Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
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SECRETout. Sid's example of American diplomats being disoriented when they were in Moscow coming out and not knowing what the hell hit them. And I think that what we were trying to do, or what they were trying to do rather, was to find out what the hell it was all about. And what was this new weapon that was going to be possibly used against us: a. How could we defend ourselves, and b. how would we use it if it was a proper weapon. And yeah, I was surprised. But I didn't take it the way a lot of guys took it. I remember during those several months when I was in there in early '75 in the building trying to get some answers for Colby, which he kind of didn't want, when some friends of mine stopped me in the hall and started to berate the living hell out of me, because since I worked in the DDP's office, therefore, I knew everything. But obviously I didn't. They didn't know that. But anyway, and therefore, I was part of this thing. And how could I and how dare you and all that kind of stuff. And really a shouting match in the hall.INTERVIEWER: And they figured you knew.MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. Well, that didn't bother me. But I knew I didn't know. And they were also attacking Sid through me and they knew I was a good friend of Sid's. And I was trying to defend the point as I did just a few minutes ago with you. They wouldn't listen. And these were old friends. Go way back. I mean, a part of my generation. It was just something that they felt was beyond the pale. And maybe they are right, but I don't think so. I was asked once without knowing it at the time, I was asked by Sid if I would partake in a drug experiment where I would be given something and I would not know what I was given or when I was going to be given it. And I said, "Sid, I've got other things to do with my time. I've got to be responsible for the
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SECRETforces, the people who are down there. I can't be out of action. I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe nothing will happen. But I can't take a chance."INTERVIEWER: And he was talking about you taking the drug at work then?MR. HALPERN: He didn't say.INTERVIEWER: Oh that's right.MR. HALPERN: He didn't. All he said was, "If you are willing to take part in the experiment, you will be given a drug. You won't know what it is and won't know when you get it. I said, "Sid, I can't take a chance. I've got too many important things here. Not that the world is on my shoulder or anything like that. But I've got a job to do and I can't take that chance."INTERVIEWER: Was the Olson case new to you?MR. HALPERN: Totally, absolutely totally.INTERVIEWER: You knew nothing about that earlier?MR. HALPERN: All I know is what I have read. It was quite clear. Olson had agreed to do exactly what I had agreed not to do. He was a scientist for God's sakes. He was a medical guy or something. At least he knew drugs and he knew what the hell he was getting into. He let himself in. He was going in as a guinea pig in an experiment. And sure, I'm sorry that something happened to him but he knew what he was letting himself in for.INTERVIEWER: But you had heard nothing about it until the case broke?MR. HALPERN: No. This was one of those things that everybody assumed because I was in the job I held for seven years that I knew everything in the Clandestine Service. And it was the furthest thing from the truth. Quite often, you can ask my wife about this, quite often I'd be held in the office
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SECRETlong after, without even being able to do my own paperwork, because my door was always open, everybody knew it. And people would come in at all hours, particularly after hours, and they'd want to sit and talk. And I was told more things about things I should never have known about. Had no reason to know. Didn't want to know. Had plenty on my mind. And I couldn't do anything about it. But they wanted to talk. And in a way they were letting off steam. And in a way they expected me to screen whatever their problem was to give to the DDP. And little did they know that very little of what they told me ever got to the DDP. He had plenty of things on his plate, too. But in any case, it is the kind of a job where you have got to be available to everybody. At least the way I ran it. And you learn a lot of stuff. Very unofficially, you know. But it never went anywhere. And so my head was full of a lot of stuff but not everything. And I remember once my boss came down from the Hill this was Fitzgerald. And this was that time that Colonel Grogan who was the public affairs officer had written a letter in Helms' name attacking Senator Fulbright. Remember that crazy thing?INTERVIEWER: Yeah.MR. HALPERN: Well anyway. Dick had signed it or Grogan had signed it or something like that. All hell broke loose and Helms had to apologize and Des came down from the morning staff meeting and he called in me and he called in the secretary and he said, "I don't want to ever see a piece of paper that Sam hasn't seen first." And I said, "That's crazy, Des." He said, "What's the matter, can't you take the work?" And I said, "Yeah, you know better than that. But that's wrong." I said, "Your staff chiefs and your division chiefs have got to know that they've got a private line to you personally without my
