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Ships in the Night: The CIA, the White House and the Bay of Pigs*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Piero Gleijeses
Piero Gleijeses
Affiliation:
Professor of US Foreign Policy, School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University.
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Abstract

A comprehensive study of the available documents about the Bay of Pigs, including many that have been declassified within the last eighteen months, and extensive interviews with the protagonists in the CIA, the White House and the State Department lead me to conclude that the disastrous operation was launched not simply because Kennedy was poorly served by his young staff and was the captive of his campaign rhetoric, nor simply because of the hubris of the CIA. Rather, the Bay of Pigs was approved because the CIA and the White House assumed they were speaking the same language when, in fact, they were speaking in utterly different tongues.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 1 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1. I interviewed Bissell about PBSUCCESS on 10 Nov. 1983 and 24 May 1989 in Farmington, CT.

2. On Kennedy and Bissell before the fiasco, see Bundy, Memorandum for the President, 25 Feb. 1961, President's Office Files (hereafter POF), box 62, John F. Kennedy Library (hereafter JFKL); Rostow, Walt, Oral History (hereafter OH) (JFKL, 1964), p. 39Google Scholar; Bowles, Chester, OH (JFKL, 1965), pp. 62–3Google Scholar.

3. The best studies of the Bay of Pigs are Vandenbroucke, Lucien, Perilous Options: Special Operations As An Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York, 1993), pp. 9–50Google Scholar, 184–96; Wyden, Peter, Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Higgins, Trumbull, The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Bonaldi, Jacques-François, L'Empire U.S. contre Cuba (Paris, 1989), vol. 2Google Scholar. The most comprehensive account by a US participant is Schlesinger, Arthur Jr, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston, 1965), esp. pp. 233–97Google Scholar. For the exiles' testimony, see Johnson, Haynes et al. , The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders' Story of Brigade 2506 (New York, 1964)Google Scholar and Ferrer, Edward, Operation Puma: The Air Battle of the Bay of Pigs (Miami, 1982)Google Scholar. The best journalistic work remains Meyer, Karl E. and Szulc, Tad, The Cuban Invasion: The Chronicle of a Disaster (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.

4. The Kennedy Library includes the minutes of the Taylor Committee, the board of inquiry presided over by General Maxwell Taylor that was appointed by President Kennedy to conduct a postmortem of the operation. A second postmortem, also on the president's orders, was conducted by Lyman Kirkpatrick, the Inspector General of CIA. Kirkpatrick's report remains classified. In addition to the Eisenhower and the Kennedy Libraries, some useful material is located in the Seeley G. Mudd Library, Princeton University (hereafter Mudd Library).

5. As Rusk, Dean has noted, the intense secrecy that surrounded the operation ‘has also made it difficult for historians to reconstruct [it] … because very little was put on paper.’ (Rusk, As I Saw It [New York, 1991], p. 214)Google Scholar. Several participants made this same point: interviews with Richard Bissell (Farmington, CT, 8 Nov. 1991), Jack Esterline (Hendersonville, NC, 18–19 Nov. 1992), McGeorge Bundy (New York, 29 Oct. 1992), and Stanley Beerli (telephone interview, 27 May 1994). See also ‘Narrative of the Anti-Castro Cuban Operation Zapata’, memorandum no. 1, 13 June 1961, p. 13, enclosed in Taylor to President, 13 June 1961, National Security Files [hereafter NSF], box 61 A, JFKL [hereafter ‘Narrative’]).

6. ‘Discussion at the 43 2nd Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, January 14, 1960’, 31 March 1960, pp. 8–9, Whitman File (hereafter WF), National Security Council (hereafter NSC) Ser., box 12, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (hereafter DDEL).

7. Braddock (Havana) to Secretary of State, no. 1844, 1 Feb. 1960, White House Office (hereafter WHO), Office of the Staff Secretary, International Ser., box 4, DDEL. The following exchange is instructive: ‘Mr. Gray said the Attorney General had frequently wondered what our policy was with respect to stopping anti-Castro elements preparing some action against Cuba from American territory. The President said it was perhaps better not to discuss this subject. The anti-Castro agents who should be left alone were being indicated.’ (‘Discussion at the 432nd Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, January 14, 1960’, 31 March 1960, p. 12, WF, NSC Ser., box 12, DDEL)

8. Gray to Don Wilson (Assistant Director, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library), 3 Dec. 1974, p. 1, Gray Papers, box 2, DDEL.

9. See ‘Chief of the WH/4 Branch in CIA’, nd, p. 1, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL (hereafter ‘Chief WH/4’).

10. Interview with Esterline. Born in 1920, Esterline had joined the Office of Strategic Services in World War II, and had been parachuted into Burma behind enemy lines in 1944. He joined the CIA in 1950. He had participated in PBSUCCESS and became Chief of Station in Guatemala after the fall of Arbenz. His next assignment was as Chief of Station in Caracas, where he arrived in January 1958. (Interview with Esterline) I owe special thanks to Janet Weiniger, the daughter of Thomas Willard Ray, one of the four American pilots killed during the Bay of Pigs, who helped me track down the elusive Esterline.

11 ‘Memorandum of Conference with the President 2:30 PM, March 17, 1960’, 18 March 1960, WHO, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Ser., Alphabetical Subser., box 15, DDEL.

12. ‘A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime’, 16 March 1960, WHO, Office of the Staff Secretary, International Ser., box 4, DDEL. (Another copy is in NSF, box 61 A, JFKL, but is more heavily sanitised.)

13. Herter, Memorandum for the President, 17 March 1960, WHO, Office of the Staff Secretary, International Ser., box 4, DDEL. (Another copy, in WF, Dulles/Herter Ser., box 12, DDEL, is sanitised.) The programme of economic pressures had been approved by Eisenhower on 14 March. (See ‘Questions Concerning the Program of Economic Pressures Against Castro’, 27 June 1960, WHO, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, NSC Ser., Briefing Notes Subser., box 6, DDEL.)

14. ‘Memorandum of Conference with the President 2:30 PM, March 17, 1960’, 18 March 1960, quotations pp. 1, 3, WHO, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Ser., Alphabetical Subser., box 15, DDEL.

