Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
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-35-am aware, this is the only written information available onAgency relationships with subject. I hope that this willserve your purpose."3. I assume you are aware of the nature of the operationdiscussed in the attachment." (Memorandum to Director ofCentral Intelligence, re: Sam Giancana, from Helms, 8/16/63.)*That memorandum attached the May 14, 1962, memorandum to AttorneyGeneral Kennedy from Sheffield Edwards which described the opera-tion as having been terminated before McCone became DCI. (Seediscussion, *infra*, p. ______.)Neither McCone nor Helms were able to remember what was saidat the meeting. Walter Elder, who was then McCone's Executive As-sistant, recalled:"Mr. Helms came in with [the memorandum]. He handed it to[McCone] who read it and . . handed it back without anyparticular comment other than to say, 'Well, this did nothappen during my tenure.'"* * * * *Q.: "Was anything else said?A.: "No, he had very little to say about it.Q.: "Did Mr. Helms then leave?A.: "Mr. Helms left." (Elder, pp. 16-17, 57-59.)Elder testified that he had concluded that the operation in-volved assassination from reading the two memoranda that were givento McCone (Elder, 8/13, p. 60). Elder "further concluded that [Mc-Cone] was perfectly aware of what Mr. Helms was trying to say to*When asked whether this entry in the memorandum suggested thathe had previously been aware of the operation, McCone testified thatHelms had orally informed him "on that day in August" that it in-volved assassination (McCone, p. 9).
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-36-him" (Elder, p. 60). Elder further testified:Q.: "Other than that conversation that you just described between yourself and Mr. McCone, did he have anything else to say about that memorandum?Mr. Elder: "No."Q.: "I take it then he did not tell either you or Mr. Helms that we absolutely could not have this activity going on in the future?Mr. Elder: "No."The Inspector General's Report concluded that:"This is the earliest date on which we have evidence of Mr. McCone's being aware of any aspect of the scheme to assassinate Castro using members of the gambling syndicate." (I.G., p. 70).
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TOP SECRET9/1/75Draft Based onSubcommitteeMeeting, 8/29/75(b) The Question of Authorization Outside The Central Intelligence Agency In The Eisenhower Administration.1. SummaryAs discussed in the preceding section, the evidence as to whether Allen Dulles, CIA Director during the Eisenhower Administration, was informed of the Castro assassination operation is not clear.Even assuming that Dulles was so informed, authorization outside the CIA for a Castro assassination could, according to the testimony, only have come from President Eisenhower, from someone speaking for him, or from the Special Group.* At issue, therefore, is whether President Eisenhower, his close aides, or the Special Group authorized or had knowledge of the Castro assassination plots.In addition to Bissell, we took considerable testimony from President Eisenhower's principal staff assistants, Gordon Gray (Special Assistant for National Security Affairs and President Eisenhower's representative on the Special Group); General Andrew Goodpaster (Staff Secretary to President Eisenhower with particular responsibility for* With respect to then Vice President Nixon, Bissell testified--and he was supported by the principal White House assistants and the documents--that Nixon was not significantly involved in Cuban matters generally at the critical times. There is no evidence suggesting his knowledge of the Castro assassination effort during the period under review, significant parts of which occurred during the Presidential campaign. (Bissell p. ; Gray, 7/9, p. 39) Therefore, we concluded that, despite the indications in Nixon's book *My Six Crises* (p. ) that he was involved in Cuban matters generally--and Howard Hunt's characterization of him as the [action officer] for the Bay of Pigs, there was insufficient reason to examine Mr. Nixon on Cuba looked at alone. We came to a contrary conclusion on Chile and . . .NW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 101TOP SECRET
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TOP SECRETnational security operational matters); John Eisenhower (Assistant StaffSecretary and the President's son) and from Thomas Parrott (Secretaryto the Special Group and special assistant to Allen Dulles). In summary,the evidence was:(i) Bissell testified that he did not inform the Special Groupor President Eisenhower of the Castro assassination operation, and hehad no personal knowledge that Allen Dulles informed either PresidentEisenhower or the Special Group. However, Bissell expressed the beliefthat Allen Dulles would have advised President Eisenhower (but not theSpecial Group) in a "circumlocutious" or "oblique" way. Bissell basedthis "pure personal opinion" on his understanding of Dulles' practicewith respect to other particularly sensitive covert operations. ButBissell testified that Dulles never told him that he had so advisedPresident Eisenhower regarding the Castro assassination operation, eventhough Dulles had told Bissell when he had employed this "circumlocutious"approach to the President on certain other occasions.