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SECRETkibitzing. After you've seen a piece of paper if you want to give it to me to staff out I'll do whatever you want me to do with it. Fine. But they've got to be able to talk to you privately." And he looked at me and he said, "Yeah, yeah." And he never said anything about it again. So, I didn't know everything. But I didn't need to know everything. That's crazy. Oh sure, while Des was there I ran operations for Des as his case officer and case officer for him. He didn't tell his deputy, Tom Karamessines, who didn't know anything about it. It was up to me after Des died to go in and brief Tom on a bunch of activities that Tom may have known about but not officially and to clue him in. And then he had to do the same thing in turn to Cord Meyer when Cord became the deputy. So no, I didn't know everything that went on. And I never claimed that I did. The only thing I couldn't do was that I couldn't stop people from unloading on me. They had to have somebody to talk to so I let them talk.INTERVIEWER: Nice to have somebody. How about the assassination. Did that business surprise you when it came out?MR. HALPERN: No, because I was involved with one. Some of the others that I hadn't known about, yeah sure, it wasn't in my area. So I wasn't involved and I didn't know. The one I was involved in was the one, I guess the (I'm forgetting the crypts for these), the one against Castro. One of the ones against Castro. I did not know about the use of the Mafia by Bill Harvey.INTERVIEWER: You didn't know about . . .MR. HALPERN: No, Bill, you think I was tight lipped. He could run rings around me.INTERVIEWER: I can imagine.
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SECRETMR. HALPERN: He'll teach you lessons in how to keep your mouth shut. Oh brother, that guy was great. No, but I wasn't the only one personally. I was the one who testified on that to the Church Committee. I was one of the guys that testified about that to the Church Committee. AMLASH. And I know the case officer involved, the doctor involved who prepared the hypodermic pen, etc. So, you know, yeah, that didn't surprise me at all. And the fact that there were other attempts on other people around the world, that didn't surprise me what had happened. Because I knew enough about what the hell the system was all about and I remember that one of the reasons I was even less surprised is in those several months that I came back in early '75, I saw the original papers about the ZR/RIFLE activity and the fact that one of the first things that John Kennedy, John, not Robert, asked Dick Bissell for in January '61 after he had gotten inaugurated, one of the first things was an assassination capability. Nobody in particular in mind. Just an assassination capability. "Create one please." And that's when Bissell got ahold of Bill Harvey and ZR/RIFLE was created. I didn't know, I'd never heard of it until after the thing hit in '75. But I had seen the original paper, so by the time the Church Committee had announced it all, yeah, I was aware of it.INTERVIEWER: And LASH. You got involved in that one?MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. I remember that one. I didn't see, I didn't know LASH. I don't speak Spanish. But I know the case officer, and I was the one who took the case officer to see the doctor and there was another thing the Committee, the Church Committtee guys, when I was talking to them, couldn't understand a medical doctor getting involved in the preparation of a hypodermic to kill somebody. And they wondered, was he a medical doctor? I99SECRET
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SECRETforget which one of the guys said that. But I said, "Yeah, he was an MD." His job was to help us in operations from a medical point of view. He wasn't a Ph.D, he was a medical doctor. "Oh really." You know, they just had signs of and visions of Buchenwald and Auschwitz and God knows what else. But yeah, I took the case officer to see the doctor because I knew the doctor pretty well. A lot of activity. A lot of assassination activity. We needed medical support of all kinds. You'd be surprised how much you need medical support in operations. And it was the doctor who came up with idea of the Black Leaf-40. I don't think the Church Committee should have published that. As it was I don't know whether it's still available but it was a publicly available poison that you could buy in any drug store. And to tell the whole world how to use it to kill somebody I thought was crazy. Totally unnecessary to get their point across. They did not have to reveal that. I thought that was ill advised on their part. But yeah, I took the case officer there and the doctor who spent, I think he was up all night making that damn acid, which LASH didn't take anyway to begin with. He thought it was crazy. It may have been. But you know, the assassination didn't surprise me.INTERVIEWER: Had there been any of that kind of talk before Kennedy, in other words, the Eisenhower Administration?MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah, sure. If you look at the Church Committee report you'll see it's there.INTERVIEWER: Last time we were talking about, just as we were winding up, we were talking about assassinations and LASH, and so on, and wondering at that time, that time being discussing. LASH, was there much of a sense of anxiety about this kind of approach?