15. See Memorandum for the Record, ‘First Meeting of General Maxwell Taylor's Board of Inquiry on Cuban Operations Conducted by CIA’, 23 April 1961, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL (hereafter ‘First Meeting’), pp. 5–6 and ‘Chief WH/4’, pp. 4–5. ‘There was’, notes Bissell, ‘a grave political objection by the State Department to doing any of the training or any significant amount of it on U.S. territory.’ (Bissell, OH [JFKL, 1967], p. 25) Some training continued, however, on US soil, despite the objections of the State Department. Finally, on 12 April 1961, Kennedy ‘stressed the necessity for non association with the US and directed that all training activities being conducted within the US should stop’. (‘Summary of White House Meetings’, 9 May 1961, p. 4, Annex 16, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. See also ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President (Tuesday, November 29, 1960 at 11:00 a.m.)’, 5 Dec. 1960, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box 5, DDEL; ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President (Tuesday, January 3 at 9:30a.m.)’, 9 Jan. 1961, p. 5, ibid.; Memorandum for the Record, ‘Second Meeting of the Green Study Group’, 24 April 1961, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL [hereafter ‘Second Meeting’], p. 11; Memorandum for Record, Paramilitary Study Group Meeting [hereafter PMSGM], 2 May 1961, p. 12, ibid.; ‘Chart of Command Organization for Plans and Training’, Annex 5, ibid.).

16. Telephone interview with Bissell, 17 June 1992.

17. ‘Brief History of Radio Swan’, p. 1, Annex 2, NSF, box 61A, JFKL.

18. XXX [Esterline] in ‘Chief WH/4’, p. 4.

19. Dulles, , in ‘Discussion at the 445th Meeting of the National Security Council, Tuesday, May 24, 1960’, 25 05 1960, p. 22Google Scholar, WF, NSC Ser., box 12, DDEL. See also New York Times, 9 Sept. 1960, p. 1.

20. ‘Brief History of Radio Swan’, pp. 2–3, Annex 2, NSF, box 61A, JFKL.

21. Quotations from XXX [Esterline], in ‘Chief WH/4’, P. 2 and ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President (Tuesday, November 29, 1960 at 11:00 a.m.)’, 5 Dec. 1960, p. 2, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box5, DDEL.

22. Bissell, in ‘First Meeting’, p. 4.

23. ‘If I had been captured by Arbenz and tortured to death, I would not have been able to tell them anything that could have done me any good’, Robert Amory, the Deputy Director for Intelligence has observed to underline his ignorance of PBSUCCESS. (Interview with Amory, Washington DC, 17 Oct. 1983 His comments on the Bay of Pigs are similar (see Amory, OH [JFKL, 1966 ], pp. 23–8).

24. Interviews with Bissell (quoted) and Richard Helms (Washington DC, 6 April 1993). On PBSUCCESS, see also Gleijeses, Piero, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton, 1991)Google Scholar; Immerman, Richard, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (Austin, 1982)Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Stephen and Kinzer, Stephen, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Garden City, N.Y., 1982)Google Scholar.

25. Unless otherwise stated, this paragraph is based on interviews with Bissell, Esterline, and Beerli. See also ‘Chart of Command Organization for Plans and Training’, Annex 5, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL and ‘Chart of Command Organization for Operations’, Annex 6, ibid.

26. ‘Narrative’, p. 4. ‘Maybe I delegated too much in this particular operation.’ (Dulles in PMSGM, 30 May 1961, p. 11, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.)

27. ‘I had asked General Cabell as a high Air Force officer … to follow closely the air side of the operation.’ (Dulles in PMSGM, 30 May 1961, p. 5, NSF, box 61A, JFKL)

28. Interview with Bissell.

29. Bundy, Memorandum for the President, 15 March 1961, p. 1, NSF, box 35, JFKL.

30. Both Hawkins and Beerli were military officers on assignment to the CIA. But whereas Hawkins had been loaned to the agency specifically for the Bay of Pigs, Beerli ‘had not been brought into it for that purpose, but really had been in charge of the U–2 operation and of the Agency's air operations generally’. (Bissell, OH [JFKL, 1967 ], P. 17)

31. According to Esterline, Hawkins headed a group of eight senior staff people who worked directly under him. (This group included the notorious Howard Hunt and Jerry Droller.) In the organisational chart of the operation, however, Beerli, Esterline and Hawkins are placed at the same level (see ‘Chart of Command Organization for Plans and Training’, Annex 5, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL and ‘Chart of Command Organization for Operations’, Annex 6, ibid.) Whether Hawkins was indeed Esterline's deputy or his equal, they seem to have worked together closely and well.

A name that recurs often in documents dealing with the operation is that of Tracy Barnes, the Assistant Deputy for Plans. Barnes was brought into the Cuban operation at Dulles's suggestion, and he was given the same role that he had had in PBSUCCESS, that is, second in command. But he had been assigned to the operation late; Esterline, Hawkins and Beerli already reported to Bissell. Barnes therefore became an adviser rather than second in command, and represented the CIA in meetings with other agencies and at the White House. ‘Allen Dulles was always putting Tracy Barnes in’, remarked Helms. ‘Sadly, Barnes didnot contribute anything. But Allen was fond of him and was always pushing him on someone. Barnes was not a fellow who carried much weight. He was very debonnaire.’ (Interview with Helms)

32. ‘Narrative’, p. 2.

33. On the Special Group see Gray, , ‘Memorandum of Meeting With the President’, 27 01 1960Google Scholar, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box 4, DDEL; Gray, , ‘Memorandum of Meeting With the President’, 17 05 1960Google Scholar, ibid.; PMSGM, 8 May 1961, pp. 1–2, NSF, box 61A, JFKL; US Senate, Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (Washington DC, 1975), p. 10Google Scholar.

34. King in ‘ChiefWH/4’ p. 2.

35. Telephone interview with Rubottom, 29 July 1992.

36. Mann, letter to the author, 13 May 1992 (quoted), and interview with Mann, Austin, TX, 21 April 1992.

37 Interview with Bissell.

38. Interview with Goodpaster, Washington DC, 7 April 1993. Goodpaster is well qualified to address these matters. His responsibilities at the White House included ‘handling with the President “all matters of day to day operations” in the foreign affairs and national security field, including the activities of the CIA’. Gray and Goodpaster served as the channels between the CIA and President. (US Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots, p. 112)

39. Quotations from ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President’, 22 Aug. 1960, p. I, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box 5, DDEL and ‘Narrative,’ p. 2.

