Assassination Records Review Board
Final Determination Notification
AGENCY : HPSCI
RECORD NUMBER : 135-10001-10297
RECORD SERIES :
AGENCY FILE NUMBER :
September 25, 1998
Status of Document: Postponed in Part
Number of Postponements: 8
The redactions in this document have been postponed under the provisions set forth in The John F.
Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
The number within the brackets is provided to represent the appropriate substitute language from the list
below.
Board Review Completed: 08/25/98
2025 Release under the
John F. Kennedy
Assassination Records
Collection Act of 1992
01 Crypt
02 Digraph
03 CIA Employee
04 Asset
05 Source
06 Name of Person
07 Pseudonym
08 Identifying Information
09 Date
10 Location
11 Country
12 CIA Installation in Africa/ Near East*
13 CIA Installation in East Asia/Pacific*
14 CIA Installation in Northern Europe*
15 CIA Installation in Western Europe*
16 CIA Installation in Western Hemisphere*
17 Cable Prefix for CIA Installation in Africa/ Near East*
18 Cable Prefix for CIA Installation in East Asia/Pacific*
19 Cable Prefix for CIA Installation in Northern Europe*
20 Cable Prefix for CIA Installation in Western Europe*
21 Cable Prefix for CIA Installation in Western Hemisphere*
* The number after the hyphen tracks of individual locations.
22 Dispatch Prefix
23 File Number
24 Operational Details
25 None
26 Scelso (The information is the true name of the
individual whose pseudonym is John Scelso.)
27 CIA Job Title
28 CIA
29 Name of Organization
30 Social Security Number
31 Alias Documentation
32 Official Cover (Details of Official Cover)
98 Information not believed relevant to JFK assassination
99 See the special substitute language above.
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JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM
IDENTIFICATION FORM
AGENCY INFORMATION
AGENCY : HPSCI
RECORD NUMBER :
135-10001-10297
RECORDS SERIES :
AGENCY FILE NUMBER :
ORIGINATOR : ROCK
FROM :
ΤΟ :
TITLE :
Bird
0119198
Date: 09/28/94
Page: 1
Крічати99
GIA HAS NO SECTIONS
DECLASSIFICATIO
ID/OR
RELEASE OF CIA INPROMATION.
IN THIS DOCUMENT AS SANITIZED -
8/7/98
See pages 2370, 2373, 2376, 2377,
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
2385 & 2390
DATE: 04/21/75
PAGES
SUBJECTS :
:
210
TRANSCRIPT: VOL. 17. PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON CIA ACTIVITIES.
2. TESTIMONY OF DEAN RUSK, GORDON GRAY, RICHARD M. BISSELL, JR.,
O'NEILL, ARNOLD E. DONOHUE.
DOCUMENT TYPE :
CLASSIFICATION
PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
:
T
Potpored
RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL--
CURRENT STATUS : о
DATE OF LAST REVIEW :09/28/94
OPENING CRITERIA :
COMMENTS :
Contained in file entitled, "April 21, 1995.
3."
2025 Release under the John F. Kennedy
Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992
[R]
ITEM IS RESTRICTED
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1 OF
PAUL
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
September 12, 1994
Dear Mr. Sheehy:
This is in response to your request, pursuant to the JFK
Assassination Records Collection Act, for NSC staff review of the
transcript of testimony given April 21, 1975, to the President's
Commission on CIA Activities by Dean Rusk, Gordon Gray, Richard
Bissell, Paul O'Neill, and Arnold Donohue. The NSC staff has no
objection to declassification and release of the document subject
to the determinations of the Central Intelligence Agency and the
Department of State.
Sincerely,
David S. Van Tassel
Director
Access Management
Mike Sheehy
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Room H405
The Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515
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The Department of State
has no
release or
objection to the
declassification
of
this document from
page 2170 through page 2263,
Reviewed
он
August 11, 1994
IM/FPC/HR
Dept. of State
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Vol. 17
PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON
CIA ACTIVITIES
1 OF 2.
Washington, D. C.
Monday, April 21, 1975
WASHINGTON, D.C.
410 First Street, S.E., 20003
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WARD&PAUL
Verba
Spoken
volant words fly-\
Scripta
manent
written
words endure
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ORIGINAL
FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA
4055 Chain Bridge Rd., 22030
Phone
(703) 273-2400
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بم
CON
테
ENTS
0
TESTIMONY OF:
Dean Rusk
PAGE
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Gordon Gray
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(AFTERNOON SESSION
2295)
Richard M. Bissell Jr.,
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Paul O'Neill
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Arnold E. Donohue
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CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO
DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR
RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT,
the testimony for Kuch
former
бесу-вы
before the Rockefeller
21 APR 75
(pk 2190-2262)
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VOLUME 17
PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION
ON CIA ACTIVITIES
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Washington, D.C.
Monday, April 21, 1975
The President's Commission met, pursuant to recess,
at 10:07 o'clock a.m., in Room 272, old Executive Office
Building, 17th and Pennsylvania Avenues, N.W., Washington, D.C.
Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller, Chairman of the Commission
presiding.
PRESENT:
NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER, Chairman
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JOHN T. CONNOR, Member
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JOSEPH LANE KIRKLAND, Member
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LYMAN L. LEMNITZER, Member
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EDWIN N. GRISWOLD, Member
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EDWARD H. SHANNON, JR., Member
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STAFF:
DAVID W. BELIN, Executive Director
ROBERT WALLISON, Staff Member
MARVIN GRAY, Staff Member.
SOL CORBIN, Special Assistant to the Vice President
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MR. BELIN:
PROCEEDINGS
Secretary Rusk, if you would stand and
raise your right hand and be sworn, this is Ruth Johnson who is
a Notary Public for the District of Columbia.
MRS. JOHNSON: Do you swear to tell the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
MR. RUSK: I do.
TESTIMONY OF DEAN RUSK
MR. BELIN: Could you please state your name for
the record?
MR. RUSK: Dean Rusk.
MR. BELIN:
And you served as Secretary of State, sir,
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that correct?
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in the Administrations of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, is
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MR. RUSK: Yes.
Secretary Udall, Secretary Freeman and I were the
only three who served throughout the terms of both Presidents.
MR. BELIN: Secretary Rusk, what is your present
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MR. RUSK: I am Professor of International Law in the
School of Law in the University of Georgia.
MR. BELIN: And prior to your service as Secretary of
State with the Kennedy Administration, could you give us a little
bit of a summary of your background?
MR. RUSK: Well, I was President of the Rockefeller
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1 Foundation and General Education Board for about eight years
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during the 1950's. During the Truman Administration, with the
exception of a few months when I was Special Assistant to the
Secretary of War, Robert Patterson, I was in the State Department
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under Secretaries Marshall and Acheson, first in charge of
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United Nations Affairs, then Deputy Under Secretary for
ry
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Political Affairs, and then Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern
Affairs.
Prior to that, I had over five years of active duty
during World War II, and prior to that, teaching at Mills
College in California while studying law at Berkeley.
And I can go back even further, if you wish.
MR. BELIN: During World War II, you were involved
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somewhat with intelligence, is that correct?
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Burma, India theatre.
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MR. RUSK: Yes, I was. I was in G-2 from October in
1941 until the summer of 143 when I went out to the China,
There I was Chief of War Plans, and had
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Burma, India
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MR. BELIN: Could you briefly give us an overview from
your personal experience as to what kind of intelligence the
United States government had during World War II?
MR. RUSK: Well, I think it is important for us to
realize that in the background of CIA was a shocking ignorance
of world affairs and situations in other parts of the world at
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the outbreak of World War II. As a Captain in the Army, I was
called back to G-2 in October, 1941, two months before Pearl
Harbor, to organize a new section of G-2 to cover everything
from Afghanistan through the India Subcontinent, Burma, Ceylon,
5 Malaya, Australia, New Zealand and the British Pacific Islands.
They had no section in G-2 interested in that part of the world
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When I got there I asked to see what materials we
had on hand as a start, and I was shown one file drawer by an
old lady named Mrs. North. In that file drawer was one copy of
Murphy's Tourist Handbook to India and Ceylon which had been
stamped Confidential because it was the only copy in town, and
they wanted to keep track of it; one 1925 military attache
report from London on the British Army in India; and then a
considerable number of clippings from the New York Times that
this old lady, Mrs. North, had been clipping since World War I,
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and that was it.
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Well, I passed my first test, because on the second
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day that I was there, a Colonel from the great War Plans Division
of the General Staff called down and said, Rusk, I can't remember,
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is Indochina in South China or North China, and when I located
Indochina for him he hung up in great satisfaction and feeling
that he had great intelligence support from G-2.
Now, there is no way to describe how deficient we were
and we had to scramble around and try to find a missionary here
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or a businessman there, or anybody who knew anything about some
of these vast areas and, of course, we could get a good deal of
information from the British, but you couldn't overload those
lines all of the time, because we were starting from scratch.
We flew the hump with maps that were supposed to be
on a scale of 1 to 1 million, but much of the material on those
maps was purely honorary. I mean, I didn't even have maps that
would show us the scale of 1 to 1 million the terrain in which
We tried to organize a Burmese language
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we were operating.
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a native Burman. We asked the Census Bureau for a list of the
people living here who had been born in Burma and they came up
with about twelve names, but most of them were McDougall or
McLanahan, the children of British soldiers who were born in
Burma. We finally found one and we looked him up and he was in
an insane asylum.
Well, we fished him out of the insane asylum and made
a Burmese language instructor out of him.
The impact of this on the need for information after
World War II cannot be exaggerated, because we just ran all the
time, we were running into this factor of ignorance, and so I
think it is important to bear that in mind. And I hope we will
never get caught in that situation again.
MR. BELIN: Subsequent to World War II, with the
25 build-up of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, of course,
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the information gathering facilities of the U.S. government
2 became much greater. And I wonder if you have any opinion as
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to whether or not we might have at times gone to the other
extreme so far as the storage of information?
MR. RUSK: I think partly because of this absence of
information earlier that we tended to let intelligence become
a thing in itself. I had the impression, for example, that in
the intelligence community, and I don't point the finger at any
particular agency, there developed a kind of a catalogue of
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it was the duty of the intelligence community to fill in all of
"diseration?
the blanks. I hope the Commission will use disgression in what
it does with some of the examples I might give here today,
because I don't want to cause difficulty, but for example,
15 Ambassador David Bruce in London told me that a member of the
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British Government had come to him and said, David, don't have
17 your military attache planes flying over our factories at low
18 level taking pictures. If you want pictures of our plants, we
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will give them to you, but all of this kind of business makes
our workers nervous, and people don't know what's going on.
All they were doing was filling in the blanks, and we tended to
go at it without a direct relationship to what might be called
23 policy needs. And I think this was one of the
24 of one's ignorance of pre-World War II times.
inherent senses
410 First Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003
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MR. BELIN: I think you also mentioned during our
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interview last night that you thought the syndrome of avoiding
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another Pearl Harbor might have contributed to trying to collect
a tremendous amount of information, and you gave as an example
the attack on South Korea by North Korea.
MR. RUSK: Yes.
Our intelligence did not predict Pearl Harbor, but
And I think
they certainly predicted the Roberts Commission.
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that that experience has infected to some extent the intelligence
community.
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Now,
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I once wrote Mr. Schlesinger a little note about
this and one or two other matters when he became Director of
CIA. One of the nightmares of people in the intelligence
community is to have something serious happen which they have
not predicted, and so one of the results of that is that
policy offices get a continual flow of possibilities, 90 or 95
16 percent of which never happen at all, and the policy officer
has the problem then of trying to sort out which is for real and
18 which is not. And that is, sometimes, very difficult.
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In the case of Korea, after the North Korean attack
was launched, people went back through thousands of bits of
They came out with a handful, six or eight pieces
information.
on the basis of which some of them said oh, yes, you see, we
Well, no one picked up the phone and
knew this was coming.
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called me.
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I was Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern
Affairs at that time, and no one picked up the phone and called
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me and said the North Koreans are going to attack. On that
evening, I was having dinner with Judge Alsop and Mr. Pace and
3 Justice Frankfurter, and I certainly would not have been out
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having dinner if I knew that an attack was imminent.
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Indeed, Mr. John Foster Dulles, who was in Tokyo at
the time, said it was not until the Tuesday after the Sunday
of the attack that the MacArthur Headquarters accepted that it
was anything more than a border incident, and so I think we tend
to multiply alleged predictions, partly to cover your trail in
case something happens, and I think this is something that
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make some discriminating judgments.
And it emphasizes the importance of multiple sources
of information.
Now, when I was a Special Assistant to Judge Patterson,
the Secretary of War, I personally supported his efforts to
combine all of the intelligence agencies into a single agency
and put them altogether in one organization.
I since have
changed my mind radically on that because I think it is very
important that you have not competitive sources of information
but diverse sources of information. One of the several reasons
for the tragic mistake in the Bay of Pigs was that those who
proposing the operation were the same people who were furnishing
the information on which judgments were to be made. And I had
a specific directive from the President not to consult my own
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Bureau of Intelligence and Research in the Department of State
to get their judgment on the situation inside Cuba.
So I think it is very important that we maintain
diverse sources of information as a kind of check against each
5 other, among other things, and also because that way you get
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some insights and some guesses that might not come through a
single channel.
MR. BELIN: And so what you are saying is that some
duplication, perhaps, so far as the sources on a particular
problem, might not be adverse to the best interests of the
country?
MR. RUSK: Well, I think there should be a very full
exchange of information among the different elements of the
intelligence community.
I think we ought to, that we
ought to have diverse sources of judgment, of analysis, and
matters of that sort.
MR. BELIN:
But
Now, to go back to your previous comment
concerning the Pearl Harbor syndrome and to cover all bases, is
it a fair statement that perhaps the inundation of thousands
of pieces of information to cover all possibilities does not
necessarily lead to the best kinds of intelligence?
MR. RUSK: Well, we are faced, the intelligence
community is faced, with an inherently difficult problem because
of the blizzard of information that has fallen in on the world.
Now, a very large part of the CIA's information
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1 gathering has to do with getting materials that are in the
public sector, publications from all over the world including
the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, and the
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sheer management analysis of the information that is available
in the public sector is a massive problem.
Now, the processes by which that mass is reduced to
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some estimates or judgments are very important.
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available to them, and policy officers should be in a pretty
sceptical frame of mind about decisions. I mean about judgments
of that sort.
Very often we try to get information that is not
present in the real world, and we ought to, I think, be a little
more candid in saying to ourselves that we don't know, but if
you want our guess, here's our guess.
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1968, Russian forces went into Czechoslovakia.
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For example, on a certain Tuesday evenining in August,
We thought later
that we had learned that the Russians had made that decision on
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the preceeding Saturday night, three days earlier, Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday.
Now, if we had asked our intelligence community before
that Saturday night whether or not the Russians were going into
Czechoslovakia, there is no way they could know, because the
Russians didn't know. I mean,
I used to smile occasionally at
the enormous effort made by foreign people, foreign governments,
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to ascertain our intentions when I knew we didn't have any
intentions, and so I think we ought to distinguish more clearly
between information that is real and information or estimates
that are rather speculative in character.
MR. BELIN: I am going to change the subject now to
the statutes which were adopted by the Congress and which
formed the charter of the CIA.
Last night, you had some comments concerning your
9 observation of these statutes on the relationship to what has
10 actually happened since the enactment of the statutes.
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MR. RUSK: Well, I think one must bear in mind that
these statutes are the public expressions of the will of the
Congress, and there are some things that you don't say publicly.
You don't lay out in the statute a capability, say, for political
observations in a particular situation. You don't lay out in
the statute, a public statute, the complete functions of the
National Security Agency, for example.
NOW,
I don't think there was any doubt in the minds of
the Congress over these past twenty-eight years that CIA had
certain capabilities in the political action field as well as in
the espionage, counter-espionage field, or any doubt about the
real purposes
and functions of the National Security Agency.
And so although as a matter of law this may raise some curious
24 questions, I don't think that one can honestly say that the
25 Congress was in any way misled about what kind of an organization
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CIA was,
or what kind of an organization NSA is.
There was a kind of a common law of the matter behind
the written word, or there was whatever you want to call it, I
will leave that to the distinguished members of your Commission.
But some of these things that have been criticized lately as a
part of the attack on the CIA I do not think can be measured by
reading the exact wording of the public aspects of the CIA
charter.
MR. BELIN: Is it your understanding that at least
the Oversight Committee leaders of Congress did basically know
major areas of policy determination by the CIA?
MR. RUSK: Yes.
To what extent, I don't know.
I do know that the
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Director of CIA consulted frequently with Senator Russell, for
example. He was the one who had basically handled CIA's budget
since he was chairman of the Armed Services Committee and
practically chairman of the Appropriations Committee because of
the chairman's age, and I know that there were pretty frequent
discussions between the two of them.
I never sat in on any of those, so I can't testify
directly as to what was said. But I had a good many discussions
22 myself with Senator Russell on a good many foreign policy
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matters, and I never heard him complain about feeling that he
needed to be better informed.
MR. BELIN: Now, we also discussed the practical fact
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of how CIA in your phrase was drawn into things that other
agencies might not, or might have done if they had had the
2201
money available overtly, but they did not have, and the CIA was
drawn in because CIA had the money.
Is that a fair summary of our discussion?
MR. RUSK: Yes.
A good many things that CIA has done over the years
could have been done directly, and overtly by the Department of
State if the Department of State could have gotten the
appropriations.
For example, support to the National Student Associ-
ation to send delegations to international conferences and
things of that sort, activities similar to the activities of
the British Council in Great Britain. But the chairman of our
Appropriations Subcommittee in the House, Mr. John Rooney,
didn't care very much about things cultural and scientific
exchanges and U.S.I.D. and the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, and
things of that sort, and now here was CIA who was able to come
up with the money and so I think some activities sort of
gravitated towards CIA because Dick Russell got their money
which could have just as well or better been done overtly.
I don't know whether the situation can significantly
change in that respect, but support of things like Radio Liberty
and Radio Free Europe could just as well have been done overtly
by the Department of State as they were attempted on a covert
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basis by CIA. A good many things of that sort happened because
they had the money.
MR. BELIN: Secretary Rusk, we also talked about
internal executive oversight about CIA and the role of the
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Director of Central Intelligence, the
DCI, as the head of the
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Do you have any observations concerning the question
of executive oversight of the Agency, or any suggestions in that
area?
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MR. RUSK: Well, as I look back on it, I do have
one specific and potentially important suggestion.
statute reports to the National Security Council.
CIA by
Of course,
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the President is the Chairman, and his decisions in the National
Security Council are the decisions. There is no voting pro-
cedure there. But the statutory members of the National
Security Council, in my recollection, never once sat down and
looked at the major tables and the budget of the CIA.
sort of in the intelligence and operational chain of command
in a sense, but not in the administration chain of command.
We were
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I would assume that what happened was that the CIA
would take their budget to maybe two or three members of the
Bureau of the Budget, and then it would be discussed briefly
with the President, and then it would be taken down and
discussed with Senator Russell, and that was about the end of
it.
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In retrospect, I think it would have been helpful if
the statutory members of the National Security Council had at
least once a year taken a look at the organizational structure
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a little bit better feel of not only what was going on but what
might be going on that they would not normally bump into.
So I think that that would be a step, that would be
an improvement that would be desirable.
MR. BELIN: Now, I want to turn to the area of
possible CIA involvement in coup d'etats abroad. Perhaps it is
not within our charter specifically, but you made a comment
last night concerning your eight years as Secretary of State.
Well, I have stated publicly, and I have
MR. RUSK:
been continuing to scratch my mind for exceptions, I have
stated publicly that there was some 82 or so in the world
somewhere during the eight years in which I was Secretary of
State. That is unconstitutional changes of government.
There were substantially larger changes through
elections and things of that sort. I don't remember a single one
of those that was triggered by or caused by the CIA.
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MR. RUSK:
Coup d'etat. The coup d'etat.
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Now, I think one thing that requires a rather careful
look, and some rather careful distinctions, the CIA people
consider that one of their jobs is to keep in touch with
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different elements within a population, and they do have
contacts with dissident groups here and there.
Sometimes
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people in our embassies, mostly CIA people, but sometimes on
the diplomatic side, get inquiries from dissident groups and
various countries as to what the attitude towards the United
States would be in the event of a coup d'etat.
I tried to get the word established that we would not
respond to any such inquiries, partly as a practical matter,
because I suspected that many of these were from provacateurs
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of the governments involved and they were trying to find out
what our answer would be to such a question. But I had no
doubts the CIA was in touch with dissident groups,
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at times been buying information from them. But that does not
translate in my mind to their calling the shots of it or
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becoming the boss or directing a coup d'etat.
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In your experience as Secretary of State,
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were you aware of the practices of other governments and their
intelligence, both in this country and abroad?
To a very considerable extent.
Of course, you always suspect there are practices that you
haven't caught up with, but there is a mean, dirty, unsavory,
back alley struggle going on in the world in which a good many
governments particpate, some of them close friends of ours,
and most of them, including targets in the United States, because
the position of the United States in world affairs is such that
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influencing American policy is a major effort on the part of
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Wherever a dispute
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develops, the parties will each come in to try and get the
United States to take their side, and so we are the target of
a great deal of effort to find out what we are thinking, to
influence our decisions and judgments, and a struggle to
undermine some of the things that we are trying to accomplish
in the world.
MR. BELIN: Were you ever aware, for instance, of
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MR. RUSK: Well, I think there were two or three
instances that I recall. The exact timing and countries I
don't recall at this point. It is somewhere in the records
where forged documents were planted on African leaders to try
to persuade them that CIA was trying to overthrow them.
Fortunately, these forgeries were so crude that it was very
easy to demonstrate that they were, in fact, forgeries, and I
think we were able to satisfy the local chiefs of state that
CIA was not trying to overthrow them.
But there were all sorts of things. If I could
go off the record for a moment?
(Discussion off the record.)
MR. RUSK: I must confess I am worried about a kind
of euphoric and unilateral repeal of the Cold War in this country
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these days, because there are those who are out to bring the
United States down, and they are working away at it, not only
in this country, but in other parts of the world. Whether or
not we ought to make that more public, that information public,
I think is a major policy question that you gentlemen and those
who are carrying present responsibility might want to think
about, because there is no question about the fact that these
people are conducting such operations, both here and abroad.
We did make a decision during the Vietnam affair not
to make public what we knew about the activities of certain
governments in this country because we knew that there were a
lot of opponents to Vietnam, most of them who had no connection
with outside governments, who were opposing it for perfectly
reasonable, valid considerations, and we did not wish to start
another wave of McCarthyism in this country.
But anyone who thinks that the Communits were not
making every effort to influence American public opinion is just
out of his head.
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and verse.
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MR. GRAY: Sir, did you receive any specific informa-
tion of such attempts to influence the young people that were
demonstrating against the war, and so on?
MR. RUSK: There were bits and pieces occasionally,
but at the moment I can't cite one of them in terms of chapter
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estimate as to the extent of any such involvement?
MR. RUSK: No.
Before we left office in 1969 there had been put
together a world, a study of youth movements worldwide, and
one of the interesting conclusions of the study was about the
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technique, that their objectives varied widely.
For example, the young people in Eastern Europe
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establishment values in the United States. But that study
might throw some light on your question, if you can get ahold
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of it.
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MR. BELIN:
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last night?
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You also mentioned that you thought that
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including even the Russian intelligence agency might be
involved in. Is that an accurate summary of your conversation
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MR. RUSK: Yes.
I think there is a substantial variety of motivations
behind attacks on the CIA. I would say first that there have
been some failures, and there have been some mistakes on the
part of the CIA. Those things will happen among frail human
beings. And I cite the Bay of Pigs as one notable and public.
example, and that has exposed the CIA to some criticism. I
think there are interests who are hostile to the United States.
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1 that are at work in this field.
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Anti-CIA propoganda is good propoganda in many parts
of the world, and among sections of this country.
And then I think there are some personal motivations
that I don't care much about, such things as desire to win a
Pulitzer Prize or money or a sense of revenge. But I think
more broadly, I think this is partly a reaction coming from a
swing towards isolationism in this country, which I think is
real, as I travel around this country in small and large cities,
and again, this is sort of decisions on the part of a lot of
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fact when you look through the world from Southeast Asia through
Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, the
Cold War is very much alive, at least from the point of view
of the other side.
MR. BELIN: In this connection, do you have any
17 specific recommendations as to whether or not this government
18 should make available to the public more information about what
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to influence world affairs?
MR. RUSK: I think we probably ought to find some way
to alert people to the fact that detent does not mean that a
new Heaven and earth has been accomplished here on earth, and
for example, I object to the use of the term domino theory,
and I never used it myself, although President Kennedy seemed
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1 to embrace it on two or three occasions in Press conferences,
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To me, the domino theory is a euphenism for something
The theoretical basis for it is the Marxist doctrine of
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in those terms. Is it there, what are they doing about it, is
this still a real matter in the real world, and not obscure it
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by talking about a power game?
And I think that we could do more in that direction.
We could be more frank and candid about the differences that
still separate us even though it remains important that we try
to find points of agreement between ourselves and those who
might become our adversaries. I think the process of trying
to find points of agreement like the Test Ban Treaty and the
Nonproliferation Treaty, the Arms Limitation, the SALT talks
and things of that sort, those are absolutely essential, but
we ought not to be under an illusion about it, and I am afraid
there has been so much illusion around what we are up against,
and this is why I feel that the CIA and its capabilities are
absolutely vital to the safety of the United States.
And I think one of our problems now is how to
maintain some capabilities in the present atmosphere and
discuss these, and in the face of the various investigations
which we anticipate, and the investigative reporting and all
25 of the rest that goes along with it.
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MR. BELIN:
Secretary Rusk, I want to turn to another
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leaders.
Were you ever aware of any plans or proposals to
assassinate any foreign leaders?
MR. RUSK: No proposal ever came to me seeking my
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words. I mean, no proposal ever came before me, period,
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MR. BELIN: Go ahead.
MR. RUSK: On one occasion, the late great Ambassador
Llewellyn Thompson, who was then, I believe our representative
on the 303 Committee, I think it was named during that period,
came in and more or less in a jocular frame of mind said that
he had heard that somebody down the line, and he had not
identified the person or the agency, was talking about the
18 possible assassination effort, and I made it absolutely clear
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to him, and he fully agreed, that political assassination was
contrary to the most elementary notions of American foreign
policy, and that if we go down that trail, we are in the law
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of the jungle, and it would be out of control.
That was my
personal attitude throughout the period.
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On one other occasion the matter came up in an
indirect form which could be, I think, coverted by gossip into
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meaning something else. I had heard that Trujillo had been
assassinated before the Dominicans had announced it. President
Kennedy was then in Paris.
I called and got Pierre Salinger on the scene, and
he tells about this in his book, by the way.
Secretary?
MR. BELIN: He was President Kennedy's Press
MR. RUSK: He was President Kennedy's Press
Secretary, and I told him Trujillo had been assassinated and
to keep his mouth shut, because it had not been, it had not
been announced.
Well, he stubbed his toe and announced it, or
referred to it in one of those glancing remarks at a Press
My concern was that Trujillo's son was in Paris,
conference.
that if Trupillo's son heard this announcement first from an
American source that he would think that we had something to
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do with the assassination of Trujillo and might take it out
on President Kennedy personally in Paris, and I was concerned
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about Kennedy's personal safety under those circumstances.
But those were the only two things that I remember
in the assassination field.
MR. BELIN: When Mr. Thompson talk to you about it,
did he indicate what potential foreign leader was involved? ·
MR. RUSK: If he did, I just don't remember it.
I don't remember it.
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MR. BELIN: With particular reference to the Trujillo
assassination, do you know of any approval that was ever given
by the State Department for American participation with any
group that might be involved in overthrowing the government and
assassinating Trujillo in the process?
