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JFK Assassination System
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 1
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 2
Tab A:
PROLOGUE
SELECT COMMITTEE ASSASSINATION REPORT
September 1, 1975
✓ Tab B:
Tab C:
Part I: Introduction and Summary
Part II: Covert Action as Vehicle for Foreign Policy Implementation
Tab D:
Part III/Cuba
Tab E:
Part III/Dominican Republic
Tab F:
Part III/Chile
Tab G:
Part III/Congo
Tab H: Part III/South Vietnam
Tab I: Part IV: Findings and Conclusions
Tab J:
Part V:
Recommendations
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PROLOGUE
Agreed to by Subcommittee
October 8, 1975
The events discussed in this Interim Report must be viewed in
the context of United States policy and actions designed to counter
the threat of spreading Communism. Following the end of World
War II, many nations in eastern Europe and elsewhere fell under
Communist influence or control. The defeat of the Axis powers was
accompanied by the rapid disintegration of the Western colonial
empires. The Second World War no sooner ended than a new struggle
began. The Communist threat, emanating from what was then called
the "Sino-Soviet bloc," produced a policy of containment intended
to prevent further encroachment by Communism into the "free world."
United States strategy for conducting the Cold War called for
the establishment of interlocking treaty arrangements and military.
bases throughout the world. Our concern over the expansion of an
aggressive Communist monolith led the United States to fight two
major wars in Asia. In addition, it was considered necessary to
wage a relentless cold war against Communist expansion wherever
it appeared in the "back alleys of the world." This called for a
full range of clandestine activities in response to the operations
of Communist clandestine services.
The fear of expanding Communism was particularly acute when
Fidel Castro emerged as the leader of Cuba in the late 1950's.
His takeover was seen as the first significant penetration by the
Communists into the Western Hemisphere. U.S. leaders, including
Any
ret
these?
DocId: 32423539 Page 4
1-2-
most Members of Congress, called for vigorous action to stem the
Communist infection in this hemisphere. These policies rested on
widespread popular support and encouragement.
Throughout this period, the U.S. felt impelled to respond to
threats which were, or seemed to be, skirmishes in a global Cold
War against Communism. Castro's Cuba raised the spectre of a Soviet
Coutpost at America's doorstep. Events in the Dominican Republic
appeared to offer more such opportunities for the Russians and their
allies. The Congo, freed from Belgian rule, occupied the strategic
center of the African continent, and the prospect of Communist pene-
tration there was viewed as a threat to American interests in emerging
Africa. Americans are well aware of the powerful reactions set off
in the United States in the 1960's by the domino theory in Indochina.
And, even the election in 1970 of a Marxist president in Chile was
seen by some as a threat similar to that of Castro's takeover in Cuba.
The Committee regards the unfortunate events dealt with in this
Interim Report as an aberration, explainable at least in part, but.
not justified, by the pressure of events at the time. The Committee
believes that it is still in the national interest of the United
:
States to do what it can to: Che:Helle:CE: Endations resist Communist domination,
but it is clear that this cannot justify in the future the kind of
abuses covered in this report. Indeed, the Committee has resolved
that steps must be taken to prevent them from happening again.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 5
do what they
LA FOR SELF-
DETERMINATION
TOP SEGNE
Agreed to by Drafting Subcommittee
on August 27, 1975*
1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
This interim report covers allegations of United States involve-
ment in assassination plots against foreign political leaders.
Of equal
significance in this report are certain other cases where foreign political
leaders in fact were killed, where the United States was in some manner
involved in activity leading up to the killing, but where it would be
incorrect to say that the purpose of United States involvement had been
to encourage assassination.
The evidence establishes that the United States was implicated in
several assassination plots. The Committee believes that the use of assassi-
nation as a tool of foreign policy is incompatible with American principles,
international order, and morality. It should be rejected.
Our inquiry also revealed serious problems with respect to United
States involvement in coups directed against foreign governments. Some of
these problems are addressed here on the basis of our investigation to date;
others we raise as questions to be answered after our investigation into
covert action has been completed.
1
We stress the interim nature of this report. In the course of
the Committee's continuing work, other alleged assassination plots may
surface, and new evidence concerning the cases covered herein may come to
light. However, it is the Committee's view that the cases covered herein
have been developed in sufficient detail to clarify the issues which are
at the heart of the Committee's mandate to recommend legislative and other
reforms relating to the vital matters discussed below.
*The Vice Chairman reserved as to the first sentence in the discussion
of the similarities and differences among the plots. (See p.
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In depth treatment of the assassination question has lengthened
the Committee's schedule but has greatly increased the Committee's awareness
of the hard issues it must face in the months ahead. The Committee intends,
nevertheless, to complete, by February 1976, its main job of undertaking the
first comprehensive review of the intelligence community.
A.
The Committee's Mandate
Under Senate Resolution 21, the Committee was instructed to in-
vestigate the full range of governmental intelligence activities and the
extent, if any, to which such activities were "illegal, improper or un-
ethical". In addition to that very broad general mandate, the Committee
was required by the Senate to investigate, study and make recommendations
concerning various specific matters, several of which relate to the assassi-
nation issue.*
Although the Rockefeller Commission conducted an inquiry into
reported assassination plots, the Commission declared it was unable, for
a variety of reasons, to complete its inquiry. At the direction of the Presi-
dent, the Executive Branch turned over to the Select Committee the work
the Commission had done, along with other documents relating to assassina-
tions.
*For example, S. Res. 21 requires the Committee to study and investi-
gate the following:
the extent and necessity of
... abroad";
°
covert intelligence activities
"[the] nature and extent of executive branch oversight of all
United States intelligence activities";
"the need for improved, strengthened, or consolidated oversight
of United States intelligence activities by the Congress"; and
the need for new legislation.
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:
-3..
B.
Committee Decision To Make This Report Public
☐
་
This report raises important questions of national policy.
We
believe that the public is entitled to know what certain instrumentalities
Ef their Government have done.
Further, our recommendations can only be
Therefore, this interim report
..
judged in light of the factual record.
should be made public.
Because of, our faith in the democratic system, and the paramount
importance of strengthening the institutions of this country, the Committee
believes the truth about the assassination allegations should be told.
Democracy depends upon a well-informed electorate. Truth underlies both
justice and freedom.
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We reject any contention that the facts disclosed herein should be
kept secret because they are embarrassing to the United States. Despite
the possible injury to our national reputation, the Committee believes that
foreign peoples will, upon sober reflection, respect the United States more
for keeping faith with its democratic ideal than they will condemn us for
the misconduct itself.
The fact that portions of the story have already been publicly dis-
closed only accentuates the need for full disclosure.
Innuendo and mis-
leading partial disclosures are neither fair to the individuals involved,
nor a responsible way to lay the groundwork for informed public policy
judgments.
that IT
Cantull,
be done
C.
The Scope of the Committee's Investigation
The investigation of the assassination issue has been an unpleasant
duty, but one that the Select Committee had to meet. The Committee has
compiled a massive record in the months that the inquiry has been underway.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 8
The hearing record includes some
witnesses during
-4-
JOL
SEGRED
pages of sworn testimony from
hearing days as well as numerous staff interviews.
The documents which the Committee obtained included raw files from the
agencies and departments, from the White House, and from the Presidential
libraries of the Administrations of former Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy
Kennedy and Johnson.**
-
We obtained evidence of two general types: first, evidence
which related to the overall setting of events, the national policy of
the time, and descriptions of normal operating procedures including
channels of command and control; and second, evidence relating to specific
events.
A Senate Committee is not a court. It looks to the past, not to
determine guilt or innocence, but in order to make recommendations for the
!!
future. Therefore, where we found the evidence to be ambiguous--as we did
on some issues--we have set out both sides, in order that the evidence may
speak for itself.
Despite the number of witnesses and documents examined by the
Committee, there were the following shortcomings in the evidence available
to us:
** The names of the witnesses are set forth in Appendix A.
**The Committee served both general and specific document requests upon
the Executive Branch and the Administration represented to the Committee that
it did not know of any additional relevant documents, except, of course, for
the possibility that the "Nixon papers" (which the Committee is attempting
to obtain) may contain material relevant to the allegations relating to Chile.
TUP SOLARI
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 9
-5-
a.
Many of the events under consideration occurred as
long as fifteen years ago. With one exception, they
occurred during the administrations of Presidents now dead.
Other high officials, whose testimony might have
additional light upon the thorny issues of authorization
and control, are also dead. Moreover, with the passage
of time, the memories of those still alive have ditumed.
The Committee often faced the difficult task of dis-
tinguishing refreshed recollection from speculation.
In
many instances, witnesses were unable to testify from in-
dependent recollection and had to rely on documents con-
temporaneous with the events to refresh their recollections.
While informed speculation is of some assistance, it can
only be assigned limited weight in judging specific events.
Assassination is not a subject on which one would
expect many records or documents to be made or retained.
In fact, there were more relevant contemporaneous documents
then we had expected, and the CIA in 1967 made internal
study of the Castro, Trujillo and Diem assassination allega-
That study was quite useful, particularly in
suggesting leads for uncovering the story of the actual
tions.
assassination activity.
Unfortunately, some material
* Those studies were made at the direction of CIA Director Richard Helms
to provide him with information to respond to questions put to him by
President Johnson. The President's questions, as to Castro, were provoked
by a Drew Pearson newspaper column of March [6], 1967, which had alleged
CIA attempts on the life of Castro using the Mafia.
The President asked Helms at the same time to provide information
about Trujillo and Diem.
NW 50955
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TOP SUPPET
-6-;
relating to that investigation was destroyed upon its
completion.*
A final deficiency in the evidence stems from the
doctrine that CIA covert operations should be concealed
from the world and performed in such a way that if they
were discovered, the role of the United States could be
plausibly denied. As an extension of this doctrine of
"plausible deniability" communications between the Agency
and high Administration officials were often convoluted
and imprecise.**
The evidence contains sharp conflicts, Some of which relate to
basic facts. But the most important conflicts relate not so much to basic
facts as to differing perceptions and opinions based upon relatively undis-
puted facts.
With respect to both kinds of conflicts, the Committee has
attempted to set forth the evidence extensively so that it may speak for
itself. In the findings and conclusions section, we suggest resolutions
of some of the conflicts. Remembering that the Committee's main job is
to find lessons for the future, there are also occasions where we point
out that resolving conflicts in the evidence may be less important than
making certain that the system which produced the ambiguities is corrected.
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* This was done pursuant to the instructions of CIA Director Richard
Helms (Helms Ex. ; 6/13/75 Tr. __). In fairness to Director Helms it
should be added, however, that he was responsible for requesting the
preparation of the I.G. Reports and for preserving them.
** For a full discussion of this doctrine see pages
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 11
>
D.
.-7-
TOP SECRET
Summary of Findings and Conclusions
1. The Questions Presented
The Committee sought to answer four broad questions:
ASSASSINATION PLOTS. Did U.S. officials instigate,
attempt, aid and abet, or acquiesce in plots designed to
assassinate foreign leaders?
INVOLVEMENT IN OTHER KILLINGS. Did U.S. officials
assist foreign dissidents in a way which significantly con-
tributed to the killing of foreign leaders?
AUTHORIZATION. Where there was involvement by U.S.
officials in assassination plots or other killings, were such
activities ordered and if so, at what levels of our Government?
COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL. Even if not authorized,
were the assassination activities perceived to be within the
scope of agency authority, and was adequate control exercised
over its activities.
2. Summary of Findings and Conclusions on the Plots
The Seven Allegations. The Committee investigated alleged
U.S. involvement in assassination plots in five foreign countries.* * They
were:
Country
Cuba
Congo (Zaire)
* Insert Footnote on Sukarno and Duvalier.
** Insert re Raul and Che and Ngo Dinh Nhu.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 12
Individual
Involved**
Fidel Castro
Patrice Lumumba
Country
Dominican Republic
Chile
South Vietnam
In summary,
-8-
TOP SECRET
Individual Involved
Rafael Trujillo
General Rene Schneider
Ngo Dinh Diem
the evidence with respect to each allegation disclosed
the following.*
Fidel Castro (Cuba). United States Government personnel plotted
to kill Castro beginning in 1960. American underworld figures were used in
these plots as well as Cubans hostile to the Castro regime. One of the later
plots, which lasted until 1965, involved a Cuban dissident who was provided
encouragement and material support by the United States..
Patrice Lumumba (Congo/Zaire). In the Fall of 1960, two CIA
officials were asked by superiors to assassinate Lumumba. Poisons were
sent to the Congo and some exploratory steps were taken toward gaining
access to Lumumba. Subsequently, in early 1961, Lumumba was killed by
Congolese rivals. It does not appear from the evidence that the United
States was involved in the actual killing.
Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic). Trujillo was shot by
Commencing in 1960 and continuing
Dominican dissidents on May 31, 1961.
-CALLED
OFF
to the time of the assassination, the U.S. Government generally supported
these dissidents and some Government personnel were aware that they intended
to kill Trujillo. Three pistols and three carbines were furnished by
American officials, although a request for machine guns was later refused..
There was conflicting evidence whether the weapons were knowingly supplied
for use in the assassination and whether any were present at the scene.
* See Section III for a detailed treatment of the evidence.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 13
!
-9-
ce Chairman
wer reserved
ht to
ange to
clude con-
pot of Com-
General Rene Schneider (Chile). On October 25, 1970, General
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Schneider died of gunshot wounds inflicted while resisting a kidnap attempt
three days earlier. Schneider, as Commander in Chief of the Army and a
constitutionalist opposed to military coups, was considered an obstacle to
efforts to prevent Salvador Allende from assuming the office of President
of Chile. The United States Government supported, and sought to instigate,
a military coup to block Allende. U.S. officials supplied financial aid,
machine guns and other equipment to various military figures who opposed
Allende. There was conflicting evidence on whether the United States had
previously severed relations with the group_that kidnapped and killed
Schneider and on whether any of the equipment supplied was actually used
in the kidnapping.
coup.
Mạo Dinh Diem (South Vietnam).
Diem and his brother, Nhu, were
killed on November 2, 1963, in the course of a South Vietnamese Generals'
Although the United States Government supported the coup, there was
no evidence that American officials favored the assassination.
Indeed, it
appeared that the assassination of Diem was not part of the Generals' pre-
coup planning but was instead a spontaneous act which occurred during the
coup and with which there was no American connection.
In addition to these five cases the Committee received evidence
that ranking government officials discussed, and may have authorized, the
establishment within the CIA of a generalized capability to assassinate.
Similarities and Differences Among the Plots. The plots all
involved Third World countries, most of which were relatively small and
none of which possessed great political or military strength.
Apart from
The
mist sphere that similarity, there were significant differences among the plots.
Luence
thin
stern Hemi-
here.
following distinctions are pertinent:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 14
-10-
2
were
(1) Whether United States officials initiated the plot or
responding to requests of local dissidents for aid.
(2) Whether the plot was specifically intended to kill a
foreign leader, or whether the leader's death was a reasonably
foreseeable consequence of an attempt to overthrow the govern-
ment.
The Castro case is an example of a plot conceived by United States
officials to kill a foreign leader. The Lumumba plot falls into the same
category.
In the case of Trujillo, although the U. S. Government certainly
opposed his regime, it did not initiate the plot. Rather, United States
officials responded to requests for aid from local dissidents whose ain
clearly was to assassinate Trujillo. By aiding them this country was in-
plicated, whether the specific weaponry actually supplied was meant to kill
Trujillo or was only intended as a symbol of U.S. support for the dissidents.
The Schneider case is different from that of both Castro and Tru-
jillo. The United States Government sought a coup and provided support to
local dissidents, knowing they believed that General Schneider was an obstacle
to their plans. However, even though the support included deadly weapons,
it appears that the intention of both the dissidents and the United States
officials was to abduct, not to kill, General Schneider.
Similarly, in
the Diem case, United States officials did want a change in Government, but
there is no evidence that the United States sought the death of Diem himself.
3. Summary of Findings and Conclusions on the Issues of Authority
and Control.
To put the inquiry into assassination allegations in context, two
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 15
-11-
points must be made clear. First, there is no doubt that the United States
Government opposed the various leaders in question. U.S. officials
at the highest levels objected to the Castro and Trujillo regimes, believed
the accession of Allende to power in Chile would be harmful to American in-
terests, and thought of Lumumba as a dangerous force in the heart of Africa.
Second, the evidence on assassinations has to be viewed in the context of other,
more massive activities directed against the regimes in question. For
example, the plots directed against Fidel Castro personally, cannot be under-
stood without considering the fully authorized, comprehensive, assaults upon
his regine, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and Operation Mongoose in
1962.
However, the issue of Governmental authorization of assassination
is of independent importance. There is a significant difference between a
coldblooded, targeted, intentional killing of an individual foreign leader and
other forms of intervention in the affairs of foreign nations.
Therefore,
the Committee endeavored to explore as fully as possible the question of
how and why the plots happened, whether they were authorized, and if so,
what level the authorization came..
from
We discovered a murky picture. It is not clear whether this is
due to the system of deniability and the consequent state of the evidence
which even after our long investigation remains conflicting and inconclusive,
or whether there were in fact serious shortcomings in the system of authori-
zation so that activities such as assassinations could have been undertaken by
an agency of the United States Government without express authority.
what
リ
1)
IT
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TOP SECRET
Based upon
the record of our investigation, the Committee's
single most important finding is that the system was such that assassina-
tion activity could have been undertaken by an agency of the United State's
Government without it having been uncontrovertibly clear that there was
explicit authorization from the highest level.
The third
AUTHORIZED
Along with that paramount conclusion, the Committee makes four other
major findings.* The first relates to the lack of direct evidence of authori-
zation of the assassination plots by Presidents or other persons above the
Governmental agency or agencies involved. The second explains why certain
officials may have, nonetheless, perceived that, according to their judgment
and experience, assassination was an acceptable course of action.
criticizes agency officials for failing on several occasions to reveal their
plans and activities to superior authorities, or for failing to do so with
sufficient detail and clarity. The fourth criticizes Administration officials
for, on occasion, giving vague and indirect instructions to subordinates, and
for not making sufficiently clear that assassination should be excluded from
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There is admittedly a tension within the four findings. The first
and third points tend to suggest a lack of authority while the second and
fourth points explain why agency officials could nonetheless have perceived
that their actions were proper. This tension reflects a basic conflict in the
evidence. While there are some conflicts over facts, it is more important
that there may often have been two differing perceptions of the same facts.