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SECRETMR. HALPERN: Oh, if by anxiety you mean concern that the thing might leak.INTERVIEWER: Yeah.MR. HALPERN: Yeah. There always was and this is why it was so tightly held. If you are thinking about using anxiety in terms of morality, no. Because as far as we were concerned, I think most of the guys on the Task Force, we were at a war with Cuba. I mean, when you start sending in people to shoot up somebody else's country and blow up parts of somebody else's country and they take losses, I mean human losses, and we take human losses, that's war as far as I am concerned. I don't care what you call it, call it police action, call it something else, but anyway, we were at war. And of course, some people could even call it by today's terminology, terrorism. International t4rrorism. We weren't targeting market places, though, and bus stations and things like that obviously. We were going after industrial plants, power plants, sugar plants. Things like that. But people did get hurt on both sides. So yes, there was that kind of an anxiety in terms of keeping our hand out of the assassination plots as much as possible. Having been involved in only one of them, I have no idea, for example, if Bill Harvey was mucking around with Rosselli of the Mafia. Bill knew how to keep a secret. And even though I was his Exec, I had no idea and I know his deputy had no idea at all. And as a matter of fact the deputy didn't have any idea of the AMLASH operation.
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SECRETINTERVIEWER: Did not?MR. HALPERN: Did not. There were four people that I knew of. Oh, I think the deputy knew that the case officer involved was meeting with AMLASH sure. But that was strictly as an intelligence operation. And maybe as a political action operation. But not assassination. There were four people who knew about the assassination aspects. I think I mentioned to you. The case officer, me, the doctor to whom I introduced the case officer to prepare the pen, and my boss, Fitzgerald. Those were the four. And I don't even think that Des told Helms about the pen. That's a technical detail. How much else he told him, I have no idea. I never asked him, he never mentioned, so we went on ahead and did our business. But yeah, there was anxiety in terms of trying to maintain a secure operation, a sensitive operation, and that was it. I mean, we were really trying to hang onto what the heck we were doing.INTERVIEWER: How about when the Hearings occurred. Suppose those Hearings, this is an iffy question --MR. HALPERN: Go ahead.INTERVIEWER: Had occurred back in '62 or '63.MR. HALPERN: Well, it would be into '63 because that's when we started.INTERVIEWER: Okay, '63, '64. You think the quote outrage unquote would have been different?MR. HALPERN: It's hard to say. It would depend upon the circumstances in which the Hearings were held. And what kind
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SECRETof a circus atmosphere there was. If it were a simpleexecutive session kind of look-see and the Senators or theRepresentatives involved were not running for President -- someof them like Church did, and others -- depends on a wholeatmosphere. It's hard to say. I think, and if our ownPresident hadn't been assassinated, with or without attributionto Cuba or Oswald or KGB or God knows what else. If it werejust simply an operation gone bad and Congress was looking intoit, I just doubt in the '60's, the early '60's I'm talkingabout '60-'65, whether there would have been quite as muchbrouhaha about the whole thing. People wouldn't have liked itwhen you talk about assassination, obviously, but remember whenit took place in '75, ten years later, you've got to rememberthere is a whole Watergate, ten years worth of Vietnam, and acouple of years worth of Watergate involved. The Vietnam thingworst of all changed the attitudes completely. Because we onlywent in with Marines in '65. Sure we were in Vietnam longbefore that; we've been there ever since '54, for God's sake,but actually before that, from '45 on until the end of thewar. But I think it would have been a totally differentatmosphere. You know, conjecture.INTERVIEWER: Sure, yeah.MR. HALPERN: A "What if . . ." kind of thing.INTERVIEWER: But I think your point about the assassination ofKennendy is .MR. HALPERN: Made a big difference.
