Morley: CIA Resentment Toward JFK After BoP

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

Thanks Cliff, obviously I can't say somebody did not have an agenda to get rid of Dulles - and essentially break the strangle hold that the Dulles brothers had on US policy during the fifties.

I did forget to mention two really strange things about Bissell and the project though.

First, if he had run the program the way he had the Guatemala project, making full use of American covert air and naval assets and bringing off an uprising by September it would have had a good chance at least of triggering a major insurgency and if not overthrowing Castro at least destabilizing his regime. But Bissell essentially threw away the playbook and decided that Cuban exiles had to do everything on their own...when that delayed the project past the point of no return the landing was essentially a hail Mary.

But Eisenhower had even given him a last out,  in December/January, after the election Ike twice proposed that the CIA stage a quick false flag that would allow him to send in the US military before JFK took office - there appears to have been no response at all to that offer from Bissell.

Larry, for years now you continue to come up with things that make me say wow.  That last sentence.  I've never seen anything about That.

Ike suggested a false flag operation and sending in troops after it, Twice, in December 60 and January 61?  Wow.  Dulles was director, he would have been aware of this wouldn't he?  If so, he ignored the offer?  I've read he left most of the planning to Bissell and others.  But ultimately he would be the one responsible for such a decision?  Did he want to set JFK up to fail or force im into an invasion early in his administration.  They certainly differed on how to proceed in the Congo, Laos and Vietnam, support for Algeria.  Sounds like Ike wanted to take down Castro before he left office.

[Larry Hancock]

Dulles had totally stepped away from decision making on the Cuba project, its hard to see how much he even knew about it.  The thing is that deniability was SOP for CIA covert ops but once this thing became a conventional amphibious landing its like nobody took notice that it was a new game.  Even Ike did not realize how the plan had foundered until election time, ditto Nixon.  The original project was supposed to have an full fledged revolt against Castro going on by Sept. 

Ike's conversation was with Bissell, its like he tried to step back into the whole thing after the election and make something happen but Bissell had restructured the whole project - its unclear how much Ike even knew about it (which may explain why JFK was shocked Ike did not talk that much about Cuba in their transition meeting).

You really get the impression that everybody but Bissell and Barnes were out of the loop....including J C King who as Western Hemisphere chief was actually at the top of the chain of command as the project was going on in his territory.  In the follow on inquires he is embarrassingly clueless.

[Ron Bulman]

Wow again.  I thought I'd read in the last year or so Bissell dumped most of the operations stuff on Barnes who I gathered maybe wasn't real enthusiastic about it for some reason.  But Bissell put off Ike's offer.  Incredible, after years and years it keeps getting deeper!  Still, even given deniability, how could Dulles have been left out of the loop on such an "opportunity".  It boggles my mind.

[Larry Hancock]

My impression is that there really was no "loop",  in the beginning it was a Guatemala scale project, totally covert with similiar assets as had been used in Guatemala successfully and Indonesia not so much.  It had a short fuse, a six month time frame to put trained leaders on island to lead existing anti-Castro movements, do a lot of propaganda, and provide limited, contract air support.   The leadership was Barnes serving under J.C. King.   Dulles never involved himself operationally, just signed off on the project.  There was little real reporting or oversight above the covert operations 40 Group. 

When Bissell changed the rules of the game from Guatemela, the whole time frame went out the window and apparently he raised few flags until Sept/Oct when it was obviously not happening (when the first groups were trained there was no sea or air logistics to get them into Cuba) and around November totally shifted to a large scale, conventional amphibious operation it took on a life of its own. Nobody wanted to stop it but then few realized what it had morphed into - there was no written plan or review process until JFK ordered something in writing for review by the JCS early in 62. 

We have no idea to what extent JFK was fully briefed, it appears his impression was that still essentially a plan to put Cuban exile volunteers into Cuba, and trigger a revolution - which is what the plan assumed.  He was never told about the roll up of the Cuban groups weeks before....

When you read the inquiry panel material you get the impression that both Dulles and J.C. King were just totally ignorant of the issues....if not they did a great job of appearing so...and Dulles even agreed that the CIA should not be tasked with military operations in the future.  Of course that idea died along with JFK.