This distinction may be the result of the differing backgrounds and ex-
perience of those persons experienced in covert operations as distinquished
* The Committee's findings are elaborated in Section
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infra.
"
-13-
TOP SECRET
from those who were not. Words of urgency which to the former may have meant
killing, to the latter may have meant nothing of the sort.
While we are critical of certain individual actions, the Committee
is mindful of the inherent problems in a system which relies upon secrecy,
compartmentation, circumlocution, and the avoidance of clear responsibility.
This sytem creates the risk of confusion and rashness in the very areas where
clarity and sober judgment are most necessary. Hence, before turning to an
extensive review of the evidence relating to the cases, we briefly deal with
0
the general subject of covert action during the relevant period.
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II.
Agreed to by Drafting Subcommittee
August 28, 1975
COVERT ACTION AS VEHICLE FOR FOREIGN POLICY IMPLEMENTATION
Simply stated, covert action may be defined as activity which sup-
ports the sponsoring nation's foreign policy objectives but is concealed
under circumstances permitting that nation to plausibly deny its actions.
The National Security Act of 1947 did not specifically include
authority for covert operations. However, it granted to the National
Security Council, then created as an instrument of the President, the
authority to direct the CIA to "perform such other functions and duties
related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National
Security Council may from time to time direct.' Thereafter, at its
"
first meeting in December 1947, the National Security Council issued
a top secret directive granting the CIA the authority to conduct covert
operations. From 1955 to 1970, the basic authority for these operations
was National Security Council 5412/2.*
This directive framed the purposes of covert operations entirely
in terms of opposition to "International Communism,"** directing the CIA
to counter, reduce and discredit "International Communism" throughout the
world in a manner consistent with U. S. foreign and military policies.
It also directed the CIA to undertake covert operations to achieve this
end, and defined covert operations as any covert activities related to
* Today the basic authority for CIA covert action operations is National
Security Decision Memorandum 40, which superceded NSC 5412/2 on Feb-
ruary 17, 1970.
**
By contrast, NSAM 40 of 1970 described covert actions as those secret
activities designed to further official U. S. programs and policies.
abroad. It made no reference to communism.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 19
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propaganda, economic warfare, political action (including sabotage,
demolition and assistance to resistance movements) and all activities
compatible with the directive (emphasis supplied). In 1962, the CIA's
General Counsel rendered the opinion that the Agency's activities are
"not inhibited by any limitations other than those broadly set forth
in NSC 5412/2." (CIA General Counsel Memorandum 4/6/62)
POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND APPROVAL MECHANISM
The evidence dealt with in Part III is concerned with what actually
happened as far as obtaining, or not obtaining, authorization for the ac-
tivities under review by the Committee. With respect to what was meant
to happen in regard to covert action generally, the CIA's General Counsel
stated in 1962:
CIA must necessarily be responsible for planning. Oc-
casionally suggestions for action will come from out-
side sources but, to depend entirely on such require-
ments would be an evasion of the Agency's responsibili-
ties. Also, the average person, both in government and
outside, is thinking along normal lines and to develop
clandestine cold war activities properly, persons know-
ing both the capabilities and limitations of clandestine
action must be studying and devising how such actions
can be undertaken effectively.
With respect to policy approval, the General Counsel went on to say:
Both in developing ideas or plans for action it is in-
cumbent upon the Agency to obtain necessary policy ap-
proval, and for this purpose these matters should be
explored with proper officials in other departments
and agencies, particularly in the Departments of State
and Defense, so the determination can be made as to
whether any one proposal should go to the Special Group
or higher for policy determination.
The General Counsel's 1962 memorandum made it clear that the CIA
considered itself responsible for developing proposals and plans to
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 20
1

|
TOP SECRET
implement the specific objectives of NSC 5412/2 At the same time, how-
ever, the memorandum stated that even in the development of ideas or plans
for action, it was incumbent upon the Agency not only to coordinate with
other executive departments and agencies, but also to "obtain necessary
policy approval" (emphasis added). The issue which faced the Committee,
of course, was whether such approval was, in fact, sought and obtained
for assassination plans, and whether CIA officials thought it was "neces-
sary" to obtain express approval for these activities.
Beginning in 1955, the responsibility for authorizing CIA covert
action operations rested in the Special Group, a sub-Cabinet level sub-
committee of the National Security Council composed of the President's
Assistant for National Security Affairs, the Director of Central In-
telligence, the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of
State for Political Affairs. Today this group is known as the 40 Com-
mittee, and its membership now includes the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staffs. In addition, during 1962 another subcommittee of the NSC was
established to oversee covert operations relating to Cuba. It was known
as the Special Group (Augmented) and was composed of the members of the
Special Group, the Attorney General and certain other high officials..
The overriding purpose of the Special Group and its successors
has been to exercise control over covert operations abroad. The Special
Group was charged with the responsibility of considering the objectives
of any proposed activity, whether or not it would accomplish these aims.
how likely it would be to succeed, and in general whether or not it would
be "proper" and in the American interest. The Special Group Chairman
usually was responsible for determining which projects required Presi-
dential consideration, as well as keeping him abreast of progress or changes.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 21
TOP SECRET
In
Neverthe-
The foregoing should not be taken to imply that the procedures
always have been clear and tidy, nor that they have always been fol-
lowed. Prior to 1955, formal procedures barely existed at all.
1955 the Special Group procedures were made more formal.
less, the procedures that were followed during the period of 1959-63
were characterized by an internal CIA memorandum as "somewhat cloudy
and thus can probably be described as having been based on value judg-
ments by the DCI." (Memorandum for the Record, C/CA/PEG, "Policy Co-
ordination of CIA's Covert Action Operations," 21 February 1967)
In addition to the "somewhat cloudy" nature of the formal pro-
cedures themselves, there are other options available to any Chief Ex-
ecutive. The Committee recognizes that an agency charter to plan cov-
ert action could not preempt Presidential authority to develop and
mandate foreign policy. Similarly, it is equally clear that what may
be represented as the "desire" of a President is often communicated by
intermediary officials whose perceptions may or may not accurately
reflect the true Presidential purpose. Obviously, formal procedures
can be disregarded from above or below. In at least one case, for
example, a President instructed CIA officials not to consult with the
Special Group or other departments. In at least one other case, Agency
officials decided not to bring matters to the attention of the Special
Group. It should also be noted that all of the above procedures apply
to activities labeled "covert action" whereas some of the activities
considered in this report were treated as "counter-intelligence" actions.
Such actions are not normally subject to 40 Committee-type interdepart-
mental authorization and review.
1
what
NW 50955
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The Concept of "Plausible Deniability"
TOP SECRET
Non-attribution for U. S. Government covert operations was the
original and principal purpose of the so-called doctrine of plausible
denial.
Evidence before the Committee clearly demonstrates that this con-
cept, designed to protect the U. S. and its operatives from the conse-
quences of disclosures, has been significantly expanded to: (1) mask
not only Presidential decisions but those of his senior staffers; (2)
support less than complete advice to such persons regarding these op-
erations.
The quest for "plausible denial" has shaped the processes of the
U. S. Government for approving and evaluating covert actions. The 40
Committee and its predecessors can serve as "circuit breakers" for a
President, placing the locus of consideration of covert action at sev-
eral removes from the Oval office. One consequence of the doctrine of
plausible denial is an incomplete documentary record.
The quest for "plausible denial" has also led to the use of cer-
tain techniques, including euphemism and circumlocution.
These tech-
Віт more
HISTORICAL
niques have had as their purpose the objective of allowing the Presi-
dent and other senior officials to deny knowledge of an operation should
it be disclosed. In addition, the use of indirect reference to inform
a President could be reversed- a President could communicate his desire
to see a highly sensitive operation undertaken in a similar indirect,
circumlocutious manner.
ONG WAY on
Whether, at times circumlocution had the affect
of failing to let Presidents or other officials accurately understand
what was being said, was a question faced by the Committee.
FER
NEM
testimony
Cité:
the other
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 23
|
TOP SECRET
"Plausible deniability" raises a number of other issues which the
Committee has had to confront. Differing interpretations of the practice
of plausible denial has affected the extent to which sensitive matters
were raised or considered. The evidence discussed below revealed that
very serious problems of assessing and insuring accountability and con-
trol can arise out of plausible deniability.
!
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 24
1
B.
Cuba
on August 29, 1975
TOP SECRET
We have divided the facts with respect to Cuba into three
broad sections.
The first discusses the plots against Fidel Castro's life
without attempting to confront the question of authorization.
The second deals with the evidence concerning whether or not
the successive Directors of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles and John
McCone, authorized or knew about the various plots. (Although we have
organizationally divided the evidence relating to the DCI's from the
proof relating to other high administration officials, it is important
to remember that the Director of Central Intelligence is the principal
advisor to the President on intelligence matters, a member of major
administrative policy-making councils as well as head of the Central
Intelligence Agency.)
The third section covers the evidence concerning whether or
not other high officials--including the various Presidents--authorized
or knew about the plots. This section also considers the evidence relating
to whether or not the CIA officials who were involved with the plots believed
them to be consistent with the general policy objectives of the various
administrations even if they had no personal knowledge as to whether the
plots were or were not specifically authorized by higher authority.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 25
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~
1.
The Assassination Plots Themselves
We have found concrete evidence of at least eight
plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro from 1960
to 1965. Although some of the assassination plots did not
advance beyond the stage of planning and preparation, one plot
involving the use of underworld figures reportedly twice pro-
gressed to the point of sending poison pills to Cuba and
dispatching teams to commit the deed. Another plot involved
furnishing weapons and other assassination devices to a Cuban
dissident. The assassination proposals ran the gamut from
high-powered rifles to poison pills, poison pens; deadly
bacterial powders, and other devices which would strain the
imagination.
The most ironic of these plots took place on
November 22, 1963--the very day that President Kennedy was
shot in Dallas--when a CIA official in Paris offered a poison
pen to a Cuban for use against Castro while at the same time
an emissary from President Kennedy was meeting with Castro to
explore the possibility of improved relations.
The following narrative sets forth the facts of
assassination plots against Castro as established before the
Committee by witnesses and documentary evidence. The question
of the level and degree of authorization of the plots is
considered in the sections that follow.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 26
(a)
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Plots: Early 1960
(1) Plots to Destroy Castro's Public Image
Efforts against Castro did not begin with
assassination attempts.
From March through August 1960, during the
last year of the Eisenhower Administration, the CIA considered
plans to undermine Castro's charismatic appeal by sabotaging his
According to the Inspector General's Report, an
speeches.
official in the Technical Services Division (TSD) recalled dis-
cussing a scheme to spray Castro's broadcasting studio with a
chemical which produced effects similar to LSD, but rejected the
scheme because the chemical was not reliable. During this period,
TSD impregnated a box of cigars with a chemical which produced
temporary disorientation, hoping to induce. Castro to smoke one
of the cigars before delivering a speech. The Inspector General
also reported a plan to destroy Castro's image as "The Beard" by
dusting his shoes with thallium salts, a strong depilatory that
would cause his beard to fall out. The chemical was to be adminis-
tered during a trip outside of Cuba, in which it was anticipated
Castro would leave his shoes outside the door of his hotel room
to be shined. TSD procured the chemical and tested it on animals,
but apparently abandoned the scheme because Castro cancelled his
trip. (I.G., pp. 10-13.)
(2) Proposal to Sabotage Flight
The first proposed action against the life of
a Cuban leader sponsored by the CIA of which the Committee is
:
aware took place in July 1960.
On July 18, 1960, a Cuban airline
NW 50955
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3
Гоё
D₁
TOP SECRET
pilot who had volunteered to assist the CIA in gathering intelli-
gence informed his case officer in Havana that he would probably
be chosen to fly to Prague on July 21 to return Raul Castro to
Cuba (Memo to I.G., 1/17/75). On July 20 the pilot confirmed that
he would definitely fly the plane. CIA Headquarters and field
stations along the route were requested to inform the Havana Station
The case
of any intelligence needs that the pilot might fulfill.
officer testified that he and the pilot contemplated only acquiring
information about Czechoslovakia and Raul Castro, and that assas-
sination was not considered. *
The cable from the Havana Station was received at Head-
Division. **
quarters on the night of July 20. The duty officer, who was summoned
to Headquarters from his home, contacted Tracy Barnes, Deputy to
DDP Richard Bissell, and J.C. King, Chief of the Western Hemisphere
Following their instructions, he sent a cable to the
Havana Station early in the morning of July 21, stating: "Possible
removal top three leaders is receiving serious consideration at
HQS." The cable inquired whether the pilot was sufficiently
motivated to risk "arranging an accident during return trip" and
* A cable to Headquarters requesting any intelligence needs
supports this account.
**The duty officer testified that he must have spoken with King
because he would not otherwise have signed the cable "by direction,
J.S. King". (Duty Officer, p. 16) He also would "very definitely"
have read the cable to Barnes before sending it, because "Barnes
was the man to whom we went
for our authority and for work
connected with the Cuban Project." (Duty Officer, pp. 4, 25) Since
King at that time was giving only "nominal attention" to Cuban
affairs, the officer concluded that a proposal of the gravity of an
assassination could only have "come from Mr. Barnes". (Duty Officer,
p. 24)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 28
4
TOP SECRET
advised that the station could "at discretion contact subject to
determine willingness to cooperate and his suggestions on details".
Ten thousand dollars was authorized as payment "after successful
completion", but no advance payment was permitted because of the
possibility that the pilot was a double agent. According to the
case officer, this cable represented "quite a departure from the
conventional activities we'd been asked to handle". (Case Officer
interview, 8/4/75, p. 2)*
The
5
The case officer contacted the pilot and told him of the
proposal while accompanying him to the airport for the flight.
case officer avoided the word "assassinate", but made it clear that
the CIA contemplated an "accident to neutralize this leader's
(Raul's) influence". (Case Officer interview, p. 2) After being
assured that his sons would be given a college education in the
event of his death, the pilot agreed to take a "calculated risk",
limited to possibilities that might pass as accidental.** (Cable,
Havana to Director, 7/22/70)
Immediately after returning to the station the case
officer was told that a cable had just arrived stating:
"Do not
* The duty officer remembered the cable and some of the surround-
ing facts for precisely that reason: "[I]t was an unusual type of
[cable], and I say this because I can remember it 15 years later."
(Duty Officer, p. 14) The case officer recalled that when he saw
the cable, he 'swallowed hard". (Case Officer interview, p. 3)
"
** The cable from Havana to Headquarters stated that the pilot
was willing to risk: "A. Engine burnout on takeoff to delay or
harrass trip: B. Vague possibility water ditching approximately
three hours out from Cuba."
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 29
pursue ref.
TOP SECRET
Would like to drop matter." (Cable, Director to
Havana, 7/22/60%3B Memo to I.G., 1/17/75)*
It was,
of course, too
late to "drop the matter" since the plane had already departed.
When the Cuban pilot returned, he told the case officer that he
had not had an opportunity to arrange an accident.
(3) Poison Cigars
A notation in the records of the Chief,
Operations Div., Office of Medical Services indicates that on
August 16, 1960, he was given a box of Castro's favorite cigars
with instructions to treat them with a lethal poison (I.G., p.
.
21). The cigars were contaminated with a botulinum toxin so
potent that a person would die after putting one in his mouth
(I.G., p. 22). The Chief reported that the cigars were ready on
October 7, 1960; TSD notes indicate that they were delivered to
an unidentified person on February 13, 1961 (I.G., p. 22). The
record does not disclose whether an attempt was made to pass the
cigars to Castro.
(b) Use of Underworld Figures--Phase I
(1) The Initial Plan
In August 1960, the CIA took steps to enlist
the aid of members of the criminal underworld with gambling
* This cable was signed by Tracy Barnes (Duty Officer, p. 28)
The duty officer recalled seeing this cable, and testified that he
had heard that Allen Dulles had countermanded the cable authorizing
the possible assassination attempt against Raul Castro. (Duty
Officer, pp. 29-30) The reasons for Dulles' action are discussed
infra at
NW 50955
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6

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syndicate contacts to assassinate Castro. The earliest evidence
of the operation is a conversation between Deputy Director of
Plans (DDP) Richard Bissell and Colonel Sheffield Edwards, Chief
of the Office of Security. Edwards recalled that Bissell asked
pp. 2-3).
him to locate someone who could assassinate Castro (Edwards,
Bissell confirmed that he requested Edwards to find
someone to assassinate Castro, and believed that Edwards raised
the idea of contacting members of a gambling syndicate operating
in Cuba* (Bissell, 6/9, pp. 71-73). Edwards assigned the mission
to James P. O'Connell, Chief of the Operational Support Division
of the CIA's Office of Security, explaining that he and Bissell
were looking for someone to "eliminate" or "assassinate" Castro
(O'Connell, pp. 6-8, 95-96).
Edwards and O'Connell decided to rely on Robert A.
Maheu to recruit someone "tough enough" to handle the job
(O'Connell, p. 8). Maheu was an ex-FBI agent who had entered into
a career as a private investigator in 1954. Robert Cunningham,
a former FBI associate of Maheu's who was employed in the CIA's
Office of Security, had arranged for the CIA to use Maheu in
* Although Castro closed the gambling casinos in Cuba when
he first came to power, they were reopened for use by foreign
tourists in late February 1959, and remained open until late
September 1961.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 31
7
TOP SECRET
several sensitive covert operations in which "he didn't want to
00
have an Agency person or a government person get caught"* (O'Connell,
p. 158). Maheu was initially paid a monthly retainer by the CIA
of $500, which was terminated after his practice became more.
lucrative (O'Connell, pp. 13-14; I.G., p. 15). O'Connell had
served as Maheu's case officer since the Agency first began using
Maheu's services, and by 1960 they had become close personal
friends (Maheu, p. 6).