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SECRETINTERVIEWER: Yes.MR. HALPERN: And Vietnam made a big difference.INTERVIEWER: Yes.MR. HALPERN: After 10 years of that stuff, people were fed up.INTERVIEWER: Were you surprised in '75, '76 about the Congressional reaction to this topic - the assassination?MR. HALPERN: Oh yes, yes, yes. But only surprised in the sense of its vehemence more than anything else. And not all of the Senators and not all the Representatives involved had that same attitude. There were some of them, like Barry Goldwater, for example, for good or for bad, and others. You know, I understand that this is what sometimes has to happen with governments. And even when, well, take it up to today when you have Metzenbaum, this great liberal that prides himself as being a liberal of the liberal. And he says, "You know, it might not be a bad idea to knock off Qadhaafi." Where the hell is he coming from? You know. And who the hell is going to do it if not something like CIA? But you talk to him about the morality aspects of it, it's like Church being pro-covert action and anti-covert action. So is Metzenbaum for assassinations or isn't he for assassinations? If he is going to pick and choose then that isn't all right. I mean, this is silly. But that kind of attitude has always bugged the hell out of me.INTERVIEWER: Me too.
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SECRETMR. HALPERN: I don't mind, like Hersh, you're against usinghuman spys? Fine, stay that way all the way through.INTERVIEWER: Right, be consistent.MR. HALPERN: Yeah, that's right. But don't go saying it's allright to shoot somebody, but not shoot somebody else. Orwhatever, however the hell else you want to do. And I rememberwe were arguing even at the time of '75 and '76 when we werediscussing, how do you think Admiral Yamamoto died during WorldWar II? We picked up, using COMINT, where the hell Yamamotowas going to be. And we deliberately sent out P-38s at extremeranges of the P-38s with just enough gas maybe to come back on,if they were lucky enough with no maneuverability really. Theyhad to know the exact spot to go get them. And the orders were"Get Yamamoto." That's killing a guy. That's deliberatemurder. Sure, we were in the middle of a war where people getkilled all the time. Well, as far as we were concerned onCuba, we were at war. Castro was a target. I don't see nodifference, I don't see any difference between going after andspecifically killing the leader of a country, or killing somepoor Joe private at the end of the line and I don't even knowhis name. And I'm shooting at him and he is shooting at me. Imean, that's ridiculous. I mean, what the hell, you are goingout there the kill somebody. I don't care what you call it.INTERVIEWER: They keep looking for a declaration of war.MR. HALPERN: Well, that went out with the Indians, a thousandyears ago. The Japanese didn't use it against the Russians in
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SECRET1905, they didn't use it against us in 1941. I mean, this is, you know, archaic that's all. Life doesn't work that way. And the Germans didn't do it against Poland in 1939 either. And the British and the French did it against Germany after that, but that was silly. People are, you know . . . You asked about, was I surprised? Yeah, I was surprised because I . . .INTERVIEWER: You didn't expect that?MR. HALPERN: I didn't expect that kind of hypocrisy. That's all. On the part of so-called leaders of a country. And these guys claimed to be leaders of a country. And that's being sheer hypocrites.INTERVIEWER: That theme continues on.MR. HALPERN: As I say, Metzenbaum, what was it, 1985 when we hit Lybia, or '86, whatever? And Metzenbaum suddenly, of all people, to suddenly say, "It'd be a good idea to knock off Qadhaafi."INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about employing journalists. Did that topic . . .MR. HALPERN: Journalists to us are the same as any other human being. They are a source. Or an access to the source. And if the guy wants to work for you, why stop him? I think any American citizen or non-American citizen, I don't care who he is, if they want to help the United States Government, more power to them. I don't care whether he wears a collar turned around or whether it's a woman or a child or anybody. If you start breaking up and defining certain groups of people that