40. Bissell in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 2.

41. Interviews with Esterline (quoted) and Bissell; XXX [Hawkins] in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 6.

42. XXX to XXX, 31 Oct. 1960, Annex 4, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL. The information on the authorship of the cable and the level of approval is provided by interview with Bissell. In ‘Chief WH/4’, pp. 5–6, the document is incorrectly dated 4 November.

43. ‘Narrative’, p. 3; see also ‘What briefing, if any, was given the Brigade or the Brigades staff on going guerrilla’, 31 May 1961, Annex 17, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.

44. Bissell, ‘Cuba’, 17 Feb. 1961, p. 4, enclosed in Bundy, ‘Memorandum for the President’, 18 Feb. 1961, NSF, box 35, JFKL.

45. Quotations from Taylor in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 17 and from XXX in PMSGM, 26 April 1961, p. 3, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. See also: Gray in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 19 (‘catalyst for uprising’); Dulles, in ‘Memorandum for Record of the Taylor Committee’, 24 04 1961, p. 15Google Scholar, NSF, box 6IA, JFKL (‘a shock treatment’); Decker in PMSGM, 8 May 1961, p. 32, ibid., (‘a catalyst for uprising’); Lemnitzer in PMSGM, 18 May 1961, p. 3, ibid, (‘a catalyst’); ‘Military Evaluation of Para-Military Plan’, p. 4, enclosed in Lemnitzer to Secretary of Defense, 3 Feb. 1961, Annex 9, ibid, (‘a catalyst for uprisings’); Lemnitzer to Secretary of Defense, ‘Evaluation of the CIA Cuban Volunteer Task Force’, 10 March 1961, p. 2, Annex 10, ibid, (‘a catalyst’).

46. Telephone interview with Bissell. See also Bissell, , OH (JFKL, 1967), pp. 28–31Google Scholar.

47. Quotations from telephone interview with Bissell and King in ‘Chief WH/4’, p. 6. See also XXX [Esterline] in ibid.

48. Interview with Esterline.

49. ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President (Tuesday, Novembe r 29, 1960 at 11:00 a.m.)’, 5 Dec. 1960, p. 2, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box 5, DDEL.

50. Ibid., pp. 4–5.

51 ‘Narrative’ p. 4. See also ‘First Meeting’ p. 7.

52 Bissell, ‘Second Meeting’ p. 2.

53 ‘Eisenhower's involvement in the Cuban operation was the same as with PBSUCCESS’ (interview with Bissell). For the Special Assistant's role as the link between the Special Group and Eisenhower, see the series of ‘Memorandu m of Meeting with the President’ by Gray on ‘5412 Matters’ in WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., boxes 4 and 5, DDEL.

54 Interview with Goodpaster. For his part, when asked whether the Special Group ‘would take any new proposals to the President directly?’ Dulles stated: ‘If it was of the consequence that the Secretary of State or Gordon Gray thought it should go to the President. Often we would pass on an operation without going to the President.’ (PMSGM, 8 May 1961, p. 2, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL)

55 Eisenhower, draft of Oral History, 8 Nov. 1966, pp. 7–8, enclosed in Malcolm Moos to Eisenhower, 5 Oct. 1967, DDE: Papers, Post Presidential, Augusta–Walter Reed Ser., box 1, DDEL.

56 In March 1962, Nixon claimed that as a presidential candidate in i960 Kennedy had been briefed about the planned CIA operation against Castro and that his criticism of the Eisenhower administration's passivity towards Cuba had therefore been disingenuous and self-serving (New York Times, 20 March 1962, p. 1). It is true that, at Eisenhower's request, Kennedy had been briefed by Dulles on intelligence matters on 23 July and 19 Sept. i960, but he responded to Nixon's accusation with an indignant denial, and he was supported by Allen Dulles, who released a statement saying that the ‘briefings were intelligence briefings on the world situation. They did not cover our own Government' plans or programs for action overt or covert.’ (New York Times, 21 March 1962, p. 10. See also 22 March 1962, pp. 16, 17; 25 March, p. 49; 26 March, p. 14; 29 March, p. 22.)

But the truth was, as McGeorge Bundy told the President, ‘more complicated’. Dulles privately had informed Bundy ‘that his notes for a July briefing do indicate that he was prepared to tell you that CIA was training Cuban exiles as guerrilla leaders and recruiting from refugees for more such training.… Thus it appears that you had only sketchy and fragmentary information about covert relations to Cuban exiles and no briefing at all on any specific plan for an invasion.’ Logically so, since the invasion plan was hatched only after Kennedy's two briefings. ‘The difficulty’, Bundy went on gently, ‘is that the notes that Dulles has would give some support to Nixon's stated position.’ (Bundy to President, ‘Nixon's Comments on Your Briefing on Cuba Before the Election’, 14 March 1962, NSF, box 36, JFKL)

In a memo to Eisenhower, Dulles reported that on 23 July he had briefed Kennedy on Cuba and other matters for over two hours. Kennedy, he noted, had been ‘particularly interested in developments that might arise during the campaign, particularly with regard to Berlin, Cuba and the Congo’. (Dulles, Memorandum for the President, 3 Aug. i960, WF, Administrative Ser., box 13, DDEL.)

57 Quotations from Bundy to President, ‘Nixon's Comments on Your Briefing on Cuba Before the Election’, 14 March 1962, p. 1 (quoting Bissell), NSF, box 36, JFKL and from interview with Esterline. See also Bissell, OH (JFKL, 1967), p. 3.

58 Mann, unp. memoirs, p. 146. Mann had doubts about the ne w concept. See ‘Memorandum of Meeting With The President (Tuesday, January 3 at 9:30 a.m.)’, 9 Jan. 1961, esp. p. 5, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box 5, DDEL.

59 Rusk, As I Saw It, p. 208.

60 Dulles, Allen W., ‘My Answer on the Bay of Pigs’ unpubl. ms, second draft, master copy, [1965], p. 20Google Scholar, Allen W. Dulles Papers, box 244, Mudd Library. See also ‘Article by llen W. Dulles, to be Published By and To Be Released’ [1965], p. 2 (handwritten comment in the margin), ibid.