Sometime in late August or early September 1960,
O'Connell approached Maheu about the proposed operation (O'Connell,
p. 9%; Maheu, 7/29, p. 6). As Maheu recalls the conversation,
O'Connell asked him to contact John Roselli, an underworld figure
with possible gambling contacts in Las Vegas, to determine if he
* During 1954-1955, Maheu cooperated with the CIA in attempting
to undermine Aristotle Onassis' contract with the Saudi Arabian
government that would have given Onassis virtually complete control
over shipping of oil from Saudi Arabia. Although he was employed
by Onassis' competitor, Niarchos, Maheu worked closely with the
CIA. He testified that he contracted for a listening device to be
placed on Onassis' room in New York after first consulting with the
Agency, and that he provided the impetus for the termination of the
contract by publicizing its terms in a newspaper in Rome that he
said he purchased with CIA funds. (Maheu, 7/30/75, pp. 14-25.)-
O'Connell testified that Maheu, at the CIA's request had also
previously arranged for the production of a film in Hollywood
depicting a foreign leader with a woman in the Soviet Union. The
CIA planned to circulate the film, representing it to have been pro-
duced, but not released (O'Connell, pp. 159, 162-163). Maheu testi-
fied that he had located an actor resembling the leader and had
arranged for the production of the film (Maheu, 7/30/75, pp. 39-42).
Nec
other
exic
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 32
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9
would participate in a plan to "dispose" of Castro* (Maheu, 7/29,
p. 8).
Maheu had known Roselli since the late 1950's (Maheu, 7/29,
pp. 58-60). Although Maheu claims not to have been aware of the
extent of Roselli's underworld connections and activities, he
recalled that
"it was certainly evident to me that he was able to
accomplish things in Las Vegas when nobody else seemed
to get the same kind of attention" (Maheu, 7/29, p. 60).
O'Connell had previously met Roselli at Maheu's home (Maheu, 7/29,
p. 8). O'Connell and Maheu each claimed that the other had raised
the idea of using Roselli, and Maheu said O'Connell was aware that
Roselli had contacts with the gambling syndicate (Maheu, 7/29,
p. 8; O'Connell, pp. 15-16).
did O'connell TESTIFY
Maheu was at first reluctant to become involved
1
in the operation because it might interfere with his relationship
with his new client, Howard Hughes. He finally agreed because he
felt that he owed the Agency a commitment (O'Connell, pp. 12-13,
103). O'Connell recalled that Maheu was to approach Roselli
using a cover story that he represented business firms suffering
heavy financial losses caused by Castro's actions** (O'Connell,
p. 16).
O'Connell testified that Maheu was told to offer money,
* Maheu testified that he was told that the plan to assassinate
Castro was one phase of a larger project to invade Cuba (Maheu,
pp. 7, 13, 47).
** Roselli testified that the story was developed later and
used as a mutual "cover" by O'Connell, Maheu, and Roselli in
dealing with Cubans recruited for the project (Roselli, pp. 16-17).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
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probably $150,000, for Castro's assassination* (O'Connell, pp. 16,
111; Memorandum, Osborn to DCI, 6/24/66)...
(2) Contact With The Syndicate
In early September 1960, Maheu met Roselli
at the Brown Derby in Beverly Hills, told him that "high govern-
ment officials" needed his cooperation in getting rid of Castro,
and asked him to help recurit Cubans to do the job (Roselli, p. 8).
Maheu recalled that Roselli was at first reluctant to participate
in the project and insisted on meeting with a representative of
the government (Maheu, 7/29, pp. 10-11; Roselli, p. 9). A meeting
with O'Connell was arranged in New York City at the Plaza Hotel
during the week of September 14, 1960 (Roselli, pp. 10-11; I.G.,
p. 16).
O'Connell testified that he was introduced to Roselli
as a business associate of Maheu, and that Maheu told Roselli
that he represented international business interests which were
pooling money to pay for the assassination of Castro (O'Connell,
p. 26).
Roselli claimed that Maheu told him at that time that
O'Connell was with the CIA** (Roselli, pp. 11, 85).
* The I.G. Report places the amount at $150,000%; 0'Connell
thought it might have been $100,000 (O'Connell, p. 16), Roselli
recalled $250,000 (Roselli, p. 25) and Edwards confirmed the
$150,000 figure (Edwards, p. 9).. Maheu could recall no "price
tag" for Castro's assassination (Maheu, p. 34).
** The weight of the testimony indicates that Roselli realized
the CIA was behind the assassination attempt at an early stage.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 34
10
TOP SEC
It was arranged that Roselli would go to
Florida and recruit Cubans for the operation (Roselli, pp. 11-12).
Edwards informed Bissell that contact had been made with the
gambling syndicate (Bissell, 6/9, pp. 20-21; I.G.,
p. 17).
During the week of September 24, 1960,
O'Connell, Mahéu, and Roselli met in Miami to work out the
details of the operation (O'Connell, pp. 25-26; Roselli, p. 12;
I.G., p. 18). Roselli used the cover name of "John Rawlston"
and represented himself to the Cuban contacts as an agent of
"some business interests of Wall Street that had
nickel interests and properties around in Cuba, and I
was getting financial assistance from them" (Roselli,
pp. 9, 17).
Maheu handled the details of setting up
the operation and keeping O'Connell informed of developments.
After they had been in Miami for a short time, and certainly
prior to October 18,* Roselli introduced Maheu to two indivi-
11
businoss
NEC
Maheu substantially confirmed his account (Maheu, .p. 111).
O'Connell recalled that about three weeks after the New York
meeting, Roselli told him, "I am not kidding, I know who you
work for."! (O'Connell, p. 26.)
* Maheu recalls that he first met "Sam Gold" (Giancana)
after November , 1960, when he was staying at the Fountainbleu
Hotel (Maheu, p. 17). Other evidence indicates that the meet-
ing took place earlier. When they first went to Miami, Maheu
and Roselli stayed at the Kennilworth Hotel (Maheu, pp. 15-16);
FBI records reveal that Maheu and Roselli (alias J. A. Rollins)
were registered at the Kennilworth from October 11-30 (File
R-505, FBI summary, p. 10). Giancana must have been involved
in the operation during the October period at the Kennilworth
because (1) the wiretap of Rowan's apartment, discussed infra,
was made on October 30%; (2) on October 18, the FBI sent a memorandum to
Bissell stating that Giancana had been telling several people that he was
involved in an assassination attempt against Castro (see infra, p.
).
NW 50955
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duals on whom he intended to rely: "Sam Gold", who would
serve as a "back-up man" (Roselli, p. 15), or ("Key" man
(Maheu, p. 17), and "Joe", whom "Gold" said would serve as
a courier to Cuba and make arrangements there (I.G., p. 19).
O'Connell, who was using the name "Jim Olds", met "Sam" and
"Joe" only briefly (O'Connell, pp. 26-29).
O'Connell testified that he learned the true
identities of his associates one morning when Maheu called and
asked him to examine the "Parade" supplement to the Miami
Times.*
An article on the Attorney General's ten-most-wanted
criminals list revealed that "Sam Gold" was Mom Salvatore Giancana,
a Chicago-based gangster,** and "Joe" was Santos Trafficante,
the Cosa Nostra chieftain in Cuba (O'Connell, pp. 28-30);
I.G., p. 19). O'Connell reported his discovery to Edwards
(O'Connell, pp. 31, 33) but did not know whether Edwards
reported this fact to his superiors (O'Connell, pp. 32, 41).
O'Connell testified that this incident occurred after "we
were in this thing up to our ears", a month or so after
* A search of supplements to all Miami papers during this
period did not reveal the article described by O'Connell.
** Sam Giancana was murdered in his home on June 20, 1975.
+ Trafficante made regular trips between Miami and Cuba on
gambling syndicate business (I.G., pp. 19-20).
NW 50955
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12
TOP SECR
Giancana had been brought into the operation, but prior to
giving the poison pills to Roselli (O'Connell, pp. 30, 44). Cuyp.
Maheu recalled that it was Giancana's job
to locate someone in Castro's entourage who could accomplish
the assassination (Maheu, p. 19), and that he met almost
daily with Giancana over a substantial period of time (Maheu,
p. 18). Although Maheu described Giancana as playing a "key
role" (Maheu, p. 34), Roselli claimed that none of the Cubans
eventually used in the operation were acquired through
Giancana's contacts (Roselli, p. 15).
(3)
Rowan Wiretap Incident
In late October 1960, Maheu arranged for
a Florida investigator, Edward DuBois, to place an electronic
"bug" in comedian Dan Rowan's room in Las Vegas (Maheu, p. 36).
DuBois' employee, Arthur J. Balletti, flew to Las Vegas and
installed a tap on Rowan's phone (Maheu, p. 38). O'Connell
characterized the ensuing events as a "Keystone comedy act"
(O'Connell, p. 68). On October 31, 1960, Balletti, believing
that Rowan would be out for the afternoon, left the wiretap
equipment unattended. A maid discovered the equipment and
notified the local sheriff, who arrested Balletti and brought
Not
13
tic
really
Introducon
* According to O'Connell and Roselli, DuBois had been
requested to place a legal electronic bug against the wall
from an adjacent apartment. Balletti instead installed an
electronic tap on the phone (O'Connell, pp. 67-68; Maheu,
pp. 36-37).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 37
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14
him to the jail. Balletti called Maheu in Miami, tying "Maheu into this
thing up to his ear" (O'Connell, pp. 71-72; File R-505, FBI memorandum).
Balletti's bail was paid by Roselli (Roselli, p. 52).
(i) Evidence Concerning CIA involvement in the Tap. The
Committee received conflicting evidence on whether the agency was consulted
*
prior to the installation of the tap. O'Connell testified that he
had called Edwards and cleared the placement of an electronic "bug" in
Rowan's apartment prior to the installation of the tap (O'Connell,
pp. 67-71).
Maheu recalled that he had initially asked O'Connell if
the CIA would handle the job, and that O'Connell had told him that
"he would call Mr. Edwards and see if they would have the
capability of accomplishing this,
and that subsequently
he informed me that Mr. Edwards had said that they would not
do it, but approved paying for it if we hired an independent
private detective to put it on." (Maheu, 7/29, p. 37).
On the other hand, Edwards, in a May 14, 1962 memorandum for the
Attorney General (discussed at length, infra, p.
*
), stated that
"At the time of the incident neither the Agency nor
the undersigned knew of the proposed technical installation.'
**
"
Regardless of whether the CIA initially authorized the tap, it is apparent
that the CIA paid for the tap. DuBois told FBI agents that Maheu had
paid him a retainer of $1,000 (File R-505, p. 14). O'Connell confirmed
that CIA "indirectly" paid for the tap because "we paid Maheu a certain
amount of money, and he just paid it out of what we were giving him."
dorectly
**
A:
"Q: But it was understood, or you understood, that out of the money
the CIA made available to Maheu, Dubois would be paid for the tap?
Yes.
* * *
Q:
And Colonel Edwards. knew somebody was being employed
in order to accomplish a tap?
A:
That is right." (O'Connell, p. 69.)
A memorandum by J. Edgar Hoover states that the Attorney General said he had
been told by Edwards that the "CIA admitted that they had assisted Maheu
in making the installation" (Memo, Hoover, 4/10/62).'
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 38
15
The Inspector General's Report accepted Edwards' assertion that "the
Agency was first unwitting and then a reluctant accessory after the fact",
but offered no further evidence to support that contention (I.G., p. 67).
The Committee also received conflicting evidence concerning
whether the tap had been placed to keep Giancana in Miami or to check
on security leaks. O'Connell testified that during the early stages of
negotiations with the gambling syndicate, Maheu informed O'Connell that a
girl friend of Giancana was having an affair with Rowan. Giancana wanted
Maheu to bug Rowan's room%3B otherwise, Giancana threatened to fly to Las
Vegas himself. Maheu was concerned that Giancana's departure would
disrupt the negotiations, and secured O'Connell's permission to arrange
for a bug to ensure Giancana's continued presence and cooperation.
(O'Connell, pp. 68-67.) Maheu substantially confirmed this account
(Maheu, pp. 25-30).
There is some evidence suggesting that the CIA itself may have
instituted the tap to determine whether Giancana was leaking information
about his involvement in an assassination attempt against Castro.
Bissell was informed that Giancana had been talking about Giancana's
involvement in an assassination plot* ( without indicating the CIA was
*
* When Roselli talked with Giancana after the wiretap had been discovered,
Giancana "laughed. I remember his expression, smoking a cigar, he
almost swallowed it laughing about it" (Roselli, p. 52). Roselli
claims that he was "perturbed" because "It was blowing everything,
blowing every kind of cover that I had tried to arrange to keep quiet"
(Roselli, p. 52).
Roselli said that he told Giancana that the CIA was involved in the
operation "in order to have him keep his mouth shut" (Roselli, p. 27).
pretty
thir
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 39
U
16
involved) by an October 18, 1960 memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover, which
stated that "a source whose reliability has not been tested" reported:
"(D)uring recent conversations with several friends,
Giancana stated that Fidel Castro was to be done
away with very shortly. When doubt was expressed
regarding this statement, Giancana reportedly assured
those present that Castro's assassination would
occur in November. Moreover, he allegedly indicated
that he had already met with the assassin-to-be on
three occasions.
Giancana claimed that everything has
been perfected for the killing of Castro, and
that the 'assassin' had arranged with a girl, not further
described, to drop a 'pill' in some drink or
food of Castro's." (File R-505, memo from Hoover
to DCI (Att: DDP), 10/19/60.)
Roselli testified that Maheu had given him two explanations for the tap
on different occasions: first, that Giancana was concerned about a
possible affair between Rowan and his girl friend; and, second, that he
had arranged the tap to determine whether Giancana had told his girl
friend about the assassination plot, and whether she was spreading the
story (Roselli, pp. 47-48). Maheu gave the second explanation to the
FBI when he was questioned about his involvement in the tap (File
R-505, FBI Summary), and Edwards wrote in the memorandum to the
Attorney General:
"Maheu stated that Sam Giancana thought that (Giancana's
girl friend) might know of the proposed operation and
might pass on the information to one Dan Rowan, a friend
of (Giancana's girl friend)". (Memorandum, Edwards to
Kennedy, 5/14/62.)
(ii) Consequences of the tap. Edwards told Maheu that if he
was "approached by the FBI, he could refer them to me to be briefed
that he was engaged in an intelligence operation directed at Cuba"
(Memo, Edwards to Kennedy, 5/14/62). FBI records indicate that on April 18,
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 40

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1961, Maheu informed the FBI that the tap involved the CIA,
and suggested that Sheffield Edwards be contacted (File R-505,
Memo, 4/20/61). Edwards subsequently informed the Bureau
In a
that the CIA would object to Maheu's prosecution because it
might reveal sensitive information relating to the abortive
Bay of Pigs invasion* (R-505, Summary of FBI file).
memo dated April 24, 1962, Herbett J. Miller, Assistant
Attorney General, Criminal Division, advised the Attorney
General that the "national interest" would preclude any
prosecutions based upon the tap.
Following a briefing of
the Attorney General by the CIA, a decision was made not to
prosecute. **
* Details of the discussions between the CIA and FBI are
described fully infra at pp.
** Maheu subsequently drew on his involvement with the CIA
to avoid testifying before Senator Edward Long's Committee
investigating invasions of privacy in 1966. According to the
Inspector General's Report, when Maheu learned that the
Committee intended to call him, "he applied pressure on the
Agency in a variety of ways--suggesting that publicity might
expose his past sensitive work for the CIA" (I.G., p. 74).
Lawrence Houston, General Counsel for the CIA, met with Maheu
and his attorney, Edward P. Morgan, and informed Senator Long
that Maheu had been involved in CIA operations (Houston, pp.
58-60). As a result, the Long Committee did not call Maheu
to testify.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 41
17
to Cuba
(4)
TOP SECRET
Poison Pills Are Prepared and Delivered
18
The Inspector General's Report described
conversations among Bissell, Edwards, and Cornelius Roosevelt, NIZERS Any
Chief of the Technical Services Division (TSD), concerning
the most effective method of poisoning Castro (I.G., pp. 23-
24). There is some evidence that Giancana or Roselli originated
the idea of depositing a poison pill in Castro's drink to give
the "asset" a chance to escape (I.G., p. 25). O'Connell
recalled Roselli's request for something "nice and clean, with-
out getting into any kind of out and out ambushing", preferably
a poison that would disappear without a trace (O'Connell, p. 116).
The Inspector General's Report cited O'Connell as stating that
the Agency had first considered a "gangland-style killing" in
which Castro would be gunned down. Giancana reportedly opposed
the idea because it would be difficult to recruit someone for
such a dangerous operation, and suggested instead the use of
(I.G., p.
25)
poison.
Edwards rejected the first batch of pills
prepared by TSD because they would not dissolve in water. A
second batch, containing botulinum toxin, "did the job expected
of them" when tested on monkeys. (I.G., pp. 25-26; O'Connell,
p. 43) O'Connell received the pills from TSD, probably in
February 1961, with reassurances that they were lethal, and
*
* Records of the TSD still extant in 1967 indicate that the
pills were tested on February 10 and delivered to O'Connell
sometime thereafter.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 42
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then gave them to Roselli (O'Connell, p. 43).
In late February or March 1961, Roselli
reported to O'Connell that the pills had been delivered in
Cuba to an official close to Castro who may have received
kickbacks from the gambling interests (I.G., p. 23). The
official kept the pills for a few weeks, then returned them.
Roselli and O'Connell ascribed his failure to a case of
"cold feet" (Roselli, p. 24; O'Connell, p. 44). The Inspector
General noted that he had lost his position in the Prime
Minister's office, and thus access to Castro, before he
received the pills (I.G., p. 28).'
(5) A Second Delivery Is Attempted
Following this first failure, Roselli told.
O'Connell that Trafficante believed Tony Varona, a leading
figure in the Cuban exile movement, might be able to accom-
plish the assassination (I.G.,
.p. 29).*
Dr. Manuel Antonio
de Varona y Lorado headed the Democratic Revolutionary Front,
a Cuban exile group supported by the CIA. The Inspector
General's Report suggests that Varona may have been receiving
funds from Trafficante and other racketeers interested in
securing "gambling, prostitution, and dope monopolies" in
* O'Connell testified that he met Varona only once, and
that after the meeting Varona told Roselli:
O'Connell
"Look, I don't know [sic] like the CIA and you can't
tell me that this guy isn't a CIA man".
recalled, "I don't know whether I showed it or what,
but he suspected that I wasn't what I was represented
to be." (O'Connell, p. 22.)