[Michael Griffith]

19 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I'm going to do this one more time...well probably more since few seem to listen to my objections on this subject.  I document in my book In Denial, from actual government records, that JFK violated a number of guidelines JFK himself had set before the landings at the BOP - new orders issued to try and support the Brigade while they were on the beach.   He allowed American pilots to fly bombing and ground attack strikes in Brigade aircraft, he authorized extended night time air drops to supply the beachhead with American personnel in the transports  - and actually approved Air Force transports to carry out resupply missions, the CIA was just too unprepared to handle it.  He authorized ground attack strikes with American aircraft to cover the evacuation of the Brigade - he had ordered plans for that before the landings - but the Navy had not prepared any such plans, the Brigade had not been prepared for such an eventuality and the Navy screwed up the timing of the air strike so badly it was totally ineffective (and so late that the American pilots over the beach in Brigade aircraft were shot down). 

This does not even go into other orders that he gave which would have prevented the disaster but which the CIA officers appear simply to have ignored - or as an alternative, Bissell never passed them on to those officers.

This goes along with my other post about historiography being necessary to correct what initially goes into the "establishment" histories. 

True, but in the eyes of the military and the CIA, those actions were too little, too late. Few people talk about the angry confrontation between JFK and the legendary Admiral Arleigh Burke when Burke pressed JFK for decisive intervention to save the operation. 

JFK was concerned that large-scale U.S. intervention in the invasion would trigger a Soviet move against West Berlin. I would have been tempted to say, "So what? Let the Soviets have West Berlin. It's deep inside East Germany anyway, and its loss would be tactically meaningless." I would have been tempted to exchange West Berlin for a free Cuba, assuming the Soviets would have in fact grabbed West Berlin if we had toppled Castro.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Larry Hancock]

Once the supply ships (manned by civilian crews - essentially shanghaied into the operation - refused to return to the beachhead even under escort the first night after the landing it was pretty much over).  To your point, the military had said all along that a landing could be made but the beachhead would collapse in days without a massive civilian uprising to support it as well as highlighting the fact that CIA logistics were totally inadequate to support the force for any extended time after the landing.  The CIA absolutely knew no uprising was not going to happen, made to effort to make it happen and ignored the whole point in meetings - and did not fully brief JFK on that issue.   The Joint Chiefs then failed to go directly to JFK and make their points.  So in the end everybody allowed it roll on and did what people always do, dump on somebody else. 

 

 

 

 

[Gerry Down]

It seems the CIA were heavily dependent on Castro being poisoned in the run up to the BOP. When that failed to materialize, it was too late and the momentum ensured the BOP was then going to happen regardless. Had Castro been done away with, the BOP might have succeeded. And we'd be here talking about how astute JFK had been in the whole operation. 

[Larry Hancock]

That was only one of the long shots as it were,  there was a very good chance of a strong on island upraising up to only a few weeks before - and there was the apparent false flag plan for an attack on Guantanamo....I really wish folks would dive into the complexity of events in the book....it really is misleading to make general statements about the Cuba Project, which was actually two separate projects over a bit more than a year.  The Bay of Pigs landings are only one part of a very complex story, even though they get all the attention. 

[Michael Griffith]

8 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

It seems the CIA were heavily dependent on Castro being poisoned in the run up to the BOP. When that failed to materialize, it was too late and the momentum ensured the BOP was then going to happen regardless. Had Castro been done away with, the BOP might have succeeded. And we'd be here talking about how astute JFK had been in the whole operation. 

If we had intervened with a full-scale air, naval, and ground operation, Castro most likely would have quickly capitulated and would have sued for peace on almost any terms. Similarly, once the Cuban military saw that they were facing a large-scale American intervention, they would have quickly lost the will to fight and may have even ousted Castro as a means of getting on our good side. 

[Gerry Down]

7 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

If we had intervened with a full-scale air, naval, and ground operation, Castro most likely would have quickly capitulated and would have sued for peace on almost any terms. Similarly, once the Cuban military saw that they were facing a large-scale American intervention, they would have quickly lost the will to fight and may have even ousted Castro as a means of getting on our good side. 