MR. RUSK: Well, I knew that our intelligence people
were in touch with a variety of Dominican groups, both in the
Dominican Republic and abroad, and any one of them would have
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been glad, I think, to assassinate Trujillo.
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But I was not
aware of any operational involvement of the United States
government in his assassination.
MR. BELIN: If records were to show any cables going
from the State Department under your name to any Ambassador in
the Dominican Republic, would you state that those indicated
personal knowledge on your part?
MR. RUSK: Well
MR. BELIN: And I don't know, by the way, whether or
18 not such cables existed. I am using it as a hypothetical
19 example.
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MR. RUSK: During my years, over 2,100,000 cables
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and I had seen only a tiny fraction of 1 percent of them before
they went out. Now, I am responsible, I mean I cannot avoid
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the responsibility for what was done in a Department of which
I was Chief.
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In terms of my personal involvement, in the first
place I don't recall such cables, but if you could get ahold
of the green copies, the original greens of the outgoing
cables, if I had seen and approved any of those, they would
carry my initials. I always put my initials, small dr, on
the cables that I personally approved, and it may be for
cryptographic reasons that the State Department doesn't maintain
the green copies, I just don't know. But if they have them
then you can find out whether I was, in fact, aware of any of
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those cables.
MR. BELIN: Did you have any knowledge concerning the
death of President Diem in Vietnam, or did you give any
directions?
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MR. RUSK:
NO,
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no directions at all. There was a
cable that went out in August, 1963, sent out at a time when
President Kennedy, Secretary McNamara, and I, all three, were
out of town, and this cable was "cleared" with us on an open
telephone. And when George Ball called me, he spoke in very
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approved it.
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Well, this was on an open telephone and with that
kind of information I said use your own judgment, go ahead as
far as I am concerned.
When the three of us got back to town, we looked at
the cable in detail and felt that it went further than we
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wanted to go in the direction of Diem must go kind of thinking,
and we pulled back on it. Now, we did make an effort in the
months immediately following that, to try to persuade President
Diem to get his brother Nhu, and Madame Nhu, out of the country.
We told the President to send him as Ambassador to Washington, or
6 Paris, or give him any kind of a job that would get him out of
the country, because it was his brother, we felt, who was the
principal motivator and executor of policies which were rapidly.
alienating the Buddhists, the military, and the students, and
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we felt that Brother Nhu was going to bring President Diem down.
I do recall very specifically that Ambassador Henry
Cabot Lodge had instructions that if a coup should develop,
that he should do his best to insure President Diem's personal
safety, and, indeed, I understand that on the morning of the day
that it was clear that the military we moving, he called up
Diem and suggested some arrangements to Diem that would insure
his personal safety. Diem refused those suggestions and tried
to get off into another part of the country where he thought he
had some forces that might be loyal to him, and on the way was
captured and killed.
MR. BELIN: Is it your testimony, then, that you don't
know of any action by this government, or any agency of the
government which contributed, directly contributed to the death
of Diem?
MR.
RUSK: It was not the policy of the United States
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Government to see that President Diem was assassinated.
We
had put some pressure on him trying to bring about some changes
in his policy, and to separate him from his brother, Nhu. For
example, we had made some adjustments in our aid program. We
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cut back on our aid program. I think you will remember that,
And some of that was interpreted by the press,
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General Lemnitzer.
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as being indeed, as it was pressure on President Diem, but
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maybe even they might have read it as a signal that we would
be in favor of a coup.
MR. BELIN: Secretary Rusk, during your service with
the Government, did you ever hear any discussion of the phrase
known or called Executive Action Capability, which was defined
as a built-in capability to be able to assassinate foreign
leaders if it became a policy of this government to do so?
MR. RUSK: I don't recall it, no.
MR. BELIN: Is there any remembrance on your part of
any plan or direction to have a plan to assassinate any Cuban
leaders which might include, among others, Fidel Castro?
MR. RUSK: I assume that there were a good many Cubans
who would have been glad to assassinate Castro, and I also am
aware of the fact that the State Department and CIA both were
in touch with various dissident Cuban groups. We had been since
the Eisenhower administration. But, the specific point of the
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assassination of Castro, to my recollection, did not come to me
for my attention. I cannot testify that down the line there might
not have been some talk of this, but it never came to an action,
a policy action judgment or a decision.
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MR. BELIN: By that you mean the decision to go ahead
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with the plan?
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MR. RUSK:
That's right.
MR. BELIN:
There are some documents which the Commission
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staff has seen which indicate that at a meeting at the State
Department on August 10, 1962, which memoranda say that you were
present, a meeting of a group known as the Special Operations
Group, or the MONGOOSE group, that there was some discussion
about the development of a possible plan to assassinate Castro.
Do you have any recollection of such a meeting or such
discussion?
MR. RUSK: I don't, but that doesn't prove very much
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at this point.
I do have an 11:00 o'clock telephone date with
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my appointment books at the LBJ library to determine whether, in
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fact, I was at that meeting, and I will report back to you as
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soon as I can find that out. It is entirely possible. You know,
my own personal practice was to do a lot of listening in such
groups, but not to get into the decision phase until the President
and Secretary McNamara and I were ready to face a decision on the
matter, because otherwise you would discourage the considerations
of the widest range of possibilities or options that might be
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Mr. Arthur Schlesinger in his book, Thousand Days, once
referred to the fact that I used to sit there in the Cabinet
room silent like an old Buddha. Well, that's right, quite
right, because in most of those meetings with 30 or 40 people
around the room, I did remain silent, and I would see the
President either before the meeting or after the meeting and
have my talk with him on the subject matter, because I had the
feeling that if I sounded off and debated my President in front
of these 30 or 35 people, that we would read about it in the
New York Times or the Washington Post the next morning. So
typically I would sit in a good many meetings without saying
very much, but when we got to the point of decision, that was
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MR. BELIN: We also discussed the question of
--
well,
16.
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let me strike that and go back with one other question in this
area. As I understand your statement, you have no specific
recollection of any such discussions at any meetings.
What you
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do say though is that they might have occurred so far as discussing
the possibility, but they did not occur so far as an operational
plan approval is concerned?
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I am genuinely not trying in any
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way to be evasive. I do want to say that when I left the
Department of State, I took no papers, files, records or memoranda
of any sort. I took away my appointments books, which are available
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of my income tax returns, and that's it. Everything else was
left there. I have had many interviews and discussions with
people writing articles, dissertations, books on things, in which
I was involved, and I have long since learned, because of the
mass of things that happened during those eight years, that my
recollection on matters of detail simply isn't all that reliable.
The record is there, and as far as I'm concerned, you are welcome
to it now over in the State Department or wherever it might be.
But, it just means that I just cannot remember every
detail of everything that happened. I averaged seeing 25 to 30
people for every day for eight years, and that is a good way to
help you not to remember a lot of details that you are trying to
recapture.
MR. BELIN: And I want to now turn to the area of
16 possible oversight of the Agency. One of the concerns of this
Commission is recommendations that it might make, and I would like
to know whether or not you have any specific recommendations
concerning the oversight of the Agency to make it a more responsive
and a more effective agency?
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MR. RUSK: Well, I think the National Security Council
could give it more oversight along the lines that I have talked
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the 303 Committee, and the discussions that each of the principals
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had with his representative on the 303 Committee. I almost
always had a talk, sometimes short, sometimes longer, with my
representative on the 303 Committee before a meeting, to take
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But I think that the statutory members of the NSC might take a
little closer look at the total operations, the structure, the
budget of the CIA, than they have done in the past.
MR. GRAY: Sir, for the record, could you state who
the statutory members are that you are referring to?
MR. RUSK: Well, the President, the Vice President,
the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director
of the CIA, and then such other officials, such as Cabinet
officers who might be called in ad hoc because of the subject
matter being discussed. The Secretary of the Treasury was
frequently there during my day, and the Attorney General was
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MR. GRAY: During your tenure, how many people beyond
the statutory members were normally at NSC meetings, approximately?
MR. RUSK: I would think at an NSC meeting there might
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MR. GRAY: Do you think it would be preferable to
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membership as a general matter?
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MR. RUSK: Not necessarily, provided those 20 or 25
25 people in the room are people who know how to keep their mouth
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shut. Now, that is some doing in our kind of government, because
I do think that there is danger in considering problems of this
sort in too small a group. I mentioned one of the reasons for
the mistake of the Bay of Pigs. Another reason was that it was
held in such a small circle that the talents and resources of
6 the government were not brought to bear upon the problem, and I
ry
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am a little concerned about holding these things too closely.
For example, in the famous Tuesday luncheon sessions
that President Johnson had on Vietnam, there were usually five
or six people, the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Director of the CIA, a note-
taker, plus the President. Occasionally there would be one or two
others there.
Now, however, each one of us knew what the agenda was
going to be, and I would take over with me notes and suggestions
from my Department that had been worked on ahead of time for
those Tuesday luncheon sessions, and there we did not close off
other input. And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs undoubtedly
had talked to the Joint Chiefs, for example, about the items
that were coming up, you see.
MR. BELIN: General Lemnitzer is nodding his head in
22 agreement, I see, for the record.
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With regard to this oversight, I think one of the things
24 we talked about last night was the fact that because of the busy
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1 that the oversight should be done perhaps chiefly through deputies.
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Was that an accurate summary?
MR. RUSK:
Well, I think a week by week oversight should
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be exercised by the kind of interdepartmental committee in which
senior and trusted deputies would normally be those who would
attend meetings, and in the State Department such people as
Alexis Johnson and Llewellyn Thompson, people of that seniority
and integrity, but I do think the statutory members themselves
ought to take a periodic look at the total intelligence community
situation, including CIA as well.
I am concerned about Congressional oversight. If
this isn't handled carefully, it could destroy the CIA and its
capabilities. Members of Congress operate under a Constitutional
immunity provided by the First Amendment. What they say in
Congress is not subject to question in any other place, so
basically they are subject only to the possibility of being
expelled by the necessary what is it, two thirds vote of their
particular houses.
Now, that is a most unlikely sanction. There is a
precedent in the Congress which I think has worked very well, if
the Congress would agree that that is the way they should do it,
and that is the Joint Atomic Energy Committee.
That Committee
is carefully selected, it has facilities and staff which are
24 highly secure, and they do receive the most sensitive kind of
information in the nuclear field. I think there are very few
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with them. And I do not recall at the moment any significant
leak that ever came out of that Committee.
Now, if the Congress itself would approach this matter
of oversight of the CIA in that mood and spirit, and recognize
that you cannot have a CIA involved in espionage and counter-
espionage and an occasional political operation somewhere, and
have it shouted from the rooftops, then I think some Congressional
oversight could be useful.
I personally, but I am biased because I am an Executive
Branch man, I personally would prefer ex post facto assessment
rather than pre-consultation with regard to whether or not a
particular thing should be done, because that could raise the
question of who makes the decision. You might get, you might
get a steady stream of alleged confrontations between a President
and some group in the Congress that could cause great difficulty.
Could I go off the record just a second?
(Discussion off the record.)
MR. RUSK: The Congress is the representative branch
of the government only for those functions given to the Congress
under the Constitution. The President is the representative
branch of the government with respect to the duties assigned to
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the President, and so I see no particular reason why we have to
say that the Congress has to participate in everything, nor is
the Congress particularly willing to do it.
For example, on
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1 the question of amnesty, vitally affected one of the most important
2 powers of the Congress, the power to raise armies, and in a period
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when the Congress was asserting its desire to re-establish its
authority under the Constitution, did anyone in the Congress say
that they ought to have participated in the amnesty decision?
Not at all because it was a no win situation.
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Whatever the
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decision was, you were going to come out behind.
8
So I don't know whether the Congress
on one occasion
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I invited a subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee to come
down to the State Department on a very private basis to take a
look at some of the technology of the espionage and counter-
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espionage, and we showed them a good many gadgets, and how
various things operate, and it was pretty startling to them. And
afterwards, at least two of them said to me, we appreciate your
motivation in inviting us down here, but I'm sorry you did it
because we don't want to know.
Now, how much of this kind of thing does the Congress
really want to know when you start to peel the peeling off the
My guess is most of them would prefer not to know some of
these things and have a chance to quarrel about it later if they
banana?
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MR. CONNOR:
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May I ask one question in this connection?
Even though generally speaking you think that a joint Congressional
committee with oversight functions with respect to the CIA should
have only a post-audit responsibility, are there some situations.
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such as the covert operations in the United States and elsewhere,
that preceded the Bay of Pigs actions, where because of the
magnitude and because of the foreign policy implications, and
because of the possible direct war involvement, that there should
be a preclearance?
MR. RUSK: Yes. I think there would be situations where
My guess is that had there
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helped us avoid a very serious mistake.
President Kennedy did.
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talk to Senator Fulbright about it, and also talked to the
Vice President Lyndon Johnson about it, both of whom were opposed
to the Bay of Pigs. And so I think there are some, there would
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be some things where preconsultation would be very, very much
in point. I was concerned about the notion that somehow you could
not do anything without prior consultation and the consent of
representatives of the Congress, because very often you just
don't have time.
MR. GRAY: It's 11:00 o'clock, sir.
MR. RUSK: I wonder if we could pause for two minutes
while I try to establish the point of where I was on August 10th.
(A brief recess was taken.)
MR. RUSK:
I can confirm that there was a meeting in
23 my conference room on the afternoon of August 10th, 1962, at which
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I was present.
There were about a dozen people there, and my
25 appointment book shows names of those who were there. I have
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asked them to photostat that page, and I will get it to you as
2 quickly as possible. It does not show that General Lansdale
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was there, but he might have been. The list might have been
incomplete.
MR. BELIN: Your appointment book will show the members
present on that?
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8 were about ten or twelve there.
MR. BELIN:
McNamara, McCone, George Ball, and there
Secretary Rusk, we were talking about
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oversight, and I would like to ask you to discuss with the
Commission a summary of what we talked about last night concerning
your observations of the kind of a person that should be the
Director of Central Intelligence, with a particular reference
to internal oversight.
MR. RUSK: Well, I do believe that any agency which
is involved with what I would call raw power must be a highly
disciplined agency and from the President on down. I think the
quality and character of the persons who are directors of CIA
and directors of FBI are very important indeed. However, I would
not rely entirely on that. I would myself urge that they be
put on terms of office of not more than say eight years, but,
of course, subject to the pleasure of the President for periods
shorter than that, because I think it is very important that
there not be individuals who are in a position to develop power
that somehow is not subject to the normal controls of the people
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1 who are elected, the President and the Congress.
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I don't want to speak unduly badly of the dead, but
I think we allowed Mr. J. Edgar Hoover to develop just too much
power, and we ought to rotate those offices, and that that would
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I don't see any way in which one can through organizational
structure or mechanics get complete protection against an
occasional incident of pure indiscipline down the line. That
is present in every large organization in our society, public
and private, and so occasionally things like that will happen.
But I think the quality is of great importance, and I think that
during the period that I was there, I felt myself very fortunate
in the men that were serving as Director of CIA.
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MR. BELIN: You mentioned that among the restrictions
you would include, in addition to a maximum number of years
that a person could serve in a position of this kind was the
question of whether or not the DCI should be the brother of
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as brothers.
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the Secretary of State, or for that matter, the Attorney
General should be the brother of the President.
Do you have any observations along those lines?
I have, for what they are worth.
MR. RUSK: Yes,
I may be wrong, but I am clear. I think that the members of
the National Security Council ought, in personal terms, to be
at arms length with the Director of the CIA and the Director
of the FBI. I don't think that it was a particularly good
idea to have the Director of CIA and the Secretary of State
This is something George Marshall taught most
of those who worked with him, to keep a kind of an arm's
length from people above you and below you, because you don't
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want personal relationships to interfere with public duty.
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And he is very special on that particular point.
I am sorry I didn't
MR. BELIN: The other aspect was with regard to the
Department of Justice, the Attorney General and the President.
MR. RUSK: Oh, yes.
You know, it is kind of
traditional in this post-war period that the Secretary of
State, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Treasury
remove themselves from party politics because the issues they
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deal with are supposed to be and expected to be largely
nonpartisan in character.
I think our recent experience has
indicated that it would be a good idea for the Attorney
General to be added to that group, and that the Attorney
General not be someone who is actively involved in party
politics as the principal law officer of this government.
MR. CONNOR: Or a member of the family of the
President, say?
MR. RUSK: I would think almost any other Cabinet
the President than the Attorney General or the Secretary of
State and Secretary of Defense.
MR. KIRKLAND: How do you feel, Mr. Secretary, about
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the question of whether the DCI should be a career intelligence
officer, perhaps?
MR. RUSK: My feeling on that is a little bit like
my attitude to what extent Ambassadors should be drawn from
18 career members of the foreign service, that you ought to try.
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and find the best man that you can.
There may be times when
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that person would be a career man, there may be other times
when he would come from the outside, and I would a little bit
22 rather not try to generalize on that particular point, because
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you really ought to find the best man you can get for the
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job.
MR. KIRKLAND: If one of the problems confronting
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the Director is substantial White House pressure to do things
that might not be prudent, do you think someone who had an
independent reputation or means of livelihood might be in a
4 better position to protect the Agency?
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MR. RUSK: I doubt that it would turn on money. At
one period
I don't know whether they still do it
--
but at
༡
the moment anyone enters the Dutch Cabinet, from that moment
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the Cabinet, and one of my Dutch friends referred to this as
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the Go to Hell fund, and one reason was to try to increase the
sense of independence of the Cabinet members.
I doubt that would make all that much difference in
the face of the Director of the CIA. I do believe that it is
very important that we distinguish between the White House and
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the President.
During my period, I tried to get my colleagues
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into the frame of mind so that if some staff person from the
White House called over there and said that the White House
would like for you to do this, then they were supposed to go
back and say who at the White House. It is one thing if they
were literally conveying a message from the President and quite
another thing if they were not, because I was old-fashioned
enough to believe that if it was not a President speaking on
foreign policy that I was the spokesman for foreign policy.
And so I think we ought to be careful about people
in the White House junior to the President asserting any kind
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of command role, or supervisory role, or directive role, with
regard to either the CIA or the FBI.
Now I do not think we should try to remove a
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President from that role, but my guess is that office has been
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command.
MR. CONNOR: Mr. Secretary, along those lines, do
you think that it is wise for the same person to hold the
position of Secretary of State and Assistant to the President
for International or for National Security matters?
MR. RUSK:
Well, that would not be my choice. I have
taken the liberty of reminding Mr. Kissinger that he had
learned while he was at the White House that a Secretary of
State must not permit a Henry Kissinger to be in the White
House, and I suspect that that has something to do with his
We had a very good personal working.
16
present arrangements.
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relationship in that three-corned arrangement, the President,
18 McGeorge Bundy and myself as far as foreign policy matters
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was concerned, and later with President Johnson and Walt
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Dean Acheson once said in the
relations with the President and the Secretary of State, that
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Rostow.
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it was of the utmost importance that both of them understand
24 at all times which one of them is President. If that adviser
25 on National Security Affairs in the White House, and the
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Secretary of State and the President, all three, have an
adequate and an honorable working relationship on a basis of
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problems developing.
MR. CONNOR: Going back to a related question of the
role of the Attorney General, was Attorney General Robert
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Kennedy present at that meeting in your office to which you
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referred?
MR. RUSK: I don't think he was. I don't recall him
as being on the list, but I will have the list, and I will get
it to the Commission.
MR. CONNOR: Was he personally involved in many of
these policy questions having to do with the Cuban situation?
MR. RUSK: He would sit from time to time with the
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303 Committee, and occasionally would make suggestions, some
of them good, and some of them that I vetoed. But he was
sort of interested in, you know, counterinsurgency and that
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on the 303 Committee.
kind of thing, and President Kennedy asked me to let him serve
But I always felt free to take up any
20 problems if I needed to with President Kennedy himself.
MR. KIRKLAND: Are you aware of any independent
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MR. RUSK: No, and it is very hard for me to dig into
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that particular point, because the three key people who would
know about that are dead, President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and
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Allen Dulles. But I would be surprised and disappointed if
President Kennedy, for example, had any kind of understanding
with Mr. Dulles that very much affected our foreign policy
without the knowledge of the Secretary of State. I can't
swear that that was not so, obviously, because we are talking
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about a negative here. But I didn't get the impression that
such a channel was operating.
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MR. BELIN: Were there some meetings that Allen
Dulles might have had with President Kennedy that you did not
know about?
MR. RUSK: Oh, I am sure he dropped in on him
occasionally for some additional briefings on different
situations, and I am sure, I know that J. Edgar Hoover used to
go into see the President, or the two Presidents that I served,
occasionally on his own to report on various things. So the
answer to that is yes.
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MR. BELIN: To follow up with J. Edgar Hoover, one
comment you made concerning a maximum term of service, I
believe in our discussions last night you said that one of the
major concerns you had was the possibility that if an agency
like the FBI or CIA would be able to terrorize others,
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including possibly members of Congress.
MR. RUSK: Well, again I am not sure I am right on
this, but I have developed over the years a strong aversion to
monopoly of sources of information on important matters. And I
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am a little concerned to have all information in the Federal
government on internal security matters come through one agency
and one head of that agency. I am just a little worried about
the need for a little more diversity. I don't quite know how
to work this out, but I would be reluctant to have one man
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play a decisive role in making judgments about internal
security problems in this country.
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Now, one answer to that might be, and I defer to a
member of your Commission, might be closer and more effective
supervision by the Attorney General of the FBI and closer and
more effective supervision by the CIA by the statutory members
of the National Security Council.
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MR. BELIN: Secretary Rusk, last night we talked
about your concern that the intelligence community must be
urged to have priorities in its job to reflect the regional
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trends of American foreign policy so that they don't always
develop an insatiable appetite for information on everything that
might not be relevant to American foreign policy.
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in fact, use the concept of priorities in terms of the
expenditures of resources both in people and money. But I
think we might, we might press that further and be somewhat
more restrictive in the types of activities that are conducted
in particular countries. I mean,
it doesn't make much difference
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to the United States, for example, as to what happens in
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Burundi. I do not know how much effort they are putting into
Burundi, but they shouldn't be doing it because it's there and
we need a book full of information on Burundi. We ought to do
it as a direct instrument of foreign policy rather than some
momentum of the intelligence community working on its own.
(Discussion off the record.)
MR. RUSK: I think there is a need for supervision of
intelligence activities by policy officers who themselves ought
to make some policy judgments about the kinds of intelligence
that are useful rather than leave this question to the
insatiability of an intelligence community for whom no amount
of information is superfluous.
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thought to priorities and directions, and maybe types of
activities.
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Now, Secretary Rusk, one comment you made
last night concerned your observations about the very fact that
in our country people write books about the CIA.
MR. RUSK: Well, I would not wish to be pressed to
name individual countries, but I think one of the tributes to
the constitutionality of our system is that people can work in
these agencies and then go out and write books about them and
survive. In most countries I know if that happened they would
be struck down by a truck, run over in the countryside, and
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that would be the end of it.
But they do that here, they write best sellers.
Well,
it is a very troublesome thing when you get into this kind of
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inevitably exposed to.
MR. BELIN: Do you feel there should be greater
restrictions on the contractual enforcement of Agency contracts
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with employees not to divulge such information?
MR. RUSK: Well, I have suggested that you get ahold
of the departure statement which I signed with the Department
of State. It is very far-reaching in terms of my pledge with
respect to the kinds of information that I in the first place
would not take away with me, and secondly would not reveal,
and it cites about twenty sections of the U.S. Code which
purport to provide the statutory back-up for the requirements
that they cited in that statement. Whether they still use it
after the Freedom of Information Act, I just don't know.
But I do think there is a very important problem here about
whose information it is when people come in and work in
sensitive jobs in government. There is still confusion, as I
understand it, about whose it is. I mean, what about people
who squirrel away in their attics classified material, take
them off with them, and I gather now when they die those papers
become the properties of their families. I think my own feeling
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is that if it is not clear, if it is clear in the statutes
they ought to be forced, and if it is not clear, then it ought
to be clarified by statute as to whose information it is when
one is working in a government department, particularly in
sensitive departments, and obtain such material. This is one
of the messy fringes on our situation which I think we haven't
straightened out carefully enough.
MR. BELIN: Another comment you had from an overall
basis about the CIA was that because of its origin with the
OSS, that might have affected the type of activities to which
Do you have any
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comments on that?
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MR. RUSK: Well, this has a bearing, I think, not
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Security Act of 1947, as enacted, was, but also a good many of
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the personnel in CIA were brought over from OSS, and it may
well be that some of the activities that they conducted during
war time appeared to be entirely appropriate in a Cold War
situation. But I think also that they were even more influenced
by the events of the immediate post-War period.
We had reduced our armed forces to a point where the
Joint Chiefs of Staff told me in 1946 that we did not have a
division in our Army, not a group in our Air Force, that could
be rated ready for combat. Our ships were being put in moth-
balls as fast as we could find berths for them, and those that
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Our Defense.
Budget in '47, '48 was coming down, came down to almost $11
billion, $11.3 billion, on its way down to a target of $10
billion. During that period, Joseph Stalin, looking out across
the West, and not seeing any divisions, tried to keep the
northwest province of Iran, demanded the two eastern provinces
of Turkey, he ignored the peace treaty with the countries of
Eastern Europe with respect to free elections and their political
future, and he gave support to the guerrilas going to Greece,
he pulled the coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia, he barricaded
Berlin, and he gave the principal go ahead light for the North
Koreans to go after South Koreans.
Now, that was the origin of the Cold War, but all of
the revisions of historians are to the contrary, but that's
another story. But in that kind of an atmosphere it is
understandable that the United States government and the CIA
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not until about 1950 under the leadership of the Secretary of
State, and against the opposition of the then-Secretary of
Defense that we began to build up our armed forces again.
Now, this still is a pretty rough world situation and
if there are ways in which we can do things by covert means that
would hold off the time when we might have to consider whether
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means, I think we ought to maintain
that capability. And I can never generalize against CIA-type
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activities, because I was a student in Germany and watched the
storm troopers take the public platforms and the streets away
from the democratic parties of Germany. And I would have
been delighted in those days if there had been CIA's in
Britain and France and the United States that could have come
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in there and found ways to help the democratic parties of
Germany, and the failure to do so resulted in 50 million
people being killed.
So I feel very strongly that although we ought to,
that a President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense
must keep this sort of thing very much under control and take
responsibility for it, that we must have this capability.
MR. BELIN: Do you have any observations concerning
the effectiveness or any possible changes in the President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board as an oversight vehicle or
a related vehicle to CIA?
MR. RUSK: Well, I don't want to do a disservice to
people who have rendered dedicated service. I have had the
impression over the years the Foreign Intelligence Advisory
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sometimes some of these things are urged by the Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board which operationally may not make
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much sense. So I think that it is all right to have then
advise, but they should not be permitted to make the decisions
or to influence the decisions unduly.
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MR. BELIN: In your opinion, are they an effective
oversight agency at the present time?
MR. RUSK: Oh, I don't think they are effective,
at least in my experience they have not been effective in the
kind of oversight that is really needed. And I think the
oversight should be given by those who are in positions
established by our Constitution and statutes, the President,
and the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense.
Secretary Rusk, there have been recent
allegations that the CIA was in some way involved with Lee
MR. BELIN:
Harvey Oswald. There have been also allegations that perhaps
the State Department did not send over to the Warren Commission
all of its files concerning Oswald and particularly about his
trips abroad.
Do you have any comments concerning either of these
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MR. RUSK: Well I never heard of Lee Harvey Oswald
until the assassination, and we went through what I thought
was a very intensive and thorough examination of the question
as to whether any foreign government might have been involved
with Lee Harvey Oswald, because that could have been an issue
of war and peace.