61 Interview with Mann. See also Mann, OH (JFKL, 1968), pp. 16–17.

62 XXX (Operations Officer for the Project), in PMSGM, 1 May, 1961, p. 3, NSF, box 61A, JFKL.

63 Bissell in ‘First Meeting’, p. 7.

64 Major (Ret.) Tejada, Carlos Paz had denounced the Cubans' presence in Guatemala in ‘Aclaracion y denuncia’, Prensa Libre (Guatemala City), 5 10. 1960, p. 19Google Scholar. On the revolt, and on the grievances of the rebels, interviews with Paz Tejada (Mexico City, 3 Sept. 1991) and Col. Ricardo Peralta Mendez (Washington DC, 4 March 1986) were helpful; see also Muccio, John (US Ambassador to Guatemala), OH (JFKL, 1971), pp. 3–6Google Scholar; Gilly, Adolfo, ‘The Guerrilla Movement in Guatemala’, Monthly Review, no. 17 (05 1965), pp. 13–14Google Scholar; Howard, Alan, ‘With the Guerrillas in Guatemala’, New York Times Magazine, 21 June 1966, esp. p. 18Google Scholar; Gott, Richard, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America (Garden City, NY, 1972), pp. 44–8Google Scholar; New York Times, 14–18 Nov. i960; El Imparcial (Guatemala City), 14–18 Nov. i960. The following US embassy reports are also useful: Amembassy Guatemala to Department of State, no. 183, 14 Oct. i960; Joint Weeka, no. 46, 18 Nov. i960; Amembassy Guatemala to Department of State, no. 269, 2; Nov. 1960. (All FOIA.)

65 XXX (Operations Officer for the Project) in PMSGM, 1 May 1961, p. 3, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.

66 Interview with Bissell.

67 Interview with Esterline.

68 ‘Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with the President, 14 Nov. 1960,9:45 a.m.’ Herter Papers, box 10, DDEL.

69 ‘Intelligence Items Reported to the President’, 14 Nov. 1960, p. 2, WF, DDE Diary Ser., box 54, DDEL. See also ‘Telephone Calls, Monday, November 14, 1960’, Herter Papers, box 13, DDEL; MVK to Herter, 14 Nov. 1960, ibid.; ‘Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary Gates’, 14 Nov. 1960, ibid.; Herter, ‘Memorandum for the President’, 16 Nov. 1960, ibid.

70 Interview with Bissell.

71 Dulles, , ‘Discussion at the 467th Meeting of the National Security Council, in Atlanta, Georgia o n Thursday, Novembe r 17, 1960’, 21 11 1960, p. 1Google Scholar, WF, NSC Ser., box 13, DDEL.

72 XXX [Hawkins] in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 6.

73 XXX in PMSGM, 27 May 1961, p. 1, NSF, box 61A, JFKL; see also ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President (Tuesday, Nov. 29, 1960 at 11:00 a.m.)’, 5 Dec. 1960, p. 1, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box 5, DDEL and Bissell, , OH (Columbia University, 1973), p. 31Google Scholar.

74 See ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President (Tuesday, January 3 at 9:30 a.m.)’, 9 Jan. 1961, p. 6, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box 5, DDEL.

75 Bissell in ‘First Meeting’, p. 7.

76 As a result of the break in diplomatic relations with Cuba, on 3 January 1961, the CIA station there had moved from Havana to Miami where it continued to operate as the Havana station. (Interview with Esterline).

77 Bissell, in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 2. Ultimately there would be 44 US trainers in Guatemala (PMSGM, 1 May 1961, p. 6, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL).

78 ‘Memorandum for: Chief, WH/4’, 4 Jan. 1961, pp. 1–2, Annex 14, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. Upon reading this document, Bissell remarked ‘I would kind of guess it was written by Hawkins to Esterline; they were in full agreement on all the points in this memorandum and I guess Esterline said, “Why don't we draft a memorandum with all the points and circulate it?” Presumably the role of the paper was to stimulate me and Dulles to try to seek some of the political decisions that are suggested in it. In many cases their suggestions would also reflect my views. I am sure I would have accepted these views.’ (Interview with Bissell.) Esterline confirmed that the memorandum had been written by Hawkins and that he had agreed with its contents. He had sent the memorandum to Barnes and Bissell. (Interview with Esterline.) Bissell said that ‘the paper did not go much further than his office’ (Bissell in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 9) Hawkins confirmed that he and Esterline had sent it to Bissell and Barnes. (Hawkins, in ibid., pp. 7, 9.)

79 ‘Memorandum for: Chief, WH/4’, 4 Jan. 1961, p. 6, Annex 14, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.

80 Ibid. Noting the lack of a sufficient number of Cuban pilots, the plan also demanded the use of contract American pilots to fly combat missions (as had been done for PBSUCCESS).

81 Ibid., p. 4.

82 Bissell, , OH (JFKL, 1967), p. 10Google Scholar.

83 Erskine in PMSGM, 27 April 1961, p. 1, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. See also PMSGM, 2 May 1961, p. 12, ibid.

84 Bissell, , OH (JFKL, 1967), p. 10Google Scholar.

85 Bundy, , ‘Memorandum of Discussion on Cuba, Cabinet Room, January 28, 1961’, 28 01. 1961Google Scholar, Annex 8, NSF, box 61A, JFKL.

86 The President to Bundy, 4 Feb. 1961, POF, box 62, JFKL.

87 Kennedy, , ‘Memorandum for Mr. Bundy’, 6 02 1961Google Scholar, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 328, JFKL.

88 Bundy, , ‘Memorandum for the President’, 8 02 1961Google Scholar, POF, box 115, JFKL (emphasis added). Another copy of this document is in NSF, box 35, JFKL but some words are sanitised.