I think JFK might have agreed to that except for one glaring problem - Berlin. Khrushchev was having big problems with people crossing from east to west Berlin and was looking for a solution. A few months later in August 1961 he settled on building a wall. But in April 1961 if JFK had done what you say, it would have been a golden opportunity for Khrushchev to seize Berlin. That handicapped JFK in the BOP operation. 

Had he lost Berlin, that would have been thrown at him in the 1964 election. Not to mind European countries would feel like JFK could not be trusted to care about European affairs. 

[Michael Griffith]

18 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

I think JFK might have agreed to that except for one glaring problem - Berlin. Khrushchev was having big problems with people crossing from east to west Berlin and was looking for a solution. A few months later in August 1961 he settled on building a wall. But in April 1961 if JFK had done what you say, it would have been a golden opportunity for Khrushchev to seize Berlin. That handicapped JFK in the BOP operation. 

Had he lost Berlin, that would have been thrown at him in the 1964 election. Not to mind European countries would feel like JFK could not be trusted to care about European affairs. 

As I said earlier, so what if the Soviets had grabbed West Berlin in response to our toppling Castro? So what? West Berlin was tactically insignificant and was deep inside East Germany anyway. 

I doubt that losing one part of a city deep inside East Germany would have cost JFK the '64 election if he had lost it in exchange for freeing Cuba and ending Castro's meddling in Latin America. 

Also, I am not certain that the Soviets would have moved on Berlin, especially if Castro surrendered quickly. But, even if they had, it would have been a trade worth making: losing part of a city in East Germany in exchange for freeing an entire country 90 miles from Florida.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gerry Down]

11 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

As I said earlier, so what if the Soviets had grabbed Berlin in response to our toppling Castro? So what? Berlin was tactically insignificant and was deep inside East Germany anyway. 

I doubt that losing one part of a city deep inside East Germany would have cost JFK the '64 election if he had lost it in exchange for freeing Cuba and ending Castro's meddling in Latin America. 

Also, I am not certain that the Soviets would have moved on Berlin, especially if Castro surrendered quickly. But, even if they had, it would have been a trade worth making: losing part of a city in East Germany in exchange for freeing an entire country 90 miles from Florida.

That's how one might look at the situation from an american perspective. But to the europeans, it would have looked like JFK had pulled a dirty move. The U.S. president is considered the leader of the free world, not just the U.S. And they have to live up to that expectation. JFK had to deal with european leaders going forward, and depend on them for various alliances such as the UK. How was he going to do that by causing the loss of west Berlin through his actions in Cuba. 

Population of west Berlin in 1961 was 2 million people. Population of Cuba was 7.5 million. Yes more people involved in the Cuban situation, but not all of them necessarily anti-communist. Whereas most of the 2 million in west Berlin were pro-western hemisphere. 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Gerry Down

[James DiEugenio]

Kennedy had announced  in advance that there would be no direct American intervention in Cuba.

Most people give him credit for keeping to that promise even in the face of certain defeat.  As Larry says, it was really all over after the first day.

Larry, what do you mean when you say it was really two operations?

It ended up being only the strike force.

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Larry Hancock]

Jim,  the first Cuba Project operation, the one  Eisenhower approved, was to exfiltrate and train a cadre of a few dozen anti-Castro Cubans.  They were then to be infiltrated again, to lead guerilla groups in a series of attacks moving towards Havana - much like the Guatemala operation.  Those groups would be supplied with weapons, and some level of tactical air support to help them advance - again, like Guatemala. The assumption was that Castro had a substantial opposition and well led groups putting pressure on him would collapse his regime. The goal was to have him either ousted or with his back again the wall by September/October.  By October a cadre of leaders had been trained but when the request was made to HQ to send them in it developed there was no way to do so, by sea or air.  In addition there was no available tactical air, or transport air yet in place and the air drops that had occurred had been totally ineffective.

At that point the first operation was abandoned, and the trainees were shifted from guerilla training, reformed into conventional army units, heavy weapons groups and a tank unit were added and by December the second operation had emerged - a full scale amphibious landing of a Brigade sized force with heavy weapons, tanks, trucks and a paratroop unit. That was nothing at all like what had been initially planned and the whole project essentially reset and started over in the November/December time frame.

[James DiEugenio]

That is what I thought you meant.

Its really something that the first project went that far along before realizing it was simply not possible.