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Now, I personally was convinced that there was no
indication that any foreign government was involved, and so
testified to the Warren Commission, and my testimony is
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available to you.
I have never had any, the slightest reason to believe,
that Lee Harvey Oswald was working for or pursuant to anything
that came out of CIA whatever, and I must say, I really believe
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that anyone who charges that anyone in the United States
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government was involved in the assassination of Kennedy without
hard proof is guilty of just sheer evil.
MR. BELIN: Did you ever come across any information
in any manner whatsoever that indicated that Oswald was in
any way connected with the FBI?
MR. RUSK: No.
Let me say that we did know of his travels and things
of that sort. I am a little shocked to hear that there were
materials in the State Department that were not turned over
to the Warren Commission, because the order was to turn them
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When you say you were shocked to hear,
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Shocked by the allegations, yes.
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MR. ☐ BELIN: To your knowledge, was there any
materials that were ever in the State Department files or any
other government files that you know of that were not turned
over?
MR. RUSK: Not to my knowledge, but sometimes when
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very hard to find it, and it is entirely possible that whatever
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the instructions might have been that there might have been
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something lying around and somebody didn't transmit it.
Whether this was simply through bureaucratic clumsiness or
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MR. GRAY: Mr. Secretary, one point that came up last
night was the question of oversight of CIA collectionfefforts.
Now, the covert action is supervised by what was then the 303
Committee, and you testified that some sensitive or potentially
risky types of collections were presented to you and other
members of the Administration.
What about the day to day overseas collection by
clandestine techniques, is there any supervision outside of the
CIA of that?
MR. RUSK: I don't believe that it is necessary for
the President and Cabinet officers to get into the details of
collection, unless they involve methods and techniques which
could raise major issues of policy.
In other words, I don't think we need to know who are
the agents and things of that sort. I do think that the
Director of the CIA ought to be in charge of his own shop, and
I ought to think that each one of our Ambassadors abroad ought
to have complete access to whatever is being done in the country
to which they are assigned by any representative of the United
States government.
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President Kennedy wrote a letter to all Ambassadors
on that particular subject. Now, as I checked around among
different Ambassadors, a good many of them exercised that.
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There were others who simply didn't
because they didn't think it was worthwhile or necessary, or
things of that sort.
(Discussion off the record.)
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MR. GRAY:
NOW,
when the CIA has agents or sources
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of information in this country, whether because they are, let
us say foreign diplomats, or in situations such as you had in
the Miami area with the Cuban emigre community, is there
anyone in a position comparable to that of the Ambassador
overseas who is outside of CIA and can monitor this day to day
activity, to your knowledge?
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MR. RUSK:
I think not in detail.
Would you think that there should be?
MR. GRAY:
MR. RUSK: No more than anyone outside of the
Department monitored these thousands of cables a day that go
out of the Department of State.
MR. GRAY: Would you think that there should be some
need for supervision of that kind of activity?
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Well, it would require
--
one man couldn't
do it. It would require substantial staff and, well, who is
that staff? To whom is he going to report? I just don't
think that is too much of a problem, actually.
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MR. BELIN: With regards to the question of staff,
do you think a Joint Committee of Congress might have too
powerful a staff so far as the effective operation of the
Agency is concerned if we were to adopt that approach of
Congressional oversight?
MR. RUSK: Well, if they approach it on the same
basis as they approached the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, I
think that would not be all that much of a problem.
MR. BELIN: You mentioned the Miami area. To your
knowledge, did Castro had any penetration of what went on in
the Cuban exile community in Miami?
MR. RUSK: I forget the detailed evidence, but I
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always assumed that he did have them penetrated.
MR. BELIN: Are there any questions by any members
of the Commission?
MR. GRISWOLD: One of the things that has come to us
is the explanation for some of the things which the CIA did
from 1966 to 1973 domestically which had caused concern with
a result of pressures from the President.
Now, how can the CIA be guarded against pressures
from the President? I recognize this is an extraordinarily
difficult question.
MR. RUSK: It is a difficult question, and in trying
to find the right answer to that question you don't want to
create a situation where CIA is independent of the President.
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MR. GRISWOLD:
Right.
MR. RUSK: So you have to start with the kind of man
you have as President.
However, I think that
MR. GRISWOLD: And I took the time period in to
indicate both Presidents so that it is not a political question.
MR. RUSK: Right.
I would think that the key to that would be that
such questions should be discussed by the statutory members
of the National Security Council. It would be very difficult
for a President to abuse his powers with people sitting there
who have a sense of the tradition of their office and who
can pull a President up by the coattails and say, now, wait
a minute, now this is out of bounds, let's don't go down that
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MR. GRISWOLD:
What about the Bay of Pigs operation?
MR. RUSK: Well, some of us did not serve President
Kennedy did not serve President Kennedy very well on that,
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because of just that factor. For example
well, we were all
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have insisted that a crucial question be asked of the Joint
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Chiefs of Staff and that is, if you were going to do this
22 operation with American forces, what would you consider your
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requirements to be? And that is, ask the Joint Chiefs to come
up with
a plan to do this same operation with American forces.
And I can guarantee you that what they would say would have
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1 been necessary for the job would have been in such sharp
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contrast to the capabilities of this brigade that that itself
might well have squashed the whole thing. Since this was a
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CIA operation, I think the Joint Chiefs were perhaps a little
well, no, let's put it the other way. They were not
asked for the kind of professional military judgment to which
ry
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the President should have been exposed. They did comment on
it but in a rather, I thought at the time a somewhat casual
way, because it was not strictly their business, you see.
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Now, I think we learn a lot of mistakes in a very
hard way with the Bay of Pigs, and I think that some of those,
some of the reasons for that mistake ought to be impressed
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upon people's minds just as the mistakes made under the general
situation called Watergate.
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•should have taken over the operation?
MR. BELIN: Do you mean to imply that the military
MR. RUSK: No, no.
No, no. But a seasoned,
professional military judgment on the point as to whether such
a brigade had the chance of a snowflake in hell.
MR. KIRKLAND:
Do you think there is a built-in
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tendency in the CIA, with the background of the way this was
evolved, toward a degree of adventurism which needs fairly
severe checking?
MR. RUSK: It is possible that at different periods
there might have been those who were too much the eager
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1 beavers, but my concern now is that they have had the
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their shells and will be too timid.
question?
MR. BELIN: Dr. Shannon, I believe you had a
DR. SHANNON: Yes.
I wondered, you said that this is on covert activities,
and again, this is only partially a responsibility of this
Committee, but it does affect our concerns, because the
back-up for the covert activities very often has domestic
implications. So I wonder, you say we should keep this
capability, yet apparently originally it resided, right after
the Second World War, in the State Department, and the
suggestion has been made that perhaps a small, covert capability
could be in the State Department, and that this would perhaps
help the CIA if it were rid of covert business to concentrate
on intelligence.
Do you have any views on this?
MR. RUSK: Well, it is very hard for us to lose an
organization in our governmental structure, to tuck it away
where nobody hears about it and it doesn't come before
parliamentary review and things of that sort.
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And maybe we
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Agency, and then tucked something away somewhere that would
be as secret as some of those agencies in other governments
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that operate in this field. But I just don't know whether
that would work in our particular, complicated, Constitutional
system where the powers of Congress are always involved, and
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I may.
MR. SHANNON: I have a couple of more questions, if
MR. BELIN: Go ahead, and then General Lemnitzer has
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some.
MR. SHANNON: Do you have any views as to the general,
without going into specifics, the general aspect of domestic
activities of the CIA? And clearly, one of the problems with
this Commission is the clear and conflicting, well, clear, clear
necessity of intelligence and secrecy on the one hand, but
conflicting claims of constitutional rights and civil rights
for individual citizens of the United States.
MR. RUSK:: It seems to me, sir, that they are two
different questions.
One is the bureaucratic question as to.
whether one agency is intruding onto the proper responsibilities
of another agency.
To me, that is not all that much of a big
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I am sure that the FBI has stepped outside of its assignment
occasionally.
But the other question you have mentioned, the
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1 question of the Constitutional rights of American citizens,
2 from whatever source, I think is very important. Last year I
3 testified before Senator Muskie's Committee in which I
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expressed some doubt about subjecting all surveillance type
5 activities of the unusual type to the supervision of the
6 courts in this country on the ground that I was a little troubled
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about the idea of getting the judges into this kind of
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Since then, I have rather changed my mind, and I
am inclined to think that where the government feels that there
must be the types of surveillance which could intrude on
constitutional rights, that for whatever it might be, foreign
policy, national security or otherwise for American citizens
and resident aliens, that that should be done under the
supervision of a court.
Now, it is going to be difficult to state that in
such a way as to exclude the diplomatic community, and I do
not think we want to extend constitutional rights to the
diplomatic community, because they do not have the duties of
citizenship to go along with it.
MR. SHANNON: One other quick one here. I don't
want to pre-empt the General, who has something, but you
mentioned the CIA sometimes, you believe, got into some
activities that were questionable because they had the money.
They are exempted, essentially, from a number of the accounting
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responsibilities of other Federal agencies.
Is this essential to their functions, or do you
believe that some regular appropriation control over them
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without destroying their role?
MR. RUSK: I am inclined to think that at least part
of the CIA budget ought not to be on the public record. It
8
may be that there is a part of it that can be, but I think there
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ought to be some covert money that is available to the CIA
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handled by people in the Congress who understand what is being
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done and the need for this for covert funds.
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I personally would not like to see this handled in
the normal budgetary processes of the government. And for
example, we give away an enormous amount of information every
year in these large budget presentations of the Department of
Defense to the Congress, and I think certainly in the
sensitive agencies we overdo public knowledge to some extent.
MR. LEMNITZER: We have had a suggestion that if the
government continues to support covert operations that the
covert operations should be removed from the CIA and put in a
central intelligence group, which was the arrangement in the
early days between the transition from OSS to CIA.
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the problems that are involved in carrying out effective covert
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MR. RUSK: I can imagine there could be some
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advantage to a reorganization that would change the names all
around, because CIA has gotten to be a kind of a slogan for
propoganda, both overseas and at home. And sometimes a fresh
start might help in that regard.
But I don't believe that you would divert energetic
and opposition Congressmen or investigative reporters or any
people of that sort from trying to locate whatever it is we
are talking about, and I am sure they would discover it. The
simple fact is that we are a government that just doesn't know
how to keep our mouths shut, and so I don't think you are going
to succeed in hiding some such agency. But I can see that it
might be desirable at some point to start over and change the
names.
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changed the name about every four or five years, when it runs
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out of gas and needs a fresh start. And so I think we could
do it again.
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MR. BELIN: Secretary Connor, do you have any other
20 question?
Do you have more, General?
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MR. LEMNITZER:
No.
MR. CONNOR: Mr. Secretary, we have received evidence
about a feud that developed between the FBI and the CIA when
J. Edgar Hoover was the FBI Director. And the testimony
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effective cooperation between the FBI and the CIA, at least
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in certain respects during a period of time, and, therefore,
there was pressure on the CIA to do some things in the domestic
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field that otherwise would have been done by the FBI or by
joint action.
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I wonder if in light of that experience, of which I
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a clear delineation of responsibilities as between the FBI and
the CIA, and particularly with respect to what is done in the
United States?
MR. RUSK: Well, I can understand why some confusion
might have arisen because the Director of Central Intelligence
is also the Director of Central Intelligence for the community
as a whole, and we used to get daily reports from the CIA which
were all source reports. I mean, I could recognize a good many
of these reports as coming out of State Department cables, for
18 example, and I knew others probably came from the FBI.
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Now, it may well be that that coordinating function of
DCI led to some staff support in his own agency on some of
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But I think a more important point is if you try to assign'
functions, it is very hard to do it in terms of geography,
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that as soon as you hit the boundary of the United States you
transfer the whole business from one operation to another,
because I think you run into a good deal of trouble that way.
It is true that there was some lack of effective
cooperation between the CIA and the FBI at times, and this is
6 partly a matter of personality, and is one of the reasons that
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I feel that these people ought to be on terms not to exceed
8
I testified to Senator Muskie's Subcommittee that
10
eight years.
talking to J. Edgar Hoover was about like talking to President
DeGaulle, and, you know, there is only one DeGaulle and there
is only one J. Edgar Hoover, so I anticipate this problem is
not going to be repeated any time soon.
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But, I do think that there ought to be a close
working relationship.
Now bear in mind, gentlemen, that there is a very
lively and active exchange of information between different
elements of the intelligence community, and I have no doubt
that other agencies have built up files which include a lot of
raw data from the FBI, even though it was not in that agency's
principal charter to have, or to collect, that kind of
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For example, in the State Department where 95
percent of our jobs, at least, are rated as sensitive, there
is investigation of applicants, many of whom are not hired.
There is investigation of officers on the job. That is
renewed, I think, every five years to bring their security
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1 clearances up to date. Every time you move from one security
clearance to another, you get another investigation.
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must be tens of thousands of files on individuals in the State
Department, but a lot of that material is from the FBI.
So I think, if we could
--
I think we have an
opportunity now to develop a more cooperative working relation-
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ship within the intelligence community, and make it clear that
CIA is not responsible for what would normally be interpreted
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to be internal security, but I would not exclude CIA from a
lively interest in the operations of foreign governments in this
country, because you cannot separate those from their activities
MR. BELIN: Dean Griswold?
MR. GRISWOLD:
Were you familiar with the fact that
mail between the Soviet Union and the United States was being
intercepted and opened during all of the time you were
Secretary of State?
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abroad.
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MR. RUSK: I think I was of the fact. I didn't know
to what extent, and I think we did make some adjustments there
to relax on a good many publications and things of that sort
where there was no particular, seemed to be no particular,
problem. I was curious the other day to read a manuscript that
came the other day to the University of Georgia Press that at
the beginning of the Republic there was a rigorous scrutiny
of the mails for quite a long time before people began to move
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1 in to institute some privacy in the mails. I will try and get
2 some citations on that for the staff to look at. But this is
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not new in our history.
MR. GRISWOLD: I was not thinking of publications, but
of letters. Did copies of such letters ever come to you in
intelligence reports?
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sir.
MR. RUSK: No.
It wouldn't come to me in that form,
Normally it would come to me as a piece of information,
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and it would normally have some introductory phrase, and this
some
was for the purpose, I suppose, of protecting sources,
introductory phrase saying usually reliable sources, or something
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of that sort.
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Then if I wanted to prick up my ears and ask about
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told.
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the source for a particular item, I could do so and I would be
I don't recall any instance, any information that came
out of this mail that ever caused me to ask for a source, and
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it turned out to be opening mail.
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Mr. Kirkland, do you have any questions?
MR. KIRKLAND:
I have a couple, Mr. Secretary.
Do you recall any constant, repeated concern by
President Johnson to find out foreign sources of support for
the domestic dissident groups, that this was an issue that he
was continually concerned with?
MR. RUSK:
Well, we were interested in that point. I
think that we ware inclined to assume that it was occurring,
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because it would be a perfectly normal and natural thing to
occur under the circumstances of that period.
I didn't have any real doubt in my mind, although I
don't have in my mind a list of citations I can give you for
hard proof, but I am sure it occurred, and there were in terms
of movement of money and movement of people and things of that
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Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
MR. RUSK: There were black operations going on all
of the time in this country.
MR. KIRKLAND: Do you see any apparent reason why
the CIA should not properly attempt to try to find out what
those sources were?
MR. RUSK: No, I think somebody has got to.
MR. KIRKLAND: Do you have any doubts about that
being a proper operation of the CIA?
MR. RUSK: I don't think so. I think that in terms
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of action that it should not be CIA's action in the sense of
breaking and entering and things of that sort. I think that
the FBI ought to be the action responsive agency in this
country, as I have said.
MR. KIRKLAND:
Domestic in terms of working overseas?
MR. RUSK: Oh, overseas, I think it is essential for
CIA to try to run down that kind of thing because we are the
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targets of a good many political systems.
MR. BELIN:
Secretary Rusk, as a general overview,
you might relate to the Commission the comment you had last
night concerning the fact that there is no real substitute for
the getting of people of character and quality on the job, and
sometimes mistakes are made by the frailties of human nature.
MR. RUSK: Well, now that I am permanently a private
1 8 citizen and think back on the years during and since World War
II, I just don't believe that there is any way in which you
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that you escape the frailties of human nature. There are going
to be mistakes, mistakes of judgment. Any of us who have
served in government have had our share of them. I have had
mine. And therefore, the greatest importance has to be assigned
to the character of those who are carrying the responsibility
as well as insistence upon adherence through all ranks of the
policies established by the President and through his delegated
deputies. I happen to believe that in the Executive Branch of
the government that those in civilaan clothes are as responsible
to the President as are people in uniform, and that otherwise
our system of democracy would break down, because nobody
elected these people in civilian clothes to make policy or
appeal to a higher law and defy the President.
They elected the President and the Congress to
25 determine the policies of the government, and so I think we
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ought to look for people of the highest competence and the
strongest characters to take these jobs of responsibility,
3 and then we will have to rely upon them. I do not see any way
4 in which you can guarantee that there would not be mistakes
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and failures and occasional stepping across the bounds.
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MR. CONNOR: Mr. Secretary, would you comment on the
obedience of a Cabinet official or highly placed Federal
official who was ordered by the President to do something that
violates the law clearly or is unconstitutional?
MR. RUSK: No, no. I was once instructed by
President Kennedy to make an expenditure which my lawyers told
me was unlawful, that the money was not for that kind of
purpose, and I spoke to the Attorney General about it and said
what do I do. And I think his reply was well, if you go to
prison, your salary will continue while you are in prison.
Well, that was not very helpful. But anyhow, I
refused to make the expenditure and told the President why, and
he did not pursue it.
No, I think that there can come a time when if a
President persisted then the Cabinet officer would have to
resign, if that is what the President wanted to do.
MR. CONNOR:
I agree with that interpretation.
MR. BELIN: I also think you commented that things
sometimes don't go right anywhere else either, including the
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law as well as business and labor, and so
we can't always expect
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to go right in government. Is that a fair summary?
MR. RUSK: Any institution is going to have its
2258
problems, because we are all people with feet of clay, and
those feet of clay are going to show once in awhile.
MR. BELIN: Do you have any other comments you want
to make to the Commission in closing?
MR. RUSK: I think my strongest concern, gentlemen,
is that during this present period of nervousness and sensa-
tinalism and investigation and reassessment that we not come
out of this period with a serious crippling of our intelligence
community and of our capability to engage in certain operations
which are in lieu of war.
NOW,
at the present time there is a strong mood of
withdrawal from world affairs among the American people. You
can look at a lot of polls and investigations and get impres-
sions around the country, and one gets the feeling at the
17 present time that the American people would not support the
use of American armed forces anywhere in the world unless
there were a direct attack upon a territory of the United
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States itself.
Now, that could mean that there could be steady
inroads on what we would think of was the Free World by those
who were committed to impose something else on the Free World.
And we can find ourselves in a situation where little by
little a situation builds up where we are in such a desparate
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1 situation then that we have to face the agony of a nuclear
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decision, and then we are all dead.
And I would hope that we would maintain a capability
of trying to deal with some of these situations at an early
stage through careful and sophisticated political activity that
would help us avoid the horrendous decisions that might lie
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at the end of the trail if the present trends continue too far
into the future.
MR. BELIN: Are there any other questions by the
10 members of the Commission?
MR. SCHWARZER: Dave, do you have a minute for a
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MR. BELIN: Yes.
MR. SCHWARZER: I wanted to ask you, Secretary Rusk,
whether you thought in line with your suggestion that we should
attract the best possible men for the job of DCI, whether it
would help to assign Cabinet level status to that position and
whether that would perhaps make him a more effective person
in the efforts to coordinate the activities of the intelligence
community and how that would work?
MR. RUSK:
I am not sure that that is very important,
22 quite frankly, because the Cabinet is not that important as a
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corporate body. In our system, the Cabinet really is not a
policymaking group. The chain of command goes from individual
Cabinet officer to the President, and the Cabinet is usually
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an information exchanging body.
And secondly, I just don't believe we improve things
very much by the continual inflation of titles. When I became
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Assistant Secretary of State, there were three. I think now
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there must be eighteen people in the State Department that
6
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either carry the title or have the equivalent rank.
I remember once one of our experienced former
Ambassadors was cautioning on this and he said, bear in mind
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that the term Madam started as the address for a Queen.
NOW,
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so I really don't believe that changes in title make any
difference, and I don't believe adding him to the Cabinet
will. I think it is much more important that he be closely
with and always present at the meetings of the National Security
Council, because that is where the real decisions have to be
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MR. KIRKLAND: Mr. Secretary, I have the impression
that in the Foreign Service, the Office of the Inspector
General is a fairly critical one and has a substantial amount
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of authority and an important role in the administration.
you feel that a strengthening of that operation inside of the
CIA would be desirable to help?
MR. RUSK: Of an Inspector General type operation
inside of the CIA?
MR. KIRKLAND:
Yes.
MR. RUSK: I think that would be very useful. I also
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think it might be well
operation.
MR. KIRKLAND: It is true that it is a very important
MR. RUSK: It is, and I tried to strengthen it in
some respects when I was there. I think also the Inspector
6 General of it or the Inspectors of the State Department ought
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to check when they make their visits to Embassies, check with
the Ambassadors on the extent to which he is fully in charge
of all activities by all officials of the American government,
whatever their agency or department in his own Embassy in the
country to which he is assigned, and that this letter of
President Kennedy's, which is a matter of public record, should
be emphasized so that if anything does go wrong, it is the
Ambassador who is held responsible in the first instance.
MR. BELIN: That assumes the Ambassador will be
tight-lipped on all occasions, I assume?
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MR. RUSK:
Would be what?
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Tight-lipped at all times?
MR. RUSK: Yes, but I think on matters of this
sort he is likely to be, because of the consequences of his
not being, at least in the country where he is assigned.
Any other comments that you would like
to make for the Commission, sir?
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MR. RUSK: I don't think so.
MR. BELIN: Thank you very much for coming up here
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and bearing with us last night.
Thank you, very much.
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2262
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ان
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Now we have one more witness this morning.
If you would raise your right hand to be sworn, please,
this is Mrs. Sammie Newman, a Notary Public for the District
of Columbia.
MRS. NEWMAN: Do you swear to tell the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
MR. GRAY: I do.
MR.BELIN: Thank you very much.
TESTIMONY OF GORDON GRAY
MR. BELIN: I wonder if you would state your name
for the record, sir.
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initial.
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notes.
MR. GRAY: My name is Gordon Gray, no middle
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MR. BELIN: Mr. Gray, you have had quite extensive
service with the government of this country, and I wonder if
you could briefly summarize that for the Commission?
MR. GRAY: It would be easier, sir, if I use a few
I think we can do it more quickly.
Well, I served in the United States Army from 1942
to 1945, first. as a private, being released as a Captain.
This was near the close of the War.
I came back, I came to Washington, I served overseas
came
I might say in General Bradley's Advanced Headquarters while
I was overseas as a juniormost officer in his Advanced
TOP SECRET
CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO
DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR
RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT,
the testinory of former
Special Aast. 
the
President, Gordon Gray,
before the Rockefelles
Commission, 21 APR 75
(2262-2294)
де 16 4ид
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Headquarters. I came back out of the Army in 1947 and became
an Assistant Secretary of the Army in 1949, and became Under
Secretary of the Army and then Secretary of the Army, which
post I held until some time before the Korean War broke out.
I then became a Special Assistant for President
Truman for the purpose of writing a report on foreign economic
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policy which was published in November, I guess, of that year.
After the election, in 1951, I came back to Washington at
President Truman's request to organize an organization which
was somewhat abortive, known as the Psychological Strategy
Board, but which put me in very close contact, in contact,
with the intelligence matters, obviously.
MR. BELIN:
MR. GRAY:
Where physically did that Board meet?
That Board physically met in 712 Jackson
As a matter of fact, that is where it was organized
and created.
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Place.
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wasn't it?
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MR. GRAY: It was,
and that's not the end of it, as
MR. BELIN:
Pardon me. Go ahead.
When you and I met this morning at 712 Jackson Place
at our Headquarters, it was like going home to you in a sense,
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you will see in a moment.
In 1953 I was a member of the so-called Jackson
Committee, and I think it was called the President's Committee
on International Information Activities headed up by William
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1 Harding Jackson, and C.D. Jackson was a member of the Committee,
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and one of the principal staff members was Wayne Jackson, and
2264
so it got to be known as the Jackson Committee, but it was a
Committee set up to study the Cold War, and what we should do
about it by President Eisenhower.
In 1955 well, in the meantime, in 1950, I had gone
༡
to the University of North Carolina to preside there.
I came
8
back here in 1955 as
Assistant Secretary of Defense for
9
International Security Affairs. In 1956, I became a Director
10
of the Office of Defense Mobilization.
In 1958, I became
11
Special Assistant to the President for National Security
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Affairs.
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And I may say that when this was done, this was my
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office.
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MR. BELIN: This was in 1956 as Director of ODM
or 1958-59?
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MR. GRAY:
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In 1958, my office, I had to go down to
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the corner of the building, and I have forgotten which floor,
and I have been into this building so many times.
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MR. BELIN: So the Vice President's Conference Room
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is where you once sat?
MR. GRAY: That's right.
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And then in 1961 I became a member of the President's
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Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, appointed by President
Kennedy and reappointed by successive Presidents, although I
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think it is fair to say that the present President has taken
no action with respect to this Board.
MR. BELIN: Basically you have been a member of the
PFIA since 1961, is that correct?
MR. GRAY: Yes, since May. I looked it up this
morning and I thought it was earlier, but it turns out to have
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been May 6, 1961.
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MR. BELIN: 'And you were a member of the National
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MR. BELIN: And you were a member of the National
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end b
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MR. GRAY: That is right, and the first act which
well, it was in the national military establishment,
not the Defense Department and the Service Secretaries were all
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members of the National Security Council. And I briefly
served when I became Secretary. Then in '49 the Act was changed,
and the Defense Department was created, and various other changes
were made, and the Service Secretaries were dropped, and I often
say that Stuart Symington and I are the only two people who
have ever been kicked off of the National Security Council and
are still alive.
Later, of course, as Assistant Secretary of Defense,
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ISA, I was the backup to the Secretary of Defense, and attended
the National Security Council meetings with him, briefed him
on the meetings, and my next assignment, ODM, I was a member,
statutory member of the Council, and then beginning in
15
'58 until the end of the Administration, I helped the President
Did you in your work, either on the National
Security Council or as backup representative, did you ever feel
the National Security Council undertook very much oversight of
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of the Council.
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the CIA?
MR. GRAY: Well, I would know more clearly in the years
from '58 to early '61, because I was really a part of the machinery
There was not much continuing oversight in the
sense of the Council members examining what the various intelligence
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agencies were doing. There was an annual review of the activities
of the Central Intelligence Agency, and of course, every meeting
of the NSC began with a briefing by the DCI, which necessarily
4 kept the members informed about certain or many aspects of
But I think it fair to say that the Council
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intelligence.
itself did not specifically spend much time reviewing intelligence
activities. The Council did, of course,
in a paper
this
is perhaps known to the members, and I don't want to cover a
--
the Council had as the
lot of ground which you have covered
Chairman well remembers, adopted a paper called NSC 54/12, which
really authorized the covert, the beginning of the covert
activities of the Agency.
That Committee, I think the Chairman
14
of this Commission served as the President's representative on
it for awhile, and of course, I did later when I was a special
assistant.
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But it underwent several changes in name.
I changed
it from
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one way to do it I believe
takes the press a little longer to catch on after you have given
54/12 to the Special Committee, because the press by
that time had gotten wind of it, and my own theory, and this is an
aside, gentlemen, but in your recommendations, if you want to
change some things that will get some things less visibility,
is to change the name of things.