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Cuba after the overthrow of Castro (I.G., p. 29). The Report
speculated that Varona was interested in the assassination
scheme as a means of financing the purchase of arms and
communications equipment (I.G., p. 31).
Varona claimed to have a contact inside
a restaurant frequented by Castro (Roselli,
p. 21).
As a
prerequisite to the deal, he demanded cash and $1,000 worth
of communications equipment (I.G., pp. 31-32; O'Connell, P. 23).
O'Connell recalls that Colonel J. C. King, head of the Western
Hemisphere Division, gave him $50,000 in Bissell's office to
pay Varona if he successfully assassinated Castro (O'Connell,
pp. 17-21). O'Connell stated that Bissell also authorized him
to give Varona the electronics equipment that he requested
(O'Connell, pp. 20-24).
Bissell testified that he did not doubt that
The
some cash was given to O'Connell, and that he was aware that
the poison pills had been prepared. He did not recall the
meeting, and considered it unlikely that O'Connell would have
been given the money in his office (Bissell, 6/11, p. 40).
Inspector General's Report, relying on an Office of Security
memorandum to the DDCI dated June 24, 1966, as well as on an
interview with the person who signed the voucher for the funds,
placed the amount at $10,000 (I.G., pp. 31-32). If the
Inspector General's conclusions were correct, the funds which
Bissell allegedly authorized were probably the advance payment
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SEGUET
to Varona, and not the $150,000 that was to be paid to Varona
after Castro's death.
The record does clearly reflect, however,
that communications equipment was delivered to Varona* and
that he was paid advance money to cover his expenses, probably
in the amount of $10,000 (I.G., p. 32). The money and pills
were delivered at a meeting between Maheu, Roselli, Trafficante,
and Varona at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. As Roselli
recalled, Maheu
"opened his briefcase and dumped a whole lot of money
on his lap . . . and also came up with the capsules
and he explained how they were going to be used. As
far as I remember, they couldn't be used in boiling
soups and things like that, but they could be used in
water or otherwise, but they couldn't last forever
It had to be done as quickly as possible. (Roselli,
p. 21). **
Varona had no better success than Orta.
According to the Inspector General's Report, Edwards believed
the scheme failed because Castro stopped visiting the restau-
rant where the "asset" was employed. Maheu suggested an
* O'Connell testified that a man from the communications
office delivered the communications equipment that Varona had
requested to Miami (O'Connell, p: 20). Maheu recalled deliver-
ing an automobile which he had been told contained communica-
tions equipment to an empty lot (Maheu, p. 52).
** Maheu denied that this dramatic event ever occurred, and
did not recall being present at a meeting at which the pills
were passed (Maheu, pp. 40-41). Maheu did recall that O'Connell
showed him the pills in an envelope and told him that the pills
would be given to a Cuban (Maheu, p. 40).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 45
ગ
21
Am 8?
Nam
alternative reason.
TOP SECRET
He recalled being informed that after
the pills had been delivered to Cuba, "the go signal still had
to be received before in fact they were administered" (Maheu,
p. 42). He testified that he was informed by O'Connell some-
time after the operation that the Cubans had an opportunity
to administer the pills to Fidel Castro and either Che Guevarra
"
or Raul Castro, but that the 'go signal" never came (Maheu,
pp. 43-44, 60-61). He did not know who was responsible for
giving the signal (Maheu, p. 44-45).
Varona subsequently
returned the cash and the pills (O'Connell, pp. 19-20; CIA
Justice file R-153, Memorandum, Osborn to DCI, 6/24/66).
The date of the Varona operation is
unclear. The Inspector General's Report places it in March-
April 1961, prior to the Bay of Pigs (I.G., p. 29). Bissell
testified that the effort against Castro was called off after
the Bay of Pigs (Bissell, 6/11, p. 52) and Maheu testified
that he had no involvement in the operation after the Bay of
Pigs (Maheu, p. 50). O'Connell, however, was certain that it
occurred during early 1962 (O'Connell, pp. 47-48)..
(c)
Use of Underworld Figures: Phase II
(1) Change in Leadership
The Inspector General's Report
divides the gambling syndicate operation into Phase I, termina-
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 46
210.
22
22
TOP SECRET
ting with the Bay of Pigs, and Phase II, beginning with
William Harvey's involvement in late 1961. The distinction
between a clearly demarcated Phase I and Phase II may be an
artificial one, as there is considerable evidence that the
operation was continuous, perhaps lying dormant for the period
immediately following the Bay of Pigs.*
In early 1961, Harvey** was assigned the
responsibility for establishing a general capability within
the CIA for disabling foreign leaders, including assassination
as a "last resort" (Bissell, 6/9, p. 73; Harvey, 6/25, pp. 34-35).
* Harvey said that he took over a "going operation" from
Edwards (I.G., p. 42; Harvey, 6/25, p. 67) and emphasized
that:
"I would like to make as clear as I can that there was
no phase 1, phase 2 in this. This is an ongoing matter
which I injected into
(Harvey, 6/25, p. 90).
Continuity was provided by retaining O'Connell as the case
officer for the project well into May 1962. During interviews
for the Inspector General's Report, O'Connell recalled that
there was "something going on" between the Bay of Pigs and
Harvey's assumption of control, (I.G., p. 43). When testifying
before the Committee, O'Connell firmly recalled several trips
to Miami in the Fall of 1961, and "right up to the time I
turned it over to Harvey I was in and out of Miami" (O'Connell,
pp. 89-90).
** Harvey had a long background in clandestine activities.
He had conceived and carried out the Berlin tunnel operation
(Harvey, 6/25, pp. 8-9), and served as Chief of the division,
which was responsible for the surreptitious acquisition of code
information (Harvey, 6/25, pp. 8-9).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 47
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The capability was called Executive Action and was later
included under the cryptonym ZR/RIFLE. It and the evidence
relating to (i) its connection to the "White House" and (ii)
whether or not it involved action as well as "capability" is
discussed extensively infra at
Harvey's notes reflect that Bissell asked
him to take over the gambling syndicate operation from Edwards
and discussed the "application of ZR/RIFLE to Cuba" on
November 16, 1961 (I.G., p. 39). Bissell confirmed that the
conversation took place and accepted the November date as
accurate (Bissell, 7/17, pp. 12-13). He also testified that the
operation
"was not reactivated, in other words, no instructions
went out to Roselli or to others
to renew the
attempt, until after I had left the Agency" (Bissell,
6/11, p. 53).
Harvey agreed that his conversation with Bissell was limited
to exploring the feasibility of using the gambling syndicate
against Castro (Harvey, 7/11, p. 60).
Richard Helms replaced Bissell as
DDP in February 1962. As such, he was Harvey's superior.
Harvey testified that he kept Helms informed of the gambling
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 48
23
TUP SECRET
syndicate operation at all stages* (Harvey, 6/25, pp. 65-66;
7/11, p. 42; I.G., p. 41).
(2)
The Operation is Reactivated
In early April 1962, Harvey, who testi-
fied that he was acting on "explicit orders" from Helms (Harvey,
7/11, p. 18), requested Edwards to put him in touch with Roselli
(CIA Justice File R-153; Edwards memorandum, 5/14/62). O'Connell
first introduced Harvey to Roselli in Miami, where Harvey told
Roselli to maintain his Cuban contacts, but not to deal with Maheu
or Giancana (O'Connell, p. 50%; Roselli, pp. 27-30), whom he had
decided were "untrustworthy" and "surplus" (Harvey, 6/25, p. 65).
O'Connell recalled that Roselli did not initially trust Harvey,
*When interviewed for the Inspector General's Report, Harvey
stated that he briefed Helms on his first meeting with Roselli,
and "thereafter he regularly briefed Helms on the status of the
Castro operation" (I.G., p. 41).
Helms' recollection was less certain. Helms did recall that
he was briefed by Harvey when Harvey first contacted Roselli in
April 1962. He remembered that he "reluctantly" had approved the operation,
but that he had no confidence that it would succeed (Helms, 7/17,
p. 23).
When asked if he authorized sending the poison pills to Florida,
Helms testified:
"I believe they were poison pills, and I don't recall
necessarily approving them, but since Harvey alleges to
have them and says that he took them to Miami, I must
have, I must have authorized them in some fashion."
(Helms, 6/13, p. 44).
"
Helms confirmed that Harvey was "reporting quite regularly what
was going on. Whether he reported everything or not, I do not know.
It was Helms' expectation that Harvey would have reported to him a
matter such as the pills. (Helms, 6/13, p. 105). However, Helms also
testified:
"You saw the I.G. Report says that I was kept currently
informed. Maybe I was and maybe I wasn't, and today
I don't remember it, as I have said. But I do not
recall ever having been convinced that any attempt was
really made on Castro's life"(Helms, 7/18, p. 32).
NW 50955
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25
although they subsequently developed a close friendship.
(O'Connell, P. 52).
Harvey, O'Connell and Roselli met for
a second time in New York on April 8-9, 1962 (I.G., p. 43). A
notation made during this time in the files of the Technical Ser-
vices Division indicates that four poison pills were given to O'Connell
on April 18, 1962 (I.G., pp. 46-47). The pills were passed to Harvey,
who arrived in Miami on April 21, and found Roselli already in touch
with Varona (I.G., p. 47). He gave the pills to Roselli, explaining
that "these would work anywhere and at any time with anything" (Roselli,
p. 31).
Roselli testified that he told Harvey that the Cubans intended
to use the pills to assassinate Che Guevara as well as Fidel and Raul
According to Roselli's testimony, Harvey approved of the
Castro.
targets, stating "everything is all right, what they want to do"
(Roselli, p. 34)..
Varona requested arms and equipment as
a quid pro quo for carrying out the assassination operation (O'Connell,
pp. 53-54).
Harvey, with the help of the CIA's Miami station
(JMWAVE), procured explosives, detonators, rifles, handguns,
radios, and boat radar costing about $5,000 (I.G., p. 49). Harvey
and the chief of the JMWAVE station rented a U-Haul truck under
an assumed name and delivered the equipment to a parking lot
(Harvey, 6/25, p. 63). The keys were given to Roselli, who watched
the delivery from across the street with O'Connell
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(O'Connell,
pp. 92-93).

SECRET
The truckload of equipment was finally picked up by either Varona
or Roselli's agent Maceo (I.G., pp. 49-50; Roselli, p. 40).
Harvey testified that the arms "could" have been for use in the
assassination attempt, but that they were not given to Varona
solely for that purpose (Harvey, 7/11, p. 9).
operation's progress.
Roselli kept Harvey informed of the
Sometime in May 1962, he reported that the
pills and guns had arrived in Cuba (Harvey, 6/25, p. 64%; Roselli,
pp. 34, 42-43).
On June 21, he told Harvey that Varona had dis-
patched a three-man team to Cuba. The Inspector General's Report
described the team's mission as "vague" and conjectured that the
team would kill Castro or recruit others to do the job, using the
poison pills if the opportunity arose (I.G., p. 51).
:
Harvey
26
Harvey met Roselli in Miami on September 7
and 11, 1962. Varona was reported to be preparing to send in
another three-man team to penetrate Castro's bodyguard.
was told that the pills, referred to as "the medicine," were.
still "safe" in Cuba (Harvey, 6/25, p. 103; I.G., p. 51).
Harvey testified that by this time he
had grave doubts about whether the operation would ever take
place, and told Roselli that "there's not much likelihood that
this is going anyplace, or that it should be continued" (Harvey,
6/25, p. 104). Varona's second team never left for Cuba, claiming
that "conditions" in Cuba were not right (I.G., p. 51-52). During
early January 1963, Harvey paid Roselli $2,700 to defray Varona's
expenses (I.G., p. 52).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 51
27
22
TOP SEGELED
Harvey terminated the operation in mid-February 1963.
At a
meeting with Roselli in Los Angeles, it was agreed that Roselli
would taper off his communications with Varona (I.G., pp. 52-53).
Roselli testified that he simply broke off contact with the Cubans.
However, he never informed them that the offer of $150,000 for
Castro's assassination had been withdrawn* (Roselli, p. 45).
The agency personnel who dealt with
Roselli attributed his motivation to patriotism** and testified
that he was not paid for his services. According to O'Connell,
Roselli
"paid his way, he paid his own hotel fees, he paid
his own travel.... And he never took a nickel, he
said, no, as long as it is for the government of the
United States, this is the least I can do, because
I owe it a lot." (O'Connell, p. 27).
Edwards agreed that Roselli was "never paid a cent" (Edwards,
p. 16), and Maheu testified that "Giancana was paid nothing at
all, not even for expenses, and that Mr. Roselli was given a
pittance that did not even begin to cover his expenses (Maheu,
7/29, p. 68). It is clear, however, that the CIA did pay Roselli's
* "Q:
As far as those Cubans knew, then the offer which they
understood from you to come from Wall Street was still
outstanding?
"A:
I don't know if they still think so I didn't see
them after that to tell them that" (Roselli, p. 45)."
** Roselli claims that he was motivated by "honor and dedi-
cation" (Roselli, p. 59).
In 1943, Roselli had been convicted of extorting money from
motion picture producers to insure studios against labor strikes,"
and during the period of his contacts with the CIA, Roselli was
deeply involved in hotel and gambling operations in Las Vegas
(File R-505, Summary of FBI Documents). It is possible that he
believed cooperating with the government in the assassination
operation might serve him well in the future.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
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28
hotel bill during his stay in Miami in October 1960.* The CIA's involvement
with Roselli caused the Agency some difficulty during Roselli's subsequent
prosecutions for fraudulent gambling activities and living in the country
under an assumed name. **
(d)
Plans in Early 1963
Two plans to assassinate Castro were ex-
plored by Task Force W, the section concerned with covert Cuban
operations, in early 1963. Desmond Fitzgerald (now deceased), Chief
of the Task Force, asked Samuel Halpern to determine whether an exotic
seashell, rigged to explode, could be deposited in an area where Castro
commonly went skin diving (Halpern, p. 28). The idea was explored by the
Technical Division and discarded as impractical (Helms, 6/13, p. 135; I.G., p.77)
A second plan involved having James Donovan
(who was negotiating with Castro for the release of prisoners
of J.A.
Maheu's
* FBI reports reveal that Roselli's expenses at the Kennilworth llotel,
where he was registered from October 11 30, 1960 under the name
Rollins, were paid by Mabeu (File R-505, FBI file summary, p.10).
expenses were reimbursed by the CIA.
** In May 1966, the FBI threatened to deport Roselli for living in the United
States under an assumed name unless he cooperated in an investigation of the
Mafia. (Roselli, whose true name is Filippo Saco, was born in Italy and
allegedly brought illegally into the United States while still a child.)
Roselli contacted Edwards, who informed the FBI that Roselli wanted to
"keep square with the Bureau," but was afraid that gangsters might kill him
for "talking" (CIA Justice File R-153, Memorandum, Osborn to FBI, 5/27/66).
After Roselli was arrested for fraudulent gambling activities at the Friars
Club in Beverly Hills in 1967, he requested Harvey, who had left the Agency,
'to represent him (CIA Justice File R-153, Memorandum for Record by Osborn,
12/11/67). Harvey contacted the Agency and suggested that it prevent the
prosecution (Osborn Memorandum, supra). Roselli was subsequently convicted
of violating United States interstate gambling laws. In 1971, the CIA
approached the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Department of Justice,
to "forestall public disclosure of Roselli's past operational activity
with CIA "that might occur if deportation proceedings were brought. (CIA to
Select Committee, 7/21/75). It was agreed that CIA would be kept informed
of developments in that case. The deportation order is presently being)
litigated in the courts.
Idid
-
T
do Anything
хостор, т
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 53
IUP SEONE!
taken during the Bay of Pigs operation) present Castro with a
contaminated diving suit* (Colby, 5/21, pp. 38-39).
The Inspector General's Report dates this
operation in January 1963, when Fitzgerald replaced Harvey as
Chief of Task Force W, although it is unclear whether Harvey or
Fitzgerald conceived of the plan (I.G., p. 75). It is likely
29
that the activity took place earlier, since Donovan had completed
his negotiations by the middle of January 1963. Helms characterized
the plan as "cockeyed" (Helms, 6/13, p. 135).`
TSD bought a diving suit, dusted the inside
with a fungus that would produce a chronic skin disease (Madura
foot), and contaminated the breathing apparatus with a tubercule
bacillus (I.G., p. 75). The Inspector General's Report states
that the plan was abandoned because Donovan gave Castro a different
diving suit on his own initiative (I.G., p. 75). Helms testified
that the diving suit never left the laboratory (Helms, 6/13, p. 135).
(e)
AMLASH
(1) Origin of the Project
In March 1961, an officer of the Mexico
City CIA station met with a highly-placed Cuban official to determine
if he would cooperate in efforts against the Castro regime (I.G.,
p. 78).
The Cuban, referred to by the cryptonym AMLASH-1, had been
*Donovan was not aware of the plan.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 54
involved with an anti-Batista faction that only grudgingly accepted
Castro's rule. (Case Officer 2, p. 9, 39).* The meeting was incon-
clusive, but lead to subsequent meetings at which AM/LASH-1 agreed
to cooperate with the CIA.
AM/LASH-1 was viewed as an important "asset"
inside Cuba. As a high-ranking military leader who enjoyed the
confidence of Fidel Castro, he could keep the CIA informed of the
internal workings of the regime (Case Officer 2, pp. 23, 40). It
was also believed that he might play a part in fomenting a coup
within Cuba (Case Officer 2, p. 43).**
From the first contact with AM/LASH-1, until
the latter part of 1963, it was uncertain whether he would defect
or remain in Cuba. His initial requests to the CIA and FBI for
aid in defecting were rebuffed (I.G., pp. 80, 82-83). When Case
Officer 1 joined the AM/LASH-1 operation in June 1967, his assign-
30
* The Committee has taken the testimoy of the two case officers
involved in the AM/LASH project. Case officer 1 dealt with AM/LASH-1
through September 1963; Case Officer 2 continued until mid-1965
(Case Officer 2, p.
). The Committee has agreed not to divulge
their names as they are still in active service with the Agency.