There are scattered references in the available documents to US soundings of Latin American governments for support of the operation against Cuba. This was probably the reason Berle went as a presidential envoy to South America in February 1961. Thus, when General White of the JCS stated, ‘I was told that someone briefed many Latin American governments about this forthcoming operation to get their views and met with almost unanimous disapproval’, a member of the Taylor Board of Inquiry commented ‘I believe this was Mr. Berle' mission down south’ (PMSGM, 8 May 1961, p. 26, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL; see also ‘Second Meeting’, p. 16 and Cabot, John Moors, OH [JFKL, 1971], pp. 4–5Google Scholar.) McNamara noted that ‘The Latin American countries had indicated they would not support this operation’. (McNamara, in PMSGM, 3 May 1961, p. 10, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL). See also the tantalising references to former President José Figueres of Costa Rica and ‘early recognition’ in the notes of Ambassador Whiting Willauer (handwritten notes, unpaginated, Whiting Willauer Papers, box 4, Mudd Library).

89 Enclosed in Lemnitzer to Secretary of Defense, 3 Feb. 1961, Annex 9, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.

90 Lemnitzer to Secretary of Defense, 3 Feb. 1961, p. 3, ibid.

91 See ‘Evaluation of CIA Task Force’, enclosed in Lemnitzer t o Secretary of Defense, 10 March 1961, Annex 10, ibid.

92 [Bundy?], ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President on Cuba – February 8, 1961’, 9 Feb. 1961, NSF, box 35, JFKL; see also Bundy, , ‘Memorandum of Discussion on Cuba. Cabinet Room, February 8, 1961’ 9 02 1961Google Scholar, ibid.

93 Bundy, , ‘Memorandum of Discussion on Cuba. Cabinet Room, February 8, 1961’ 9 02 1961Google Scholar, ibid.

94 Bissell in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 3.

95 ‘Summary of White House Meetings’, 9 May 1961, p. 1, Annex 16, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.

96 Bundy, , ‘Memorandum for the President’, 18 02 1961Google Scholar, NSF, box 35, JFKL.

97 Bissell, , ‘Cuba’, 17 02 1961, pp. 5–6Google Scholar, enclosed in Bundy, , ‘Memorandum for the President,’ 18 02 1961Google Scholar, ibid.

98 Mann, , ‘List of Conclusions’, enclosed in Mann t o Secretary of State, 15 02 1961, pp. 1–2Google Scholar, enclosed in Bundy, , ‘Memorandu m for the President’, 18 02 1961Google Scholar, ibid.

99 Reston, James, ‘Nixo n and Cuba’, New York Times, 25 10 1960, p. 26Google Scholar.

100 Ibid., 7 Oct. 1960, p. 20.

101 Ibid., 16 Oct. 1960, p. 52.

102 Ibid., 21 Oct. 1960, p. 18.

103 Reston, ‘Nixo n and Cuba’, Ibid., 25 Oct. i960, p. 26.

104 Guthman, Edwin O. and Shulman, Jeffrey, eds., Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years (New York, 1989), p. 247Google Scholar.

105 XXX (Operations Officer for the Project) in PMSGM, 1 May 1961, p. 7, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.

106 Quotations from Bundy, ‘Some Preliminary Administrative Lessons of the Cuban Expedition’, 24 April 1961, p. 3, NSF, box 35, JFKL and Kirkpatrick, Lyman B., ‘Paramilitary Case Study: The Bay of Pigs’, Naval War College Review, 11–12 1972, p. 37Google Scholar. According to the well connected Howard Handleman of US News and World Report, when asked how ‘they were going to beat the vastly superior forces of Castro’, the exiles replied ‘in terms of a mass uprising behind the lines, defections from the Militia, etc. But their real belief…is that the logic of the situation will require the US to send in Marines to make sure that the invasion is a success.’ (Schlesinger, Arthur, Memorandum for the President, ‘Howard Handleman on Cuba’, p. 1, 31 03 1961Google Scholar, POF, box 114A, JFKL)

107 Interview with Bundy.

108 Interview with Bundy.

109 See Eisenhower, ‘Account of My December 6th, 1960 Meeting with President-elect Kennedy’, n.d., WF, DDE Diary Ser., box 55, DDEL and Eisenhower, account of 19 Jan. 1961 meeting with Kennedy [p. 1 missing], DDE: Papers, Post Presidential, Augusta-Walter Reed Ser., box 1, DDEL.

110 Interview with Bundy. General Goodpaster had been scheduled to take a command in Europe as soon as Eisenhower stepped down, but Kennedy had insisted that ‘he would like to hold Goodpaster for two months into the new Administration.…He would be handicapped unless he had Goodpaster for a month or two’. (Eisenhower, ‘Account of My December 6th, 1960 Meeting with President-elect Kennedy’, n.d., p. 6, WF, DDE Diary Ser., box 55, DDEL. See also Eisenhower to Kennedy, 16 Dec. 1960, ibid.)

In his two months in the Kennedy White House, Goodpaster was never asked his views on the Cuban operation or told to get in touch with Eisenhower. Nor was he ever invited to any meeting dealing with the operation. (Interview with Goodpaster) After the Bay of Pigs débâcle, Eisenhower told a select group of Republicans: ‘We must have advance knowledge of certain operations before we can give our support. This was the habit in our Administration but was not observed by Mr. Kennedy in the Cuban operation.’ (‘Memorandum of Conference with the President’, 12 May 1961, p. 7, DDE: Papers, Post Presidential, August–Walter Reed Ser., box i, DDEL)

111 ‘A driving force behind the operation was that the longer we waited, the more time the USSR would have to pour in military equipment, which would make it impossible to overthrow Castro short of major military invasion. There was the specter of the jets that Fidel would receive.’ (Interview with Esterline.) Moreover, the November 1960 revolt in Guatemala had convinced the CIA ‘that we could not stay there too long’. (Interview with Bissell.) The US embassy warned that the regime was unstable. (Joint Weeka, no. 48, 2 Dec. 1960; Joint Weeka, no. 50, 19 Dec. 1960; Joint Weeka, no. 2, 12 Jan. 1961. All FOIA.) ‘Further’, Bissell advised Eisenhower, ‘people who are training these individuals [the Cubans] think morale will suffer dangerously if action is not taken by early March.’ (Bissell, in ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President [Tuesday, January 3 at 9:30 a.m.]’, 9 Jan. 1961, pp. 5–6, WHO, Special Assistant Ser., Presidential Subser., box 5, DDEL. On time running out, see also ‘Memorandum for: Chief WH/4’, 4 Jan. 1961, p. 5, Annex 14, NSF, box 61A, JFKL; ‘Evaluation of CIA Task Force’, enclosed in Lemnitzer to Secretary of Defense, 10 March 1961, pp. 17–22, Annex 10, ibid.; ‘Proposed Operation Against Cuba’, 11 March 1961, pp. 3–5, Annex 11, ibid.; PMSGM, 24 April 1961, p. 20, ibid.; PMSGM, 26 April 1961, pp. 2–3, ibid.; ‘Narrative’, p. 15; Mann, ‘List of Conclusions’, enclosed in Mann to Secretary of State, 15 Feb. 1961, p. 3, enclosed in Bundy, ‘Memorandum for the President’, 18 Feb. 1961, NSF, box 3;, JFKL; Bissell, ‘Cuba’, 17 Feb. 1961, pp. 1–2, 4, 6–7, ibid.)

