved it.

We are fortunate that the Navy liaison actually wrote an article for a Navy historical digest - which reveals things about the Navy role never shared with any of the inquiries or the Taylor Commission.

Here is a sweet little ditty from the United States Navy's own history about the CIA-Dennison episode: 

(the following quote can be found at this link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4vDzFjNjZ8kJ:https://www.history.navy.mil/museums/Hrnm/files/daybook/pdfs/vol9issueone.pdf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us 

QUOTE — "...They eventually asked for the Navy’s assistance. Admiral Robert Dennison, Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, remembered in an oral history conducted by the Naval Institute, getting a phone call from one of his deputies. The commander of the Amphibious Command Atlantic had just received a visit at his Little Creek office from two CIA agents. The Agency was in need of a large amphibious assault ship and wondered if they Navy would be willing to give up one. When the commander asked what it was for, the men refused to provide details and only stated that the President himself had personally endorsed the request. Upon hearing this, Dennison was livid. He called up the Joint Chiefs of Staff and remembered screaming, “I am not going to give my ship over to a couple of characters who say they are from the CIA or any place else!”..." — END QUOTE (emphasis added).

It appears that ADM. Dennison was not too happy about the CIA personnel that wanted to use United States Navy hardware without submitting acquisitions thru proper channels, or at least saying "please"... 

[Larry Hancock]

In regard to Scapa Its probably not as strange as it sounds - in those days new assignments were often made by literally typing up a set of criteria on a punch card and running a stack of personnel files though an IBM sorter to get a handful of folks available for the assignment.  You had to have the right career field, assignment history, and be serving in a command that made you readily available.  Just standard personnel stuff - you see that sort of thing in very old movies from the fifties and sixties.

And he did have the right career set and was in a training command which made him more readily available than if he had been operational with a fleet unit, at sea, etc.  I'm not sure the request was given that much attention other than to fill a slot since the military was at arms length from the project.

Col. Hawkins later stated that when he had been selected for his assignment the Commandant of the Corps had just told him the CIA was trying to land some people inside Cuba and needed some advise. Not exactly a full brief - as he quickly found out.

As you say though, its a good example of the last minute and relatively ad hoc relationship between the military and the project.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Larry Hancock

[Robert Montenegro]

5 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

in those days new assignments were often made by literally typing up a set of criteria on a punch card and running a stack of personnel files though an IBM sorter to get a handful of folks available for the assignment.

Makes me wonder if the "mechanics" that murdered President Kennedy were "punched" into a similar computer databank...

To quote Peter Sellers "...It would not be difficult, Mein Führer...!"

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Ron Bulman]

7 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Fitzpatrick literally and in detail gutted Bissell's management of the project - which was of course an indictment of Dulles as well, who exercised virtually no oversight of Bissell and appears to have had very limited information about either phase of the project. Doing so exposed some of the fundamental structural problems with the whole organization of the project including J.C. King's and Cabell's involvement.

In that regard the CIA Historian did a similar job, including harsh commentary on King and Cabell.

The Phase 1 plan called for active air supply and even air strike support beginning by September...neither happened.  The few supply drops that eventually did occur not only failed to supply the resistance groups but in several instances exposed them to Castro's security forces.

And the maritime effort was totally nonexistent during that period except for a few small boats borrowed locally by CIA officers.  It was only in Feb 1961 that a handful of larger boat missions were accomplished.

Unlike in earlier projects, most recently in Indonesia, Bissell  refused to utilize regular military resources or even contract pilots for the air missions or maritime missions into Cuba.  And he insisted on using the Agencie's air arm, which of course he was more familiar with but which had never supported covert operations on the scale as called for in the evolving plan. He may have been a fine manager for a developmental project like the U-2 but when he tried to apply highly structured bureaucratic controls to regime change, he was truly out of his depth.

Dulles..." exercised no oversight".  Maintaining distance, plausible deniability?   Supervising from the sidelines?

[James DiEugenio]

In John Newman's book, he says that by putting Bissell out front, and placing himself in Puerto RIco, Dulles thought that Bissell would take the fall if JFK refused to cave and send in Burke's naval squad.

Actually that was a pretty clever strategy.  But it failed because of the decision to do the in house inquiry with RFK on the committee.  Bobby's questioning of Dulles was pretty penetrating.

[James DiEugenio]

Larry:

You are saying that the navy expert in amphibious assault did not come on until February and then he was not fully briefed, and he then left?

Then who was their amphibious assault expert?

Or was there not any?

[Larry Hancock]

First on Ron's question - all I can say is that Dulles was copied on Cuba Project memos if they were from Bissell, but generally not at all on those from within the project such as from Esterline or later Hawkins. For example Esterline's memos of concern about air cover and Hawkins memos on timing never made it above Bissell. Of course strictly in terms of chain of command and management terms, J.C. King was actually responsible since it was a Western Hemisphere project.  There is no sign at all that Dulles was involved in operational decision making. 

But to some extent that was SOP for the agency, you could likely say the same for the Guatemala project and others. Dulles was usually involved in getting projects approved or in supporting them at the highest levels if there were problems. You see that in the Indonesia project. Dulles talked with the President or NSC and relied on information from the project manager - we see in the initial Kennedy Administration meetings that Dulles actually knew few details about the state of the Cuba project and gave very broad responses.  And later in the inquiries much of what King and Cabell and Dulles said in those meetings often proved to be wrong or misinformed. 

Jim, its important to remember that the proposal for an major amphibious landing project was only seriously floated in December; Hawkins had begun working on the proposal for what became the Brigade only in late October and that is when the training began to switch from a guerilla focus to preparing the volunteers to perform as a regular infantry brigade.  The bulk of the Cuban volunteer force was only recruited in December and January and one unit was so new it was given weapons training on the ships as they sailed to the landings.

The CIA began some logistics work in December but its true Jack Scapa did not get assigned until relatively late, after the overall plan had been developed without the Navy or the military in general. He had at best a couple of months serious involvement with the maritime planning side of the project - primarily working on the Trinidad plan and the Navy's support for it, which was largely supplying the right type of equipment, training frogmen, and then setting up the screening force to accompany the Brigade ships and support them in international waters.

And once the force was assembled and sailed Scapa really had nothing to do with it; he did not sail with the Navy group covering it and the CIA sent a liaison officer of its own to sail with the Essex - that proved to be a fiasco all by itself.

As to who was the amphibious assault expert, that would be Marine Col. Hawkins, who did prepare the landing plan. However Hawkins was not in charge of the Brigade Air Group or air operations, a critical point of failure.  Bissell refused all his requests for that - as well as his request not to deploy tanks in the landing.

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Larry Hancock