** AM/LASH-1 was the major "asset" in the AM/LASH operation.
During this period the CIA also sponsored a separate operation to
"penetrate the Cuban military to encourage either defections
or an attempt to produce information from dissidents, or
perhaps even to forming a group which would be capable of
replacing the then present government in Cuba" (Case Officer 1,
pp. 18, 22).
The case officers for AM/LASH were also involved in this second
related program.
J why
namoj
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ment was to "stay in place and report to us" (Case Officer 1, p. 38).
At a meeting in August 1962 in a foreign capital, AM/LASH-1 stated
that he would remain in Cuba if he "could do something really signifi-
cant for the creation of a new Cuba", and expressed a desire to plan
the execution of Fidel Castro (Case Officer 1 Contact Report, August 1
meeting). The subject of assassinating Castro was again discussed
at a meeting on August 10, 1962, between AM/LASH-1 and his case
officer. The case officer's contact report states that assassination
was raised in discussing AM/LASH-1's role in Cuba, and that AM/LASH-1
was visibly upset. "It was not the act that he objected to, but
merely the choice of the word used to describe it. 'Eliminate' was
acceptable." (1
(
Case Officer 1, Contact Report, August 7-10, meetings).
The case officers who testified before the Com-
mittee said that AM/LASH-1 was not directly requested to assassinate
Castro. The record clearly reveals, however, that the agency per-
sonnel dealingwith AM/LASH-1 were aware of his desire to take such
action. A cable to headquarters reporting an August 16, 1963 meet-
ing with AM/LASH-1 stated:
"Have no intention give AMLASH-1 physical elim-
ination mission as requirement but recognize
this something he could or might try to carry
out on his own initiative."*
* Case Officer 1 testified that AM/LASH-l discussed "eliminating" Castro,
although he attributed such remarks to AMLASH-1's "mercurial" nature,
and stated that no specific plans for assassinations were ever discussed
(Case Officer 1, pp. 39-41, 62). The case officer who took over the
AMLASH project in September 1963 recalled being briefed by Case Officer
1 on AMLASH's belief that Castro's assassination was a necessary first
step in a coup. (Case Officer 2, p. 28).
The second AMLASH case officer described the context in which AMLASH-1
generally raised the topic of assassination:
"You also must recognize that AMLASH was a rather tempera-
mental man whose temperament was of a mercurial nature and
whereas he may have said something like this in one fit of
pique, he would settle down and talk about organizing a regular
military coup in the next breath." (Case Officer 2, p.29)
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32
At a meeting on October 3, 1963, AMLASH-1
again raised the possibility of defecting, but indicated that he
would be willing to continue working against the Castro regime if
he received firm assurances of American support (Case Officer 2,
pp. 48-49). According to Case Officer 2, AMLASH-1 asked for
military supplies, a device with which to protect himself if his
plots against Castro were discovered, and a meeting with Attorney
General Robert Kennedy (Case Officer 2, pp. 48-49).
Desmond Fitzgerald (now deceased), who was
then Chief, SAS * agreed to meet AMLASH-1 and give him the assur-
ances he sought. The Inspector General's Report states that Fitz-
gerald consulted with the DDP, Helms, who agreed that Fitzgerald
should hold himself out as a personal representative of Attorney
General Kennedy (I.G., p.89).**
Helms testified that he did not recall the con-
versation, and speculated that the Attorney General might not have
been consulted because
*
"this was so central to the whole theme of what we had
been trying to do . . .(find someone inside Cuba who might
head a government and have a group to replace Castro).
This is obviously what we had been pushing, what every-
body had been pushing for us to try to do, and it is that
context that I would have made some remark like this."
(Helms, 6/13, p. 117)
this is
Sproblem
SAS (Special Affairs Staff) was the name given to Task Force W in
early 1963 when Fitzgerald replaced Harvey as head of the covert Cuban
operations. The AMLASH Case Officers reported directly to Fitzgerald.
** The contact plan for the proposed meeting stated:
"Fitzgerald will represent self as personal representative of
Robert F. Kennedy who travelled to (foreign capital) for spe-
cific purpose meeting AMLASH-1 and giving him assurances of
full support with a change of the present government in Cuba."
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33
Helms recalled that he told Fitzgerald to
"go ahead and say that from the standpoint of political
support, the United States government will be behind you if
you are successful. This had nothing to do with killings..
This had only to do with the political action part of it".
(Helms, 6/13, p. 131.)
Fitzgerald met AM/LASH-1 on October 29, 1963,
in a foreign capital, and promised that the United States would
support a coup against Castro* (Case Officer 2, p. 60). When
later interviewed for the Inspector General's Report, Fitzgerald
recalled that AM/LASH-1 repeatedly requested an assassination
weapon, particularly a "high powered rifle with telescopic sights
that could be used to kill Castro from a distance" (I.G., p. 90).
Fitzgerald stated that he told AM/LASH-1 that the United States
would have "no part of an attempt on Castro's life" (I.G.,
Case Officer 2 recalled that AM/LASH-1 raised the prospect of
assassinating Castro, but did not propose an explicit plan (Case
Officer 2, pp. 62, 85). AM/LASH-1, was, however, "convinced that
p. 90).
Castro had to be removed from power before a coup could be under-
7 pretty
"Specion
* Case Officer 2 did not recall whether Robert Kennedy's name
was used (Case Officer 2, p. 60).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 58
1
N
34
門
taken in Cuba (Case Officer 2, p. 61).
AMLASH-1 also requested high-powered rifles
and grenades (Case Officer 2, p. 77). A memorandum by Case
Officer 2, dated November 18, 1963, states:
"C/SAS (Fitzgerald) approved telling AMLASH-1 he would
be given a cache inside Cuba. Cache could, if he
requested it, include
high powered rifles with
scopes
"
•
•
AMLASH-1 was told on November 22, 1963, that the cache would be
dropped in Cuba (Case Officer 2, p. 92).
(2) The Poison Pen Device
On November 22, 1963, Case Officer 2 met with
AMLASH-1 in a foreign capital, offered him a ball-point pen rigged
with a hypodermic needle, and suggested that Blackleaf 40 would be
an effective poison to use in the device. (Case Officer 2, p. 110)
The needle was designed to be so fine that the victim would not
notice its insertion (Case Officer 2, p. 103).
The Inspector General's Report states that
005
wa
этот р
Case Officer 2, when he was interviewed in 1967, stated that AMLASH-1
had requested the Agency to
"devise some technical means of doing the job that would
not automatically cause him to lose his own life in the
try." (I.G., p. 92)
The Report concluded that:
"although none of the participants so stated, it may be
inferred that they were seeking a means of assassination
of a sort that AMLASH-l might reasonably have been ex-
pected to have devised himself." (I.G., p. 92)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 59
33
TOP SECRED
SECIALS
35
Halpern, Fitzgerald's assistant, told the
Committee that the pen was intended to show "bona fides" and
"The orders were to do something to get rid of Castro
and we thought this other method might work whereas a rifle
wouldn't." (Halpern, p. 26)
Helms confirmed that the pen was manufactured
"to take care of a request from him that he have some device
for getting rid of Castro, for killing him, murdering him,
whatever the case may be. (Helms, 6/13, p. 113)
"P
•
•
tr
(t) his was a temporizing gesture." (Helms, 6/11, p. 133)*
On November 22, 1963, Fitzgerald and the case
officer met with AMLASH-1 in a European capital and offered him
the poison pen, recommending that
which is commercially available.
or General's Report noted that
he use Blackleaf-40, a deadly poison
(Case Officer 2, p. 112) The Inspect-
"it is likely that at the very moment President Kennedy was
shot a CIA officer was meeting with a Cuban agent in Paris
and giving him an assassination device for use against
Castro. (I.G., p. 94)
"
* In his testimony before the Committee, Case Officer 2 offered a con-
flicting story. He said that the purpose of the pen was
"to provide AMLASH with a device which would serve him to
protect himself in case he was confronted with and charged
with being involved in a military coup against Castro.
(Case Officer 2, p. 107)
"
According to the case officer, AMLASH-1 had requested an "esoteric device
which could easily be concealed and which he could use in self-defense
(Case Officer 2, po. 98-99). The device was not intended for offensive
use against any person, but was rather
"a kind of psychological crutch . . .to help him think that
we were interested in his own protection, his own security"
(Case Officer 2, pp. 104-105).
This version is wholly inconsistent with documents in the CIA files, some
of which were written by the AMLASH case officer, which establish that
AMLASH-1 intended to kill Castro, and that the CIA knew his desire and
endeavored to supply the means that he needed.
NW 50955
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36
The case officer later recalled that AMLASH-1 did not "think much
of the device," and complained that CIA could surely "come up with
something more sophisticated than that" (I.G., p. 93a).
The case officer recalled offering the pen
to AMLASH-1, but could not remember whether AMLASH-1 threw it away
then or took it with him (Case Officer 2, pp. 105, 110). He did
recall that AMLASH-1 said he would not take the pen back to Cuba,
but did not know what AMLASH-1 in fact did with the pen (Case Offi-
cer 2, pp. 110-111).
An entry in the CIA files on AMLASH dated
March 29, 1965, states:
"Although Fitzgerald and the case officer assured AMLASH-1
on November 22, 1963, that CIA would give him everything
he needed (telescopic sight, silencer, all the money he
wanted) the situation changed when the case officer and
Fitzgerald left the meeting to discover that President
Kennedy had been assassinated. Because of this fact,
plans with AMLASH-1 changed and it was decided that we
could have no part in the assassination of a government
leader (including Castro) and would not aid AMLASH-1 in
this attempt.
AMLASH-1 was not informed of (this de-
cision) until he was seen by the case officer in Novem-
ber, 1964."
•
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
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TOP SECDED
6714
(3) Providing AMLASH-1 with Arms
37
CIA cables indicate that one cache of arms
for AMLASH-1 was delivered in Cuba in March 1964 and another in
June. An entry in the AMLASH file for May 5, 1964, states that
the case officer requested the Technical Services Division to pro-
duce, on a "crash basis,' a silencer which would fit an FAL rifle.
"1
The contact report of a meeting between the case officer and a
confidant of AMLASH states that AMLASH was subsequently informed
that it was not feasible to make a silencer for an FAL.
Toward the latter part of 1964, AMLASH-1
became more insistent on the fact that the assassination of the
Cuban leadership was a necessary initial step in a successful coup.
(Case Officer 2, pp. 129-133). In a memorandum dated December 10,
1964, the case officer wrote:
"AMLASH-1 was told and fully understands that the United
States Government cannot become involved to any degree
in the 'first step' of his plan. If he needs support, he
realizes he will have to get it elsewhere. FYI: This is
where B-1 could fit in nicely in giving any support he
would request.
"
Documents in the AMLASH file establish that in
early 1965, the CIA put AMLASH in contact with B-1, the leader of an
anti-Castro group. As the case officer explained to the Inspector
General:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 62
TOP SECTED
38
what had happened was that SAS had contrived
to put B-1 and AMLASH together in such a way that
neither of them knew that the contact had been engin-
eered by CIA. The thought was that B-1 needed a man
inside and AMLASH wanted a silenced weapon, which CIA
was unwilling to furnish to him directly. By putting
the two together, B-1 might get its man inside Cuba
and AMLASH might get his silenced weapon from B-1."
(I.G., p. 101)
A report of a meeting between a case officer and
B-1 states that B-1, in his initial contacts with AMLASH-1, discussed
plans for assassinating Castro. AMLASH-1 suggested that guerrilla
raids against Cuba should be stepped up one month before the
"attempt on Fidel Castro" to "prepare the public and raise the morale
and resistance spirit of the people." B-1 reported that AMLASH-1
believed that the only solution to the problems in Cuba would be
"to get rid of Fidel Castro. He is able either to shoot
him with a silencer or place a bomb in some place where
Fidel will be. He might use, for example, a small bomb
that he can carry and place, or with his group attack,
the residence where Fidel lives
B-1 is going to
provide AMLASH-1 with escape routes and places where B-1
is able to pick him up. He will memorize these points
and escape routes. Next, B-l is to provide AMLASH-1 either
.
a silencer for a FAL or a rifle with a silencer.
*
* A CIA document dated January 3, 1965, states that B-l told a
case officer that he and AM/LASH-1 had reached an agreement on the
following points:
"1. B-1 is to provide AM/LASH-1 with a silencer for the FAL%;B
if this is impossible, B-1 is to cache in a designated
location a rifle with a scope and silencer plus several
bombs concealed either in a suitcase, a lamp or some
other concealment device which he would be able to carry
and place next to Fidel Castro.
"2. B-1 is to provide AM/LASH-1 with escape routes controlled
by B-1 and not by the Americans. The lack of confidence
built up by the Bay of Pigs looms large:
"3. B-1 is to prepare one of the western provinces, either
Pinar del Rio or Havana, with arms caches and a clandes-
tine underground mechanism. This would be a fall back
position and a safe area where men and weapons are avail-
able to the group.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 63
39
TOP SECRET
A CIA cable dates
1965, stated
that B-1 had given AMLASH-1 a silencer and that AMLASH-1 had
"small, highly concentrated explosives."
On February 11, 1965
the Madrid Station cabled that AMLASH-1 would soon receive "one
pistol with silencer and one FAL rifle with a silencer from B-l's
secretary" (I.G., p. 103). A subsequent cable reported that
"B-1 had three packages of special items made up by his technical
people and delivered to AMLASH-1 in Madrid" (I.G., p. 103
In June 1965, CIA terminated all contact with
AMLASH-1 and his associates because of reports that his activities
were widely known (I.G., pp. 104-105).
"140
"5.
"6.
B-1 is to be in Cuba one week before the elimination
of Fidel, but no one, including AM/LASH-1 will know
B-1's location.
B-1 is to arrange for recongition by at least five Latin
American countries as soon as Fidel is neutralized and
a junta is formed. This junta will be established even
though Raul Castro and Che Guevara may still be alive
and may still be in control of the part of the country.
This is the reason AM/LASH-1 requested that B-1 be able
to establish some control over one of the provinces so
that the junta can be formed in that location.
One month to the day before the neutralization of Fidel,
B-1 will increase the number of commando attacks to a
maximum in order to raise the spirit and morale of the
people inside Cuba. In all communiques, in all radio
messages, in all propaganda put out by B-1 he must relate
that the raid was possible thanks to the information
received from clandestine sources inside Cuba and from
the clandestine underground apparatus directed by "P".
This will be AM/LASH-l's war name.
"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
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Approved by Drafting
Subcommiteee 9/5/75
2. At What Level Were the Castro Plots Authorized or
Known About Within the Central Intelligence Agency?
(a) The Question Presented. As we have seen, first
Richard Bissell and then Richard Helms, each as Deputy Director of
Plans (DDP), were aware of plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. The
evidence set forth herein relates to whether their superiors in
the Agency, in particular Allen Dulles and John McCone, authorized
or were aware of the assassination plots.
Dulles served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI)
from 1953 to November 1961.
McCone served as DCI from November 1961
to 1965.* The Committee took considerable testimony on whether Dul-
les and McCone (or their Deputy DCI's, General Cabell and General
Carter, respectively) knew about or authorized the plots against
Fidel Castro's life.
In summary, the evidence is as follows:
(i) Dulles:
Bissell and Edwards both
expressed the belief that Dulles (and his Deputy, General Cabell)
authorized the initial phase of the assassination plot involving
underworld figures. They acknowledged, however, that Dulles (and
his Deputy) were not told about the plot until after the under-
world figures had been contacted. The words said to have been
used to brief them--"an intelligence operation"--do not convey on
* Bissell served as DDP from January 1, 1959, to February 17,
1962. (President Kennedy decided to replace Dulles and Bissell
because of the failure of the Bay of Pigs (Bissell, 6/9, pp. 6-8).)
Helms, who had been Bissell's Deputy, succeeded Bissell in
February 1962 as DDP. He was appointed DDCI in April 1965, and
DCI in June 1966.
NW 50955
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-2-
their face that the plot involved assassination, although- Bissell
and Edwards insist the real meaning must have been understood.
There is some other evidence which can be said both to suggest
that Dulles and Cabell did know and to suggest that they did not
know. (See Section (b) below.)
Thereafter,
(ii) McCone: McCone testified that he did not
know about or authorize the plots. Helms and Bissell both stated
that McCone was not told by them of the earlier assassination ef-
forts when McCone assumed the position of DCI in November 1961.
The I.G. Report states that Harvey received Helms' approval not
to brief McCone when the actual efforts were resumed in 1962.
Harvey testified this accorded with his recollection.
Helms and Harvey did not tell McCone about assassination activity
on several occasions. Helms did not recall any agreement not to
brief McCone, but did not call into question the position taken by
Harvey or the I.G. Report on this matter. Helms did say that Mc-
Cone never told him not to assassinate Castro, but added that he
was not claiming that he told McCone about the plots. (These mat-
ters, as well as the various reasons put forward by Harvey and
Helms for not briefing McCone, are set forth in Section (c) below.)
(b) Did Allen Dulles Know of or Authorize the Initial
Plots Against Castro?* Both Allen Dulles and his Deputy (DDCI),
* This testimony relates to the "airplane" incident in July 1960
and what the I.G. Report referred to as the initial phase of the
assassination effort involving the underworld. With respect to
the "schemes" prior to that operation, the I.G. Report concluded
they could "find no evidence that any of the schemes were approved
at any level higher than division, if that". (I. G., p. 10.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 66
General Cabell, are deceased. Since we were unable to take any
testimony from either, the Committee's investigation centered
around the documents available and the testimony of those still
alive who served under Dulles and Cabell.*
*The Inspector General questioned neither Dulles nor Cabell in
preparing his Report in 1967.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 67
(i) Dulles' January 1960 Statement to the Special
Group Suggesting Contingency Plans for the Overthrow of the
Casto Government, but Ruling Out "Elimination" of Castro.
January 13, 1960, Allen Dulles, in what was apparently
the first Special Group discussion of a covert program to over-
throw Castro, emphasized that "a quick elimination of Castro"
was not contemplated by the CIA (minutes of Special Group meet-
ing, 1/13/60). According to the minutes of the meeting, Dulles
first "noted the possibility that over the long run the U.S.
will not be able to tolerate the Castro regime in Cuba, and sug-
gested that covert contingency planning to accomplish the fall
of the Castro government might be in order." Then, in response
to the State Department representative's comment that "timing
was very important so as to permit a solidly based opposition
to take over, Dulles
"emphasized that we do not have in mind a quick
elimination of Castro, but rather actions designed
to enable responsible opposition leaders to get a
foothold."