It
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it á brand new name.
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like.
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Now, you have served on the President's
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MR. GRAY:
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MR. BELIN: Do you have any opinion as to the viability
4 of that board in general and also with specific reference to
5 any oversight functions it might have performed with the CIA?
MR. GRAY: Yes, I do. My own strong feeling is that
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if the President does not have this board, he must have something
like it. It is the only agency in government that I know of which
on behalf of the President can oversee and interpret and
understand the intelligence activities of all of the agencies
of the government engaged in intelligence, which includes not
only the CIA, but the DIA, and to some extent the AEC, to some
extent the FBI, and other government agencies from time to time
who find themselves involved purposefully or not in foreign
intelligence activities. This board, I feel, should have the
confidence of the President.
He should be, feel comfortable
If any President inherits such a board
and is not comfortable, then he ought to make his own board.
I am saying such a board is extremely important,
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especially if the recommendations of the Board get to the
President, and there have been times in the past when they have
not gotten to the President soon enough, and in some cases
I am afraid not at all.
MR. BELIN: What particular types in the past are you
referring to?
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MR. GRAY: Well, I can speak very frankly. I think that
it was more difficult at the beginning of the Nixon Administration
than it had been in earlier days in having the reports, the
4
written reports get to the Board, although I think it fair to
5 say also that Mr. Nixon met fairly frequently with the Board.
MR. BELIN: Did Mr. Johnson meet fairly frequently
6
with the Board?
MR. GRAY: Mr. Johnson, as I recall it, and I am going
back some years now, and I have not checked the records, I think
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Mr. Johnson met twice with the Board, once for ceremonial
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And
purposes; that is, picture-taking, and once for substance.
General Eisenhower, for whom I was a liaison to the Board, met
with the Board every three months for two or three hours.
President Kennedy met almost every time the Board met, which
was every other month. President Johnson practically not at
all, and President Nixon quite a good deal. And we have had
understandably only one with a President trying to get on top,
a new President trying to get on top of his job. We did meet
with him once or twice, I think, as Vice President.
1
Well, back to the Board. I think it is true, I think
it is fair to say that either the Board or the members of the
Board have been responsible for many of the innovations in the
Intelligence field which have been vital to our national security.
I have in mind the U-2, the reconnaissance satellite program,
and at least the members of the Board had a good deal to do
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1 with that. The introduction of data processing in the intelligence
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community, for which the Board has fought for years with only
I would say limited success so far, and the Board has very strong
scientific expertise, and it has other expertise as we are now
constituted, and as any board should have.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: Economic activities, economic
intelligence.
MR. GRAY: That's another thing. Thank you, Mr.
9 Chairman, Mr. Vice President.
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Actually, when I say it has been innovative, the
current activity in the United States Government, and interests
in and reliance upon in the field of economic intelligence is
larger than this board in the recommendations made to the
President a couple of years ago, and I think the Board can be
credited with that.
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You asked me about oversight.
We have tried to monitor
17
the various agencies in the foreign intelligence field, the
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CIA, the DIA and to some extent the others that I have mentioned,
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and I think we have been kept well informed.
This Board has
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had all of the clearances that anybody in Government has.
And
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I might say, Mr. Chairman, that to my knowledge in the years since
1956 when the first board was created, there has never been a
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leak from this board..
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
That's right.
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MR. GRAY: And that is a record that is hard to match
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in this town I must say, either in the Executive agencies; and
especially on the Hill. That is one reason I think that this is
3 a reliable mechanism, because the members are loyal, it is a
small and lean staff, and it undertakes studies in addition to
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5
its general monitoring responsibilities. It undertook
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studies on its own initiative, or some at the request of the
President or a representative of the President, and some of these
have been very important. Again, sometimes nothing seems to happen
to them. The Board made a very important study about our naval
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forces, now quite some time ago, and it has gone nowhere.
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The Board made a rather important study I think about
human intelligence, the most comprehensive study that has ever
been made in the government, and the first one that has been made
at all in many years. I have to credit the atmosphere for the
failure of that report to go very far, because obviously when
you are talking about human intelligence, you raise questions
which are involved in Watergate and this kind of phobia that
people have.
On the other hand, the Presidents have by and large
accepted the very many recommendations of the Board over the
years which I believe have tended to strengthen the intelligence
community, and without which it would not be as mature and
sophisticated as it is today.
MR. BELIN: Mr. Gray, you mentioned that you were the
advisor for National Security Affairs for President Eisenhower.
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During the Eisenhower Administration did you ever hear any
discussion of what was known as an Executive Action Capability
which might be defined as a capability to assassinate foreign
political leaders?
Have you ever heard that expression?
MR. GRAY: I don't remember ever hearing that expression
until we talked this morning. I mean, I don't remember while
I was in government hearing this expression.
MR. BELIN: You never heard the phrase until I asked
you the first question in our interview this morning, is that
correct?
MR. GRAY: That is correct.
MR. BELIN: While you were working with President
Eisenhower, did you ever hear any discussion of any operational
plan to try and assassinate any foreign leaders, and specifically
Castro or Trujillo?
MR. GRAY: I would like if I may, Mr. Chairman, to not
answer that yes or no because it is a complicated question. I
would suppose if one were serving in government, and he would
put the national security interests ahead of most everything
else, he would not fail to think about assassination if this
were a vital necessity to the national security.
I think you
would consider anything, and I have no doubt that at various
times and at all levels, without the knowledge of any President,
But I know of no plan,
people have talked about assassination.
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plot, operational organization that ever came to President
Eisenhower with respect to any assassinations, and specifically
including those that you have mentioned.
Now, it is my impression that there was I would
be surprised if there was any American discussion even of the
interested.
question of the assassination of Trujillo. But you asked about
Castro. I don't know how much detail I should go into, but I
can say I am willing to go into detail if the members are
There is a memorandum covering every discussion
President Eisenhower had with respect to Cuba, beginning in the
winter of 1960, which ultimately culminated in the Bay of Pigs
operation in 1961, he having approved a four point program,
sabotage, stepped up economic sanctions, propaganda, and the
training of Cuban refugees.
I am reasonably sure that if Truman had ever I
mean that if Castro had ever been a target of the President
or the top people who were engaged in this program which he
had authorized, certainly there would have been talk of assassi-
nation at that time, and I never heard it even hinted at. So
specifically, I had a chance to see if the plans, or at least
the training and other activities which would lead perhaps to
a change in governments in other places, in another place, and
I never heard the word assassination or anything of the equivalent
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mentioned once.
MR. BELIN:
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While you were serving on the President's
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1 Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, did you ever hear that
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discussed?
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sense that the Board ever
MR. GRAY: Well, I never heard it discussed in the
seriously discussed it. There was
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a member of the Board who is a well known individual.
He is no
6
longer on the Board, who practically every time the Agency
༡
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would come back a couple of months later, and he would say have
you thought of trying to bump off some of the leaders in North
people came before us and briefed us on Vietnam, he said have
you considered trying to bump off some of the leaders in North
Vietnam, and the CIA would shrug, and then the next time they
12
Vietnam, and I heard that kind of discussion.
But you never
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had any taker from the CIA. And, indeed, that has been my
understanding beginning with Allen Dulles, and with all DCI's
since, that Agency policy was against assassination on the ground
that it didn't accomplish anything when you get right down to
it.
17
But I might volunteer one other thing, Mr. Belin.
When
18
I was
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a special assistant to the President and presided over
the planning board, which in those days, in the Eisenhower days,
prepared all of the papers which went to the National Security
the Near and Middle East.
Council, we were doing a paper on
This was within
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was at the time when Colonel Nasser was
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riding very high in the saddle, and the big issue in this paper
was what were going to be the relationships of this government to
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1 Colonel Nasser, and the opinions ranged everywhere from assassina-
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tion on the one hand, suggested by somebody, to the other extreme,
1
and that was that we get in bed with Nasser because he was
considered to be the wave of the future.
Well, when the paper got written, there was no mention
of assassination and no consideration even given to it. In fact
the paper came down about the middle of this thing, which was
where it should have come. But I am saying that that is why I
wanted to not say yes or no. I have heard the word assassination
mentioned, but I know of no plan or operational capability that
has ever been authorized at any high level of government.
MR. BELIN: You are saying you might have heard on
occasion one person discuss it, but that was never in any way
adopted as a policy, to the best of your knowledge, during the
Eisenhower administration?
MR. GRAY:
That is correct.
Now
'
how many other times it might have been discussed
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down in the bowels of some agency, I would have no way of knowing..
MR. BELIN:
You mentioned to me early this morning
that President Eisenhower talked to you about having the '54/12
Committee looking over activities of the Agency with regard to
an oversight function.
Do you want to discuss that with the Commission?
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MR. GRAY:
Yes.
Well, I really had forgotten what
we discussed.
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MR. BELIN: You talked about it particularly with
reference to activities which might impinge upon governments.
MR. GRAY:
)
Yes, indeed. When I became Special Assistant
the President called me in with Allen Dulles, then DCI, and
1
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well, I think of Allen Dulles, but anyway, if it wasn't
6
Allen Dulles, I then communicated this message to Allen Dulles.
7
This I think was soon after the disclosure of the Berlin Tunnel,
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which some of you will remember as a very successful intelligence
operation, and the President told me that he wanted the 54/12
group to pass upon all activities of this government which
impinged upon the sovereignty or the people of some other
nation. For example, the Berlin Tunnel, this was after the
fact, would have been such, and overflights would have been
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such, and the '54/12 has always concerned itself in its
successive incarnations with the overflight problem.
Eisenhower was very sensitive to the necessity of having the
President
top people in government from the appropriate agencies pass upon
18 the wisdom, and in some cases, feasibility of those kinds of
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operations.
There were times when in the covert action field I
would, in effect, appeal a decision of the 54/12 or the Special
Group because I wondered whether it was in the national interest
and when I took it back to the President from the Committee, I
think at least on two occasions or on both occasions he over-
ruled me in support of the Committee.
got the attention of the President.
But at least the matter
There were not assassinations,
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I should say,
but covert actions.
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MR. BELIN: You also mentioned, though, that if there
would have been discussion of assassinations with the President,
4 that he was a staff man, and you feel that as a key person on
5 the staff you would have been advised.
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Is that a fair summary?
MR. GRAY: Let me say that in the time I served,
Andrew Goodpasture, lately General Lemnitzer's eloquent
9 successor as Commander of NATO, General Goodpasture was called
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Staff Secretary in the White House, and he was a good deal more
than that. He was the President's right hand man for support.
matters in relationships with the Joint Chiefs, immediate
relationships with all kinds of entities in Government, whereas
my job was more in the long range field and the planning field.
Well, it is obvious that if we had not been men of
good will and loyalty, this could have caused a lot of trouble,
so we kept each other mutually informed. I told him about what
was going on in the Special Group field, and he told me of all
of the things that the President was asking him to do. And then
when Eisenhower, General Eisenhower went out of office, these
functions were sort of combined, first into McBundy, and then
Walt Rostow, and what every other special assistant there had
been.
In other words, there was not Gray and Goodpasture, there
was Bundy. This is clear? So now, in response to your
question, I have recently been in communication with Andrew
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Goodpasture, and I am able to say to you that neither of us,
now back to assassination, remembers anything coming to the
3 White House, and I cannot believe that anything could get to
the President without going through one of us.
4
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MR. BELIN:
Is it a fair summary that he did believe
6
strongly in staff?
7
MR. GRAY:
He was the most staff minded
well, that
8
is a big statement.
He was a very staff minded president.
MR. BELIN: We also talked this morning about the
9
10
question of Congressional oversight, and some people have
11
suggested the possibility of having a Joint Committee of
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Congress akin to the Atomic Energy Committee, perhaps, performing
Congressional oversight in lieu of the present Congressional
14
structure.
15
Do you have any comments on that?
16
MR. GRAY: I do,
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yes.. In the first place, I think the
present situation where, if I understand it correctly, if the
Agency seeks to undertake or does undertake a covert action, must
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not only be reported to the appropriate Congressional Committees
whatever they are, but approved by the President, and someone
told me this means that about 80 people up on the Hill would
know about this. I personally happen to think that there are
many agents that have influence on Capitol Hill, and I think
that there is a greater need for a tighter rein on security
information going just like a shotgun to the Congress.
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worry then, about a Joint Committee such as you suggest, not
because of the Committee itself, but because Joint Committees
tend to generate large staffs, and are frequently, not always,
the Committee becomes the captor of the staff. But I would worry
most about leaks out of such a large staff, and there is not
any question that much of this stuff that is appearing in the
press, which in my judgment should not appear in the press, is
coming right from Capitol Hill. So I would think that oversight
Committees are appropriate in the Congress, and obviously the
Congress should have the authority and the power to oversee
what they want to oversee, and perhaps their oversight Committees
have not been as active as they might have been, or as aggressive.
That is easily corrected.
I can visualize some situations when a Congressman
would not want to know some of the things that the Agency is
doing.
MR. BELIN: We also discussed this morning your concern
about leaks from people who have worked within the Agency and
then have left the Agency.
Do you have any comments about that?
MR. GRAY:
Yes, I do. I feel very strongly that the
Congress should be encouraged to enact legislation which would
give the Agency at least the same protection that the IRS
has or the Agricultural Department has.
Now, it does not even have the protection of its
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information that the Internal Revenue Service has, and this to
2280
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me is just nonsense. I believe in the right of privacy. I am
But I am not
J for keeping the Internal Revenue records private.
4
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for telling the whole world about what is going on in the
intelligence community. And right now there seems to be no way
to stop this process, and it is not that one worries about so
ry much having people know what the Agency is doing, but people's
lives are being put in jeopardy, and people's lives are going to
00
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be lost as a result of some of these disclosures. The DCI
is by statute charged with the protection of sources and methods
of intelligence gathering. This absolutely destroys his statutory
authority. He cannot protect sources and methods if anybody,
any disgruntled former employee can write a book.
So without being specifically familiar, I think there
is legislation pending, or I know Director Colby has proposed
specific legislation to help alleviate this situation. I don't
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hope for, although I would welcome, an official Secrets Act
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such as we have in Britain, but then that is breaking down the
old system, it's not working so well anymore, but I do believe
that we ought to have some way to deter and punish those who
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deal lightly with the national security.
MR. BELIN: On the subject of the DCI, do you have
any opinion of the problems that the DCI has as the Chief
intelligence officer?
MR. GRAY: Yes. We have wrestled with this problem
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of leadership in the community. When I say we, I am speaking
now not as a former Special Assistant, but if it is all right for
me to speak as a member of the President's Board, how the
community could be organized, and one of the problems has always
been what I would describe as a constitutional problem. If
× Agency has 60 percent of the dollars, and the head of Z
Agency wants to or is told to give guidance and leadership, he
simply cannot under our system give orders to a constitutional
officer in another branch of government, specifically the Secretary
of Defense. And at the same time, I feel there should be a
chief intelligence officer of the Government. I think he must
have the confidence of the President and a rapport with the
President, and if he has that, his job is easier, and if he has
to only persuade and request, but if your Committee is going
to make recommendations about this, it seems to me that you might
16 want to recommend that there be someone who is considered a
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chief intelligence officer, and that if you wish, it can be the
DCI, or a new thought that we did not discuss this morning, there
might be a special assistant to the President for intelligence
affairs, and he could then represent the President across the
board, and perhaps have greater success and leadership.
But I urge that you bear in mind the realities of the
23 situation where one Agency simply cannot instruct another Agency
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under certain circumstances.
MR. BELIN: Do you have any opinion as to whether or
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1 not it is important to have an intelligence agency under civilian
2
control?
MR. GRAY: Yes. I think it vitally important that it
be under civilian control, and as a matter of fact, I would almost,
I would almost think that would be axiomatic, although I think
6
under the statute a military officer could be, and indeed,
the
7
8
first DCI I think, Hillenkoetter, Admiral Hillenkoetter, was
indeed military. But I feel it should be under civilian control,
9
and the issue we did not discuss this morning is one which I
10
think this Commission must address itself to, and that is whether
11
it is to be a careerist, or should it be an appointment of a
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citizen from private life.
was
Let me make the distinction clear. Richard Helms
a careerist, and John McCone was appointed from public
life.
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MR. BELIN: Do you have any opinion on that?
MR. GRAY: Yes. My own preference would be I think
for a careerist, but if pressed now to name or give you some
names of people in the Agency whom I would, and I think I know
most of the top people, I would find it difficult to say to a
President in good conscience, that I would recommend that you
stick to a careerist. So that I have come down on a waffle
there.
I have to say generally speaking I prefer a careerist,
but in some cases I can see a very good intelligence officer
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1 who is not. I know, I happen to personally think that Allen
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Dulles was a fine intelligence officer. It was not his career,
but he had been in it during the war, and successfully in it.
He was more intelligence officer than administrator, but all
in all, he served his country well in that post. But this is
an issue which I don't really think there is any question
about whether it be a civilian. The real question is whether
you are going to have a policy or sort of play it by ear when
the time comes to make a change.
MR. BELIN: Do you have an opinion concerning whether
or not there should be amendments to the statutory charter of
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the Agency?
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The statutory charter, as I understand it, and
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that was written before I came to Washington so I was not
involved, but as I understand it, it was purposely written in
somewhat vague terms to take care of situations that necessarily
would be vague in and of themselves. I would see no objection
to making it crystal clear, if people find it necessary, that the
responsibilities of the Central Intelligence Agency are not in
the domestic field, and do not involve domestic institutions or
American citizens except insofar as the question of foreign
intelligence activities becomes involved.
The trouble with trying to spell out the precise
functions of the CIA and FBI, for example, this problem gets to
be a very complicated one because there are a lot of grey areas,
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1 and to say that the CIA cannot have any personnel, and cannot
2
be involved in this country, of course, is sort of silly.
I am
3 speaking now of not the intelligence analysis and publications,
4 but I am talking about the acquisition of intelligence and
5
counterintelligence and counterespionage.
If you are too precise,
then some matters are going to get lost between abroad and at
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Now, there's got to be some way for the flow and
transfer back and forth from the CIA and the FBI, so I would
myself find it very difficult to see how the Congress could
precisely define the functions of the Agency.
But I would see no objection to making it clear that
the American people need not fear that we are going to have a
national police force under the name of the CIA, and this is
15
what we are talking about, or the FBI, for that matter.
16
MR. BELIN: Did any members of the Commission have
17
questions?
18
Yes,
Mr. Connor.
MR. CONNOR:
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Mr. Gray, you were talking about the
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qualifications for the position of Director of Central Intelligence.
Based on your experience, would you limit the term of the DCI
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to any fixed period of time?
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You would leave it at the pleasure of
the President who appoints the person and subsequent Presidents?
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MR. GRAY: That's right.
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MR. CONNOR: Going back to your earlier testimony
about your experience as assistant to the President for security
4 matters, do you think it is wise for the same person to occupy
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that position and Secretary of State?
MR. GRAY: No, sir.
MR. BELIN: Any particular reason why you feel that
way?
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MR. GRAY: Yes. I think that the Secretary of State,
the responsibilities of the Secretary of State are very clear.
very clear.
I think the responsibilities of the Secretary of Defense are
I think the responsibilities of other executive
agency heads are very clear. And I have a strong feeling that
the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs should not
be tied to any other agencies. I think he should be not a
Secretary of Defense and a special assistant either. I think the
special assistant should have his loyalty only to the President
and not to any one department, and my own feeling is that the
present situation creates some bottlenecks, administrative
20 bottlenecks that should not exist.
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MR. BELIN: Does that relate to your earlier testimony
of actions by the Advisory Board perhaps not getting through to
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MR. GRAY: It relates in good measure to that.
My
own feeling is we have made recommendations to the President
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1 which have gone to the Special Assistant to the President, and
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then been bucked down to more junior people in the NSC staff,
and which get to the President later or perhaps not at all. And
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my observation to you this morning, Mr. Belin, was that this
Board is composed of big boys, and so if the President does
not consider them big boys, he ought to get some big boys,
and their studied conclusions should not be staffed out by
junior people in the NSC staff.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: May I make a comment there?
The procedure which Gordon has just described is
not limited to papers coming through NSC. This is a White House
procedure established by President Nixon which involved all
papers coming to the President, all of the staff work in this
way, all of it was bucked down and staffed out so-called, in
quotes, with the alternative recommendations, and it makes its
way across the board so very little gets through to him without
this staffing process.
So I think just to put it in perspective, this is
a procedure which was developed by the Nixon Administration for
staffing that involves all material.
MR. GRAY: I think it is fair to say, Mr. Vice President,
that the fact remains that it does frustrate, I guess across the
board, but it does frustrate.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: That is right...
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MR. GRAY: And we,"
the Board, or the staff on the Board,
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has had the unusual experience, at least on one occasion, of
saying you sent this paper over to the President for his recommen-
dations, and would you please write for us the response that the
4 President ought to make to it. So it is somewhat discouraging.
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Now, if I could volunteer a couple of things?
MR. BELIN: Please feel free to volunteer whatever
you would like to for this Commission.
MR. GRAY: All right.
Let me say, Mr. Chairman, just a few observations.
I
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wish we in this country, and I wish this Commission, perhaps,
would worry more about the KGB and the GRU than the CIA.
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By God,
I think that here they are operating in this country, we know
they are operating freely here, and in New York there has been
a recent incident when a Soviet agent was caught red-handed, and
he was not declared personna non grata because of detente, and
this worries the very this worries me very much. They are
operating, and as far as they are concerned, the Cold War has
not abated one bit, and the Cold War I describe is that war
below the public, diplomatic talks.
Now, they have got hundreds of agents in this country,
and I have indicated that my guess is that they have agents of
influence, if not precise agents, up on Capitol Hill. I know
this, almost know this to be the fact. They are operating
24 freely in this country, and here our newspapers are trying to
25
tear apart one basic, absolutely basic element of our national
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from the heart.
I did want to say a couple of things, that I think
if there is to be a Presidential Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board, one of its principal functions has got to be for the
President to seek to avoid subjective judgments in the
intelligence community, and this is very difficult to do. I will
give you three or four examples, if I may, or three examples.
The Cuban missile crisis. You will recall that there was a
Congressional election in progress. You will recall that we
were getting all kinds of refugee reports. You will recall that
Senator Keating was sounding, and was almost ridiculed by the
1
Administration at the time, and then you will recall finally
the U-2 flight which disclosed the existence of these missiles,
and thereafter we had constant surveillance and knew about it.
Well, now, I have talked then, I have conducted a
post mortem of that crisis, and in my judgment, the intelligence
failure, or it almost was a failure, because another three or
four days, and these missiles would have been camouflaged, and
we might not have known about them, was the fact that nobody
wanted to find those missiles there. They knew the President
didn't want to find missiles.
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campaign
--
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The last thing he wanted in this
this is no criticism of President Kennedy. No
President would want to find Soviet Missiles in Cuba. So that
the then DCI, the Director of Current Intelligence, whom later,
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1 he carried in his briefcase for three weeks a cable on an
2 agent report from Cuba which turned out to be an accurate
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description of these missiles, and he was then personally
2289
4 briefing the President, and he said I was never sure enough.
There were so many other reports, and we knew they were false,
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that the weight of my gut feeling fell on the side of new missiles.
Well, this is a subjective judgment which was dictated in part
by what people wanted to hear.
Now, the Chairman of this Commission will remember in
recent years the Board had been able to get out of the national
intelligence estimates of offensive military capabilities of
the Soviet Union, language to the effect that by no stretch
of the imagination, and I am paraphrasing, can the Soviet Union
be a threat in this area for ten years, this type of statement.
They used to have a statement that there is no way to conclude
that the Soviets would ever take action against an American
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reconnaissance satellite. Well, we got that changed.
These
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are subjective.
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the missiles, the Agency was about the last place in the government
to believe that the Soviets were MIRVing missiles, and for some
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reason they didn't want to find missiles being MIRVed.
So
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somebody on behalf of the President has got to watch this
24 business of subjective judgments, passed forward as unfinished
25 intelligence.
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I did want to say, and I am afraid I have not said it
here, and if I have, I hope you will stop me, I talked twice
this morning, and I can't remember about the innovative role
that the PFIA has played in terms of its numbers or the board,
and I guess I mentioned the U-2 reconnaissance and the satellites
5
and etc.,
and the economic reports of the Government.
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reminds me.
ry
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Now, finally, one thing that might be considered, and
I have suggested this in the Board from time to time, but it
has never gone very far, and I'm not sure about its wisdom myself,
one solution, one action that might be taken in connection with
the covert activities of the Agency would be to move them to
a warehouse in Philadelphia, or a music store in Dallas or
something and get them out of Washington so that they are not
on the cocktail circuit, although in fairness, I think that the
Agency personnel through the years have done very damn well in
not leaking. But if there is to be a reorganization, one thing
that might be considered would be to keep the completely
overt activities, which comprise, as you know, the majority of
the CIA functions, or involve a majority of their personnel, and
move the covert stuff outside, and just get it out of the nation's
capital. I would not eliminate it because I think it is necessary.
But this is a consideration which perhaps may not have been
presented.
MR. BELIN: Are there any other questions by members
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1 of the Commission?
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MR. LEMNITZER: Under whose direction would this new
function outside be?
MR. GRAY: I would leave it under the Director of the
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CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Could I ask, Mr. Gray, whether
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:
when he analyzed some of the statements that the FIAB had
corrected, that were misleading, that came from CIA to the
President, whether he has ever given consideration of whether
FIAB has ever investigated the possibility of double agents
in CIA being responsible for misleading information?
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MR. GRAY:
You mean whether I feel that some of these
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things
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
14
Were intentionally done to mis-
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lead, or whether it was just caution?
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MR. GRAY: I think the latter, Mr. Chairman.
I think
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we would be very foolish to assume that the Agency has not been
penetrated. I think it would be a foolish assumption.
all, they are the number one target for the Soviet Union. But
my guess is that they have not penetrated at the top among the
people who actually have been writing these estimates.
Are you asking for my opinion? That is my opinion.
But I think you would be making a mistake to assume that the
great preoccupation of Mr. Angleton, who left the Agency,
penetration of the Agency, his preoccupation I think was not
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After
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misplaced.
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It is entirely possible that we are penetrated.
MR. BELIN: Mr. Gray.
MR. MARVIN GRAY: Mr. Gray, I have one or two questions
on the Dominican Republic, and the U.S. relations there in
1960. I believe the government from during 1960, moved from
a large degree a policy of non-intervention, to a more active
role of trying to topple the Trujillo regime. And in May of
1960, Ambassador Farland returned to Washington for consultation
and reported that among the dissidents with whom he had contacts
that they reportedly wanted support, and one of the things that
they needed was high powered rifles with telescopic scopeś.
Subsequently he was given clearance, or subsequently, I'm sorry,
the Director of Central Intelligence was authorized by the
Assistant Secretary of State to provide that assistance.
Did you know anything about that, do you recall any
discussions of providing rifles to internal dissidents?
MR. GRAY: Was this in '60 or
'61?
MR. MARVIN. GRAY: 1960, sir, May and June of 1960.
MR. GRAY: I recall there was concern in this govern-
ment about developments in the Dominican Republic. To the best
of my recollection, I did not know about the military equipment
that you were speaking of.
MR. MARVIN GRAY:
At the very end of the Eisenhower
Administration, November 29th, January 12th, the matter of the
Dominican Republic was taken up at the Special Group and discussions
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1 were had to work with the internal dissidents and exiles, and
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also to furnish arms to the internal dissidents?
Do you recall those meetings particularly?