(ii) Gordon Gray testified that the Special Group never approveda Castro assassination, and that President Eisenhower had charged theSpecial Group with the responsibility of authorizing all important covertoperations. A review of the records of Special Group meetings shows thata query concerning a plan to take "direct positive action" against Castroat a Special Group meeting caused Allen Dulles' Deputy, General Cabell,to advise that such action was beyond the CIA's capability. Gray,Goodpaster and John Eisenhower all affirmed (i) that they did not believePresident Eisenhower would have considered such a matter in a privateTOP SECORTNW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 1022
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TOP SECRET3meeting with Dulles, or indeed that President Eisenhower would have approved a Castro assassination in any event, and (ii) that he would not have discussed such a matter without telling them. They conclude, therefore, as a matter of opinion, that President Eisenhower was never told, and testify, as a matter of fact, that they never heard anything about any assassination at any time.(iii) In addition to the I.G. Report (which found that the CIA could not say that any assassination activity carried on during this period was responsive to Administration pressure), the documentary evidence showed that the subject of Castro's removal was discussed at two meetings of the National Security Council and the Special Group in March 1960. The minutes of these meetings indicated that the discussions were in the context of a general consideration of the proposal to train a Cuban exile force for an invasion of Cuba and an assessment that Castro's overthrow might result in a Communist takeover. Gray and Admiral Burke testified that the discussion of Castro's removal at these meetings did not refer to assassination, but rather to the problem of creating an anti-Castro exile force strong enough to insure a non-Communist successor to the Castro regime. In any event, no action was shown to have stemmed from those meetings. An additional Special Group document showed that when a question regarding planning for "direct positive action" against Cuban leaders was raised at a meeting in the Fall of 1960 (shortly after Phase I of the CIA/underworld assassination operation was initiated), the Deputy Director of the CIA told the Special Group that such action was beyond the CIA's capability.TOP SECRET
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## 2. Richard Bissell's Testimony(a) Lack of Personal Knowledge. Bissell testified that he knew nothing of clearances outside the CIA for the Castro assassination effort. (Bissell, 6/9, p. 30). Indeed, Bissell met frequently with the Special Group in the Fall of 1960 for the purpose of discussing Cuban operations, but never informed the Special Group that there was a plot underway involving use of underworld figures to assassinate Castro, (Bissell, 6/9, pp. 25-26); nor did Bissell inform President Eisenhower or Vice President Nixon or any other person outside the CIA (Bissell, 6/9, pp. 26-29). Bissell testified that his reason for not doing so was that as Deputy Director of Plans, he reported to the Director and under Agency procedures relied upon the Director to inform the appropriate persons outside the Agency. Thus, the question of President Eisenhower's knowledge rests on whether Allen Dulles personally informed him of the Castro plot.(b) Assumptions Concerning Dulles. Based upon his belief that Dulles had been briefed about the operation involving underworld figures and understood that it involved assassination, Bissell assumed that Allen Dulles would have sought authorization above the CIA level. As Bissell testified:> "I went on the assumption that, in a matter of this sensitivity, the Director would handle higher level clearances. By clearance I mean authorization."* (Bissell, 6/9, p. 26.) */*Bissell reiterated this view on his second day of testimony: ". . . I felt that the responsibility for obtaining necessary authorization should remain with the Director." (Bissell, 6/11, p. 4)
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TOP SECRET5Bissell further stated that although he believed that Dulles"probably" talked with President Eisenhower:"the Mafia operation was not regarded as of enormous importance and there were much more important matters to talk about with the President." (Bissell, 7/17, p. 25.)Bissell said he was "guessing" that Dulles informed Eisenhower.(Bissell 7/17, pp. 38-39.) He said, however, that he based his assumption on his knowledge of "commmand relationship, of Allen Dulles as an individual, and of his [Dulles")] mode of operations". (Bissell, 6/11, p. 6.) As Bissell explained, his guess that Dulles informed President Eisenhower "is not based on hard evidence" but is "pure personal opinion". (Bissell, 6/9, p. 61.) Nevertheless, he believed it to be so, and that the President thereupon gave his authorization "perhaps only tacitly". (Bissell, 6/11, p. 6.) As Bissell explained,"My guess is that indeed whoever informed him, that is Dulles directly or Dulles through a staff member, would have had the same desire. . . to shield the President and to shield him in the sense of intimating or making clear that something of the sort was going forward, but giving the President as little information about it as possible, and the purpose of it would have been to give the President an opportunity, if he so elected, to cancel it, to order it cancelled, or to allow it to continue but without, in effect, extracting from him an explicit endorsement of the detailed specific plan." (Bissell, 6/9, p. 61)TOP SECRETNW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 105