112 Bundy to Taylor, 4 May 1961, p. 2, NSF, box 35, JFKL.

113 Interview with Bissell.

114 Interview with Mann. The lack of a State Department position, suggested by the written record, is confirmed in interviews with Bundy and Goodwin (who adds ‘Rusk was a master at not expressing a position’). (Telephone interview with Goodwin, 13 Nov. 1992) Rusk himself says, ‘I never expressed my doubts explicitly in our planning sessions’, and notes that ‘many of my colleagues…believed that I favored the invasion’. (Rusk, As I Saw It, pp. 210, 212) As for Berle, after some initial reluctance, he supported the operation. He would have preferred, however, that the United States ‘act as a great Power’ and use force openly. (See ‘The Diary of Adolf A. Berle’, entries of 11 March, 12 March, 3 May 1961 [quoted], Roll 7 [1954–1960], Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Berle in PMSGM, 5 May 1961, pp. 2–3, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.)

‘The way the State Department operated’, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric observed, ‘was to come in with everybody on his own, so to speak, with Rusk perhaps leading off, but there being no necessary correlation between what he said and [Averell] Harriman said or [George] Ball said or [Roger] Hilsman or whoever else was there, whatever assistant secretary was there along with the State group.’ (Gilpatric, OH, [JFKL, 1970], pp. 109–10)

115 Interview with Mann.

116 Interview with Bissell.

117 Interview with Bissell.

118 Interview with Helms. ‘We worked seven days a week through the entire period; I [Esterline] worked 80 hours a week. At 7 a.m. every morning I met with my staff people; again we met at 6 p.m. to recap all that had happened during the day.’ (Interview with Esterline)

119 See for example ‘Second Meeting’, pp. 8, 16, 18–20; PMSGM, 24 April 1961, pp. 3–4, 13–18, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL; PMSGM, 26 April 1961, pp. 3–5, ibid.; ‘Memorandum for: General Maxwell D. Taylor’, 26 April 1961, Annex 18, ibid.; PMSGM, 3 May 1961, p. 3, ibid.; PMSGM, 30 May 1961, pp. 1–4, ibid.

120 Interview with Esterline. ‘After the Embassy was closed, we still had a number of agents in Cuba with communication equipment who were left behind, including a few Americans. Two Americans were executed: one was indeed CIA, the other had nothing to do with us – he only liked to brag around that he had CIA contacts.’ (Interview with Esterline)

121 Quotations from ‘Discussion at the 441st Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, April 14, 1960’, 14 April 1960, pp. 7–8, WF, NSC Ser., box 12, DDEL and from ‘Memorandum of Meeting with the President (Tuesday, January 3 at 9:30 a.m.)’, 9 Jan. 1961, p. 4, ibid.

122 XXX [Hawkins] in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 9.

123 XXX, in PMSGM, 26 April 1961, p. 5, NSF, box 61A, JFKL.

124 Asked whether there were written papers on what would happen after the establishment of the beachhead, Esterline replied: ‘There were papers on how the Frente would make appeals to the people of Cuba, the governments of Latin America and especially the government of the United States asking for help.’ (Interview with Esterline.)

125 ‘We had very little penetration of the Cuban army; in the months before April 1961 one of our major sources of information was the exiles (who had their contacts in Havana) and the CIA Station in Cuba. But we didn't have penetration of the Armed Forces: it is a slow, professional job; requires a lot of time. All our concentration was on things that could bring quick results.’ (Interview with Bissell)

126 Interview with Esterline.

127 Interviews with Bissell and Esterline. See also Bissell, , OH (Columbia University, 1973) pp. 25–26Google Scholar.

128 Quotations from interview with Bissell, and Bissell, , OH (Columbia University, 1973), p. 27Google Scholar. When told of Bissell's statement on the lack of thoughts about Phase 2, Esterline remarked: ‘No. Thought was given to Phase 2; but not enough organized thought.’ (Interview with Esterline)

129 Interview with Bissell.

130 Interview with Bissell.

131 Interview with Bissell.

132 Interview with Bundy.

133 McNamara in PMSGM, 3 May 1961, p. 7, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. On Mann and the figleaf, see for example Lemnitzer in PMSGM, 18 May 1961, pp. 10–11, ibid.

134 Mann, letter to the author, 13 May 1992. See also ‘Summary of White House Meetings’, 9 May 1961, p. 3, Annex 16, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. The meeting took place on 4 April 1961.

135 Gordon, Lincoln, OH (Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 1969), pp. 10–11Google Scholar.

136 Interview with Paul Nitze, Washington DC, 8 Oct. 1992; see also Nitze, Paul, From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision (New York, 1989), pp. 183–5Google Scholar. For Lansdale's involvement, see Lansdale in PMSGM, 2 May 1961, p. 12, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. Lansdale and Nitze had worked together in the Philippines against the Huks.

137 Bissell, , OH (JFKL, 1967), p. 27Google Scholar. Fulbright never refers to Nitze in his account of the 4 April meeting (see Fulbright, OH [JFKL, 1965], p. 47–58).

138 See Schlesinger, ‘Memorandum for the President’, 1; March 1961, NSF, box 35, JFKL; ibid., 5 April 1961, POF, box 115, JFKL; ibid., 10 April 1961, POF, box 65, JFKL. Chester Bowles did oppose the operation, but he was only peripherally involved in the deliberations. He expressed his opposition not to Kennedy, but in a memo to Rusk which never reached the President. (See Bowles to Kennedy, 28 April 1961, POF, box 114A, JFKL; Bowles, , Promises to Keep: My Years in Public Life, 1941–1969 [New York, 1971], pp. 384–92Google Scholar; Rusk, As I Saw It, p. 209.)