MR. GRAY: I don't recall those meetings particularly,
but if you say that the Special Group did indeed do this, I will
not say it didn't. I just don't remember this specific instance
MR. MARVIN GRAY: If you can recall, who would it have
been, or if you can speculate any, would it have been your
understanding that such arms which were furnished were for the
purposes of an internal uprising and something of that nature
and not specifically for doing away with the leadership?
MR. GRAY: Well, as far as I am concerned, I would be
shocked to be reminded of anything that had to do with doing
away with the leadership. No, I would think our concern was,
if we had that kind of concern, was with being of assistance
to the dissidents, and not assassination, or that kind of
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activity.
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MR. MARVIN GRAY: Thank you.
MR. BELIN: Any other comments that you want to make
to the Commission, sir?
MR. GRAY: No. You have been very patient, and I
am afraid that I have been somewhat longwinded.
MR. BELIN: You were patient to wait, and we are
sorry you had to wait so long.
Any other questions by the Commission?
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Thank you, sir.
MR. GRAY: Right.
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(Whereupon, at 1:12 o'clock p.m., the hearing was
recessed to reconvene at 2:30 o'clock the same day.)
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AFTERNOON SESSION
2295
(3:50 p.m.)
ان
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
If you will raise your right
4 hand, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
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nothing but the truth, so help you God?
ノ
MR. BISSELL: I do.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
We appreciate your coming.
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD M. BISSELL, JR.
MR. BISSELL: I am glad to be of any help I can.
MR. BELIN: Do you want to state your name before
11 the Commission?
12
MR.
BISSELL:
Richard M. Bissell, Jr.
13
MR. BELIN:
And Mr. Bissell, what is your educational
14
background?
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MR. BISSELL: Yale undergraduate education, and later
a Yale Ph.D. in economics, and a year at the London School of
Economics.
MR. BELIN: And you got your Ph.D. in 1939?
MR. BISSELL: I think it was '39, yes..
MR. BELIN: And then during World War II were you here
in Washington?
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MR. BISSELL: I was.
I was in the War Shipping
Administration, and later at the end of the war, in the Office.
of War Mobilization and reconversion.
MR. BELIN: And after World War II, then what did you
TOP SECRET
CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO
DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR
RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT,
the testimony of
Richard Bissell, former
Deputy Director for 
Plans,
CIA, before the Rockefeller
Commission,
21 APR 75
(pk 2295-2351
&
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do?
MR. BISSELL: I returned to MIT where I was then a
member of the faculty for about two years. Then I came to
Washington as Chief of Staff of something called the Harriman
5 Committee, which was one of the planning committees for the
6 Marshall Plan, and I then was recruited by Paul Hoffman to
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serve in the ECA from almost the beginning of the Marshall Plan,
and did serve for three years, and then became Deputy Director
of the ECA, and finally Acting Director. After that, two years
in the Ford Foundation organization, but I still had my office
here, and then I think it was in 1954, but I am a little vague,
a year plus or minus on dates, to the Central Intelligence
MR. BELIN: And who asked you to come to the Central
Intelligence Agency?
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Agency.
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MR. BISSELL: Allen Dulles.
MR. BELIN: When he asked you to come to the CIA,
in what capacity did you come?
MR. BISSELL: I had the title of Assistant to the
20 Director oh, for about five years, as, a matter of fact.
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MR. BELIN: And then what?
MR. BISSELL: Then I became the Deputy Director of
23 Plans, in I think the fall of or toward the end of '58, or the
very beginning of '59.
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MR. BELIN: And how long did you stay with the Agency?
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MR. BISSELL:
Until February of 1962, if memory serves
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MR. BELIN: And after leaving the Agency, then what
did you do?
MR. BISSELL: I joined the staff of United Aircraft
Corporation in East Hartford, where I had a very unrevealing
6 title of Director of Marketing and Economic Planning. It really
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was
a corporate planning responsibility.
MR. BELIN: Wasn't that 1964?
MR. BISSELL: Yes.
MR. BELIN: Before that you worked for the Institute of
MR. BISSELL: Yes. I'm sorry. I skipped over two
years as President of the Institute for Defense Analysis. It
is to that that I moved directly from the CIA.
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in 1974?
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MR. BELIN: And you retired from the United Aircraft
MR. BISSELL:
That's correct.
MR. BELIN: Mr. Bissell, during the time that you
were with the Agency, did you ever have any discussions with
anyone in the White House concerning the planning of what was
called an Executive Action Capability, which was defined in
21 substance as a capability of the Agency carrying out assassina-
tions, if required?
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clear.
MR. BISSELL: My recollection of this is far from
But I am satisfied that very early in the Kennedy
Administration I did participate in such conversations.
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MR. BELIN: And do you have any recollection of with
whom you might have participated?
MR. BISSELL: I am almost certain it was either
Walt Rostow or McGeorge Bundy, or probably the former, and
possibly both.
MR. BELIN: Do you remember specifically what, if
anything, was discussed in any of those conversations?
MR. BISSELL: My recollection, which isn't too specific,
is that this was a discussion of the desirability of developing
such a capability within the CIA that presumably would be a
small, special unit, and highly compartmented from the rest
of the organization.
MR. BELIN:
Did you have any feeling as to whether
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or not this was done with or without the knowledge or consent
of the President?
MR. BISSELL: I had no specific feeling on that point,
but I had a great deal of confidence that the two gentlemen
whose names I have mentioned, would not have discussed this,
discussed with me or encouraged any course of action that they
were not confident the President would approve.
MR. BELIN: Did you ever have any such discussions
with any official in the Eisenhower Administration?
MR. BISSELL:
Not to my recollection, and I think I
am almost sure that I did not.
MR. BELIN: Now, apart from discussions of an executive
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1 action capability, did you ever or were you ever aware of any
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development of plans inside of the Agency with a specific plan
or goal of the assassination of any particular foreign leader?
Yes, I was aware of investigation and
MR. BISSELL:
planning to that end.
MR. BELIN: Will you please enumerate before the
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MR. BISSELL: There were three cases I remember.
One
9
of them would have involved Sukarno, the second would have
10 involved Lumumba, and the third did involve Castro. I am not
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giving that order chronologically, I don't remember what the
chronology was, but those are the three cases I remember.
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MR. BELIN: Could you please state for the Commission
your entire knowledge with regard to the Sukarno matter?
MR. BISSELL: There was planning of such a possibility.
I believe this was initiated in the Far Eastern Division of the
17
CIA. The planning progressed as far as the identification of
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an asset whom it was felt might be recruited for this purpose.
The plan was never reached, was never perfected to the point
20 where it seemed feasible. The difficulty concerned the possibility
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of creating a situation in which the potential agent would have
access to the target, and because the plan never reached that
23 stage, it was never, so far as I am aware, discussed outside
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of the Agency with a view to obtaining approval or authorization.
MR. BELIN: So far as your concern with the Agency,
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this would have required such approval or authorization before
they would have undertaken such a plan?
MR. BISSELL: They would.
MR. BELIN: Does that relate not just to Sukarno, but
with any other target?
MR. BISSELL: That is correct.
MR. BELIN: Now, what about Lumumba?
MR. BISSELL: The Lumumba case planning began, was
initiated within the Agency, and in that case, on my initiative,
a case officer was directed to look into the possibilities.
He reported back in a matter of weeks and convinced me that this
was probably unfeasible, and probably an undesirable course of
action, and he recommended instead that a quite different
kind of operation, somewhat larger in scale, be attempted for
the purpose of discrediting Lumumba and undermining his
authority.
MR. BELIN: To the best of your knowledge, did the
Agency in any manner whatsoever, have anything to do with the
death of Sukarno?
MR. BISSELL:
Absolutely nothing.
MR. BELIN: Did the Agency have anything whatsoever
to do with the death of Lumumba?
MR. BISSELL:
Nothing.
MR. BELIN: All right, now, you said there was a third.
MR. BISSELL: The Castro case.
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MR. BELIN: All right.
23011
Could you tell the Commission the background of the
Castro case?
First, before you answer that, I will ask you the
same question about Lumumba that I asked you with regard to
Sukarno. Would there have been any operational plan put into
effect without approval from the White House on that kind of a
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situation?
MR. BISSELL: No, there would not.
MR. BELIN: All right.
Now, let's turn to Castro.
Could you tell the Commission about the Castro
MR. BISSELL: I became aware, and the timing of this
I believe was the very beginning of 1961, of the possibility
that an assassination attempt might be planned using Mafia
resources, or syndicate resources. My very uncertain recollection
is that I first heard of this possibility from Shef Edwards, who
I think has testified here.
MR. BELIN:
He has been interviewed by me.
MR. BISSELL: I see.
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MR. BELIN:
And for the record, he was the head of
the Office of Security?
MR. BISSELL: That's correct.
MR. BELIN: During this period of time in the Agency,
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is that correct?
MR. BISSELL: That is correct. You should, the
Commission should also understand that this would have been a
very different kind of an operation than anything that the Agency
normally undertook in that it would not have been carried out
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through DDP; that is, Agency operational channels, or through any
case officer in the clandestine service. The possibility that
seemed to exist was that through several intermediaries, the
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Office of Security or the Director of Security could be, and
indeed, was in touch with individuals in Las Vegas, who claimed
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they could make such an attempt using their own personnel.
This possibility was discussed by me, again I think probably
with Walt Rostow. It may possibly have been discussed directly
with McGeorge Bundy, but I suspect that it was through Rostow
who was then Bundy's assistant and on his staff. My impression,
but again I must emphasize that this is an uncertain impression,
is that I was encouraged to go ahead with the investigation and
planning of this operation, and by investigation I mean
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simply to find out what would be involved to make some assessment
of the likelihood of success, and other aspects of the matter.
Under the circumstances, this had to be and was the
responsibility of Shef Edwards.
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MR. BELIN: Again, I will ask with regard to this
aspect of your testimony the same question I asked you concerning
(
the executive action capabilities.
Did you have an opinion as
to whether or not what you refer to as this encouragement had
any authorization from the President or that the President in
any manner knew about this?
MR. BISSELL: I had no direct reason to believe that
he did, but I will make the same answer, that I had a high degree
of confidence that the gentlemen I was talking to in the White
House, whom I have identified, would not have given such encourage-
ment unless they were confident that it would meet with the
President's approval.
MR. BELIN: Did you ever have any discussions with
anyone in the Eisenhower Administration concerning any possible
plan to assassinate Castro?
MR. BISSELL: I have no clear recollection of such a
discussion, but there could have been.
MR. BELIN: Do you have any recollection, if it could
have been, with whom that discussion might have taken place?
MR. BISSELL: I would suppose that it would have been
with Gordon Gray.
MR. BELIN: If it occurred?
MR. BISSELL: If it occurred, but the balance of my
recollection is that it did not occur.
MR.
BELIN: Do you know whether or not during the las
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1 few months of 1960, which would have been in the Eisenhower
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Administration, any plans were developed within the Technical
Services Branch of the Agency to develop any kind of poison
pills that might be used to assassinate
Castro?
MR. BISSELL: I very much doubt if any such develop-
ment was attempted with this or any other specific operation
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in view, but the Agency did have and does have an on-going
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R&D program, and I am quite certain that products of this
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sort were among those that it had available.
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MR. BELIN: Do you have any other recollections
concerning the Castro matter at this time?
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that attempt.
MR. BISSELL: I am vague as to the final outcome of
I do not recollect, I have no recollection of a
specific authorization that it should go forward. I believe,
however, that we probably did move to be in a position to carry
it out, or to authorize it if authorization were received. One
of the reasons were, I believe that my own recollection of the
final stages of that plan is vagus is that, as I have already
explained, what it contemplated was furnishing probably, furnish-
ing probably some money and such items as pills or other devices
through a number of cut-outs or intermediaries to a group which
we ourselves, of course, did not in any direct sense control.
This was not an operation of such a character that the communi-
cations would run through Agency channels, or that authorization
on the spot would be by Agency personnel, or that the Agency
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could precisely and tightly control it.
was
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MR. BELIN: Did you ever call Mr. William Harvey, who
a CIA man to eventually take over this operation within the
latter part of '61 or early '62?
MR. BISSELL: Now, I did ask Mr. Harvey to take over
a part of our reviving efforts against Castro and the Castro
Administration. I probably urged him to look into this plan
that had been active or that had been the
that was by that
subject of active attention nearly a year before, I have no
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recollection
of authorizing him to revive it, except to look
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at it as
a plan, or to proceed with any action along those
lines.
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Do you have any personal recollection
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as to whether or not the pills or pills of any kind, poison
pills were ever delivered into Cuba?
MR. BISSELL: I do not have any recollection of that.
MR. BELIN: One way or the other?
One way or the other.
MR. BELIN: Do you have any recollection on any other
facts relating to this matter?
MR. BISSELL: I don't believe so.
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MR.
BELIN: NOW,
I want to turn to the question of
Trujillo.
Mr. Gray.
Do you want to take over the questioning on Trujillo,
MR. GRAY: Yes, if it's all right.
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MR. CONNOR: Well, will we be coming back to the Castro
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MR. BELIN: Before we go to Trujillo, let's stop with
Castro right now and find out if the commissioners have any
questions.
MR. CONNOR: Well, I would have a question. At the
time you had these discussions with either Mr. Walt Rostow or
McGeorge Bundy or both, as you recall them, to whom in the
Agency did you report?
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MR. BISSELL: Allen Dulles, and well, or Mr. Cabell
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his Deputy.
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MR. BELIN: And did you ever have any discussions
with them about this matter before you talked to the Director
of Security?
MR. BISSELL: Well, as I have already testified my
impression is that the first time I heard about this was in my
first conversation at least with the Director of Security, so
that would have preceded any conversation with the Director.
And my own belief is that matters took that cause I believe the
original approach was made to the Agency, that this was not
a matter of the Agency seeking out the individuals with whom
subsequently messages were exchanged.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: You mean approached by the
White House?
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MR. BISSELL: No, approached by the syndicate
interests,
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that they had their own very strong motivations for carrying out
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this.
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MR. KIRKLAND: What was their price if they would
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cooperate?
MR. BISSELL: Well, they had, as I say, very strong
6 motivations on their own. You remember that Castro had fairly
r
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recently come to power. They had been powerful under Batista
in Cuba, and they had a very lucrative set of interests for the
syndicates, and they had been in effect been thrown out. There
was still, of course, reasonably free travel, and so they had
the strongest sort of reasons for anti-Castro sentiment on their
12
own.
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MR. KIRKLAND:
But did they want any specific quid
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pro quo from the Agency?
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MR. BISSELL:
I'm
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sure they wanted some money as
well as technical help, but I don't remember exactly what.
MR. CONNOR: Well, after you did learn about this from
the CIA Director of Security, and then had some White House
19
discussion, did you thereafter
have any discussions about it
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with Mr. Dulles or his deputy?
MR. BISSELL: Yes, I am sure I did with Allen Dulles,
simply that he should be aware that the planning was going forward.
As a matter of fact, I believe the Director of Security had talked
to Allen before I did on the matter.
MR. CONNOR: So that the subsequent activity and
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MR. BISSELL: Correct.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Through previous testimony I
got the impression that there were two attempts, one through
this syndicate, and then another one directly through agents.
MR. BELIN: I think that the record basically is that
the second stage
in the first stage it was through the syndicate, and that in
basically they used Cubian exiles but CIA
agents, but the exiles who were being used were not necessarily
10
CIA agents at the time so far as regular, full-time employees
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of the Agency.
MR. BISSELL: I don't have a recollection of that
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second one.
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MR. GRAY: You left the Agency when, sir?
MR. BISSELL: In February of 1962.
MR. KIRKLAND: During this time that you were
interested or this operation was under consideration, no one
in a position of authority ever said flatly no, kill it?
MR. BISSELL: To the best of my knowledge, that is
correct.
MR. CONNOR: Did you ever discuss with the Attorney
General, Robert Kennedy?
with him.
MR. BISSELL: I have no recollection of discussing it
MR. BELIN: But you do have a recollection of discussing
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it with Allen Dulles?
MR. BISSELL: Yes.
MR. BELIN: If the records were to show, or if Mr.
4
Edwards were to say that rather than he contacting you that
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you contacted him concerning the Mafia, would you say that they
are wrong, or would you say that perhaps your recollection is
7
wrong?
Well, it is possible that my recollection is
I think I will stand on that as my
and it may be that Edwards and I simply have
inconsistent recollections.
But I seem to remember rather
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BISSELL:
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CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
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clearly that it was from him that I first learned of the
possibility of this operation, and that he came to see me for
this purpose rather than my sending for him. Now, could I just
say that I had several conversations with Shef Edwards on this
matter and it is very possible that I, that in a subsequent
conversation I did take the initiative and send for and discuss
it with him. But there may be an inconsistency here,
Was there ever any question
raised as to whether this violated any of the domestic
statutes limiting CIA's activities within the United States?
That question was never raised to my
MR. BISSELL:
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knowledge.
MR. BELIN: Are there any other questions by members
of the Commission?
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Mr. CORBIN: May I ask a question? You said that
you did not discuss it with Attorney General Kennedy. So far
as you know, did you have any information or believe that he
was ever aware of the proposed plans here?
MR. BISSELL: I don't remember any conversations or
6 incident. that would have constituted evidence to me that he
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was aware, but I would not have been in the least surprised if
He could have been aware from Bundy or Rostow and
conceivably in other ways. If the President knew of this,
he were.
then I think it highly likely that the Attorney General did,
because the President was in the habit of talking over matters
of concern to him with the Attorney General.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: Do you remember any letter
from the Attorney General saying that all activities of this
character relating assassination of Castro should stop?
MR. BISSELL: No, I do not remember that, Mr. Chairman.
That was alleged by some of
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
his associates in the press?
MR. BISSELL:
No.
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MR. WALLISON: Mr. Bissell, after the assassination
of President Kennedy in November of '63 you were no longer with
the Agency I understand?
MR. BISSELL: That is correct.
MR. WALLISON: But knowing what you do about the
events here concerning Castro, at least the planning, did you
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1 relevant to the Warren Commission's inquiry?
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MR. BISSELL: I really did not, no.
23.11.
MR. WALLISON: And you had no discussions with anyone
who is also involved in this matter about that?
MR. BISSELL:
None.
MR. BELIN: Any other questions by members of the
Commission concerning the Castro situation?
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Yes. Was there evidence to
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your knowledge that Castro was aware of this attempt or became
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aware of it?
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I don't remember any evidence to that
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I don't think that the actual attempt was ever made,
although it is physically possible that the devices to be used,
the poison pills did reach Cuba and it is perfectly possible
that with some time lag Castro would have come on some evidence
of this operation. But I don't remember ever seeing any report
to that effect.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: The operation wasn't under
your direct management?
MR. BISSELL: Not really, indirectly, but not directly
Within the Agency the key individual was Shef Edwards, yes.
MR. KIRKLAND: Were there efforts during the period
following the Bay of Pigs to land agents on the island?
MR. BISSELL: Excuse me, sir?
MR. KIRKLAND: Were there efforts post-Bay of Pigs to
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land agents on the island?
MR. BISSELL: Well, there were none for a while, and I
don't know, I would assume that such efforts have been made
since then. But I think for a good many months after that it
was not, would not have been easy to recruit agents, and also
there was absolutely no internal underground or resistance
that could give any infiltrated agent support. So my guess is
that no such efforts were made for at least a year or more.
Mr. Bissell, you were in charge in a
sense of the Bay of Pigs operation with the Agency, were you
MR. BELIN:
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MR. BISSELL: I was.
)
MR. BELIN: Could this have been part of an overall
Bay of Pigs operation as opposed from in any way being a
direction from the White House? In other words, could this
have been something that the Agency just developed internally
as its overall Bay of Pigs operation?
MR. BISSELL: I don't think this
well, in fact I
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am quite clear that this was not developed in that, this plan
was not developed in that way. I don't think it was even known
to many if any of the individuals within the Agency that were
concerned with the planning and preparation for the Bay of Pigs.
MR. KIRKLAND: Mr. Edwards was not involved in the
Bay of Pigs?
MR. BISSELL: No, he was not.
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MR. CORBIN: I believe you testified that you discussed
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the establishment of the executive action capability with either
3 Mr. Bundy or Mr. Rostow. Did I understand that correctly?
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MR. BISSELL: Correct.
MR. CORBIN: Who was it that first raised this subject,
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as you recall it?
MR. BISSELL: I can't
I have no recollection of
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who first raised it. My belief is that this would have come
up as a subject very probably in conversations between myself
and Mr. Rostow, and the reason I give that as my belief is that
I had on a number of occasions discussed with Mr. Rostow the
various kinds, various kinds of capabilities, and especially.
unconventional ones that the Agency should or might develop.
At a somewhat later stage, for instance, he asked me and I
asked for a small interdepartmental group to examine the ways
of improving our military capabilities, and his thinking ran
along the lines of developing these tools of action. And I
think, therefore, that it is very probable that this came up
in conversations with him, but which one of us would have
coined the phrase, for instance, I don't know.
MR. CORBIN:
So far as you recall it, were there any
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plans for such a capability being developed at the Agency when
you had your first conversation with him?
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is negative to that.
MR. BISSELL: Oh, I'm reasonably certain the answer
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MR. KIRKLAND: There was no such capability in the
Agency prior to that?
MR. BISSELL:
There was no separated organization,
identified capability of that sort.
MR. BELIN: Did you have any discussions with any
people in the White House during either the Eisenhower Adminis-
tration or the Kennedy Administration to the effect of why can't
you do something about Castro?
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MR. BISSELL: Well, it's possible. I don't remember
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a specific case, if there were any. When you asked earlier
if there had been any discussions of this during the Eisenhower
Administration, the reason I said that there could have been
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could remove Castro and do something
was just that sort of remark might easily have been made in a
meeting. You know, couldn't you, is there any way that you
much simpler than the
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in, for instance, a meeting of the Special Group.
Bay of Pigs operation, that sort of remark could have been made
I don't happen
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Administration.
MR. BELIN: Would President Eisenhower himself have
made such a remark, or was he not a member of it?
MR. BISSELL: He did not attend the Special Groups.
This small group that was formed by Mr.
MR. CONNOR:
Edwards after your discussions, how many people were involved
within the Agency?
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MR. BISSELL:
Well, I don't know that he formed a
group. I think he conducted probably with the help of one other
man in the Security Office such communications as there were.
MR. BELIN: Mr. Olsen I think has several additional
questions in this area.
MR. OLSEN: Howard Hunt has stated in several of his
writings that in connection with his work in preparation for
the Bay of Pigs he recommended an assassination of Premier
Castro be undertaken either to precede or to be contemporaneous
with the Bay of Pigs operation. Now, Mr. Hunt was working under
your direction?
MR. BISSELL:
Right.
MR. OLSEN: At that time, was he not ?
MR. BISSELL: Yes, he was.
MR. OLSEN: Did such a recommendation from E. Howard
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Hunt ever come to your attention?
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have a specific recollection.
MR. BISSELL: I wouldn't be at all surprised. I don't
It is the kind of thing he could
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have said in a meeting orally and I don't remember any written
proposal to that effect originating from Headquarters.
MR. OLSEN: Is it your testimony that you have absolutely
no recollection of an oral recommendation from Mr. Hunt to that
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MR. BISSELL: I don't have any specific recollection,
but that doesn't mean that it couldn't have happened.
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MR. OLSEN: Do you have a general impression that
it happened?
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MR. BISSELL: I would suspect that he is telling the
4
truth when he said that he made this recommendation.
Whether
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he would have made it in my presence or to me, or to Colonel
King or others, I don't know,
MR. OLSEN: Mr. Bissell, there has also been testimony
that has been taken by the staff of the Commission to the effect
that a Bernard Barker, a contract agent of the CIA, or employee
of the CIA, I believe it was at that time made contact with
the person acting in the Cubian community down in the Miami
area and asked him about this time whether he would be willing
Do you have any knowledge of
to undertake an assassination.
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that?
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MR. BISSELL: I don't remember that.
MR. OLSEN:
Were you aware, Mr. Bissell, in the
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period' 1961 early 1962 of there being a great deal of talk
MR. BISSELL:
among Cuban exiles in this country of desire to kill Fidel Castro?
Again, I have to say I have no specific
recollection of reading newspaper stories to this effect, or
hearing reports through CIA channels but it seems to me highly
likely, given the nature of the situation, that there would have
been talk of that sort.
MR. OLSEN: A great many of the Cuban exiles in
Florida in particular and elsewhere in the southern part of the
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United States at that time were being in effect utilized
through front organizations that were being sponsored by the
Agency, were they not?
MR. BISSELL:
Uh-huh. I think that is true. Yes.
MR. KIRKLAND: Was there discussion of targets there
confined to Fidel Castro, or would it include Guevara and
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MR. BISSELL: Exclusively Castro.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: Were not most of those Cuban
organizations penetrated by Castro representatives?
MR. BISSELL: They were, indeed.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: So that it would be very easy
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for double agents to report back to Castro what was going on?
MR. BISSELL: That's right. Exactly. I think our
judgment at the time, as a matter of intelligence, and I am now
talking about after the Bay of Pigs operation in particular,
but the same applies, by the way, to most of the preparation,
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I think our belief was that Castro was extremely well informed
on what was going on. I don't think that he penetrated, so far
as we knew, parts of that preparatory activity that were under
the Agency's direct control, but all of the exile groups in
Miami,
including the political groups that we attempted to
form and did form as front organizations, I'm quite sure he
knew what was going on.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Did CIA know, have any information
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to the effect that Oswald was trying to penetrate some of
those groups?
MR. BISSELL: I don't remember that, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CONNOR: Did it ever come to your attention in
any way that Oswald have any interest in the Cubian situation
or was associated with it in any way?
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MR. BISSELL:
7
Never. I don't ever remember hearing
8
any association, in anything that associated him with that.
MR. KIRKLAND:
9
You mean prior to the assassination?
MR. BISSELL: Prior to the assassination.
10
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
11
Did Bill Pauli work for you
during that period?
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MR. BISSELL:
13
Well, yes, in a sense. I mean, he served
as
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a messenger, but for the most part that was in the final days.
of the Batista regime and he was used in an effort to persuade
Batista to leave the country.
MR. BELIN: Mr. Olsen?
MR. OLSEN: After the assassination of President
and
Kennedy, when it became well known that Lee Harvey Oswald had
been active in attempting to penetrate anti-Castro groups,
had engaged in kind of a one-man operation for the Fair Plan
For Cuba Committee, did it not occur to you, Mr. Bissell, that
there might have been some relationship between the assassination
of President Kennedy, in attitude, at least, that Oswald might
have developed in connection with his Cuban contacts in New Orleans?
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MR. BISSELL: Well, I think I can honestly say it
didn't particularly occur to
me at that time. I read the
usual newspaper accounts of the assassination, but it wasn't
3
until a good deal later that these facts about Oswald
4
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6
surfaced
8
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10
and I will honestly say that really didn't occur to me, that
there was a connection.
MR. BELIN: Any other questions by the Commissioners
on this particular area?
Now let's turn to the question of Trujillo, and I am
going to ask Mr.Gray to interrogate you in that area.
MR. GRAY:
Mr. Bissell, we have gone over the circum-
the death of Trujillo just before you
11
stances surrounding
12
testified, is that correct?
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MR. BISSELL: Correct.
MR. GRAY: Incidentally, in the 13 years or so since
you left the Agency, have you had occasion to review the docu-
ments dealing with that?
MR. BISSELL: I have not, no.
MR. GRAY: Now, in early 1960 the records I reviewed
indicate that the government was maintaining a policy of non-
intervention toward the Trujillo regime, and that in the early
months of that year Ambassador Farland, who was then our
Ambassador in the Dominican Republic, suggested that that
policy be changed. Do you recall Ambassador Farland?
MR. BISSELL: I don't remember whether I ever met him
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personally, but I do have some recollection of this recommen-
dation of his.