(ii) Dulles' Alleged Recission of the July 1960
Airplane Assassination Plan Upon Learning of It.
As discussed in greater detail above (see p.
in July, 1960, Tracy Barnes, Bissell's assistant, approved the
sending of, in July, 1960, a cable to the Havana station stating
that "possible removal of top three leaders (was) receiving
serious consideration," and instructions were given to carry out
a plan to kill Raul Castro. That plan was, however, abandoned
shortly after it had been approved.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 68
.5
The Executive Officer to the Chief of the Cuba
court action project, who had sent the cables testified that
he had "heard" that Dulles had countermanded Barnes' plan and
had indicated that "assassination was not to be considered."
(Duty Officer, p. 29).* The officer added, however, that he
had no personal knowledge of the reason for calling off the plan,
or even if Dulles had been the one who called it off, he further
testified that
"assassination had not been part of the Cuba
covert action project in 1960 and that Dulles'
action in this incident conformed with CIA
policy against the use of assassination." (Duty
Officer, p.
_).**
"
* The countermanding cable to the Havana station, which was
"Operational Immediate, was sent the morning after the cable
of the previous night. The officer who sent that cable testified:
11
I saw the cable and was told that, to the
best of my knowledge, my memory is that the
Director [Dulles], not the Deputy Director
[Bissell] ... had countermanded the cable and
had directed that - had indicated that
--
assassination was not to be considered.
(Duty Officer, p. 29).
The officer stated that he did not talk to either Dulles or
Bissell about the countermanding cable, but that he did see the
cable and in all likelihood heard of the reason for Dulles' re-
action in discussions the same morning with his superior, the
Chief of the Cuba project. (Duty Officer, pp. 30-32).
** The officer testified:
"
we were schooled that although other countries
(used assassination] we do not, and I had always
understood this as a basic rule." (Duty Officer, p 14).
"Question: So was it your understanding after this
cable, and in view of your knowledge of the Agency
general practice with respect to assassination in which
you had been schooled that it was not done, that assass-
ination was not part of the Cuba Project, as far as you
knew?"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 69
"Officer: That's correct."
"Question:
***
And would it be accuaate to say that
your recollections concerning what you now view
as what Mr. Dulles' attitudes were
are based
on your general training about what had always been
said ... [and] that after this incident, what you
were told .. fortified that previous belief [in]
that Dulles had nullified at least this particular
cable?"
"Officer:
Correct."
"Question: Do you have anything in your recollection
or as a result of your informed opinion or experience
that would indicate to the contrary; that is, that
Mr. Dulles did have assassination in his arsenal, so
to speak?"
"Officer:
I have no basis for any such speculation."
(Duty Officer, pp. 31, __):
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 70

- 7 -
(iii)
in September 1960.
Dulles Briefing on Use of Underworld Figures
1.
Bissell and Edwards Said Dulles Was Told
About An "Intelligence Operation" With No "Bad Words" Used,
But That Dulles (and his Deputy) Understood That to Mean
Assassination.
Bissell recalled that "in the latter part of
September" there was "a meeting in which Col. Edwards and I
briefed Mr. Dulles and General Cabell" (Bissell, 6/9, p. 20).
Bissell testified that "Colonel Edwards outlined in somewhat
circumlocutious terms the plan that he had discussed with
syndicate representatives" (Bissell, 6/9, p. 22). He stated
that Edwards had said:
"that contact had been made with [the underworld], that
a plan had been prepared for their use, and I think he
either said in as many words or strongly inferred that
the plan would be put into effect unless at that time
or subsequently he was told by Mr. Dulles that it should
not be". (Bissell, 6/9, p. 22.)*
The CIA's 1967 I.G. Report, based upon interviews
with Edwards and Bissell, said Dulles and Cabell were briefed
as follows:
"The discussion was circumspect. Edwards deliberately
avoided the use of any 'bad words'. The descriptive
term used was 'an intelligence operation'. Edwards is
quite sure that the DCI and the DDCI clearly understood
the nature of the operation he was discussing. He
* Bissell testified that he was relying on the dating
provided in the Inspector General's Report, but that his state-
ments concerning what was said at the meeting we're of his
personal knowledge (Bissell, 6/9, pp. 20-22).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 71
- 8-
recalls describing the channel as being 'from A to B to
C'. As he then envisioned it, A was Maheu, B' was
Roselli, and C was the principal in Cuba. Edwards
recalls that Mr. Dulles merely nodded, presumably in
understanding and approval. Certainly there was no
opposition. Edwards states that, while there was no
formal approval as such, he felt that he clearly had
tacit approval to use his own judgement." (I.G.,
pp. 17-18.)
Bissell testified that the description sounded "highly plausible".
(Bissell Tr. 6/9/75 at 24.) Edwards said it was "accurate"
(Edwards Tr. at 11).
In light of the manner in which Bissell and Edwards
described briefing Dulles, the question arises as to whether
Dulles in fact would have understood that the operation involved
assassination. The Inspector General, in attempting to "con-
jecture as to just what the Director did approve", decided
"It is safe to conclude, given the men participating and
the general subject of the meeting, that there was little
likelihood of misunderstanding--even though the details
were deliberately blurred and the specific intended
result was never stated to unmistakable language. It is
also reasonable to conclude that the pointed avoidance of
'bad words' emphasized to the participants the extreme
sensitivity of the operation. (I.G., p.18 ).
Bissell testified that
"1
"I can only say that I am quite sure I came away from
that meeting--and there was, I think, subsequent
occasions when this came up between Mr. Dulles and
myself, and I am quite convinced that he knew the nature
of the operation.
*
*
*
"Q.: What were the subsequent conversations you had
with Mr. Dulles in which you concluded that he knew
that this was an assassination effort?
"Bissell. :
it's really a guess on my part that
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 72
-9-
such conversations occurred ☐ I do believe they did
occur is that during the entire autumn I suppose I must
have spoken to Mr. Dulles practically daily about some
aspect of the whole Cuban operation and I am virtually
certain that he would in one or another of those con-
versations and probably more than once have asked if
there was anything to report about the Sheffield Edwards'
operation. He also may have been in direct contact with
Edwards at that time. (Bissell Tr. 6/9/75, pp. 24-26)
"
When asked by the Chairman why, in this context,
persons within the Agency talked "in riddles to one another",
Bissell replied that:
"
I think there was a reluctance to spread even
on an oral record some aspects of this operation.
"Chairman: Did the reluctance spring from the fact
that it simply grated against your conscience to have
to speak more explicitly?
"Bissell: I don't think it grated against my conscience.
I think it may have been a feeling that the Director
[Dulles preferred the use of the sort of language that
is described in the I.G. Report."
Bissell, in a subsequent appearance before the
Committee, again addressed the issue of whether he and Edwards
had made it clear to Dulles that what was involved was an
assassination operation:
"I thought I made clear that it was my impression--and
I believe the impression incidentally that I thought
was confirmed in the [I.G. Report] --that in discussing
this with Dulles and Cabell .
the objective of the
operation was made unmistakably clear to them. The
terms an intelligence operation', I think someone
said, was that not a cover designation? But we would not
under any circumstances have told Allen Dulles that this
was an intelligence collection operation. If I said that
on Monday, I must have given a wrong impression.'
(Bissell Tr. 6/11, p. 24.)
11
On the other hand, Scott Breckenridge, the only
author of the Inspector General's Report still with the CIA,
testified that in his opinion a "pointed avoidance of 'bad
..
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 73
- 10 -
11
words' would have made it less likely that an "intelligence
operation" would have been understood as an assassination
attempt, and that "it was open to question how clearly this
was stated to Mr. Dulles and whether or not Mr. Dulles under-
stood"
(Colby/Breckenridge, 5/ p. .)
"
Sheffield Edwards was quite infirm when examined by
the Committee and has since died.* Edwards testified before
the Committee as follows:
"
.
[T]his possible project was approved by Allen B.
Dulles, Director of CIA, and by General Cabell, the
Deputy Director. They are both dead.
"The Chairman: How do you know, Colonel, that the
project had been approved by these two gentlemen?
"Edwards: I personally briefed Allen Dulles
Cabell." (Edwards, 5/30/75; pp. 5-6)
and
In his interview with the Rockefeller Commission,
Edwards testified (Edwards interview, p. 5):
"Q. :
Now, who inside the Agency besides Bissell did
you have any contact with on the top echelon?
"A. : Very important. The plan was approved by Allen W.
Dulles and General Cabell."
* As the investigation proceeded, members of the Committee
requested that Edwards be recalled. Edwards passed away.
before this could be accomplished. As a result of Edwards'
infirmity and subsequent death, the Committee was unable to
examine him effectively concerning his conflicting prior
statements concerning Dulles' knowledge of the plots.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 74
11
i
James O'Connell, who was the case officer for the
operation involving underworld figures, testified that when
he and Edwards discussed the matter in 1975, prior to giving
evidence to the Rockefeller Commission, he was sure that
Edwards had told him Dulles had approved the plot (O'Connell
Tr. 5/30, pp. 58-59). He added that he was "reasonably sure"
or "knew" in the "back of my mind" that either Edwards or
Bissell had also told him of Dulles' knowledge when the plot
was underway in 1960-62 (O'Connell Tr. 5/30, pp. 33-34; 36;
60). *
A review of Dulles' calendar for August through
December 1960 showed no meeting involving Dulles, Cabell,
Bissell and Edwards. ** Of course, such a meeting could have
occurred without having been recorded.
2. Whatever Was Said to Dulles, He Was Not Briefed
Until After Contact With the Underworld Figures Had Been Made.
Bissell and the Inspector General's Report (which
*In June 1966, Howard J. Osborn, Edwards' successor as
Director of Security, wrote a memorandum for Helms on Maheu
stating that "the DCI was briefed and gave his approval".
When questioned about this memorandum, Osborn stated that he
had no firsthand knowledge of the briefing, and that he had
most likely obtained this statement from Edwards or O'Connell.
**The calendar also reflects no meetings during that period
between Dulles, Edwards and Bissell, or between Dulles and
Edwards.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 75
-12-
relied on Edwards) placed the briefing of Dulles in "the latter
part of September 1960".
Bissell did not have a clear independent recollection
of the dates involved, but recalled that discussions concerning
the possible use of syndicate members against Castro began "in
the Autumn of 1960".* He recalled initial discussions among
himself, Edwards, and Colonel J. C. King, Chief of the Western
Hemisphere Division, which he said occurred before Dulles and
Cabell were approached about assassinating Castro.
to Bissell,
According
"those conversations, the subject matter was a capability
to eliminate Castro if such action should be decided
upon.
"It is, therefore, accurate to say that my best
recollection of those conversations (with Edwards and
King) is that they addressed themselves to the existence
or non-existence of the capability and to the possibility
of developing a capability. They were not conclusive or
decisive conversations
nor would they have revealed
a prior decision to implement such a plan by anybody."
(Bissell, 6/9, p. 19.)
* "Q. :
When did you first become aware of any plan or
effort to assassinate Mr. Castro?
"Bissell: Well, I became aware of planning a contingency
basis for such an operation. My recollection is
August
"Q.: August of 1960?
"Bissell: '60, correct
but without reading [the
(Bissell Tr. 6/9, pp. 17-18.)
I. G. Report], I would have remembered initial conversations
early in the autumn of 1960."
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 76
13
O'Connell contacted Roselli in early September 1960.
During the week of September 25, O'Connell, Maheu, and Roselli
met with Giancana and Trafficante in Miami.
Bissell testified
as follows concerning the sequence of those events:
"Q.: Well, before we come to the meeting [with Dullesl,
you had been informed, prior to that, had you not, that
contact had been made with the Mafia?
"Mr. Bissell. : I had.
"Q. :
Now were you informed that the Mafia had been given
the go ahead to proceed with actual efforts to assassinate
Castro?
"Bissell: Not that early, to my best recollection.
I cannot date that at all well. I would suppose that it
was within the next two or three weeks." (Bissell, 6/9,
pp. 20-21.)
On the other hand, Roselli's testimony suggests that Maheu had
indicated prior to the "latter part of September" 1960 that a
large sum of money would be paid for Castro's death (Roselli,
p. 17), and Edwards' May 14, 1962 memorandum indicated the
briefing of "senior officials" took place after the money had
been offered.
It is clear, then, that even if Dulles was informed
about the use of underworld figures to assassinate Castro, sub-
ordinate agency officials had previously decided to take steps
toward arranging for the killing of Castro, including discussing
it with organized crime leaders.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 77
-14-
(iv) Questions Raised by Edwards' Communications
to the Justice Department in 1961 and 1962.
As fully described supra, pp.
the FBI discovered
in the late 1960's that Maheu had been involved in an illegal
wiretap in Las Vegas. In April 1961, Maheu told the FBI that
the tap had been placed in connection with a CIA operation, and
suggested that the FBI contact Edwards to verify this fact.
An FBI report of a May 3, 1961 interview with Edwards
(in which Edwards vaguely described the use of Giancana as
relating to "clandestine efforts against the Castro Government"
with no mention of assassination, and a copy of which was given
to the Attorney General) stated:
1.
"Col. Edwards advised that only Mr. Bissell (Director of
Plans, CIA) and two others in CIA were aware of the
Giancana-Maheu activity in behalf of CIA's program and
contact
Allen Dulles was completely unaware of Edwards
with Maheu in this connection. He added that Mr. Bissell,
in his recent briefings of Gen. Taylor and the Attorney
General in connection with their inquiries into CIA
relating to the Cuban situation, told the Attorney General
that some of the associated planning included the use of
Giancana and the underworld against Castro." (FBI memo-
randum entitled "Arthur James Balletti et al.", May 22,
1961, p. 2.) (Emphasis added).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 78
15
Bissell said he was certain, however, that the
statement regarding Dulles' knowledge about the operation was
wrong, and testified that "it is just flatly contrary to my
recollection that Allen Dulles was unaware of these contacts,
as I have testified several times" (Bissell, 6/11, p. 27).*
When asked to speculate on why Edwards would have
told the FBI that Dulles was unaware of Edwards' contact with
Maheu, Bissell replied:
"I can only surmise that he believed he could secure
the cooperation of the Justice Department that he
required without in any way involving his superior,
Mr. Dulles, and simply did this in a protective
fashion." (Bissell, 7/17/, p. 20).
(That
). Edwards'
A year later, on May 7, 1962, Edwards and CIA's
General Counsel met with Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
meeting, is discussed extensively below at p.
memorandum of the meeting indicated that he had said that
after Roselli and Giancana had been offered $150,000, Edwards
had "then briefed the proper senior officials of [the]
*
Now, it (the FBI memorandum) is just flatly
contrary to my recollection that Allen Dulles
was unaware of these contacts, as I have testified
several times. Also, I submit it is quite im-
plausible that I would have briefed Gen. Taylor
and the Attorney General--and incidentally, I
have no recollection of briefing those two gentle
men except as members of the Board of Inquiry
that I have described, of which Allen Dulles him-
self was a member--it is quite implausible that
I would have briefed them on a matter which had
been going on for some months, and some which
the Director, Mr. Dulles himself, had never been
informed."
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 79
16
Agency" (without specifying whom) and they had "duly orally.
It further states that "knowledge" of the project
approved."*
had been "kept to a total of six persons." **
Dulles had left the Agency between the time of
Edwards' two statements.
(v). Remarks Made to the Special Group by General
Cabell in November 1960.
Bissell and Edwards testified that Cabell was aware
of the Castro plots (Bissell Tr. 6/9, p. 22; Edwards Tr. 5/30/75,
PP. 5-6).***
* On the same day as writing that memorandum for the
Attorney General, Edwards wrote another memorandum for his
own files indicating that after putting Harvey in contact
with Roselli in early April, he had:
"cautioned him [Harvey] that I felt that any future
projects of this nature should have the tacit approval
of the Director of Central Intelligence.' (5/14/62,
Memorandum for the Record:)
"
This memorandum, which contained other information which
Harvey and Edwards had agreed to include to "falsify" the record,
is discussed infra, p.
** The 1967 Inspector General's Report surmised that thirteen
people knew of the plot, including Dulles, based upon Bissell's
and Edwards' account of the Dulles briefing. (See discussion,
supra. at
***
The Inspector General's Report stated:
"With Bissell present, Edwards briefed the Director
(Dulles) and the DDCI (Cabell) on the existence of a plan
involving members of the syndicate. Edwards is quite
"
sure that the DCI and the DDCI clearly understood the
nature of the operation he was discussing. (IG Report,
p. 17.)
O'Connell testified that prior to O'Connell's testifying
before the Rockefeller Commission, Edwards told O'Connell that
Cabell had been aware of and authorized the project.
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 80

17
The testimony indicates that the meeting between Dulles,
Bissell, Edwards, and Cabell occurred sometime "in the autumn"
of 1960, probably around September. The minutes of a meeting of
the Special Group, the high-level governmental body for consider-
ing covert action, on November 3, 1960, reflect the following
remarks:
"Finally, Mr. Merchant asked whether any real planning
had been done for taking direct positive action against
Fidel, Raul and Che Guevara. He said that without these
three the Cuban Government would be leaderless and
probably brainless. He conceded that it would be necessary
to act against all three simultaneously. General Cabell
pointed out that action of this kind is uncertain of
results and highly dangerous in conception and execu-
tion, because the instruments must be Cubans. He
felt that, particularly because of the necessity of
simultaneous action, it would have to be concluded
that Mr. Merchant's suggestion is beyond our capabilities."
(11/3/60 Special Group Minutes, P. 3).
Exactly what the term "direct positive action" meant to the
speaker or those listening is uncertain. Neither was able to
offer any interpretive help to the Committee. However, other
participants at this meeting have testified that the reference
could mean or include assassination.*
is this
Inconsis
might Ann
but not
believe pass.
*
"Q: Do you read.
direct, positive action.
as meaning killing (Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Che
Guevara)?"
"A: I would read it that way, yes." (Lansdale
Tr. 7/8/75, p. 103.)