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# TOP SECRETBissell said circumlocution would have been used "to protectthe President" in accord with the concept of "plausible deniability".*As noted above, Bissell testified he had no personal knowledgethat Dulles informed President Eisenhower of the Castro plot. On otherspecific occasions involving sensitive covert operations, Dulles had toldBissell he had used the "circumlocutious" approach with PresidentEisenhower. (Bissell, 6/11, p. 10.) But with respect to the Castroassassination attempt, Dulles did not so inform Bissell. (Bissell, 6/11,p. 11.) As Bissell testified:"I still want to be quite clear, I do not have a recollection of theDirector telling me that on this specific operation he had madesuch an approach and received assent, approval, tacit or otherwise."(Bissell, 6/11, p. 11.)As to whether Dulles knew of the plots and informed Eisenhower, wehave discussed above the fact that in January 1960 Dulles had told the SpecialGroup that the CIA "did not have in mind a quick elimination of Castro."(Memorandum of Special Group meeting, January 13, 1960, p. _). And in July1960 an instruction by Bissell's deputy to attempt to kill Raul Castro, whichalso stated that "possible removal of top three leaders is receiving seriousconsideration at headquarters" had been countermanded. The CIA officerwho drafted this instruction testified that he had heard at the time thatit was Dulles who countermanded this instruction and in doing so had "indicatedthat assassination was not to be considered." (Hinkle, p. 29).* Bissell explained the "plausible deniability" practice as follows:"Any covert operations, but especially covert operations . . . thatif successful, would have very visible consequences, it was of coursean objective to carry out in such a way that they could be plausiblydisclaimed by the U.S. Government." (Bissell, 6/11, p. 5.)Bissell apparently assumed that a corollary to that doctrine required theuse of "oblique", "circumlocutious" language.# TOP SECRETNW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 1066
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TOP SECRET(iii) White House Officials Denied Knowledge of AssassinationEfforts and Gave the Opinion that President Eisenhower Was Not Informed.1. Gordon Gray. Gordon Gray served as President Eisenhower's   Special Assistant for National Security Affairs from July 1958 to the   end of the Eisenhower Administration on January 20, 1961. (Gray, p. 4.)   In this capacity, Gray served as the President's representative on the   Special Group. (Gray, p. 4.) President Eisenhower specifically instructed   Gray that all covert actions impinging on the sovereignty of another   country must be deliberated by the Special Group. (Gray, p. 6.) Gray   testified that during the period July 1958 to January 20, 1961, the   Special Group never approved an action to assassinate Castro (Gray, p. 6)   and no such suggestion was made by Bissell. (Gray, p. 37.)Gray testified he did not believe Allen Dulles would haveapproached President Eisenhower without informing Gray. Gray stated:"I find it very difficult to believe, and I do not believe, thatMr. Dulles would have gone independently to him with such aproposal without, for that matter, my knowing about it from Mr.Dulles." (Gray, p. 35.)** Gray pointed out "that I was not with President Eisenhower twenty-  four hours a day. It was a few minutes every day, practically every day."  (Gray, p. 35.)According to the records of the Eisenhower Library, Dulles was alonewith President Eisenhower on one occasion in the Fall of 1960. Thatmeeting lasted ten minutes on November 25, 1960. The record of theprevious portion of the meeting attended by Gray indicates only that, inaddition to discussion of operations in another country, "there was alsosome discussion of Cuba". (Memorandum, November 28, 1960, by Gordon Gray,of Meeting with the President, November 25, 1960 at 10:40 A.M.). We feel-compelled to state that the fact of this brief meeting, on the evidenceavailable, is of little, if any, significance or relevance.TOP SECRET