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MR. GRAY:
And do you recall anything about his back-
4
ground?
5
MR. BISSELL: He had been I believe in the FBI at
6
one time and he had an intense interest in intelligence
7
matters and I think he had worked very closely with the CIA
station, Chief of Station in the Dominican Republic.
MR. GRAY:
Incidentally, was that station declared
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to the Dominican Government?
MR. BISSELL: I believe it was.
MR. GRAY: That would mean that the government, even
though the people were under cover, would know who they were
and what they were?
MR. BISSELL: At least who some of them were.
MR. GRAY: Now, the records reflect that when Mr.
Farland returned to Washington for consultations in May of 1960
he stated that he had been in contact with some internal dissi-
dents in the Dominican Republic, that they needed support from
the United States, and in particular that they needed a number
of high-powered rifles with telescopic scopes, and the Agency
records reflect in conversations at the Agency he further went
on to say that the Dominicans planned to remove Trujillo from
the scene through use of some sort of explosive device. Do
you recall conversations along these lines?
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MR. BISSELL: My recollection is that on the occasion
of this visit of his to Washingon he did urge that some military
or equipment or guns or other devices be made available to
4
the internal dissidents.
5
I have a dim recollection that this
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was to include one or more rifles with telescopic sights. I
wouldn't have remembered the number unless you had mentioned it
from the records.
MR. GRAY: The records also reflect that at the end
of June or the beginning of July you approved of the furnishing
10
of such rifles to the Dominican dissidents on the basis of
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12
a memorandum from Colonel King, who was then Chief of the
Western Hemisphere Division, stating he had received authori-
zation from Mr. Rubottom, who was then Assistant Secretary of
Do you recall such approval?
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State.
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ction.
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MR. BISSELL: This is all consistent with my recolle-
MR. GRAY: Would you yourself be involved in any
negotiations with the Department of State as a normal matter?
MR. BISSELL: As a normal matter I would not have
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been involved with meetings at the Assistant Sécretary of State
level. I would have been involved if and when this matter was
discussed in the Special Group.
MR. GRAY: And do you recall, do you have any recollection
of whether or not you were involved in any discussions involving|
the furnishing of these rifles?
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MR. BISSELL: I don't remember that.
2322.
MR. GRAY: NOW,
the records pretty much petered out
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5
at this point. They don't show that either this plan was killed
or that the rifles were actually sent.
It could not be
developed whether they were or not. Do you have any recollection
6 why that change of course might have taken place?
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00
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MR. BISSELL: None whatsoever.
MR. GRAY: At the beginning of '60 and '61 you pre-
sented a proposal to the Special Group to work with the
internal dissidents, and at the same time work with exile groups
for paramilitary capability and things of that sort, am I
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correct?
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MR. BISSELL:
Correct.
MR. GRAY: At the January 12, 1961 meeting, at the
instance of Department of State, the Special Group, which
approved these covert operations, approved the provisions to
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the Dominican internal dissidents of limited supplies of small
arms and some explosive devices, some explosives, I believe,
do you have any recollection on that ?
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MR. BISSELL:
Such as it is, it would confirm what
21
you state.
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MR. GRAY:
23
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In your opinion, when they approved the
provision of small arms, were they talking about assassination
weapons, or were they talking about guerrilla supplies and things
of that nature?
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MR. BISSELL: I would have said definitely the latter.
2 However, I think it was the understanding of everybody in
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Washington that if you provided weapons to internal dissidents,
and especially in fairly small numbers, and were contemplating
truly guerrilla-like activities as distinguished from something
on the scale of the Bay of Pigs, that these might well include
assassination attempts. But the concept that I seem to remember
was that this was a plan for, in effect, the logistic support
of the internal dissidents, and it did not contemplate that
the Agency or the Station would be planning specific operations
them to carry out.
MR. GRAY: So, it would be their operations and the
Agency furnishing of the equipment?
11
for
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MR. BISSELL:
Right.
MR. GRAY: And you draw a distinction there, do you?
MR. BISSELL: I do partly because in situations like
that the Agency really has very little effective control over
the group that is supported once the support has been granted.
MR. GRAY: And with respect to the explosives which
were authorized, the Agency had been in contact with these
internal dissidents and was aware that they did plan to use a
bomb to kill Trujillo?
MR. BISSELL: I imagine that's the case, yes. I don't
specifically remember.
MR. GRAY: And you then, if you don't recall of your
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own state of mind, do you have any recollection as to whether
other members of the Special Group knew what the purpose of the
explosives might be?
MR. BISSELL: I believe that they would have, yes.
MR. GRAY: You think they would have?
MR. BISSELL: I think they would have, yeah.
MR. GRAY:
A
Now, the dissidents had difficulty coming
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up with a workable
oh, very important, the Special Group
attach the condition that these weapons and explosives be
delivered to the representatives of the dissidents outside of
the Dominican Republic, is that correct?
MR. BISSELL:
Correct.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: Did this get the approval
of the White House?
MR. GRAY: The records that I have reviewed show it
was approved by the Special Group. There was
MR. BISSELL: There was also a White House Represen-
tative on the Speical Group.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: And you said earlier that any
assassination or assassination attempt would have to have the
highest approval?
MR. BISSELL: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: From the President?
MR. BISSELL: That is correct.
MR. GRAY: Would include this sort of instance of
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furnishing material to people knowing what they are going to
2 use it for, but where the Agency itself is not directing the
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operation?
MR. BISSELL: Well, let me answer that question this
way: this clearly required and received the Special Group
approval. The procedure always in the Special Group was that
the White House Representative was presumed to inform the
President of whatever was brought up in that Group that in
his opinion should be brought to the President's attention.
And furthermore, it was presumed to obtain presidential assent
to action in those cases where he believed the presidential,
personal assent of the President was called for.
12
13
MR.CONNOR: And who was the White House Representative
14
sitting on the Special Group at that time?
MR. BISSELL:
15
Gordon Gray. And frequently, given that
16
procedure, it was frequently the case that a proposal would be
17
18
made at one meeting of the Special Group, it would be discussed
but no action taken until the next meeting, in part to provide
19
this opportunity for the White House Representative to consult
with the President to the extent he believed necessary.
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MR. GRAY: Now, the dissidents were never able to
develop a capability to receive these goods, nor did they ever
provide any persons to be trained in the techniques of explos-
ives and detonators and so forth?
MR. BISSELL:.
(Witness nodded in the affirmative.)
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MR. GRAY: In March the station cabled the request
of Mr. Dearborn, who was then Counsel General, that Trujillo's
relations having been severed, cabled his request for three
38 police specials to be turned over to the dissidents as a
show of good faith and materal support. Now, do you recall
a discussion of the pistols and sending pistols by pouch and
so forth?
MR. BISSELL: Yes.
I think I do remember that dis-
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cussion, and for that purpose you have identified.
MR. GRAY: The record also reflects that on the first
couple of occasions such requests were made by the station the
Agency refused them stating that it was inconsistent with
the limitations imposed by the Special Group. The last request
was not responded to for a period of some week, approximately
a week, following which you approved it. It appears there was
a meeting in the State Department between some State Department
officials and Agency officials and the State Department memorandum
of that meeting is not in their files. Based on that statement
of documents, would you say whether or not you think there
would have been State Department approval of pouching those
pistols?
MR. BISSELL: I think there almost certainly would
have been State Department approval, because there had been
a specific prohibition imposed by the Special Group, and the
Agency would not on its own authority have considered it possible to
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violate that prohibition unless and until there had been
2327
consultation with the State Department and concurrence by the
3 State Department.
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MR. GRAY: Would such consultation normally have been
at your level or on Colonel Kings?
MR. BISSELL: I think probably Colonel Kings.
MR. GRAY:
Assuming the State Department agreed to
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8
waive the Special Group restrictions, and the Agency felt this
was appropriate, would you have felt it necessary to go back
to the Special Group in any formal fashion?
MR. BISSELL:
I think probably not, but I think the
Special Group members would have been informed of this action
at the next meeting.
MR. GRAY: As I stated, the record reflects that the
pistols were sent to the Dominican Republic and were passed
to the dissidents.
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MR. BELIN: When, Mr. Gray, does the record reflect
that?
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MR. GRAY: I believe it was March 25th. I don't have
my notes with me.
MR. BELIN: Of what year?
MR. GRAY: 1961.
MR. BELIN: When does the record reflect the rifles
were shipped?
MR.
GRAY: The Springfield rifles, the ones that
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디
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Ambassador Farland talked about?
MR. BELIN: The first rifles that went down.
MR. GRAY: As near as I can tell on the rifles that
I spoke about earlier, they never went to the Dominican
Republic.
MR. BELIN: In other words, the early rifles that
were talked about never were shipped, is that correct, according
to the records?
MR. GRAY: The records no longer discuss the matter
9
10
once approval to ship them was given.
11
no further reference
There is no transmission,
to receipt of them, nothing of that
12
sort.
13
MR. BELIN:
All right, go ahead.
14
15
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: I would like to ask Mr.
Bissell whether there was any question of violations of
16 statutes by sending these weapons to a group through the use
of the pouch, diplomatic pouch in relation to either a direct
assassination attempt, or implied or possible?
MR. BISSELL: Well, I am not aware of any.
In any
I think that consideration did not arise at the time, and
it obviously didn't arise in the minds of the State Department
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case,
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or the Special Group members or the Agency.
MR. GRAY: Now, following the shipment of the pistols,
the station cabled back that they had discovered in the
Consulate three Carbines that had been left behind by departing
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Naval personnel and requested authority to pass those.
2329
Again,
Headquarters delayed, and again there was a meeting with the
State Department. There is a memorandum of this meeting and
it doesn't reflect this subject came up, but the same day your
Deputy, Mr. Barnes, approved the passage of the Carbines.
5
6
Would you say that this would
--
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MR. BISSELL: I think almost certainly that the
State Department would have been consulted.
MR. GRAY: Now, following this the station and the
Consul requested, the Consul requested some more or relayed
the request to the dissidents for some so-called grease guns,
M-3 submachines, and three or four such weapons were pouched
to the Dominican Republic. But with the Bay of Pigs and un-
settled conditions in the Caribbean area they were never passed.
Do you have any further recollection of the events preceding
the death of Generalissimo Trujillo?
MR. BISSELL: I really have none, no.
MR. GRAY: Do you recall discussing these matters
with anyone, let say of your superiors or anyone outside of the
18
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CIA?
20
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MR. BISSELL: No special discussions, nothing other
than those that would routinely occur in reviewing projects with
Allen Dulles internally and any special reports to the Speical
Group.
24
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MR. BELIN: Did the Special Group give or reaffirm its
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1 position to pouch the weapons that were actually shipped in
2
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St
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the spring of 1961?
MR. BISSELL: I don't know whether they did or not.
As you have just heard, there is the indication that this was
cleared with the State Department, and I have said that the
cleared with the
5
6
normal
procedure would be that everything
7
8
State Department and the Special Group at least would have
been informed of this at its next meeting, and presumably,
therefore, it accepted that, or at any rate did not reverse
11
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10
the agreed upon position between the Agency and the State
Department.
MR. BELIN: Who were the members of the Special
Group, in summary, if you remember?
14
MR. BISSELL:
MR. BELIN:
15
I will have to have the date again.
Into the spring of '61.
MR. BISSELL:
16
Well, by this time the Special Group
r
17
would normally have included Bundy or Rostow, and at the beginn-
18
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ing, at some date about mid-'61 I believe that General Maxwell
Taylor, as the President's Military Adviser, sat in on most of
the meetings.
21
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It would have included probably the Undersecre-
tary of State, and the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the
Director of CIA.
MR. BELIN: And you mention the fact that in the fall
of 1960 when this was first discussed, that at that time Mr.
Gray was on the Special Group?
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MR. BISSELL:
Right. Correct.
MR. BELIN: And who was the Special Group at that
time, who else?
MR. BISSELL: Well, it would have been, with the
representation, it would have been
exception of the White House
the same individuals ex officio. It was suppose to be the
Deputy Secretary of State, I mean the Undersecretary of State,
the senior Undersecretary . Later, at certain stages in the
organization of the Department it was the Undersecretary for
Political Affairs in the State Department. The Deputy Secre-
tary of Defense was a member, although there was sometimes a
substitute for him. And the Director of Central Intelligence
was the other person.
MR. KIRKLAND: Was that representative to the OAS
involved in these discussions?
MR. BISSELL: I believe not, sir. I believe it is
very unlikely.
MR. GRAY: Mr. Bissell, one other aspect of the cable
traffic I should call to your attention is that shortly after
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the shipment of the pistols and the authorization to pass the
2 2 2 2
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Carbines, there is several cables between the station and the
21
Agency Headquarters reflecting some
concern whether Counsul
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two reasons for that, either nobody in the State Department knew
Dearborn is going to mentioned these matters in his correspondence
with the Department of State. Now, I suppose there could be
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it,
or very few people in the State Department knew it.
Would
2
you have any opinion as to which of those situations existed?
MR. BISSELL:
Yes. I am almost certain it would have
4
5
been the latter. Operational information of this sort was
suppose to be confined to the Assistant Secretary concerned and
6
his Deputy. Quite often, for matters of somewhat lesser
7
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11
sensivity involve the station desk officer in the State Depart-
ment, but it was suppose to be limited to two or three below
the level of the Undersecretary and the Secretary.
MR. KIRKLAND: Was the Ambassador back in the country?
MR. BISSELL: I believe the Ambassador was back in
the country, but in this particular case where Farland had
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the Ambassador and was succeeded by Dearborn, they were
both kept completely informed of what was going on at all times.
The reason I say in this particular case is that these were
two men who I mentioned earlier, were intensely interested
in intelligence and covert activity or operations of this sort.
It was Farland, as you have heard, who really initiated the
policy of supporting the dissidents, and they were, to my
recollection, very fully informed of what was done.
MR. BELIN: Again, you mentioned earlier that you
felt that the Special Operations Group approved possibly a ship-
ment of rifles in 1960 which evidently were not shipped. Do
you have any specific recollection of that approval, or do you
have any specific recollection that it was approved or not?
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MR. BISSELL: I don't have a specific recollection,
but I take it there is a record of that.
MR. BELIN: Are you assuming that if they were shipped
they were approved, and if they were not shipped you don't know
whether it was approved?
MR. BISSELL: I think that is what I am saying, yes,
7
as you are stating, yes.
MR. BELIN: And if the record shows there were
9
weapons shipped in the March or April of 1961.
Then is it your
10
specific recollection or just that you are assuming that the
11
Special Operations Group approved that?
MR. BISSELL:
No. I have some recollection of that
12
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15
one, the shipment involving the three revolvers, and I partic-
ularly remember the case that was made by Dearborn for doing
it, which was to be able to give, to issue some weapons to
the dissidents as evidence of our continued interest and good
WARD & PAUL
MR. BELIN: And would that approval of the Operations
Group then have been in the spring of 1961 or the first part of
16
faith.
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1961, or still going back?
MR. BISSELL: I'm quite certain it would have been
the first part of 1961.
MR. KIRKLAND:
Following the death of Trujillo, did
the Agency give any help or aid to the surviving executioners?
MR. BISSELL: I don't remember that specifically.
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was a confused period, of course, and the Agency was very active
there in the next few months attempting to, in making contact
with the various political groups and individuals that emerged,
but I do not remember anything specific of the sort you speak
of.
MR. BELIN: The records of the Agency show that Mr.
McCone was not briefed about either the Castro plan or the
so-called executive action capability until some period after
8
9
he became DCI, which would have been in 1963 or so.
Do you
10
know any reason why he was not briefed about this?
11
12
the first of
13
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17
MR. BISSELL: Well, I think by the time he took office
which as I remember it it was late in 1961, I think it was about
December in 1961, any plan to develop an executive
action capability internally was in abeyance. I don't know
whether it ever was revived, cèrtainly not while I was there,
and I think that's the reason that he was not briefed on that.
The possible plan of a possible Castro assassination had aborted
time to begin to look at the potential
operations against the
18
and although an individual was designated by me just about that
19
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2 2 2 2
Castro regime, that designation would have occurred only a few
weeks before I left, and I think, I don't think anything ever
Bill Harvey, who was put into that position, was
active in planning for a time, but I know that after a fairly
came of that.
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short tour of duty he was removed, and so I am assuming the
reason McCone was not briefed about these was that really nothing
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was happening that worth bringing to his attention.
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MR. BELIN: Any other questions on the assassinations
before we turn to one final area?
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MR. GRAY: I do have one other question. Mr. Helms
was your Deputy for a portion of this time?
MR. BISSELL: He was.
MR. GRAY: And ultimately your successor?
MR. BISSELL: Right.
MR. GRAY: Was he involved in any of these operations
or planning that you have described?
MR. BISSELL: Well, he was generally informed about
10
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them because he saw copies of all of the cable
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14
traffic that
15
came through, and sat in meetings with the Director and things
of this kind. He was not actively involved in the Bay of Pigs
preparations when that was going on. It was nearly a fulltime
job for me, and I was handling much of the rest of the business
of the CS. I believe that he would have been
--
there's a
chance that he would have been involved in the Dominican
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activities, but to just what extent I don't remember.
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MR. KIRKLAND: I have one question. This group that
carried out the assassination in the Dominican Republic were
not initially sponsored by the CIA?
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MR. BISSELL: That's correct, sir. They came into
existence on their own, and as you have heard, it was Ambassador
Farland's recommendation that they be supported, and I do want to
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emphasize, as I have said, that this was regarded by the
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Agency as a logistics support operation, in full knowledge that
it was giving them the capability for violence. But nevertheless,
there is quite a distinction, or at least there was in our minds
and either initiating it, organ-
izing it, running it and controlling it.
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between supporting an operation
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MR. KIRKLAND: And this was not too long after the
Trujillo assassination of a president of a friendly state?
MR. BISSELL:
Exactly.
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MR. GRISWOLD:
Did anyone give consideration as to
whether this was a wise thing to do or a legal thing to do?
MR. BISSELL: Well, I would presume, sir, that
consideration was given in the State Department.
And as you
14 have heard, it was the Ambassador who first recommended that
This was then approved
15
this support operation be undertaken.
16
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by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. He is the approver
of record, but this must have also included Tom Mann, who was
18 the Assistant Secretary of State. It was discussed in the
Special Group where it was approved at the undersecretary level,
and by a White House Representative, and the general presumption
in the way the Agency's covert action operations were run was
that the policy considerations of the wisdom of the action was
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a matter for the State Department, the White House and in a
sense the National Security Council and the Pentagon wherever
its interests were relevant, which was in many of these.
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MR. GRISWOLD: But the CIA didn't regard itself as
having any responsibility for either wisdom or legality?
MR. BISSELL: I wouldn't say that. I would not say
The CIA obviously
3
4
that it had no responsibility for wisdom.
5
was represented both at the Special Group and on occasion with
the ad hoc meetings when operations of this kind were discussed,
and CIA representatives were quite often not backward in giving
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and it was
the CIA does not make policy. It is there as
their views about wisdom. But this was not the part of the
Agency's charter. I think that was recognized at the time,
one of the Allen Dulles' repeated exertation, that
12
an agency in this
capacity, it is there to carry out policy decisions.
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Now, as to legality, I think there was
in the years that I was in the Agency to restrict the Agency's
operation within what was believed to be its charter. And in
that sense, at least there was a concern for a legality.
a real effort
I am
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I have to say that I am unclear myself as to how the
concept of legality : can be applied to many covert activities.
MR. CONNOR: Who was the Undersecretary of State in
the Special Group at that time?
He
MR. BISSELL: Well, back in '60 it was Mr. Murphy,
and in '61 it was Chester Bowles who was the Undersecretary.
did not represent the Department very often on the Special Group)
and I don't remember whom he used for that purpose.
MR. GRAY: Mr. Merchant was there at that time.
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MR. BISSELL: Yes, I think he was.
MR. SHANNON: Staying on this matter of approval as
to the wisdom, you assumed the State Department had covered
this, and that would mean you assumed the Secretary of State
5
was informed?
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MR. BISSELL:
Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Was Goodwin involved in any
8
of this stuff?
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MR. BISSELL: Dick Goodwin became somewhat involved
in the Bay of Pigs operation, but very late in the game. For
the most part, only after it was over in the business of picking
up the pieces. I suspect that he was involved a bit in the
Dominican operation, and I believe that he would have been one
of its supporters and very sympathetic to it.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
How about the Castro assassin-
15
16
ation attempt?
MR. BISSELL:
No, I am almost certain that he knew
17
nothing of that.
18
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MR. BELIN: At least not during the time that you were
with the Agency?
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MR. BISSELL: That is correct, yes.
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MR. KIRKLAND:
Was John Hill, do you recall, was John
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MR. BISSELL: I seem to remember him being there at
some point, but I don't remember when it was. I think during
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1 the period we are talking about in the D.R. it was Farland
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followed by Dearborn.
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MR. KIRKLAND: He was the charge d'affaires' I think
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MR. BISSELL: Yes.
MR. GRAY: Dearborn along with the members of the
sation were removed very quickly after the death of Trujillo?
MR. BELIN: The final area of inquiry that I want
to go into pertains to recommendations you might have concerning|
Agency operations or based upon your experience in the Agency
and your experience both before in government and after in the
business world. Do you have any specific recommendations as to
how to improve the operations of the Agency?
MR. BISSELL: Well, as I have mentioned to you, Mr.
Belin, I had a few that are rather scattered, and to which I
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do not attach any very great importance.
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I had occasion a few
years ago to do a paper on this, and I am going to supply Mr.
Belin a copy of this if it is of interest to him. The main
thrust of that, I will put it this way, is that the Agency, most
of the Agency's so-called failures, and especially its more
massive ones have taken the form of a compromise of operations,
or operations have been deemed to be failures largely because
they were compromised. That is not true in all cases, by any
manner of means, I mean the Bay of Pigs is a notable exception.
But in general that is true, and that had lead me to argue, or
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1 really to remind any readers of this essay to which I have
2 referred that the prine expertise the nation should seek in
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4
the clandestine service, in a foreign clandestine service is an
ability to keep things secret, and to perform operations in secret
5
and without compromise. And in part because of
6
and shortcomings, by the late 60's the Agency
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my own failings
already had I
thought a rather lamentable record of not being able to do this.
Now, in reviewing the whole range of different kinds
of covert operations, they involved progaganda operations,
paramilitary operations, political action operations and the
whole range. And with respect to each of these, the clandestine
service is not the place where one would expect to, where one
would look for professional competence, military competence.
One would look to the Pentagon. Competence in political
analysis and political science he would expect that the most
competent people in the nation would be elsewhere, and he would
not look there for competent economists as such.
fessional competence that the clandestine service should have,
is as I said, the ability to plan and organize and carryout
operations, both intelligence collection and such covert action
operations as are authorized with high security, and hopefully
avoiding compromise.
The pro-
Given that as its role, given its poor record, I
suppose the thrust of this paper was that every effort should
be made to improve this aspect of the Agency's operations.
I
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1 made one organizational recommendation.
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It is just one way
of doing it. It was to propose that there be a small internal
staff in the Agency, in the clandestine service, but with the
direct line to the DCI that should scrutinize every proposed.
new operation before it is initiated, and at least once a year
should scrutinize every on-going operation from one standpoint
soley that was the prospects of compromise, and their change
from year to year. My feeling is that in the years that I was
in the, it was the DDP in particular, that lacking this or any
similar mechanism, a number of our mistakes occurred because
there was not a strong enough voice raised internally in the
councils of the Agency in favor or the precautions that would
be required to maintain secrets.
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MR. KIRKLAND:
Would that not be a function of the
Counterintelligence Division?
MR. BISSELL: Well, it could be, but actually the
CI staff or Division did not function in that way and did not
really attempt to perform that role. It was attempting really
to protect the Agency and other parts of the Government from
penetration, and I really had in mind not the compromise by
classic penetration, but if you stop to think of it, it hasn't
produced the great, dramatic revelations of recent years. It
is the compromise from letting too many people become knowledgeable
of an operation and still letting the operation go on, of having
inadequate cutouts, and having inadequate compartmentation both
within the Agency and elsewhere in the Government.
MR. BELIN: Now, you contrasted that with the
Inspector General's review, which was a review of operations
MR. BISSELL:
that had already been completed as opposed to current operations?
That is correct. I am talking about
before the fact review, and for this, the sole purpose really
of what I have identified as security.
You also had a recommendation
Excuse me. You made an exception for the
Now, why would you say that that operation
MR. BELIN:
MR. CONNOR:
22
Bay of Pigs in that.
failed?
23
MR. BISSELL:
24
Well, that operation not only was
25
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dramatically compromised, and indeed, it is questionable whether
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1 that could have been avoided under any circumstances, but it
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was also a military failure, and it seems to me perfectly clearcut
that that is the case.
My reference to that was to contrast this with, for
instance, the by now much publicized support to the Student
Association and support to labor groups overseas. These operations,
in my opinion, were tested by what they accomplished up to the
point of compromise, and could perhaps still have accomplished,
were brilliant. ly successful, and what destroyed those operations
was purely and simply compromise.
I also happen to think that they became, that they are
examples, although perhaps I have not looked into them enough
12
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became examples of very sloppy procedures.
to be confident of this opinion, but I am afraid I think they
I think that anyone
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who had looked by the early '60s at that set of operations,
coldly, and somewhat at arm's length from the standpoint of
security would have said that they are absolutely doomed to
compromise, and quite soon if major changes were not made.
After all, the very fact that, for instance, in the
Student Organization you had new officers every year, and most
of the officers were knowledgeable of the source of funding,
well, it was absolutely inevitable that that would be brought
up before long, and indeed, a state of mind had developed, I
think, that it really would not do much harm if it were blown.
I think that state of mind was perhaps perfectly proper with
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regard to the radios because they really had been blown before,
but there are instances in my view of operations that did achieve
notable results, and which eventually failed and had to be
ended for the reason of compromise.
MR. BELIN: You have also had some recommendations
concerning the type of personnel that the Agency ought to
recruit.
MR. BISSELL: I will mention before touching on that,
I had one other specific one which is really the subject of
longstanding discussion inside of the clandestine service. I
felt the Agency had come to rely much too heavily on official
cover and was using its official cover again somewhat carelessly.
and it is a very difficult job to build up unofficial cover,.
14
either governmental or nongovernmental.
But I felt that far
15
too little was being done about that. Mr. Belin refers to
16
a quite unrelated recommendation of mind. I was fearful that
17 the course the Agency was on was placing more and more reliance
18
on staffing, on men and women brought in fairly young, in many
cases right out of college, or soon after college, trained
20
2 2 2 2 2
19
21
22
in the Agency and then spending or planning to make life careers
there, somewhat in the fashion of the military services, and of
the Foreign Service. I think that that is a perfectly appropriate
23 pattern for those other services, but my own belief is that one
24
25
of the great strengths of the Agency as a corps of individuals
in say the mid-50s under Allen Dulles was that it attracted
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men from all walks of life, and because it was such a new
organization at that time, most of its officers and all of its
senior people had had some other kind of professional experience
and accomplishment before they came into the organization.
It had quite a scattering of men who had had military
experience, it had some professionals like myself, it had
lawyers, and Helms himself, before his OSS period, had been a
journalist, and it had a wide range of skills. I do not mean
9
10
11
those skills were important to be used. I never used economics
in the Agency, and Helms I don't think ever used journalism, but
my point is I think when it is engaging in the kind of business
12
it is, it is better to have a variety of backgrounds, and not
13
to have more than perhaps half of its personnel men who were
14
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16
its overuse.
17
in there for lifelong careers.
This relates to my remarks about official cover and
The pattern that I think was developing by the
end of, by the beginning of the '60s in the clandestine service
18
was that people more and more, its members thought of their
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careers as a little different in kind, and a little removed
20
from Foreign Service careers.
doing tours of duty in every case under official cover,
usually identified to the host government.