"Q:
.would you agree that the words 'direct
positive action appear to question whether there's been any.
planning in connection with assassinating (the Castros and
Guevara)?"
"A:
I think the phrase 'positive action' could include
assassinations, but. . . I'm not sure what was in Mr. Merchant's
(Gray Tr. 7/9/75, p. 9.)
mind.'
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 81
18
Bissell was also asked about the minutes of the
November 3 meeting. After reading the reference to "direct
positive action," Bissell said "I find it difficult to
understand"
(Bissell Tr. 7/17, p. 18). He was then asked
"Q: Do you, in light of the November 3
minutes) remain firm that Cabell was knowledgeable
(of the assassination plots)?"
"A:
It casts some doubt on that in my mind."
When asked if it cast "some significant doubt in light of
(Cabell's) character", Bissell answered "yes" (Bissell, 7/17,
pp. 22-23).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 82
C
- 19
(c) Did John McCone Know of or Authorize Assassina-
tion Plots During His Tenure as DCI
The CIA considered several assassination plots
against Castro during McCone's tenure as Director. Harvey
initiated his contact with Roselli in April 1962, and the
operation involving underworld figures continued into early.
1963. In early 1963 the CIA looked into the possibility of
assassinating Castro with an exploding seashell and contaminated
diving suit. AM/LASH was offered a poison pen device in
November 1963, and caches of arms were delivered to Cuba for
his use in the following year.
(i). McCone Testified That He Did Not Authorize
or Know About the Castro Plots and That He Would Have Dis-
approved the Plots Had He Been Asked
McCone testified that he was not aware of
the plots to assassinate Castro which took place during the
years in which he was DCI, and that he did not authorize those
*
plots. (McCone, 6/6/75, pp. 33, 44-45) He testified that he
was not briefed about the assassination plots by Dulles,
Bissell, Helms, or anyone else when he succeeded Dulles as
Director in November 1961 (McCone, 6/6/75, pp. 6-7, 17), and
that if he had ever been asked about the plots, he would have
disapproved. (McCone, 6/6/75, p. 47) McCone testified:
* McCone testified that he first learned of the Roselli operation
in August, 1963, long after it had been terminated. See discussion,
p. _.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 83
20
I had no knowledge of any authorized plan or
planning that might lead to a request for
authorization. Of course, during those days
it was almost common for one person or another.
to say, we ought to dispose of Castro .
[b]ut at no time did anyone come to me, or
come to other authorities to my knowledge,
with a plan for the actual undertaking of an
assassination.
* *
Senator Hart of Colorado:
Did you
ever discuss the subject of assassinations ASSASS
with your predecessor, Mr. Dulles?
McCone: No, I did not.
Сарая?
пем класті
(ii) Helms, Bissell, and Other Subordinate Agency
Employees Testified That They Did Not Ask McCone to Approve
the Plots or Know If He Had Knowledge Of Them.
Richard Bissell was DDP under McCone for three months,
from November 1961 until February 1962. Richard Helms assumed
the duties of DDP from Bissell.
Bissell testified about McCone's knowledge as follows:
A. :
Q.
A. :
Your testimony is that you never discussed
assassinations with Mr. McCone?
That is correct.
[D] id you tell McCone anything about
that conversation with Mr. Harvey in which
you at least told him (Harvey) to take
over the relationship with the criminal
syndicate?
I don't remember so doing.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 84
.7
21-
Helms testified that he did not recall ever having dis-
cussed the assassination plots with McCone while the plots
were continuing.* When asked whether McCone was aware of the
assassination plots against Castro, Helms testified:
No, it isn't my impression that I told him,
at least I don't have any impression, unfor-
tunately.
Mr. McCone is an honorable
man. He has done his own testifying, and all
I can say is that I do not know specifically
whether he was aware or not. (Helms, 6/13/75,
pp. 90, 101-102)
Helms further testified:
Q. I believe Mr. McCone testified that he
never heard of any of these attempts when he
was Director. Would you have any reason to
disagree with his testimony?
Helms: Sir, I have always liked McCone and
I don't want to get into an altercation with
him. He had access to Harvey and everybody.
else just the way I had and he had regular
to the Attorney General.
access
J * * * *
Q. : If you were a member of this Committee
wouldn't you assume that Mr. McCone was un-
aware of the assassination attempts while
they were underway?
Helms: I don't know how to answer that,
Senator Mondale. He was involved in this up
to his scuppers just the way everybody else
*Helms testified that he first told McCone about the plot
using underworld figures in August 1963, See discussion supra
at p.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 85
-22-
was that was in it, and I just don't know.
I have no reason to impugn his integrity.
On the other hand, I don't understand how
it was he didn't hear about some of these
things that he claims that he didn't.
(Helms, 7/13/75, pp. 32-33)
*
* *
I honestly didn't recall that Mr. McCone
was not informed and when I was told that
there was evidence that he wasn't informed,
I was trying to scratch my head as to why I
didn't tell him at the time and my surmises
are the best I can come up with. I am really
surprised I did not discuss it with him at
the time. My relations with him were good,
and so my surmises are just the best I am
able to do in 1975 over an episode that took
place that many years ago. (Helms, 6/13/75,
.P. 90)
Several other Agency officials who were aware of the
assassination plots testified that they had not told McCone
of the plots. William Harvey testified that he never spoke
with McCone about the operation involving underworld figures
or assassination and that, to the best of his knowledge,
McCone had not been told about the project.
p. 66)
(Harvey, 6/25/75,
Sheffield Edwards, when asked whether he had informed
McCone about the plot, replied:
Edwards:
No, I did not inform Mr. McCone.
Q. :
Was there a reason for why you did not
inform Mr. McCone?
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 86
- 23
Edwards: Well, I did not want to drag
Mr. McCone into this thing that in my
opinion had petered out, and I did not
want to involve him. (Edwards, p. 18)
James O'Connell, who was the case officer for the opera-
tion under Edwards, testified that he recalled that Edwards had
told him during a discussion about the plots in 1965 that
Edwards had not briefed McCone on the operation.
As a matter of fact, I don't think he ever
knew about it. From later conversations with
Colonel Edwards, not recently, we talked about
it, and he said that he was convinced that
Mr. McCone never knew about it, it wasn't on
his watch, so to speak, and he didn't want to
get him involved. (O'Connell, pp. 37, 39)
George McManus, Helms' Special Assistant for Cuba during
the relevant period, testified that he was not told about the
assassination activities, and gave his opinion that if McCone
had been asked to approve an assassination, he "would have
reacted violently immediately".*
*McManus advanced two reasons for this opinion:
(1)
McCone had a great love for the President of
the United States and he sort of looked at him
as an older son or a brother, a very protective
sense he had about the President, President
Kennedy, and McCone would have immediately said
Jesus, this is a no win ball game.
(2) Secondly, as an individual, he would have found
it morally reprehensible. (McManus, p. 33)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 87
(Continued)
$
24
Walter Elder, McCone's Executive Assistant, testified
that he had not known of the underworld operation until August
1963, and that in his opinion McCone did not learn of the
operation prior to that time.* (Elder, p. 15)
(iii) Helms and Harvey Did Not Brief McCone About
the Assassination Plots
McCone assumed the position of DCI in Novem-
ber 1961. It was also in November 1961 that Bissell asked
Harvey to assume operational control over the Castro plot in-
volving underworld figures.** Richard Helms replaced Bissell
in February of 1962 and was subsequently briefed by Harvey on
(Continued)
McManus also testified:
I always assumed that Mr. Helms would keep the
Director fully informed of any activity that he
thought was sensitive.
Under most cir-
cumstances, and indeed under all circumstances
you can imagine, Helms would have told McCone,
with the exception of a situation in which
Helms had been told by higher authority not to
tell him. (McManus, pp. 32-34)
*In August 1963 Helms gave McCone a copy of Edwards' May 14,
1962, memorandum to the Attorney General. See discussion infra
at P.
With respect to the Cuban assassination matters, where
Colby's knowledge was only second-hand, Colby said: "Mr. McCone
did not know of it." (Colby, 5/21/75, p. 101)
**See earlier discussion supra.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 88
25
the existence of the assassination plots.
Helms was Harvey's
immediate superior and the person to whom he reported about
the Castro plot activities.
Harvey testified that in the spring of
1962, when he was preparing to contact Roselli, he briefed
Helms on the assassination plot. (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 65)
Harvey said:
future of
I briefed Helms generally on the take-
over of Roselli, on the doubts about the
operation, on the possible
it, and to the extent it had then been possible,
the assessment of Roselli and the cutting oụt
of various individuals.*
Harvey testified that when he briefed Helms on the assassina-
tion plot operation, they decided that it would not be appro-
priate at that point to brief John McCone.
There was a fairly detailed discussion be-
tween myself and Helms as to whether or not
the Director should at that time be briefed
concerning this. For a variety of reasons
*Harvey testified that when he took over the Roselli opera-
tion, he had "cut out" both Maheu and Giancana because "regard-
less of what I may have thought of their trustworthiness,
they were surplus" to the operation. (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 65)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 89
26
which were tossed back and forth, we agreed
that it was not necessary or advisable to brief
him at that time.
I then said, as I recall, to Mr. Helms, if you
decide in the future that he should be briefed,
I would like to know about it in advance to
which, to my best recollection, he agreed.
(Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 66)
Harvey then offered the following explanation for why he and
Helms had decided not to discuss the matter with McCone at
that time:
E
There were several reasons for this. One,
this operation at that stage had not been
assessed. It was obviously questionable on
several grounds. It obviously involved know-
ledge by too many people. We were not even
sure at that point it had any remote possibility
or rather any real possibility for success.
had arisen with full authority insofar as either
of us knew long before I knew anything about it,
and before the then-Director became Director of
the Agency.
It
I saw no reason at that time to charge him
with knowledge of this, at least until we reach-
ed the point where it appeared it might come to
fruitation or had had a chance to assess the
individuals involved and determine exactly the
problem we faced, including the possible problem
and it was a very, or it appeared to be, and
in my opinion was, at that time, a very real
possibility of this government being blackmailed
either by Cubans for political purposes or by
figures in organized crime for their own self-
protection or aggrandizement, which, as it turned
out, did not happen, but at that time was a very
pregnant possibility. (Harvey, 6/25/75, pp. 67-68)
*
*
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 90

27
I am definitely not saying that there was any
effort to hide or conceal any information from
the Director. There was not.. This was a dis-
cussion as to whether or not it was even neces-
sary or appropriate at this point to take details
of this particular operation in an unassessed
form to the then-Director at that time. (Harvey,
6/25/75, p. 69)
Harvey stated that he did not have any reason to believe
that the assassination activities would have been "disapproved
by the Director" had he been advised of the project (Harvey,
..
6/25/75, p. 69) and stated that he had thought the plots "were
completely authorized at every appropriate level within and
beyond the Agency". (Harvey, 7/11/75, p. 66). When asked why
McCone had not been given an opportunity to consider the plot,
Harvey replied:
•
One of the things that I don't know from
my own .. knowledge
is who was briefed
in exactly what terms at the time of the so-
called Las Vegas flop that involved attempts to
place a technical surveillance in Dan
Rowan's hotel room. (Harvey, 7/11/75, p. 46)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 91
28
Harvey was queried on whether the reasons he had given for not
briefing McCone were actually "reasons why he should [have been]
briefed forthwith".
Harvey replied:
Well, Senator Huddleston, it will be quite
easy in looking at it now to say, well, I can
see your argument.
All I can say to you in answer is at that
time I didn't feel that it was necessary or
advisable. I did not make this decision except
in consultation, and had I been disagreed with,
that would have been it. And I am not off-
loading this on Richard Helms or attempting to
at all. It isn't all that easy for me to go
back this many years and sort of recast all of
the reasoning and be sure I am accurate. And
I don't also want to evade it by saying, well,
it seemed like a good idea at the time. But
actually it did.
In other words, this was not something
that either Helms or myself felt that at that
stage there was any point in attempting to
brief the Director on it until, at least, we
had a somewhat better handle on it. .
*
* ** *
And I might also add, if I may,
but as
far as either one of us knew at that point he
might have been or should have been briefed,
way, by either Allen Dulles
(Harvey, 7/11/75, pp. 67-71)
if you want it that
or Richard Bissell.
The 1967 Report prepared by the Inspector General for
Helms states that Harvey said:
"When he briefed Helms on
Roselli, he obtained Helms' approval not to brief the
Director."
(I.G., p. 41)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 92
29. -
Helms testified that he did not recall this conversation,
but that he had no reason to doubt the accuracy of Hårvey's
testimony and the Inspector General's Report.
pp. 32, 106).
(Helms, 6/13/75,
Helms, when asked about Harvey's testimony that he and
Harvey had agreed not to brief McCone, stated "I frankly don't.
recall having agreed to this.'
"
And as
My recollection is that I had very grave
doubts about the wisdom of this.
I recall it, we had so few assets inside Cuba
at that time that I was willing to try almost
anything. But the thing did not loom large in
my mind at that time. I was enormously busy
with a lot of other things, taking over a new
job [as DDP]. Mr. McCone was realtively new in
the Agency and I guess I must have thought to
myself, well this is going to look peculiar to
him and I doubt very much this is going to go
anyplace, but if it does, then that is time
enough to bring him into the picture. (Helms,
6/13/75, p. 33).
Helms also stated:
It was a Mafia connection and Mr. McCone was
relatively new to the organization and this was,
you know, not a very savory effort. (Helms,
6/13/75, P. 92)
Helms later testified that he did not "recall ever having been
convinced that any attempt was really made on Castro's life."
I am having a very difficult time justifying
before this Committee, because there is some-
thing in here that doesn't come together, even
for me, I am sorry to say. Because if this was
all that clear, as everybody seems to think it
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 93
- 30.-
was, that there were those pills in that restau-
rant in Cuba and Castro was about to die, I cer-
tainly would have talked to McCone about it.
And this never was that clear, I am sorry to say,
but it never was, not at that time. (Helms,
7/17/75, p. 34)
On May 7, 1962, Edwards and the CIA's General Counsel,
Lawrence Houston, briefed Attorney General Robert Kennedy on
the operation involving underworld figures, describing it as
terminated. *
Harvey told the Inspector General that:
on 14 May he briefed Helms on the meet-
ing with the Attorney General, as told to him
by Edwards. Harvey, too, advised against
briefing Mr. McCone and General Carter and
states that Helms concurred in this.
p. 65)
(I.G.,
Harvey testified that what he had probably told Helms was that:
Any briefing of the Director on the discussion
with the Attorney General concerning this
should come from Colonel Edwards and Larry
Houston, the General Counsel, and not from the
DDP unless we are asked. (Harvey, 6/25/75,
P. 99)
Helms testified that he did not recall this conversation and
remarked:
It seems odd to me only because, if the Attorney
General had been briefed on something it would
seem very logical that it would be very important
to brief the Director at that time on the same
thing. (Helms, 6/13/75, p. 107).
*The briefing is exhaustively described supra at p.
According to the Inspector General's Report, Harvey and
Roselli had a farewell dinner before Harvey went on an assign-
ment to Rome in June 1963. The meeting was observed by the FBI,
and Sam Papich, the FBI liaison with the CIA, notified Harvey
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 94
-31-
Harvey supplied poison pills and weapons to Roselli
and his Cuban associates during a trip to Miami in April, 1962.*
At a Special Group meeting on April 26, General Taylor requested
that Harvey "attend the next meeting and report on agent
activities" (Memo, McCone, 4/26/62). On April 26, Harvey
was sent a memorandum informing him of General Taylor's request
and McCone's wish to meet with Harvey and Lansdale "immediately
on your return to discuss the Task Force Activities."
dum, Elder to Harvey, 4/27/62).
(Memoran-
Harvey testified that upon his return, he reported
to the Special Group on the "status of the active and potential
sources inside Cuba..
Q. :
"Did you report on the passage of the pills to Roselli?
Harvey:
Q.
No, I did not.
: Which you had just accomplished in Miami. . . for
the purpose of assassinating Fidel Castro.
Harvey: No.
Q.
And did you report that to Mr. McCone when he asked
you to tell him what you had done in Miami?
Harvey: No, I did not."
(Harvey, 7/11, pp. 16-17.)
that Hoover would be informed. Harvey asked Papich to call him
if he felt that Hoover would inform the Director about the incident.
"Harvey said that he then told Mr. Helms of the incident
and that Helms agreed that there was no need to brief
McCone unless a call from Hoover was expected. (I.G.,
p. 54.)
* Harvey described the trip to Miami as
"one of a number of periodic trips for the purpose of
reviewing in toto. the actual and potential operations at the
Miami base. and this covered the whole gamut from personnel
administration, operational support in the way of small craft (and)
(Harvey, 7/11, pp. 15-16).
so on. .
"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 95
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Harvey stated that he did not tell McCone or the Special Group
about the operation at that time because:
"I did not consider either, A, that this should be in any
sense in this amorphous stage, surfaced to the Special Group,
nor, as I have attempted to explain before that it should be
briefed to John McCone at that point in the state that it was
in with as little as we knew about it, and with all of the at-
tendant. background which at that point, and I was not personal-
ly cognizant of all of this, had been going on for approximate-
ly, as I recall, two to two-and-a-half years. (Harvey, 7/11,
p. 18.)
"
Harvey attended an August 10, 1962 meeting of the
Special Group Augmented. * He testified that a person [Robert
McNamara] at that meeting suggested that the Special Group "consider
the elimination or assassination of Fidel" (Harvey, 7/11, p. 30).
Harvey then testified that on the day following this Special Group
meeting (Harvey, 6/25, p. 71):
Mc Love
"in connection with a morning briefing of John McCone, the
question again came up and I expressed some opinion as to
the inappropriateness of this having been raised in this
form and at that forum [Special Group meeting], at which
point Mr. McCone stated in substance that he agreed and
also that he had felt so strongly that he had, I believe,
the preceding afternoon or evening, personally called the
gentleman who made the proposal or suggestion and had stated
similar views as to the inappropriateness and that he [Mc-
if I got myself involved in some-
thing like this, I might end up getting myself ex-communicated."