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SECRETyou don't touch, pretty soon you can fine-tune that to the point where there isn't anybody in the world you are allowed to go talk to, do any work for you. And that is crazy. From the very beginning, we always had rules against using Peace Corps,Ford Foundation, Red Cross, I don't know, a whole bunch of humanitarian organizations. And that we understood. So we didn't. You know, we followed orders. No problem with that. Because certain activities were just off limits. But we never sorted journalists. Journalists and clandestine operators are in the same business. We're trying to get information. We protect sources. That's the whole purpose. You know, that's the first thing the journalist says -- protect the source. That's what we do. Except we don't use the terms, you know, talk on background and all that kind of stuff.INTERVIEWER: What about the reaction to that? Did that surprise you?MR. HALPERN: No that didn't surprise me. I knew the hypocrisy on that was going to be quite clear and always was. It's like academics. I mean, that's crazy.INTERVIEWER: That was the next one I was going to bring up. Same thing.MR. HALPERN: Same thing..INTERVIEWER: Sure.MR. HALPERN: I mean, an academic. We're not forcing people to do these things. No point in forcing anybody. If you get an agent that you are forcing to do something, I'd question the
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SECRETvalue of the information that he gives you. But if somebodyvolunteers and wants to work for you, I don't care what he doesfor a living. Except if you are keeping him we are stayingaway from the humanitarian, eleemosynary organizations. Okay,that's a ground rule. We'll live with it. And we stay away.And we've had people from those kinds of organizations come andoffer help and we tell them, "Sorry, we can't do it. If youwant to go give the State Department whatever information youpick up, go ahead. They will be glad to have it. But we can'tdo it."INTERVIEWER: Good.MR. HALPERN: You know the thing that the whole '75, '76 circusera, and I call it circus era, confirmed to me is that maybe Iam just being a cynic. It just confirmed to me the hypocrisyof the political world. It's just unbelievable.Unbelievable. They hold executive sessions -- they meanexecutive session -- they're supposed to. And Frank Churchcomes out after every single one of them for the cameras andgives a brief summary of what took place. That's not, in myopinion, that's not executive session. Executive session is,you know, no comment. You walk away from the cameras. Youdon't go near the cameras if it's executive session. If not,what the hell, make it a public session. He's doing itanyway.INTERVIEWER: What about the Church Committee and its focus oncovert action? One view that was expressed is that there was a
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SECRETworldwide network of offices engaged largely in what -- this again was a critic's view -- largely excessive, self-defeating busy work.MR. HALPERN: Oh, that's nonsense.INTERVIEWER: Nonsense?MR. HALPERN: Utter nonsense. Most people didn't go near covert action in any sense of the word. Not even political action. Most people were trying to do a simple job of intelligence collection basically. A few were trying to do counterintelligence, but it was a tougher job, much tougher job. And these others who were involved in covert action in terms of planting editorials or news stories or working with political parties in foreign countries and what have you. It wasn't busy work. None of this stuff was made up by anybody. These are all approved activities up and down the line. Sure, not all the nitty-gritty, the details of everything were approved up on an upper level then what are you going to even approve back here in Washington by a desk officer. The guy in the field has got to have some leeway in what he does and how he does it. You can't tell him where to meet an agent and you can't tell him how many drinks to have when he goes out to dinner with him and things like that. Although some people tried. And it pretty soon backfired. Particularly it backfired if the guy who was on the desk before was trying to tell somebody what to do or not to do when he got out in the field. He found out soon enough on his first tour of duty that