For Fulbright's argument, see his memorandum, ‘Cuba Policy’, 29 March 1961, in POF, box 114A, JFKL); Holt, Pat, OH (Senate Historical Office, 1980), pp. 150–56Google Scholar; Fulbright, OH, pp. 31–3, 43–59. Fulbright was the only member of Congress who was told about the operation. (See Rusk, As I Saw It, p. 209.)

139 Bissell in ‘Second Meeting’, p. 4.

140 ‘Proposed operation against Cuba’, 11 March 1961, pp. 8–9, Annex 11, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL.

141 Ibid., p. 9. The paper also estimated that there were in Cuba ‘some 1200 active guerrillas and another thousand individuals engaging in various acts of conspiracy and sabotage’. (Ibid., p. 4)

142 National Security Action Memorandum 31, 11 March 1961, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 329, JFKL.

143 Gray, , in ‘Memorandum for Record of the Taylor Committee’, 24 04 1961, p. 12Google Scholar, NSF, box 61 A, JFKL. See also ‘Summary of White House Meetings’, 9 May 1961, p. 1, Annex 16, ibid. and ‘Narrative’, p. 10.

144 Quotation from Gray, , in ‘Memorandum for Record of the Taylor Committee’, 24 04 1961, p. 12Google Scholar, NSF, box 61A, JFKL.

Did the JCS give McNamara the wrong impression, that is, that they preferred the Zapata Plan to the Trinidad Plan? Yes, according to McNamara: ‘It was my understanding that…the Chiefs preferred Zapata to Trinidad.’ (McNamara, in PMSGM, 3 May 1961, p. 9, ibid.) Yes, according to Rusk: ‘They didn't put their view in writing and that [their preference of Trinidad over Zapata] didn't come through. There was a strong impression that they favored the [Zapata] plan.’ (PMSGM, 4 May 1961, p. 9, ibid.)

Actually, the JCS had been clear: ‘None of the alternative concepts’, they wrote to McNamara, ‘are considered as feasible and likely to accomplish the objective as the basic para-military plan [Trinidad Plan].’ (Lemnitzer to Secretary of Defense, ‘Evaluation of the Military Aspects of Alternate Concepts, CIA Para-Military Plan, Cuba’, 15 March 1961, p. 2, Annex 12, ibid.) ‘I don't see how you can say it any clearer than that’, Lemnitzer later observed. (Lemnitzer in PMSGM, 18 May 1961, p. 5, ibid.) In fact, already in their 3 February evaluation, the JCS had concluded: ‘Based on an independent analysis by the Joint Staff the beachhead area [Trinidad] is considered to be the best area in Cuba for accomplishment of the Task Force mission.’ (‘Military Evaluation of the CIA Para-Military Plan, Cuba’, p. 1, enclosed in Lemnitzer to Secretary of Defense, 3 Feb. 1961, Annex 9, ibid.)

145 Bundy, , ‘Memorandum for the President’, 15 03 1961Google Scholar, NSF, box 35, JFKL. (Bundy noted that ‘the one major problem which remains is the air battle. I think there is unanimous agreement that at some stage the Castro Air Force must be removed. It is a very sketchy force, in very poor shape at the present, and Colonel Hawkins…thinks it can be removed by six to eight simultaneous sorties of B-26s. These will be undertaken by Cuban pilots in planes with Cuban Air Force markings. This is the only really noisy enterprise that remains.’) For Bundy's earlier criticism, see Bundy, , ‘Memorandum for the President’, 18 02 1961Google Scholar, ibid.

146 See Lemnitzer, to Secretary of Defense, ‘Evaluation of the Military Aspects of Alternate Concepts, CIA Para-Military Plan, Cuba’, 15 03 1961, p. 1Google Scholar quoted, Annex 12, NSF, box 61A, JFKL; Memorandum for the Record, ‘Briefings of JCS on “Bumpy Road” by General Gray’, 4 May 1961, pp. 1–2, Annex 13, ibid.

147 ‘The President did not like the idea of the dawn landing and felt that in order to make this appear as an inside guerrilla-type operation, the ships should be clear of the area by dawn. He directed that this planning be reviewed and another meeting be held the following morning.’ (‘Summary of White House Meetings’, 9 May 1961, p. 2, Annex 16, ibid.)

148 ‘At the meeting with the President, CIA presented revised concepts for the landing at Zapata wherein there would be air drops at first light with the landing at night and all of the ships away from the objective area by dawn.’ (Ibid.)

149 Ibid.

150 Ibid., p. 3.

151 Guthman and Shulman, Robert Kennedy, p. 240.

152 Interview with Bissell.

153 The best account remains Wyden, Bay of Pigs, pp. 173–288. An excellent study is Vandenbroucke, Perilous Options, pp. 40–50. For Cuban accounts, see Otero, Lisandro et al. (eds.), Playa Girón: derrota del imperialismo, 4 vols. (Havana, 1961), vol. I, pp. 81–517Google Scholar and Machado, Quintín Pino, ha batalla de Girón: razpnes de una victoria (Havana, 1983), esp. pp. 67–192Google Scholar.

154 Interview with Bundy.

155 Interview with Esterline. ‘Hawkins felt that if we could establish the beachhead and hold it for a few days – then the Government in Exile could fly in, and the United States could help them.’ (Interview with Esterline) This feeling had already been expressed, openly, by Esterline and Hawkins in their 4 January memorandum.

156 Interview with Bissell. Vandenbroucke has made a similar point in relation to Allen Dulles. Going through the Dulles papers in the Mudd Library, he first came across a telling comment by Dulles explaining that one reason the CIA planners did not ‘raise objections’ to restrictions they deemed unwise was that ‘We felt that when the chips were down – when the crisis arose in reality, any action required for success would be authorized rather than permit the enterprise to fail.’ (Perilous Options, p. 33, quoting from Dulles's handwritten notes.)