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TOP SECRETGray further testified that his relationship with President Eisenhower was such that President Eisenhower "would discuss with me anything that came to his attention independently of me." (Gray, p. 7.)And Gray testified that President Eisenhower never discussed with him the subject of a Castro assassination or of the use of the underworld figures and Cubans in such an effort. (Gray, p. 7.)2. Andrew Goodpaster. Goodpaster served as President Eisenhower's Staff Secretary and Defense Liaison Officer during the last two years of the Eisenhower Administration. (Goodpaster, p. 3.) In addition to responsibility for the President's schedule and the supervision of the White House staff, Goodpaster was responsible for 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 and the Departments of State and Defense. (Goodpaster, p. 3.) Goodpaster testified that he had a "very close personal relationship" with President Eisenhower and saw the President "essentially every day when [President Eisenhower] was in Washington (Goodpaster, p. 4). Along with Gordon Gray, Goodpaster served as the channel between the CIA and the President. Goodpaster was the particular channel for "operations in which [President Eisenhower] might take a personal part". (Goodpaster, p. 4.)Goodpaster testified that he never heard any mention of assassination efforts. (Goodpaster, p. 5.) He said that President Eisenhower never told him about any assassination effort and that it was his belief, under White House procedures and by virtue of his close relationship with President Eisenhower, that if an assassination plan or operation had ever been raised with the President, he would have learned of it. (Goodpaster, p. 5.)TOP SECRET
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TOP SECRETBeyond this General Goodpaster testified that he found Bissell'sassumption of a "circumlocutious" personal conversation between Dulles andthe President "completely unlikely"."That was simply not the President's way of doing business. Hehad made it very clear to us how he wanted to handle matters ofthis kind, and we had set up procedures to see that they were thenhandled that way." (Goodpaster, pp. 6-7)According to Goodpaster, after the collapse of the Paris SummitConference between President Eisenhower and Premier Khruschev as a resultof the U-2 incident in the Spring of 1960, the Eisenhower Administrationreviewed its procedures for approval of CIA operations and tightened them.General Goodpaster testified that this review was carried out"with the aim in mind of being sure we had full and explicit under-standing of any proposals that came to us and we knew from[President Eisenhower] that in doing that we were responsive toa desire on his part." (Goodpaster, p. 7.)Secondly, according to Goodpaster, the relationship betweenPresident Eisenhower and Allen Dulles was quite different from thatbetween the President and John Foster Dulles. He said John Foster Dulleswas a confidant of the President while Allen Dulles was not. (Goodpaster,p. 8.)3. Thomas Parrott. Thomas Parrott, a CIA officer, served as   Secretary of the Special Group from 1957 through the end of the Eisenhower   Administration (and thereafter until October 1963). (Parrott, p. 4.)   Parrott stated that, by virtue of this assignment, he functioned as Allen   Dulles' assistant in connection with the Special Group, knew Dulles well,   and gained an understanding of Dulles' method of expression and hisTOP SECRETNW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 1099
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practice for dealing with the President. (Parrott, pp. 13-14.)*Parrott testified that early in 1959, President Eisenhower directed the Special Group to meet at least once a week to consider, approve, or reject all significant covert action operations (Parrott, p. 4.) Parrott testified it would have been "highly unlikely" for President Eisenhower to have instructed the CIA to carry out a covert operation without informing the Special Group. Parrott testified:"as evidenced in his . . . revitalization . . . of this Committee [the Special Group), (President Eisenhower was] highly conscious of the necessity to be protective . . . in this field, and I just cannot conceive that [President Eisenhower] would have gone off and mounted some kind of covert operation on his own. This certainly would not have been consistent with President Eisenhower's staff method of doing business . . . "**(Parrott, p. 7.)4. John Eisenhower. John Eisenhower, President Eisenhower's son, served in Goodpaster's office as Assistant Staff Secretary from mid-1958 to the end of the Eisenhower Administration. (Eisenhower, pp. 5, 9) He testified that his father had confided secret matters in him "to a very large extent". (Eisenhower, p. 3.) For example, he said that after the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, then Gen. Eisenhower told him that the United States had developed the atomic bomb at a time when this was highly* Parrott testified:"I saw him [Allen Dulles] several times a week for hours at a time. I had known him somewhat before . . . but I got to know him very well indeed during these four years." (Parrott, p. 13.)** Parrott further testified that Allen Dulles followed a practice of insisting upon specific orders rather than "tacit approval" and he also found Bissell's assumptions regarding a circumlocutious conversation between President Eisenhower and Allen Dulles "hard to believe". (Parrott, p. 14.)