They expected to spend a life
and
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And in short, to
follow much the same career pattern as the Foreign Service.
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I believe that this is not consistent really with the
maintenance of the state of mind that ought to animate the
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clandestine service.
2346
MR. BELIN: Any other questions by members of the
Commission?
Thank you for coming.
MR. OLSEN: I have one that I would like tw get kind
of on the record.
Mr. Bissell, there have been people responsible or
irresponsible who have suggested that because you and Allen
Dulles and General Cabell were all terminated from the Agency
in effect by President Kennedy within a fair period of time
after the failure of the Bay of Pigs, that the three of you
and other people in the Agency would have had a motive to
retaliate against President Kennedy.
Could you describe for us what you know of your
relationship and that of General Cabell and Allen Dulles with
President Kennedy after the termination of your respective periods
of service with the Agency?
16
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MR. BISSELL:
I can't say very much about the other
19
two gentlemen. I am sure that Allen on occasion saw the President,
20
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and I have every reason to believe that it was a friendly
relationship. I rather doubt whether General Cabell had any
22
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direct contact with him after that.
occasions.
I did have contact with him on perhaps two or three
He asked me quite soon after I left the Agency to
lend a helping hand to the then head of the rather new Alliance
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1 for Progress, and he also asked me to do a paper for him, that
2
is, for the President, which I did do, on the question of what
3 lessons from the Marshall Plan might have been applicable to the
4 Alliance for Progress.
5
6
On another more lighthearted occasion, he got me to
come over to the White House to give him some advice on cruising
7
on the Maine coast. And the final time, I think, I suppose the
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final time I saw him, which couldn't have been but very shortly'
before his death, was the award of a medal. I think I can
honestly say that the relationship was an extremely friendly
one in my case, and as far as I could judge, mutually so. I had
quite a number of contacts with him in the roughly eight months
that I was still in the Agency after the Bay of Pigs, and I can
say the same of that period.
15
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17
And finally, for the record, I perhaps should say
that shortly before I did finally leave the Agency, John McCone,
with the President's knowledge and concurrence, and also that
18
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of the then Attorney General, asked me to stay on in the Agency,
but in a somewhat different position than that of the DDP. .I
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thought it was wiser for me to leave.
MR. LEMNITZER: I have a question.
Don't you believe
that in carrying on the covert operation of the magnitude of
the Bay of Pigs, that compartmentation was one of the weaknesses
compartmentation in a clandestine operation to maintain cover
and security was absolutely essential, but on the other hand, on
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an operation of that size with military aspects involved, it
seemed to me that compartmentation was a weakness in the
preparation of carrying out of the operation, not to mention the
changing decisions that took place along the line as the
4
5
operation unfolded?
6
MR. BISSELL:
Well, I certainly agree with you,
General Lemnitzer, in the change in decisions, and I agree
8
with you,
9
I probably would agree with you if you and I discuss
specific examples of the compartmentation. I will say, however,
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that some of the compartmentation I think to this day was
absolutely essential, and I will give you an example.
We
really could not allow the Cuban politicals in Miami, the
exile members of the political parties, to visit the brigades
in training in Guatemala, and the reason for that was that the
brigade was shaping into a disciplined and unified force, and
the politicians were totally insecure, and at odds with one
17 another on almost everything.
There was a great deal of
18 intriguing in Miami, because if one politician could become
19
identified in the eyes of the brigade, and if the operation was
20 then successful, he would have been the leader.
2 200
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So there is an example of where I think we were right
But I don't think that is the kind
22 to enforce compartmentation.
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of thing you have in mind, and I think I would agree with what
you have in mind.
MR. LEMNITZER: Well, specifically I have in mind that
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1 within the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time we could not find
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out what the diplomatic estimate of the situation was, that if
this force did get ashore, and up in an accessible place, that
the Cuban people would rally to it, and as a matter of fact,
I have not found out yet what the diplomatic estimate of the
situation was.
7
MR. BISSELL:
Yes,
I agree with you. That is an
8
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MR. BISSELL: No, sir.
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MR. GRISWOLD: Let me ask you, did the Bay of Pigs
operation have anything to do with the gathering of intelligence?
It was somewhat dependent on
it, but it didn't have anything to do with it.
MR. GRISWOLD: Then what business is it of the CIA
to engage in operations which have nothing to do with the
gathering of intelligence?
16
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Covert.
17
18
MR. BISSELL: Well, the category that came to be
called covert action operations are justified under a much quoted
19 clause in the CIA's charter which refers to such other activities
20
21
as the National Security Council directs.
MR. GRISWOLD: Is there any evidence that the National
22 Security Council directed this operation?
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MR.BISSELL: Well, there is a question of definition
24 of exactly what constituted the National Security Council at the
25 time of that operation, but I will say that the plans for the
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1 operation were repeatedly reviewed by a group that included the
2 President of the United States, the Secretaries of State and
5 Defense, and the Assistant Secretary of State who was involved,
4
5
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or the Acting Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs, and then Army Colonel, now General I believe, who
6 had been designated the Chairman of a group of three officers
by the JCS to review plans and preparations.
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So I would say that rarely has what started out as
a clandestine operation been more intimately directed by a
group, by those individuals who are, I believe, the members of
the NSC.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: Was that both President Eisenhower
and President Kennedy?
MR. BISSELL: No, this was President Kennedy, and this
began with the new administration.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: And did the brigades have reason
to expect that if they were successful, they would get support
18 from the U.S. military forces?
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MR. BISSELL: No, it had no reason to believe that.
MR. LEMNITZER: Isn't a part of the answer to this
question the comment made by President Kennedy after the oper-
ation failed that he was responsible, that it was at his direction
23 that this operation was carried out?
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MR. BISSELL: Yes, I think that's true, General
Lemnitzer, but you remember I am sure just as I do, the degree
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1 to which the group I have identified was repeatedly involved
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in review of plans and whatnot.
Mr.
MR. BELIN: Any other questions from the Commission?
Thank you very much, sir, for coming.
MR. BISSELL: You are welcome.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: We are very grateful to you,
Bissell.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
MR. DONOHUE: I do.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Paul, do you swear to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
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God?
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MR. O'NEILL: I do indeed.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: Okay.
MR. BELIN: Mr. Donohue, we have generally had just
one witness at a time in the room, so perhaps you had better
leave the room while your boss testifies, and then we will call
you back here.
MR. DONOHUE:
Okay.
CARGILL: Mr. Chairman, we thought we would begin
MR.
the session on OMB with Mr. O'Neill giving a short background
of OMB's role in Government, and then we will proceed to some
more specific questions in dealing with the CIA with Mr.
Donohue.
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DECLASSIFICATION 
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Paul
the testimony of
I'Neill, Director of
OMB, before the Rockefeller
Commission.
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TESTIMONY OF PAUL O'NEILL
MR. O'NEILL:
Very quickly, Mr. Vice President and
3 members, I think it would be useful if I would try to give
4
you some perspective about how OMB does its work with other
agencies of government; that is to say, with agencies outside
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of the intelligence area, and specifically outside of the CIA
area, so that as you come to the direct testimony from my staff
member, Mr. Donohue, you will have a background in mind.
I know many of you have had lots of business dealings
with the government, and you have some appreciation of how
OMB works, so I will indeed be brief. I think I was just
looking at some testimony that I am going to be giving in the
next couple of days on OMB's budget, and I was looking at the
historical members that show how many staff people are in OMB.
And I think maybe that is a useful way to come to the subject.
In 1947 OMB had about 550 total staff people. Today
we have 580 total staff people, including 380 professional staff
people who examine the budgets and the programs and activities
of everything in the Federal Government. And that means this
year, as you know, over $350 billion worth of expenditures.
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I think the budget function is a familiar one.
look at the amount of dollars that we are spending and compare
it to what we have spent in the past.' We look at equity
considerations between groups that are served by Federal
programs. We try to look at efficiencies, we try to look at
We
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geographic distribution questions and all of the other prospects
that you might expect in a budget operation.
Now, in addition to that budget examination function,
of course, we put together each year the President's budget
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for the approval of the Congress, and those same people
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who do the review and the analysis do that preparation function.
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That is not to say that we print it, but we do everything short
of printing the President's budget.
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In addition to those budget functions which are ongoing
through the year, we also perform a legislative clearance
function or a legislative review function for the President.
Every piece of legislation that is introduced by the President
goes through the Office of OMB so that it can be coordinated
with the program of the President, and so that every department
and agency of government that has any kind of an interest in
that legislative proposal from the President has the advantage of
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a crosscutting analysis from any interested party within the
Executive Branch. In addition to doing that kind of process
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with Presidential legislation, all legislation that is introduced
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in the Congress by either House, by a member of either House,
comes to OMB when a member makes an appropriate request for that
same kind of a review, and a report on the Administration's
position on the provisions of that legislation just as though
it were a piece of Presidential legislation.
There are two times during the year when the Director
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1 get deeply involved in the program activities and budget of all
2 of the Departments and agencies of government, once in the
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spring and secondly in the fall as we are doing the final
preparation of the President's budget, and the Director and
Deputy sit down with examiners who have the responsibility, and
their straw bosses and foremen, and go through with them their
examination of the programs, the recommendations that are made
by the Department and agency heads, the insights that our own
staff have about how resources can best be distributed in
preparation for a series of meetings that we have with the
President to in turn discuss with him at somewhat higher levels
of abstraction the alternatives that we see he has in making
the judgments for the upcoming year.
In addition, we have, of course, some responsibility
for efficiency as indicated earlier, and we do spend some time
trying to ferret out programs that are not working well,
proposing legislative changes, management changes, on occasion
personnel changes to try to accomplish and accommodate better
public performance.
I think maybe just by way of an example, to give you
a more detailed feeling as to how the resources that are invested
in the CIA area, or in the intelligence area, or the Defense
area as compared to other areas, I might take an example in
another area that we examine, and let me say Social Security as
an example.
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This year, Social Security spending will be $70
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billion. We have one full time individual who examines the
program of the Social Security Administration.
Now,
we do have
on call some people who are not directly responsible for
examining the budget in our management divisions to help out
with examination of important management questions. We do call
7 upon financial system experts in our budget review divisions
to help support that one individual.
00
8
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But what I am saying to you is we have one individual
10 that examines on a full time basis the activities of the Social
At the same time, we have one indi-
vidual who examines the activities of the CIA, which in budgetary
terms is a much, much smaller agency.
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Security Administration.
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CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
One individual?
MR. O'NEILL: Yes, sir. We have one full time examiner
looking at the Central Intelligence Agency. He is backed up
by a so-called branch chief who in turn reports to a division
chief that is responsible for all of the international affairs
programs of the government, who in turn reports to myself and
So we are not performing an audit function for the
programs and activities of the government, not by the furtherest
stretch of the imagination are we performing an audit function..
If you think back over what has happened with the explosion of
government programs in the last 20 years, it is apparent on the
face of it that as that explosion has taken place, OMB's role
Jim Lynn.
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has changed in a fairly marked way., In looking at the historical
files of OMB, it is interesting to note that back in the 1950s
there were some 45 people examining the programs of the Veteran'
Administration, and they were examining them then in a way that
was more like an audit function, because it was possible to do
that because we did not have the great number of programs we have
now.
But that was all changed, and we are not examining
programs in anything approaching an audit fashion in any
activity of Government, not a single one.
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Paul, would it be fair to
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ask, since you gave the figures on the comparison between '47
and '75, as to whether you are not grossly understaffed in
relation to the responsibilities that were then carried out in
terms of the size of the budget, or that is now carried out in
terms of the size of the budget?
It must be what, about ten times
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as big?
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ten times as big.
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MR. O'NEILL: I think it is probably a lot more than
It has really grown by leaps and bounds. I
guess I do not think so, but it depends very much on one's
philosophical view as to what can be done at the center when
you have an explosion of governmental function.
My own feeling is that an audit function, and
inspector general function that could hope to deliver real
results would be so big that if it were in the Executive Office,
I
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1 that it would overwhelm the Executive office. That is what
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ان
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happened in the OMB as the character of what Federal Government
is doing has changed, which is that we have moved away from
45 people looking at 170 VA hospitals and trying to know ourselves
whether what they were doing in each of those hospitals was right
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or not. We have moved back into a position where we are really
testing, we are testing the general concept of a Veterans
health care program against the general concept of health
insurance, or we are looking at what is going on in the private
10 sector, and we are dealing at a much more abstract level than
we were 25 or 30 years ago, by necessity.
Our office would have to be, I would say 2000, if we
were to begin to approach a more detailed audit kind of an
14
approach to our work.
15
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: And is GAO moving into that
16
vacuum?
MR. O'NEILL:
17
Somewhat, yes, although the character
18
of their operation from my point of view has changed quite a
19
bit in the last ten or fifteen years.
Ten or fifteen years
)
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ago they were very much of an accounting mind. They made sure
that the numbers all added up, and that people had not defrauded
the Federal Government. I do not think they ever told anybody
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was useful or not, but over the last especially five years, I
think they have changed their focus so that they have become
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1 less accounting focused, and less, spending less of their time
2 making sure that the numbers add up, and more of their time
3 in trying to inform both the Executive branch and the government
4
as to the value of those things that are being done with public
5
monies.
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So that they have changed their focus some also, in
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part by necessity.¨
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CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER: Have we not got a former head
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of the Bureau of the Budget there?
MR. O'NEILL:
Yes, sir. They did, the former deputy
director, as a matter of fact, two former deputy directors,
Mr. Hughes and Mr. Staats.
པར་
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CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
That is very interesting.
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MR. GRAY: How big is GAO, how big a staff do they
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have?
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MR. O'NEILL: I don't have a number in my head, but I
could give it to you if you had a budget here. It is much
larger than our operation, and my guess would be off the top
19
of my head about 4000.
20
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
GAO?
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MR. O'NEILL: Yes, sir.
22
MR. KIRKLAND: In these areas where there has been
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some episodes of misuse of funds, as in some of the poverty
programs, and in the housing area, where do they get uncovered?
Do they get uncovered in the internal audits of the agency, or
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at the OMB level, or how do these things come to light?
MR. O'NEILL: Let us take housing as
an example. I
think the uncovering of fraud problems in those programs has
4 taken place at the local level, and it has taken place with
GAO identifying a program, and the Inspector General of HUD
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7
has identified problems in those programs. And I think a similar
finding on the OEO programs came out of those sorts of things.-
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OMB's problem with the housing programs really recognized what
had been found in the way of fraud, but our focus was more
wrong with the program
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on the equity considerations, what was
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from an equity point of view. That is, the Federal Government
was providing huge subsidies to a very small set of theoretically
eligible population, and as we talked to the President as to
what we saw wrong with those programs, that is the point we
15 stressed, that there was no way in the world that we could
ever equitably provide the same level of housing benefits to
the set that was eligible under the current terms and conditions
of the programs, and that combined with the cases of fraud that
were identified by GAO and the HUD inspector general led us to
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a recommendation to the President that we stop those 235 and 236
subsidized housing programs.
MR. KIRKLAND: But the rural line of defense was
23 actually in the control of the Agency, that is, your surveillance?
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MR. O'NEILL: That is exactly right.
Prevention of
fraud really begins and ends, or almost ends, with the assigned
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responsible officials in those departments and agencies, and
I guess my own feeling is that Government has gotten so big
that if we can't depend on good surveillance and prevention of
fraud by the Cabinet secretary and his officials, that we are
going we have to depend on public oversight, and I guess I
don't think that that works as well as it should. And therefore
ry
indeed, we do have to depend on those cabinet and agency
officials to see that we don't use the public's money in an
9
unauthorized way.
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MR. LEMNITZER:
With the fiscal '76 budget being
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defended before the Congress, I presume you are now starting
on the '77 year's budget.
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MR. O'NEILL: Yes, sir, we are.
MR. LEMNITZER:
Within your agency. How will CIA
15
approach the problem and present it to you, to your office for
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1977?
Just what are the mechanics of it?
MR. O'NEILL:
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Well, they will receive the so-called
budget calling, all of the departments and agencies in about
June.
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MR. LEMNITZER:
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Do they get any guidelines?
MR. O'NEILL:
Yes, they will. Right now we are begin-
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ning to tune up for the '77 process, and over the month of May
the Director and I will sit down with all of our
examiners and our division heads and go through the prospects
for fiscal year 1977. that our intelligence tells us will be
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1 coming in as requests to the President, and we will be looking
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at that against the backdrop of expected revenues based on
anticipation of performance of the economy for fiscal year 1977.
'
We will take all of that assessment of what the agencies are
likely to be asking for, separating it out between those things
that are new things, and those things that are driven by
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current authorizations and appropriations, and taking that
whole package to the President along with his other economic
advisors, Allen Greenspan, and Bill Siedman, and giving a
judgment, getting a judgment from him as to how many dollars
in broad blocks he wants to tell the Cabinet secretaries and the
Agency heads they should use as a planning figure for their
work over the next several months.
In June, those numbers from the President will go
out as guidance to the Departments and agencies, and over the
months, July, August, September, they will be within the limits
provided by the President, deciding what kind of a specific
program, detailed recommendation they want to make to him, and
then in September these requests will begin to come in, and in
September, October, and November, we will go through our regular
budget process, evaluating what it is that is in the base that
we must do, that we think it is desirable to keep doing, those
things which we think should be taken out, evaluation of new
things that are being proposed, and then through a series of
sessions with the President, going through and getting his
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1 judgments on all of the numbers for fiscal year 1977.
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MR. WALLISON: Do you in the course of your activities
evaluate the activities of the various agencies in relation to
4 their statutory charters or restrictions?
ما
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MR. O'NEILL:
Well, yes, within the limitations of our
6
staff reach.
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MR. WALLISON: In the case we have here, assuming
there were no Commission and there were no Congressional inquiries,
would you consider it your responsibility to review what the
Agency has done to determine whether it complied with the statutory
charter?
MR. O'NEILL: Well, I don't think so, Peter. I guess
13 because I think it is beyond our reach to assure ourselves or
14 the President that everything that is done in the Federal Government
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is within the statutory authority provided by the Congress. It
is just a human impossibility that 380 professional staff people
could ensure that everything that is done by a public, government
official, a Federal official, is within the limits of the
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statute.
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MR. GRAY: I think Mr. Donohue, who was the CIA
examiner for five years,
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can probably answer some of the detailed
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questions.
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MR. O'NEILL:
Right. Right.
MR. BELIN: Any more questions of this Witness?
MR.
KIRKLAND: I take it from what you said earlier
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1 that say if it were possible and useful to put another ten people
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on to protect against any real misapplication of funds by an
Agency like the CIA, that you feel that they would be more
4 usefully put in the auditing section under the comptroller of
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the agency rather than the OMB?
MR. O'NEILL: Well, I think it would depend in part
on whether or not you look at that kind of a change in OMB
vis-a-vis CIA only, or whether there was a broad precedent for
OMB's role and function. I suppose such a function could be
lodged in the OMB, although I must say to you, with the number
of people you are talking about, ten people, I would be highly
skeptical that you can ensure that things you do not want to
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happen will not happen.
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Bureaucracy is so big, even in the
case of CIA, that I am skeptical that ten good people can ensure
that there would not be any examples or cases of operations outside
16
of the law. I think that has to start at the top with a tone,
17
and direction, and a sense of responsibility that the key officials
18
bring to their job. So I guess I am not saying that you can
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cut off problems by having ten more people. You might make
some difference because it would be a signal that somebody is
going to pay closer attention than they have in the past.
MR. KIRKLAND: I just took the figure out of the air.
You are saying that if that were commensurately multiplied through
all of the oversight functions, it would create an agency the
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size of which you do not want in OMB to be useful.
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MR. O'NEILL: I think that is right.
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MR. KIRKLAND: An element of strengthening would be
more in terms of pure misapplication of funds, it would be better
done by strengthening the audit arrangements in the Agency?
MR. O'NEILL: Yes, and perhaps protecting that inspector
general or auditing function from too close an association with
the Agency that it is involved in so that it has a separate,
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MR. O'NEILL:
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clearly defined function, and a supporting relationship that
makes it clear that it is expected to be independent of the
agency that it is looking at
MR. KIRKLAND: Do you and Jim Lynn, let us say, have
a direct relationship with the Comptrollers of the different
agencies independent of the director?
You mean with the inspectors general or
15
with the comptrollers?
MR. KIRKLAND:
16
Yes,
whatever.
MR. O'NEILL: It is uneven.
It depends on, I think,
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in both Jim's case and mine, on our previous association with
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individuals in the government.
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general.
I am sure he knows the inspectors
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MR. KIRKLAND:
Well, where does an inspector general
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go beyond his boss if he has a problem?
MR. O'NEILL:
I frankly cannot think of a case and
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time that I have been in OMB when an inspector general came to
me and said here's a problem you should know about, no.
But
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there have been occasions when a Secretary or a comptroller would
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come to me and say we think we have got a
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problem here that
you should know about. I cannot think of fraud problems, but
undesirable practices problems, for example,
yes.
MR. BELIN: Any other questions of this witness before
6
we go to Mr. Donohue?
Thank you very much, sir.
MR. O'NEILL:
Okay.
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CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
Thanks a lot, Paul.
TESTIMONY OF ARNOLD E. DONOHUE
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CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
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Are you the one gentleman who
is responsible for CIA in OMB?
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MR. DONOHUE: No, Mr. Vice President.
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I head a staff
of five professionals who review the budgets of the intelligence
community, one of which
CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER:
MR. DONOHUE: Right, one of which individuals is assigned
to the Central Intelligence Agency, and that has been practiced
for I believe the last 13 years.
The whole community?
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MR. GRISWOLD:
Can you speak up, please?
MR. DONOHUE: Sure. Excuse me.
MR. BELIN: Could you please state your name for the
MR. DONOHUE:
Arnold E. Donohue.
MR. BELIN: You are with OMB?
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CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO
DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR
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SANITIZED 16-8-94
(T) B
5the
the 
testimway of Amold
Doachas, OMB official in charge
of the CIA budget, 
before the
Rockefeller
Commission
, 21 
APR 75
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MR. DONOHUE: That's right, the international affairs
division, the intelligence branch, I am the Chief thereof.
MR. BELIN: And what is your educational background?
MR. DONOHUE: I graduated from Georgetown University
in 1960, and from Princeton, the Woodrow Wilson School, in 1962,
1
and worked five years in the Central Intelligence Agency, primarily
as an analyst, political, economic, and joined the Office of
Management and Budget in 1967, and have been in the Intelligence
Unit of the Office of Management and Budget since that time. I
became chief of that branch in 1973.
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MR. BELIN:
Could you describe OMB's activities with
the CIA in preparation of its program budget?
MR. DONOHUE:
Let me give you a very broad answer to
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that because it probably is the primary work that the unit is
involved in during the first nine months of any calendar year,
generally from January through the October budget submission of
the Agency. The examiner will be involved directly with the
Agency, CIA or any other intelligence agency in preparation,
19 looking forward to developing a budget recommendation for the
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director of the Office of Management and Budget, and ultimately
to the President as far as the budget of those agencies goes.
So generally the first nine months would be a period
where the examiner would undertake a work program looking at
24 various aspects which for one reason or another would be important
for making budgetary recommendations.
25
This would be done
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1 sometimes in conjunction with the Agency, attempting to have the
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Agency analyze a particular aspect of its program or activity,
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or done independently by the budget examiner as something he
felt he had to take the lead in and develop an analysis of his
own on, in which context he would then review the official
budget submission coming in October 1st, coming in on October
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That is a very important phase of the work because it
really involves the nine month preparation whereby the examiner
puts himself in line to review the rather detailed dollars and
numbers, personnel data that will come in to him during the
course of a budget examination beginning in October.
MR. BELIN:
Do you have any more specific examples
15
of the level of detail and the type of justification material?
MR. DONOHUE: Well, this preliminary phase would be
16 something that would be interactive with the Agency. On October
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1st, the Central Intelligence Agency, and that's the one I will
illustrate with, will come in with a fairly detailed budget
19 submission.
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now for you to see the amount of material in it.
It is a very
MR. BELIN: And you are holding
MR. DONOHUE: And I am holding that in my hand right
detailed submission in traditional terms of the Office of
24 Management and Budget.
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MR. BELIN: About how many pages there?
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MR. DONOHUE: 250 approximately, 250 pages, with detail
really on every office of the Central Intelligence Agency down
to division levels, and the examiner would use this as a base
of information.
MR. LEMNITZER:
Would it include proposed covert
6 operations specifically?
8
MR. DONOHUE: It would include in most cases a covert
action operation that would be continuing during the coming
MR. LEMNITZER: New ones?
MR. DONOHUE:
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fiscal year.
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Generally it would not include new ones,
because it would be nine months in advance at least of the
beginning of the fiscal year, and it would be doubtful that
new ones would be known that much in advance. In most cases
the covert action projects would begin in a shorter time frame
than that, and they would not be budgeted for in advance.
MR. CONNOR: Is that document classified?
MR. DONOHUE: Yes, that document is classified top
secret, and I can give a brief rundown of the sort of information
it contains.
MR. GRISWOLD: Does it include a category for
prospective covert operations?
MR. DONOHUE: No, it does not. It would include
24 funding of continuing covert action projects.
25
MR. GRISWOLD: I understand. But how is the Agency
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1 going to carry out when it suddenly gets: some situation where
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it seems to the Agency wise to move immediately into a covert
operation?
MR. KIRKLAND:
The contingency or discretionary funds?
MR. DONOHUE:
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that probably will help.
MR. GRISWOLD:
Let's move into that area, and I think
That's what I meant.
MR. DONOHUE: I will answer it. CIA does have a unique
contingency reserve which is provided for the purposes of meeting
basically extraordinary expenses that the Administration, that
the Executive branch would not want to propose a supplemental
to the Congress for. This contingency would then be used for
13 purposes that came up during the course of the year, any
supplemental purpose, whether that be covert action, whether
it be the increased pay costs for employees, and it has been
used for that in the past, or for emergency intelligence needs.
Some new project would begin, and supplemental needs would be
identified, and the contingency reserve would be used for that
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purpose.
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MR. GRISWOLD:
And there is a figure for that in the
budget?
MR. DONOHUE: Yes, there is.
MR. GRISWOLD: How is that figure determined?
MR. DONOHUE: The figure is determined, as with any
budget figure, with a recommendation or a request by the
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Agency for a level of what it anticipates, or some level of
funding that it would anticipate being available for the supple-
mental purposes during the coming fiscal year. It would be re-
viewed by the Office of Management and Budget, and it would be
referred to the Congress through the Chairman of the Appropriations
Committees, and they would be informed of the amount of that
reserve that we anticipated would be available during the coming
fiscal year, and that program and financing schedule, which is
included in the budget, and they would have the opportunity to
write back and to identify, if the Chairmen of the Committees,
the Appropriations Committees, would have the opportunity to
write back and indicate whether that was reasonable, basically
through their appropriations action, and whether there was
reduction involved.
a
In some cases the Congress, for example, has made
reductions in the amount of that contingency reserve, and in
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other cases they have not.
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MR. KIRKLAND: Is it not maintained on a historical
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basis and just replenished up to a certain level?
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occasions in the past when I think it was
over that, and there
TOP SECRET
MR. DONOHUE: It is generally replenished up to the
24
level of approximately $50 million a year. That has historically
been, and I do not have the exact numbers in front of me, but
24
historically it has been somewhere around:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D: million a year
which has been judged adequate in recent years.
There were
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1 are occasions when it has gone below that for any period of time
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MR. BELIN: Whose approval is necessary to allow the
CIA to use this contingency fund?
budget.