157 Bissell, , OH (JFKL, 1967), p. 8Google Scholar.

158 ‘Once a nation resorts to force, it should ensure that the venture is a success.’ (Eisenhower, , in ‘Memorandum of Conference with the President’, 12 05 1961, p. 2Google Scholar, DDE: Papers, Post Presidential, August–Walter Reed Ser., box 1, DDEL); ‘I believe there is only one thing to do when you go into this kind of thing, it must be a success.’ (Eisenhower, draft of Oral History, 8 Nov. 1966, p. 7, enclosed in Malcolm Moos to Eisenhower, 9 Oct. 1967, ibid.).

‘I will say, I would have to say in any discussion of the Bay of Pigs, that I'm as sure as I' m sitting here that if this had all developed in the Eisenhower administration, President Eisenhower would have seen it through to its conclusion. Because I remember him saying to the group in the very beginning, when he began to approve training, he said, “Now boys, I want to tell you something. Unless you're going to look at this thing as something you are going to see through from beginning to end, let's not start anything.” He repeatedly told them that, when they were considering the thing. He said, “Let's not talk about this unless, whatever you want to try and do in this, think in terms of being successful.”’ (Gray, Gordon, OH [Columbia University, 1968], p. 276Google Scholar.) See also Goodpaster, Andrew, OH (Columbia University, 1967), p. 45Google Scholar.

159 Bissell, , ‘Reflections on the Bay of Pigs’, Strategic Review, Winter 1984, p. 70Google Scholar.

160 Interview with Bissell.

161 The Taylor Committee put it well: ‘In approving the operation, the President and senior officials had been greatly influenced by the understanding that the landing force could pass to guerrilla status, if unable to hold the beachhead.’ (‘Conclusions of the Cuban Study Group’, memorandum no. 3, 13 June 1961, p. 2, enclosed in Taylor to President, 13 June 1961, NSF, box 61A, JFKL.)

162 ‘With hindsight, I think one is not justified in saying that given adequate air cover the operation would surely have been a success.…I do think you could pretty well say, however, that without air cover it didn't have a chance.’ (Bissell, , OH [JFKL, 1967], p. 14Google Scholar; see also Bissell, ‘Reflections on the Bay of Pigs’, pp. 68–9). The same point was made by Dulles: ‘Many of us thought at the time of decision, and still feel, that with adequate air cover the operation could have been successful.’ (Allen W. Dulles, ‘My Answer on the Bay of Pigs’, unp. ms., second draft, master copy [1965], p. 17, Allen W. Dulles Papers, box 244, Mudd Library. See also Allen W. Dulles, ‘My Answer to the Bay of Pigs’, pp. 16, 29–37, unp. ms, ibid., box 138.)

163 ‘Military Evaluation of the CIA Para-Military Plan, Cuba’, enclosed in Lemnitzer, to Secretary of Defense, 3 02 1961, p. 2Google Scholar, Annex 9, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. For a powerful criticism of the JCS's performance in the operation, see Vandenbroucke, Perilous Options, pp. 22–26.

In a 1964 interview, General Earle Wheeler, who had been the director of the Joint Staff in 1961, claimed that ‘we had a tremendous difficulty in getting information out of the agency [CIA]’. (Wheeler, OH [JFKL, 1964], p. 20.) This complaint, however, was not made by any of the military officers who testified to the Taylor Committee and conflicts explicitly with the recollection of General George Decker. General Decker, who was the Chief of Staff of the Army in 1961, has stated that ‘we were in pretty close touch with them [CIA]’; when asked, ‘Were there problems because they [CIA] were holding things too close?’ he replied: ‘Oh, no. Oh, no. We had no problems with communication at all’. (Decker, , OH [JFKL, 1968], p. 12)Google Scholar.

The JCS and their supporters have made three valid points, however: a) the JCS had made clear their preference for Trinidad over Zapata (see above no. 144); b) they had made clear that ultimate success of the operation depended on Phase 2, about which they could not comment for lack of data; and c) they bear no responsibility for the cancellation of the D-Day air strike. As Lemnitzer put it, Kennedy made this decision ‘without ever telling the Joint Chiefs of Staff or ever asking about it’. (Lemnitzer, Lyman, OH [Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 1982], p. 17Google Scholar)

164 New York Times, 5 Feb. 1968, pp. 9 and 15. See also Rusk, As I Saw It, pp. 207–17.

165 There was a certain amount of groupthink, as defined by Irving Janis: ‘The mode of thinking that group members engage in when they are dominated by the concurrence-seeking tendency’. (Janis, , ‘Groupthink in Washington,’ New York Times, 28 05 1973, p. 15Google Scholar. See also Janis, , Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes [Boston, 1982], pp. 14–47Google Scholar.)

166 Bundy, , ‘Some Preliminary Administrative Lessons of the Cuban Expedition’, 24 04 1961, p. 1Google Scholar, NSF, box 35, JFKL.

167 ‘Many of us were strangers to each other and to President Kennedy as well.’ (Rusk, As I Saw It, p. 207) ‘We must bear in mind that the Administration consisted largely of strangers. The President did not personally know his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were completely unknown to the civilian leadership.’ (Taylor, , OH [JFKL, 1964], p. 17)Google Scholar

168 Telephone interview with Goodwin.

169 Interview with Bundy. See also Sorensen, Theodore: ‘President Kennedy did not know his advisers. He did not know their strengths and weaknesses. He did not know enough about the decision making process.’ (New York Times, 14 08 1965, p. 20Google Scholar)

170 Interview with Esterline.

171 Interview with Esterline.

172 XXX [Hawkins] in ‘Memorandum for: General Maxwell D. Taylor’, 26 April 1961, p. 1, Annex 18, NSF, box 61A, JFKL. See also PMSGM, 28 April 1961, p. 1, ibid.

173 Interview with Helms.

174 The one exception was Fulbright.

175 Goodwin, , memorandum for the President, ‘Conversation with Commandante Ernesto Guevara of Cuba’, 22 08 1961Google Scholar, POF, box 115, JFKL. (I would like to thank Suzanne Forbes and Stuart Culy of the Kennedy Library for bringing this document to my attention.) See also Goodwin, memorandum for the President, 22 Aug. 1961, ibid. and Goodwin, , ‘The Annals of Politics: A Footnote’, The New Yorker, 25 05 1968, pp. 93–114Google Scholar.

176 Schlesinger, Arthur Jr, Robert Kennedy and His Times (New York, 1979), p. 516Google Scholar.