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secret information. (Eisenhower, p. 3.) And he said that as early as1956, President Eisenhower told him of the secret U-2 flights. (Eisenhower,p. 4.)John Eisenhower testified, as a matter of fact, that PresidentEisenhower never told him of any CIA activity involving an assassinationplan or attempt with respect to Castro. (Eisenhower, p. 5.) Based onhis father's practice in other matters, it was his opinion that PresidentEisenhower would have told him if the President had known of any suchactivity. (Eisenhower, p. 5.) He further testified that President Eisenhowerdid not deal with important subjects in a circumlocutious manner. (Eisenhower, p. 8.)John Eisenhower further testified that it was his father's belief thatno leader was indispensable, and thus assassination was not an alternativein the conduct of foreign policy. (Eisenhower, p. 14.)(iv) The Documents1. The Inspector General's ReportThe document latest in date which bears upon the issue ofauthorization for Phase I of the Castro assassination efforts is the 1967Inspector General's Report. In the concluding section of the Report toDirector Helms, the authors advanced several possible Agency responses toDrew Pearson's public charges regarding CIA/underworld links.* One of the* On March 3, 1967, Drew Pearson stated in his newspaper column that  there was a U.S. "plot" to assassinate Castro, and that "one version  claims that underworld figures actually were recruited to carry out the  plot." (Pearson, Washington Merry Go-Round, March 3, 1967)
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TOP SECRETquestions they asked was whether the Agency could say it was acting pursuant to Government policy -- or as they put the question: "Can CIA state or imply that it was merely an instrument of policy?" The answer given was:"Not in this case. While it is true that Phase Two (the attempt commencing in April 1962) was carried out in an atmosphere of intense Kennedy Administration pressure to do something about Castro, such is not true of the earlier phase." (I.G., p. 132).In addition to the I.G. Report, we examined the records of the National Security Council and the Special Group, as well as other relevant White House files bearing on the question of authorization for the period from Castro's rise to power to the end of the Eisenhower Administration. As we discuss below, three documents were found which contained references arguably related to the subject of assassination.2. The Contemporaneous DocumentsIn March 1960, the National Security Council and the Special Group focused on Cuban policy. President Eisenhower had just returned from a foreign trip in which"Latin American Presidents had counseled further forbearance by the U.S. in the hope that the members of the Organization of American States would finally see the potential danger in Cuba and take concerted action." (Gray, Ex. 2, Memorandum of March 10, 1960 NSC Meeting, p. 8).Castro was characterized as hostile, but his Communist ties were apparently then unclear. Indeed, it may have been the prevailing opinion, at that time, that Castro was not actually a Communist.* For it was stated in the minutes of the March 10, 1960 NSC meeting:"there is no apparent alternative to the present government in the event Castro disappears. Indeed the result of Castro's dis- appearance might be a Communist takeover." (Gray, Ex. 2, p. 7).* Castro apparently first announced publicly that he was a "Marxist-Lenist" on December 2, 1961. (David Larson, Cuba Crisis of 1962, p. 304).TOP SECRET