MR. DONOHUE: As I stated, the basic function of the
contingency fund is in lieu of supplemental appropriations
requests identified for CIA because of the hidden nature of its
Therefore, depending upon the type of activity involved
the approval for the contingency has to come from the office,
the use of the contingency funds comes from the Office of
Management and Budget, but we would rely on a number of checks
on that system. If it was pay supplement or something, that
could be easily calculated based on past experience, and our
office would take action by itself. If it was a supplemental
request for some special intelligence project, we might review
that, determine that, in fact, it was a priority need, meeting
the needs that the Office of Management and Budget and the
President has established for supplementals during that year,
or particularly if it was a covert action project, we would
attempt to determine, and usually have been successful in
determining that 40 committee approval had been given for that
project, and hopefully Presidential approval had been given
for that project.
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on its merits,
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MR. DONOHUE:
MR. KIRKLAND: You would not make an independent judgment
you would look to the authorization?
As far as the merits of the project
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1 itself, we would look in terms of covert action projects
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to the 40 Committee, with an indication of Presidential approval
and since I have been head of the unit in 1973, I think we have
had indications in every covert action project of Presidential
approval of that covert action project. We would make an
7
independent financial assessment as to whether the dollar amount
requested by the Agency to carry out that covert action
8
project was reasonable, and that would amount to a fair amount
9
of detailed review of each request to use the contingency
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reserve for covert action projects.
We would hold a hearing,
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based at the time of the request on the facts and information as
to the financial cost of that particular project, and do that in
a fair amount of detail.
14
That does not mean getting down to every last dollar
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or person involved, but it does amount to looking on an aggregate
basis as to whether this is a reasonable amount, and can they
17 provide, just can the Agency provide justification for that
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need?
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MR. KIRKLAND: Well, in point of fact, since future
contingency or future covert operations by their nature cannot
be budgeted in advance, and usually must be initiated out of
the contingency fund, in the OMB, you would get a look at each
of these projects for all practical purposes at their inception,
24 wouldn't you?
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MR. DONOHUE: Yes, sir, We would.
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MR. LEMNITZER: I had in mind particularly the recovery
2 of the Russian submarine and the large expenditure that was
3
involved.
How was that handled, for example?
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MR. DONOHUE: Do you want me to answer, David?
MR. BELIN: I will ask you this question because the
Witness is concerned about secrecy agreements that he has
signed pertaining to certain projects.
Is there any large project that involved an expenditure
of more than $10 million by the Agency in any one year that was
10 not audited or reviewed by OMB?
11
12
MR. DONOHUE: It would not be audited.
MR. BELIN: I used the word audit incorrectly because
you do not audit. That was not carefully reviewed by the OMB?
MR. DONOHUE: I do not know of any large project of
that magnitude that we would not be aware of. I will be glad
to go off the record and answer the question.
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MR. GRISWOLD:
You couldn't get chat out of a
a($50)
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million contingency fund.
MR. DONOHUE:
19
That is correct.
20
MR. BELIN:
20
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Why don't we go off the record because
of your concern with regard to the secrecy agreements that you
22 yourself are signing, Mr. Donohue.
Can we go off the record for a minute?
(Discussion off the record.)
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MR. BELIN:
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Let me get back on the record here.
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Can I return to the review aspects of your work at
MR. SHANNON: Before we get to that, could I just
follow on right here where he was talking about approval by the
This is nothing to do with his immediately
40 Committee?
preceding comments, but just in general I take it if the 40
Committee, if you thought you had approval from the 40 Committee
or from the President, then you would not look into the question
9
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of whether it was, whether it seemed to you to comply with
statutory provisions or the Act as far as the Agency was
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concerned?
MR. DONOHUE: I am not sure of that. I have not found
an instance where I would challenge it on a legal basis. I
have found one project for example, a covert action project,
that I would challenge on maybe a roles and missions, proper
emphasis, priorities basis, and I would review that and send it
up the chain of command in OMB to determine if in fact they
feel strongly enough about it to reopen the issue with the
President. I think we would do it in that context and have to
inform my superiors that, in fact, the President had indicated
approval or the 40 Committee had indicated approval, and if he
wished to reopen it with the President, that would be his
decision.
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MR. SHANNON:
I just thought that came in under where
we were discussing more appropriately, and if you were starting
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MR. BELIN:
I am going now to the question of review
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by OMB.
Would you care to discuss that as to the number of
examiners, the choice of portions of the budget that are reviewed,
and any pertinent questions or hearings or recommendations?
MR. DONOHUE: Certainly. I have already explained
8
the nine month preparatory.
Here on October 1, and almost,
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usually always on that date, this column will come in and the
examiner will usually, the examiner, and there is one examiner
for CIA, will usually review this document in detail, going through,
marking it up, seeing what areas he does not feel are adequately
addressed, or in which he wants more information to address them
in terms of a budget recommendation.
15
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The things he would look for there are the criteria
he would use, which would be for one thing incremental change
from year to year, what it was in 1974 versus what they are
18 proposing for 1976. He would look at the magnitude of resources
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involved here, and if it is a $50,000 project, he obviously
would not have time to look over every $50,000 project, but if
it is a $500 million project, he might very well look into it.
He would look into critical areas, critical areas where we
felt, or the Administration felt, or somebody had expressed a
view that this was a critical area that needed to be addressed,
and he might look at that area very closely. A new project
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1 coming along in the satellite field where the CIA had a
2
3
responsibility, for example, might be looked at very closely,
and he might look at something just to refamiliarize himself
4 with the activities of a particular office.
50
6
He would, the present examiner at least, and there is
no uniform guide here that an examiner would use, but the present
7
examiner for example then prepared a list of written questions
8
for the comptroller of the CIA for him to respond to based on
9
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his review of this document. In this case it was six pages worth
of questions, 33 questions in all, asking specifically about a
number of items, and I can give you some illustrations if you
like of the type of detail that he would go into.
12
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MR. GRAY:
Why don't you read one or two and give us
14
an idea?
15
MR. DONOHUE: All right.
01
16
Hearing to discuss the totality of KENNEN
(KENNEN)
related
17
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costs to the Agency covering as a minimum 1974, '75, and 176.
The discussion should include by component the costs of R&D,
computer and personnel distributions made by the Agency, and how
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this distribution is integrated into the United States overall
classified photo interpretation effort. That may not mean
much to you.
MR. BELIN: I wonder if we could include a copy of
this as an exhibit to your testimony here?
Is there any particular reason that this cannot be
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included as an exhibit?
This is all theoretically secret? Or
5
could check that out.
2 do you feel you might not be able to?
4
아
MR. DONOHUE: Well, the code word I just mentioned,
KENNEN as a working paper, was not fully classified, so if I
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MR. BELIN: All right.
MR. DONOHUE: Let me give you one other example
because it relates to one other aspect OMB has with respect
to CIA, which is somewhat unique. Hearings with Office of
Personnel to cover a justification of the 1976 request, and in
general personnel management for the Agency supergrades and
average grade requirements, and the status of the CIA retirement
and disability system.
Prior to this meeting the examiner would like the
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following information:
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of FY '75.
supergrade positions by name of
position as of the end of FY '74 and anticipated for the end
Lists should include whether occupied on June 30,
1974, and planned occupancy rate for the end of fiscal year
'75.
Overall accession, termination, trends and plans, 1970
through 1976, and average grade and average salary for these
years. A paper indicating the Agency's long range plans for
the financing of the CIA retirement and disability system fund
in the light of the declining balance budget hearings in 1976.
Those are very detailed questions in terms of a
budget examiner, and it is part of what I might say is a very
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intensive review on the part of OMB of the budget of CIA and
in this particular case, fulfilling of a function somewhat
beyond the scope of the normal budget examiner while looking at
the personnel structure of the Agency, the rates of promotion,
the average grade structure, the number of supergrades, the number
of executive pay levels involved, the financing of the retirement
system primarily here, because the Central Intelligence Agency
system is not part of the Civil Service Commission and is now
not reviewed by the Civil Service Commission as a government
personnel system, so OMB does perform somewhat an additional role
there.
Let me mention one other question here just to show
you the amount of detail. Breakdown of personnel; full-time
permanent, temporary part-time, and indigenous or local by
station overseas for 1974 and 1975 and 1976.
MR. BELIN: What number of examiners or analysts
do you have in connection with your review?
MR. DONOHUE: One examiner, full time, plus my
own staff time that I would use in supervision of that exam.
MR. KIRKLAND: He works exclusively on CIA?
MR. DONOHUE: That's correct.
MR. BELIN: What choice of portions of the budget or
offices is made for the closest scrutiny apart from the size?
MR. DONOHUE: Well, I gave you some criteria earlier
for what his choice might be motivated by. He in this particular
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case I think looked at approximately 20 of the offices in some
more detail out of approximately 50 offices, and that means that
30 were not looked at in closer detail other than what was
4
in the written material.
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But he would give in to a fair amount
of detail to a lot of the offices which would be relatively
uncontroversial in terms of the resource requirements..
MR. BELIN: Are the hearings held on these areas,
or are the written questions relied on exclusively?
MR. DONOHUE: No, the written questions would serve
as a base for then holding a hearing, and I think in the case
the examiner indicated he spent approximately 75
last year,
10
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to 80 hours in oral hearings, using the response he got in
13
the written questions, plus the budget material, to elicit
further information to serve as a basis for his recommendation
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to me, and ultimately to the Director on the level of resources
that the CIA would require for 1976.
MR. SHANNON:
Of the people participating in these
hearings, they would be representatives from the administrative
part of the CIA and perhaps the Deputy Director or one of the
top level officials?
MR. DONOHUE:
21
Particularly in the case of 1976, in
22
fact, I accompanied the examiner for an initial session with three
23
24
of the four major directorates in the CIA, and I think each
of those sessions ran about two hours with Mr. Procter, Mr.
Nelson, and Mr. Duckett.
25
There was an additional session held wit!
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1
Mr. Blake, who is in charge of the administrative side, but
2 these were really introductory to provide a total scope of each
directorate's activities, followed by the 80 hours of hearings
10
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that he had, with usually representatives from the individual
offices, whatever side they be in, operations side, or the
intelligence production side or support side, and would request,
or those people would be present for testimony, or not testimony,
hearings on justifications for the budget.
end 5b
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MR. BELIN: Noth, at the CIN appeal? Pardon mo.
2381
I still not clear on To what extort
the Director of the vancy marticipates in this mind of a review.
Is he involved in this at all? Ho knows this is coing on?
The Director of Central Intelligence?
10
MR. DONOT
6
MR. SHAINOT:
Yes.
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MR. DONOHUE: The Director, of count, yould have
blessed this budret subnission to OMB. His internal avels
calls for development of a program in the June-July tinoframs.
Prior to the Octoher 1 submission, the time between June-July
where he, as I understand it, would personally review it in
the June-July tinsfrans would then be put into a budget document
for October 1st, and generally we would be acquainted with what
was going on, the nagnitude of the resources, the major items
that might influence the size of the budget in the June-July
14
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time frame.
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MR. SHAINON : But
When you go back
18
IR. DONOHUE:
When we go back
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felt it was important, I suppose we could request that, but in
most ca816 the Atency attitude I think is very cooperative here,
MR. SHANDON: To check on this, he is not sitting in
on these things, you are doing it further dom the line?
MR. DONONCE: That's correct. It would be staff offices
throughout CIA not the Director himself. If there was a need for
a cass to, in fact, have a session with the Director, if wa
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1 and if the information can be provided at whatever level. it
2
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is not a question of the individual directer being present.
MR. GRAY: Mr. Jonotus
4
MR. DONOHUT: Apprals?
5
MR. GRAY: Appeals, that's right.
6
MR. DONOHUE:
ry
00
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The process at that point would be CIA,
the examiner of the CIA budget naking a recommendation to me
with my review to a division chief and the Office of Monrement
and Budget, preparing a formal writton preparation, submission
on our recommendation, our staff reconendation to the Directo:
of OMB in providing that in a session to the Associate Director,
and the Director and the Deputy Director, a review of that
budget with a recommendation os far as the total amounts to be
involved, and the occific items that ve woull re
for
14
delation. At that point the budget process provides for an
15
appeal by the Agency head based on the Director of OMB's scision.
16
He can appeal or he cannot. In the last five years ha has
17
appealed the last to yeams.
18
three .
19
He did not appeal the previous
appea to the president and the Pocision
hould be made by the Prosijort,
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112. GRI: In the last fit
ears, how much are you
don't need sucific figures
cutting his request approsily?
Are you talking in forms of the OBM staff
staff of 's recommendations or the Director
11R. DONGTON:
Tation,
24
Incision?
25
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HR. DO
It is thros to
HR. GPA: Let's talk about the Divictor's Incision.
cint.
2383
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Congress?
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MR. DOLIN How as the CIA's budget submitter to
HR. DO TO: By the provisions of 50 USC-40 which
is the basic CIA statute.
The Director of Om is authorized to
transfer funds to the Agency from other accounts, and by tradition
8
the mathod of identifying the accounts in which the CIA budget
9
is care to the Congress is by a letter from the Director of
10
OMB to the Chairman of the Appropriation: Comittees in the
11
12
House and the Senate identifying the expropriation arount,
location in the budget, and the financing schedule incliding
its
13
the arount of contingents
or reserve of which the agency would
have gailable during the coring year. Whos
14thers would go
14
in in the last war to Mr.
McClellan an
Mahon, and they
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Hould be responded to at the completion of the appropriations
process by Mr. Mahon and Mr. McClellan, Senator McClellan, and
Congressman Mahor to the Director of identifying the amount
they had appropriated.
NR. BELIN: And that is in the Department of Defense
||budget generally, is that ri t?
MR. DONOTE: Yes. It has hian.
MR. BELIN: And after the appropriations bill is passed
how are the funds made available to the CIA?
་་2. DONG: Moon completion of the appropriations
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1 bill, 11, they would be operating under a continuing resolution
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prior to the complation of the appropriations action, but
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they
would be transferred first from the DOD account to a separate
account in the Treasury, and secondly an apportionment of those
funds to the CIA for actual expenditures.
Those numbers might
differ primarily on the basis of if funds were identified for
contingency reserve the appropriation amount, that amount trans-
ferred, and apportioned, the amount appropriated would always
be transferred into this special Treasury account, and the
amount apportioned might vary depending upon the amount
identified for holding within a contingency and subsequently
released.
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MR. BELIN: Is there any other way in which funds
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are made available to the Agency?
MR. DOQUUE: Yes. The major other additional way,
of course, is transfers
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under the Economy Act provisions.
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Well, I am not an expert on the Econory Act, but it essentially
provides the funds to be transferred to an agency where it can
perform a service with cconomy to another government agency,
and has a unique capability, or a unique ability or can provide
common service to a number of government agencies, and those
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transfirs would be made in this case to CIA.
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largest as cited here would be those from the
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One of the
National Reconnissa
Office in charge of satellite development where CIA acts as a
develo. a, and procurer of sons of that equipment, and fairly
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1 large sums have annually been provided to the CIA through that
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mechanism. I would point out that those funds are reviewed by
the intelligence unit of OMB in the context of the National
Reconnissance Office and the total satellite programs.
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MR. BELIN:
What is the largest amount transferred in
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such nanner?
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MR. DONOTUR:
I can't give you a detailed answer there,
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but I think the transfer by IRO has historically run in the
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last few years at about ($300 million a year.
MR. BELTN: Are nost funds ventually transferred to the
Agency under the Bconony Act identified as such in the budget
submissions of the transferring agencies?
MR. DONOHUE:
No, I don't believe they would be
identified as transfer items in the budget submissions by the
15 agencies. Of course, in most cases large iters here would be
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the satellite activities, and also the other problem we discussed
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not be identified, but would ge known generally as those pro-
grams in which CIA had an interest, and had the responsibility
for carrying out the research, development, procurement, engin-
21 earing and the project.
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MR. BELIN: Is OB approval
required for the CIA
to shift funds from one progren to another?
MR. DOHOHUT:
Internally within CIA, CIA does have a
flexibility to reprogram within the total budgat amount approved
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1 by the President. Of course, that is something that would
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generally not be the wisest thing for an agency to do, especially
if it was a program that had not been approved for some reason,
or had been deleted in the previous budget subnission, because
it would entail, therefore, a further look at it by the OMB
examiner, and an additional justification, but they technically
could reprogram their funds within their total availability to
cover their needs as they say them. Obviously working nine
months ahead of the fiscal year in terms of preparation of the
10 budget there would be items that would increase, and they would
have to cover these, and they would not require our approval
for the reprogramning as such,
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MR. GRISWOLD: What is NRO?
MR. DONOHUD: National Reconnissance Office. That
office which is responsible for the development, procurement,
launch and operation of satellite reconnissance vehicles.
MR. BELIN. Now, OND does not have any responsibility
for any audit or inspector general duties over at the CIA,
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does it?
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MR. DONORUS: No, it does not. Obviously our interest
in prior year funding is primarily an interest in which to
develop a base of information on historical expenditures for
the purpose of evaluating future year requirements, the budgets,
fiscal year budget vear requirements that have been identified.
It is not for purposes of going back to see that funds were
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1 actually spent for the intended purpose, although it is
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conceivable that we might run across a question along that
line. It is not a function that we
would normally perform.
The inspector general role, of course, is one that we also do
not perform and CIA has their own inspector general function as
part of the Agency.
I would like to comment additionally on that, that
those two functions of auditor and inspector general would
9 basically be in conflict with the primary, the basic budget
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requirements.
function of OMB in terms of attempting to assess future year
The honesty with which an agency would project
his future year requirements based on an indepth audit approach
to prior year funding would probably create more difficulties
for us in terms of attempting to examine these future needs.
MR. BELIN: Would OBM generally detect an improper
activity if it involved a small number of people and a small
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amount of money?
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MR. DONOHUE: As a general rule, I think it would
probably not have the capability to get down to small numbers
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dollars improperly used. Obviously we cannot follow red wigs
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MR. BELIN: At what level
MR. DONOHUE: We do not attempt to do that and have
not succeeded in doing that.
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HR. BELIN: At what level of either people or money
would such an activity be detected if it were improper?
MR. DONOHUE: That is very hard to answer. It would
depend on a lot of factors, some of which I enumerated earlier.
But for example if there was express presidential interest in
questions of illegal activities conducted by the Foreign
Resources Division of CIA's Directorate of Operations, the
budget examiner right look at that very intently during the
coming year, and nagha the coming two or three years, and might
notice sone illegal activities at a fairly small size. But
as a rule, I think w can say that unless you are approaching
something on the order of $1 million or something on the order
of 100 people involved, that the large number of CIA people
that there are, we probably could not notice it.
MR. BELTI: Then did QNB become aware of a CIA trans-
fer of $34,000 to the White House in 1970 to fund responses to
lotterson Nixson's Cambodia speech?
MR. DONOHUE: No, we were not aware and it was not
requested, it was not transferred under the authority of the
CIA Act of 1949.
MR. BELIN: Did the NB becors aware of Richard Ober's
Special Operations Group which was moritoring American dissidents
IR. DONORDD: I did not.
MR. BELG: Did 0113 become aware of mail opening or
main interespt programs of the CIA?
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MR. DONOHUT: We were not familiar with any mail
opening operation in the U.S.
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MR. BELIN: Were you aware of any assistance to police
departments given by the Office of Security of CIA?
MR. DONOHUE: I have checked the files on that partic-
ular question, and as of the monent I cannot locate any infor-
mation indicating our knowledge. As I say, I was not the
examiner on CIA during that period, but I found no information
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in the files indicating our knowledge tharcof. My own
recollection is that CIA did not attempt to hide, and it was
known that they were involved in some training of police on
a reimbursable basis from the departments. I do not think that
was hidden, but I do not have any records to prove it, and it
is a very vague recollection for mc.
MR. BELIU: Were OMB people aware of investigations
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tapes and surreptitious entries?
MR. DONOHUE:
Other than things that I have read in
the newsuper, no, we were not familiar with any such activit-
ies in the United States,
MR. BELIN:
Would you please describe for us cases
in which the OBM has questioned the propriety of CIA activities?
Propriety is a difficult term to deal
MR. DONOHUE:
with. If the question becomes one of illegality, I think there
probably are only two instances, if it is broadly interpreted in
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1 terms of whether the Agency should, in fact, do that for whatever
2 reason. It would cover a large number of things.
Obviously we
3 make a number, a large number of specific recommendations in
4 their budget each year. Let no touch on a couple of these.
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One was the liquidation by CIA of sone airlines it was running
as proprietary operations in which CIA originally proposed to
its congressional committee that the proceeds from these liqui--
dations be used to off-set their budget request for fiscal '74.
As it turned out, they wore, in fact, used partially with the
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approval of the Congress to off-set ($4 million of CIA budgetary
requirements for fiscal year
In fiscal year '75, CIA did
171.
not make a proposal to include such liquidating assest as an
off-set to its regular budget, and the Office of Management and
Budget proposed that it do so and, in fact, reduced CIA's
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appropriations by $20 million because of anticipated receipts
from these, from the sals of these proprietarics during fiscal
ysar 175.
Subsequently the CIA General Counsel, Mr. Warner, indi-
cated that he felt there was some legal question involved in
terms of the propricty of use of proprietary receipts here to
off-set the obligation requirements of CIA. We reviewed it with
him.
Based on the legal opinion that he gave, which Mr. Colby
concurred in, ws Reviewed it with our legal counsel, and our
legal counsel indicated that this was probably a reasonable
position on the part of the CIA, and so those funds are now not
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being used to off-set CIA appropriations.
originated.
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It was not one we
In fact, the CIA General Counsel originated it.
It
is probably a debatable legal question, as a matter of fact,
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but as it turned out we decided those funds would not be
utilized to off-set regular appropriations.
receipts?
MR. GRISWOLD: But they are recovered into the Treasury
MR. DONOHUE: At this point they will be used as
They are not additional funds for the
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regular receipts in the Treasury.
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CIA to spend?
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MR. DONOHUE: That is correct, and we were attempting
to ensure that they were used to off-set regular CIA approp-
riations at the time of the appropriations and of the President's
budget as opposed to the subsequent Congressional reduction, using
the same funds.
A couple of other items which I would just like to
cite in areas where OBM has been involved in the past where CIA
activities might relevant is the Equal Employment Opportunity,
which again because of CIA's unique statutory exemption, not
unique, but exemption from the Civil Service Commission review,
OMB has initiated action to insure that CIA made a conscientious
effort to achieve equal employment opportunity goals. I have
mentioned the covert action project previously which there was
a question of roles and mission. I think there is one other
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1. episods like that where it is partly roles and missions, but
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it is certainly where I as the unit chief in OBM could use the
guidance of this commission, and that is the use of some CIA
4 equipment and some CIA involvement jointly with the FBI in
conducting surveillance of foreign embassies, foreign residences,
and which the commission, or which I think it is unclear at the
present time the extent to which these operations are involved
in positive forsign intelligence collection, which obviously is
an appropriate mission for CIA versus counterintelligence
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activities
nore appropriately seens a mission for the FBI.
MR. BELIN:
Basically what
MR. DONOHUE: Can I add a couple of items to this?
MR. BELIN: Go right ahead.
MR. DONOHUE:
I do recall very heavy involvement by
our office in it, and again I was not personally involved in
the implementation of the Katzenbach Report in '67 when it was
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decided that CIA involvement in private volunteer organizations
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seemed at that point to be inappropriate.
sure there was a distinct question of legality involved, it was
And while I am not
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decided that some of these
activities should not be continued
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and OMB was instrumental in insuring that the Agency did not
fund these activities which by presidential decision had been
cited to be beyond the realm of CIA at that particular point.
MR. BELIN: What impact, if any, has OMB had on the
management of the CIA?
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MR. DONOHUE: You get into a much broader question
there, and I would like to spend a few minutes just calaborating
3 on the larger role that OMB has with respect to management,
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some of which I think may be Mr. O'Neill covered. But, there
would be smaller instances of management activities that we
would become involved in on an almost routine basis. I had
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mentioned personnel management as
an
arse that we look into
heavily, but there are other programmatic areas where we would
relationship with another agency of government
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feel that CIA's
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might need to be straightened out, and we would initiate steps
to try and straighten that out. I can think here of trans-
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operations to
the National Security Agency where we were heavily involved.
On a broader scale we were very intimately involved as a staff
in OMB in support of Dr. Schlesinger in his 1971 re-organization
study of the intelligence community, and that had very broad
recommendations with respect to the organization of the Foreign
Intelligence activities of the U.S., such as the President
signed off I guess a 10 page directive in November 171 which
provided for a greater role for the Director of Central Intelli-
gence in the management and coordination of the overall U.S.
Foreign Intelligence offort.
I could to into that in nore detail, Ir. Belin, but
this is up to you. This is a very long and exhaustive study
amounting to about a year of staff time and essentially six
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1 members of the intelligence community.
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MR. BELIT: Because of the time limitations, I am
going to turn to another area, and that is whether or not since
the CIA is not subject to the General Accounting Office, and
it is not subject to thorough Congressional review, do you
believe that OMB's oversight role should be expanded either in
concept or in staff ro that there might be a better opportunity
to reduce any improper activity?
DONOHUE: I think that the chance there of an
enlar MD staff, in fact, discovering illegal or improper
activities with an agency that is extremely adept at hiding
things if it wishes would really be impossible. I don't think,
with one cxaniner presently on the budget, and review of that
agency that two, three, five would essentially make a difference
and it would essentially require a large number of people to,
in fact, to the type of audit function that 10 does for the
question of improper activities to really arise in order to get
into that in such detail, at least as a guarantee, an expanded
OMB staff could not provide that guarantes unless it essentially
changed its function to ons of audit, and even in that cass it
would be a post-audit function. It would be one that would
22 discover illegal activities committes perhaps two or thres
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years ago, and not activities currently under commission.
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do not believe 0H3 could casily accept any additional responsibility
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in the res of awlit. It is just beyond its charter. It is out
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of tune with its scope 29 an agency, and would basically be
counterproductive in terms of our basic function.
MR. BELIN: Well, do you have any other recommendations
involving OMB's relationship with the CIA?
MR. DONOHUE: In terms of OMB's role I see a number of
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things that probably we could do to, in fact, strengthen it in
relatively minor ways. I offer then not in any hope of guaran-
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teeing in any sense that improper or illegal activities would
not occur, but certainly we could take a closer review of
CIA's proprietary operations which now, when once established
as an element, we would not require any continuing government
funding, and would not generally be reviewed by OMB, except in
so far as they required annual transfers to these proprietaries
for maintenance. There probably could be some increase in
OMB review of transfors to and from CIA under all provisions of
the law. They probably have to be restricted to major trans-
fers because there are a large number of minor transfers that
reimburss personnel on detail that would be very difficult if not
impossible to track,
OMB could undertake some stricter apportionment of CIA
which we do not now do.
We essentially apportion to CIA as an agency, and they have the
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by project or by office, or by program
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liberty to reprogram within those funds.
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to a certain extent.
We could probably nos get down to each individual
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We could tighten that
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project or each individual office, but we could provide some
limitations within four, five, possibly as many as ten categories
where they would then have to seek our approval for reprogramming
That would help us in civing a closer review of
actions.
CIA on its reprogramning actions at the same time.
These are things that could involve some additional
paperwork. I don't think they have, would have much prospect
for really providing a guarantee against illegal or improper
activities.
MR. BELIN: Any questions by any members of the
MR. CONNOR: lo.
MR. BELIN:
Any other comments that you want to make,
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Mr. Donohue, for the record?
MR. DONOHUE: No. I think I've probably covered it
as well as I can, in fact.
recessed.)
MR. BELIN: Well thank you very much for coming here.
MR. DONOHUE : Thank you.
(Whereupon, at 6:40 o'clock p.m. the Committee was
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