Morley: CIA Resentment Toward JFK After BoP

[Larry Hancock]

It is shocking when you look back on the details but as the CIA's own IG and its own historian noted, Barnes' management of the project was literally atrocious - and he chose not to use the same sorts of covert contract and military assets the CIA had used in Guatemala and even in Indonesia.  Its just a guess but given the extent to which he later gave JFK one story and his own commanders something totally different he may have done the same in the first round - its all good, until it clearly is not. 

You knew it was bad when in the after action inquiries even Dulles agreed the CIA should be removed from military covert action.

[Cliff Varnell]

In Denial, pg 52:

<q>

The dramatic failure of the CIA’s thirteen-month Cuba Project immediately brought into question the planning, practices, tools and the decision making associated with American covert operations in progress around the world.  </q>

The 1956 Bruce-Lovett Report:

<q>

[T]he increased mingling in the internal affairs of other nations of bright, highly graded young men who must be doing something all the time to justify their reason for being. ... Busy, moneyed and privileged, [the CIA] likes its "King Making." responsibility (the intrigue is fascinating -- considerable self-satisfaction, sometimes with applause, derives from "successes" -- no charge is made for "failures" -- and the whole business is very much simpler than collecting covert intelligence on the USSR through the usual CIA methods!)...

Should not someone, somewhere in an authoritative position in our government on a continuing basis, be . . . calculating . . . the long-range wisdom of activities which have entailed our virtual abandonment of the international "golden rule," and which, if successful to the degree claimed for them, are responsible in a great measure for stirring up the turmoil and raising the doubts about us that exist in many countries of the world today? . . . Where will we be tomorrow?”

</q>

https://cryptome.org/0001/bruce-lovett.htm#schlesinger

Edited July 26, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[James DiEugenio]

Larry:

Who was over Barnes in the chain of command?

Bissell?

 

[Larry Hancock]

Yes,  it was a strange set up with Bissell ostensibly conducting a project in J.C. Kings Western Hemisphere Directorate but in reality acting almost entirely independently.   Then Barnes was under Bissell and the military officers under Barnes. 

Another problem with the organization chart was that Bissell insisted on keeping Brigade air and ground operations totally compartmentalized with separate chains of command to HQ.  You can imagine how well that went when the amphibious operation actually launched.

[James DiEugenio]

Separate chains of command?  In an amphibious operation?

Which is one of the most difficult to do?

I think this may be why they never left the written plans with Kennedy over night.

Edited July 27, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

On the day before the BOP landing, JFK put the kibosh on US air strikes in support.  Harriman-protege Bissell bitched about it to Lovett-selected Sec of State Rusk.  Rusk offered to connect Bissell directly to the Boss.

In Denial, pg 204:

While purely speculative, any telephone dialog which could have occurred between Bissell and the president would have had to cover some very dicey issues in respect to Kennedy’s orders — including the fact that the complexity of the amphibious landing, the Navy landing craft involved, and the quantity of tanks, trucks and a massive amount of cargo had actually precluded any real chance of completing the landing and withdrawing all ships (including the command LCI’s) by dawn.  The true extent of the remaining Cuban air threat would have also had to be disclosed, no doubt raising further questions of the plans for resupply of the beachhead over the longer term, which involved extensive flights out of the Nicaraguan base, something which would almost certainly demonstrate American involvement.  The issue of the contingency plans for guerrilla action or even re-landing the force, directed as backup options by the president, might also have been raised by President Kennedy.  If that sort of dialog had occurred there is certainly a possibility that the president might have aborted the landing, as he had continually reserved the right to order.  At the point in time when Bissell and Cabell determined not to talk to President Kennedy the landing force was still some two to two and a half hours from its scheduled deployment off the transports. </q>

Looks like it was a lot more important for Zapata to proceed than succeed.

For Bissell, anyway.

And Joe Kennedy?  “Lucky thing they were found out early.”

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Michael Griffith]

18 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

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. 

One, it is not certain that the Soviets would have moved on West Berlin if we had toppled Castro, especially if we had done so quickly. If anything, a powerful show of force in Cuba may have made Khruschev even more hesitant to move against West Berlin. 

Two, JFK could have made the case to any concerned European leaders that West Berlin was tactically meaningless whereas Cuba, 90 miles from our coast, was tactically crucial. 

Three, freeing Cuba in April 1961 would have avoided the Cuban Missile Crisis and would have avoided all the expensive efforts to sabotage and topple Castro's regime that followed the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. 

[Cliff Varnell]

In Denial, pg 158:

<quote on, emphasis added>

Based on Kennedy’s directives about lowering the visibility of the landings, Richard Bissell, apparently with Director Dulles’ support, did indeed go back to his military officers and craft a less visible plan for inserting the expeditionary force.  In only three days the daylight landing at Trinidad, a town with a port and docks available, and with unemcumbered access to the Escambray Mountains, was changed to a night landing which required all men, material, and supplies to be landed directly on the beaches.  To some extent the plan offered more geographic protection for a lodgment given that the beaches were surrounded by swamps, with only a few undeveloped roads offering access to them.  However, the location selected moved the force well away from the mountains and effectively eliminated the guerrilla option that President Kennedy still seemed to anticipate.  It also made it significantly more difficult for any indigenous fighters to link up with the volunteer force unless they quickly broke out and moved beyond the swamps, something not anticipated in the lodgment plan...

(ibid, pg 159)

...A very brief Joint Chiefs assessment of the new plan limited itself to declaring that in its essentials it still did appear feasible that a force could be landed and sustained for some limited time, but that the isolated location could well restrict any indigenous support.  In turn President Kennedy’s National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy praised the CIA for the steps towards making the revised plan quiet and less “spectacular.”  He also described it as “plausibility Cuban” in its essentials, with no elaboration on that point.  To some extent Bundy appears to have fallen back on the standard concept of deniability, which had been in play since the CIA began its covert actions — if Americans are not involved in the combat then its not officially an American intervention. </q>

So it was Elite Yalie Dick Bissell who came up with the bright idea to land where President Kennedy’s goal to incite a popular counter-insurgency would be abandoned.  The Joint Chiefs saw the flaw in the plan but communicated their reservation to Kennedy by giving the operation a 50/50 chance when the odds were far, far longer.  Elite Yalie Mac Bundy was a big booster of the Zapata Plan.

In the Incompetence/Inertia Scenario there were major lapses in judgment by the CIA, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, the State Dept. and the White House.

In the Get Dulles Scenario Bissell (protege of Uber-Elite Yalie Harriman) and Bundy (assigned his position by Uber-Elite Yalie Lovett) sandbagged Kennedy and Dulles both.

 

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by Cliff Varnell