Should he Cone] said in addition.
have asked
Harvey stated that he did not tell McCone on that occasion about
the actual assassination operation involving Roselli. He said
(Harvey, 6/25, p. 73):
*This meeting and the raising of the suggestion of assassina-
tion is discussed in depth in part
infra.
,
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 96
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"I would like to recast the time that this took place. This
was August of '62. This was at the start of the so-called
Missile Crisis.
"A tentative decision had been made at that point that
the only sensible thing to do with [the Roselli operation]
was to terminate it as rapidly and cleanly as it could be
done . . I am sure that I had discussed with Roselli, at
least on a tentative basis, by August, the probable neces-
sity of terminating this
11
According to the Inspector General's Report, the "medicine" was
reported to be still in Cuba at this time. (I:G.,
PP. 51-52)
Harvey testified that the Report was referring to the pills
(Harvey, 6/25, p. 105).*
In relation to the August 10 meeting, Helms was asked whether
he believed McCone would have stopped an assassination attempt if
he had known that one was underway. Helms stated:
Mr. Helms: "The reason I say I don't know. . is that
elsewhere Mr. McCone states that he went to see Mr. Mc-
Namara in connection with this August 1962 affair and told
Mr. McNamara that he wouldn't have anything to do with
this, that I have no recollection that I don't believe he
ever said anything to me about his not wanting to have any-
thing to do with it.
Q.: "And you were close to Mr. McCone in that period? You
are his Deputy for Plans?
Mr. Helms: "I saw him almost daily.
Q.: "And is it your belief that if he had made any such
statement to Mr. McNamara that he would have come to you
and told you about it at some point?
Mr. Helms: "I just don't know why he didn't but I don't re-
call any such statement. As I said, and I would like to
repeat it, Mr. McCone had given me my job, he had promoted
me, I felt close to him, I felt loyal to him, and I would
not have violated an instruction he gave me if I could have
possibly helped it.
*Harvey said:
"I may have deferred for a period of a few weeks giving
an actual order to terminate this as soon as possible,
(Harvey, 6/25, p. 74).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 97
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O. "But in any event, it is your judgment that he did not
indicate that he was opposed to assassinations?
Mr. Helms: "Not to me. "
Walter Elder, who served as McCone's Executive Assistant, testified,
however, that he had personally told Helms of McCone's opposition
to assassination after the August 10 meeting.*
(iv) The August 1963 Briefing of McCone
An August 16, 1963, Chicago Sun Times article claimed
that the CIA had had a connection with Giancana. ** McCone asked
Helms for a report about the article. McCone testified that when
Helms came to see him, he brought the following memorandum:
"1. Attached is the only copy in the Agency of a memorandum
on subject, the ribbon copy of which was sent to the Attorney
General in May of 1962. I was vaguely aware of the existence
of such a memorandum since I was informed that it had been
written as a result of a briefing given by Colonel Edwards and
Lawrence Houston to the Attorney General in May of last year.
"12.
I spoke with Colonel Edwards on the telephone last evening,
and, in the absence of Mr. Bannerman on leave, I was with Colo-
nel Edwards' assistance able to locate this copy. As far as I
*Elder told the Committee:
"I told Mr. Helms that Mr. McCone had expressed his feeling
that assassination could not be condoned and would not
be approved. Furthermore, I conveyed Mr. McCone's statement
that it would be unthinkable to record in writing any consid-
eration of assassination because it left the impression that
the subject had received serious consideration by governmental
policy makers, which it had not.. Mr. Helms responded, 'I un-
derstand'. The point is that I made Mr. Helms aware of the
strength of Mr. McCone's opposition to assassination. I know
that Mr. Helms could not have been under any misapprehension
about Mr. McCone's feelings after this conversation."
Affidavit.)
(Elder
**The 8/16/63 Chicago Sun Times article states that "Justice
Department sources believed that Giancana never did any spying
for the CIA, but pretended to go along with the Agency "in the
hopes that the Justice Department's drive to put him behind bars
might be slowed or at least affected by his ruse of coopera-
tion with another government agency."
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 98
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am aware, this is the only written information available on
Agency relationships with subject. I hope that this will
serve your purpose.
"
"3. I assume you are aware of the nature of the operation
discussed in the attachment. (Memorandum to Director of
Central Intelligence, re: Sam Giancana, from Helms, 8/16/63.)*
That memorandum attached the May 14, 1962, memorandum to Attorney
General Kennedy from Sheffield Edwards which described the opera-
tion as having been terminated before McCone became DCI. (See
discussion, infra, p. .)
Neither McCone nor Helms were able to remember what was said
at the meeting. Walter Elder, who was then McCone's Executive As-
sistant, recalled:
•
"Mr. Helms came in with [the memorandum]. He handed it to
[McCone] who read it and . . handed it back without any
particular comment other than to say, 'Well, this did not
happen during my tenure.
"
*
*
*
*
*
Q.: "Was anything else said?
A.: "No, he had very little to say about it.
Q. "Did Mr. Helms then leave?
A.: "Mr. Helms left." (Elder, pp. 16-17, 57-59.)
Elder testified that he had concluded that the operation in-
volved assassination from reading the two memoranda that were given
to McCone (Elder, 8/13, p. 60). Elder "further concluded that [Mc-
Cone] was perfectly aware of what Mr. Helms was trying to say to
*When asked whether this entry in the memorandum suggested that.
he had previously been aware of the operation, McCone testified that
Helms had orally informed him "on that day in August" that it in-
volved assassination (McCone, p. 9).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 99
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him" (Elder, p. 60). Elder further testified:
1
"Other than that conversation that you just described
between yourself and Mr. McCone, did he have anything else
to say about that memorandum?
Mr. Elder: "No."
Q. "I take it then he did not tell either you or Mr. Helms
that we absolutely could not have this activity going on in
the future?
Mr. Elder: "No."
The Inspector General's Report concluded that:
"This is the earliest date on which we have evidence
of Mr. McCone's being aware of any aspect of the
scheme to assassinate Castro using members of the
gambling syndicate. (I.G., p. 70)..
"
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DocId: 32423539 Page 100

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2/1/75
Draft Based on
Subcommittee
Meeting, 8/29/75
(b) The Question of Authorization Outside The Central Intelli-
gence Agency In The Eisenhower Administration.
1.
Summary
As discussed in the preceding section, the evidence as to whether
Allen Dulles, CIA Director during the Eisenhower Administration, was
informed of the Castro assassination operation is not clear.
Even assuming that Dulles was so informed, authorization outside
the CIA for a Castro assassination could, according to the testimony,
only have come from President Eisenhower, from someone speaking for him,.
or from the Special Group. At issue, therefore, is whether President
*
Eisenhower, his close aides, or the Special Group authorized or had knowledge
of the Castro assassination plots.
In addition to Bissell, we took considerable testimony from
President Eisenhower's principal staff assistants, Gordon Gray (Special
Assistant for National Security Affairs and President Eisenhower's
representative on the Special Group); General Andrew Goodpaster (Staff
Secretary to President Eisenhower with particular responsibility for
* With respect to then Vice President Nixon, Bissell testified--and he
was supported by the principal White House assistants and the documents--
that Nixon was not significantly involved in Cuban matters generally at
the critical times. There is no evidence suggesting his knowledge of the
Castro assassination effort during the period under review, significant
parts of which occurred during the Presidential campaign. (Bissell
p.
'
; Gray, 7/9, p. 39) Therefore, we concluded that, despite the
indications in Nixon's book My Six Crises (p. ) that he was involved
in Cuban matters generally--and Howard Hunt's characterization of him as
the [action officer] for the Bay of Pigs, there was insufficient reason
to examine Mr. Nixon on Cuba looked at alone. We came to a contrary
conclusion on Chile and
•
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 101
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national security operational matters); John Eisenhower (Assistant Staff
Secretary and the President's son) and from Thomas Parrott (Secretary
to the Special Group and special assistant to Allen Dulles).
the evidence was:
In summary,
(i) Bissell testified that he did not inform the Special Group
or President Eisenhower of the Castro assassination operation, and he
had no personal knowledge that Allen Dulles informed either President
Eisenhower or the Special Group. However, Bissell expressed the belief
that Allen Dulles would have advised President Eisenhower (but not the
Special Group) in a "circumlocutious" or "oblique" way. Bissell based
this "pure personal opinion" on his understanding of Dulles' practice.
with respect to other particularly sensitive covert operations. But
Bissell testified that Dulles never told him that he had so advised
President Eisenhower regarding the Castro assassination operation, even
though Dulles had told Bissell when he had employed this "circumlocutious"
approach to the President on certain other occasions.
(ii) Gordon Gray testified that the Special Group never approved
a Castro assassination, and that President Eisenhower had charged the
Special Group with the responsibility of authorizing all important covert
operations. A review of the records of Special Group meetings shows that
a query concerning a plan to take "direct positive action" against Castro
at a Special Group meeting caused Allen Dulles' Deputy, General Cabell,
to advise that such action was beyond the CIA's capability. Gray,
Goodpaster and John Eisenhower all affirmed (i) that they did not believe
President Eisenhower would have considered such a matter in a private
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 102
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2
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3
meeting with Dulles, or indeed that President Eisenhower would have approved
a Castro assassination in any event, and (ii) that he would not have dis-
cussed such a matter without telling them. They conclude, therefore, as a
matter of opinion, that President Eisenhower was never told, and testify,
as a matter of fact, that they never heard anything about any assassination
at any time.
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(iii) In addition to the I.G. Report (which found that the CIA could
not say that any assassination activity carried on during this period was
responsive to Administration pressure), the documentary evidence showed that
the subject of Castro's removal was discussed at two meetings of the National
Security Council and the Special Group in March 1960. The minutes of these
meetings indicated that the discussions were in the context of a general con-
sideration of the proposal to train a Cuban exile force for an invasion of .
Cuba and an assessment that Castro's overthrow might result in a Communist
takeover. Gray and Admiral Burke testified that the discussion of Castro's
removal at these meetings did not refer to assassination, but rather to the
problem of creating an anti-Castro exile force strong enough to insure a non-
Communist successor to the Castro regime. In any event, no action was shown
to have stemmed from those meetings. An additional Special Group document
showed that when a question regarding planning for "direct positive action"
against Cuban leaders was raised at a meeting in the Fall of 1960 (shortly
after Phase I of the CIA/underworld assassination operation was initiated),
the Deputy Director of the CIA told the Special Group that such action was
beyond the CIA's capability.
Apporter
by
12
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 103
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2. Richard Bissell's Testimony
(a) Lack of Personal Knowledge.
TOP SEGRET
Bissell testified that he knew
nothing of clearances outside the CIA for the Castro assassination effort.
(Bissell, 6/9, p. 30). Indeed, Bissell met frequently with the Special
Group in the Fall of 1960 for the purpose of discussing Cuban operations,
but never informed the Special Group that there was a plot underway involving
use of underworld figures to assassinate Castro, (Bissell, 6/9, pp. 25-26);
nor did Bissell inform President Eisenhower or Vice President Nixon or any
other person outside the CIA (Bissell, 6/9, pp. 26-29). Bissell testified
that his reason for not doing so was that as Deputy Director of Plans, he
reported to the Director and under Agency procedures relied upon the Director
to inform the appropriate persons outside the Agency. Thus, the question of
President Eisenhower's knowledge rests on whether Allen Dulles personally
informed him of the Castro plot.
(b)
Assumptions Concerning Dulles. Based upon his belief that
Dulles had been briefed about the operation involving underworld figures
and understood that it involved assassination, Bissell assumed that Allen
Dulles would have sought authorization above the CIA level. As Bissell
testified:
"I went on the assumption that, in a matter of this sensitivity,
the Director would handle higher level clearances.
11*
I mean authorization. (Bissell, 6/9, p. 26.)*/
By clearance
"
*Bissell reiterated this view on his second day of testimony:
felt that the responsibility for obtaining necessary authorization should
remain with the Director."
(Bissell, 6/11, p. 4)
I
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 104
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Bissell further stated that although he believed that Dulles
"probably" talked with President Eisenhower:
"the Mafia operation was not regarded as of enormous importance
and there were much more important matters to talk about with
the President.' (Bissell, 7/17, p. 25.)
"
Bissell said he was "guessing" that Dulles informed Eisenhower.
(Bissell 7/17, pp. 38-39.) He said, however, that he based his assumption
on his knowledge of "command relationship, of Allen Dulles as an individual,
and of his [Dulles'] mode of operations". (Bissell, 6/11, p. 6.) As
Bissell explained, his guess that Dulles informed President Eisenhower "is
not based on hard evidence" but is "pure personal opinion". (Bissell,
6/9, p. 61.) Nevertheless, he believed it to be so, and that the Presi-
dent thereupon gave his authorization "perhaps only tacitly". (Bissell,
As Bissell explained,
6/11,
P.
6.)
"My guess is that indeed whoever informed him, that is Dulles
directly or Dulles through a staff member, would have had the
same desire.
to shield the President and to shield him in
the sense of intimating or making clear that something of the
sort was going forward, but giving the President as little in-
formation about it as possible, and the purpose of it would have
been to give the President an opportunity, if he so elected, to
cancel it, to order it cancelled, or to allow it to continue but
without, in effect, extracting from him an explicit endorsement
of the detailed specific plan." (Bissell, 6/9, p. 61)
22€
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 105
5
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Bissell said circumlocution would have been used "to protect
the President" in accord with the concept of "plausible deniability".*
As noted above, Bissell testified he had no personal knowledge
that Dulles informed President Eisenhower of the Castro plot. On other
specific occasions involving sensitive covert operations, Dulles had told
Bissell he had used the "circumlocutious" approach with President
Eisenhower. (Bissell, 6/11, p. 10.) But with respect to the Castro
assassination attempt, Dulles did not so inform Bissell.
p. 11.)
As Bissell testified:
6
dearhe
(Bissell, 6/11,
"I still want to be quite clear, I do not have a recollection of the
Director telling me that on this specific operation he had made
such an approach and received assent, approval, tacit or otherwise."
(Bissell, 6/11, p. 11.)
As to whether Dulles knew of the plots and informed Eisenhower, we
have discussed above the fact that in January 1960 Dulles had told the Special
Group that the CIA "did not have in mind a quick elimination of Castro."
(Memorandum of Special Group meeting, January 13, 1960, p. _ ).
And in July
1960 an instruction by Bissell's deputy to attempt to kill Raul Castro, which
also stated that "possible removal of top three leaders is receiving serious
consideration at headquarters" had been countermanded.
The CIA officer
who drafted this instruction testified that he had heard at the time that
it was Dulles who countermanded this instruction and in doing so had "indicated
that assassination was not to be considered (Hinkle, p. 29).
"
* Bissell explained the "plausible deniability" practice as follows:
that
"Any covert operations, but especially covert operations
if successful, would have very visible consequences, it was of course
an objective to carry out in such a way that they could be plausibly
disclaimed by the U.S. Government." (Bissell, 6/11, p. 5.)
Bissell apparently assumed that a corollary to that doctrine required the
use of "oblique", "circumlocutious" language.
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 106
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(iii) White House Officials Denied Knowledge of Assassination
Efforts and Gave the Opinion that President Eisenhower Was Not Informed.
1. Gordon Gray. Gordon Gray served as President Eisenhower's
Special Assistant for National Security Affairs from July 1958 to the
end of the Eisenhower Administration on January 20, 1961. (Gray, p. 4.)
In this capacity, Gray served as the President's representative on the
Special Group. (Gray, p. 4.) President Eisenhower specifically instructed
Gray that all covert actions impinging on the sovereignty of another
country must be deliberated by the Special Group.
(Gray, p. 6.) Gray
testified that during the period July 1958 to January 20, 1961, the
Special Group never approved an action to assassinate Castro (Gray, p. 6).
and no such suggestion was made by Bissell.
(Gray, p. 37.)
Gray testified he did not believe Allen Dulles would have
approached President Eisenhower without informing Gray. Gray stated:
"I find it very difficult to believe, and I do not believe, that
Mr. Dulles would have gone independently to him with such a
proposal without, for that matter, my knowing about it from Mr.
Dulles. (Gray, p. 35.)*
"
* Gray pointed out "that I was not with President Eisenhower twenty-
four hours a day. It was a few minutes every day, practically every day."
(Gray, p. 35.)
According to the records of the Eisenhower Library, Dulles was alone
with President Eisenhower on one occasion in the Fall of 1960. That
meeting lasted ten minutes on November 25, 1960. The record of the
previous portion of the meeting attended by Gray indicates only that, in
addition to discussion of operations in another country, "there was also
some discussion of Cuba". (Memorandum, November 28, 1960, by Gordon Gray,
of Meeting with the President, November 25, 1960 at 10:40 A.M.). We feel
compelled to state that the fact of this brief meeting, on the evidence
available, is of little, if any, significance or relevance.
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 107
7
о
)
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Gray further testified that his relationship with President
Eisenhower was such that President Eisenhower "would discuss with me any-
thing that came to his attention independently of me.".
(Gray, p. 7.)
And Gray testified that President Eisenhower never discussed with him the
subject of a Castro assassination or of the use of the underworld figures
and Cubans in such an effort.
(Gray, p. 7.)
2. Andrew Goodpaster. Goodpaster served as President Eisenhower's
Staff Secretary and Defense Liaison Officer during the last two years of
the Eisenhower Administration. (Goodpaster, p. 3.) In addition to responsi-
bility for the President's schedule and the supervision of the White House
staff, Goodpaster was responsible for handling with the President "all
matters of day to day operations" in the foreign affairs and national
security field, including the activities of the CIA and the Departments
of State and Defense. (Goodpaster, p. 3.) Goodpaster testified that he
had a "very close personal relationship" with President Eisenhower and
saw the President "essentially every day when [President Eisenhower] was
in Washington (Goodpaster, p. 4). Along with Gordon Gray, Goodpaster
served as the channel between the CIA and the President. Goodpaster was
the particular channel for "operations in which [President Eisenhower]
might take a personal part". ( (Goodpaster, p. 4.)
Goodpaster testified that he never heard any mention of assas-
ination efforts. (Goodpaster, p. 5.) He said that President Eisenhower
never told him about any assassination effort and that it was his belief,
under White House procedures and by virtue of his close relationship with
President Eisenhower, that if an assassination plan or operation had ever
been raised with the President, he would have learned of it. (Goodpaster,
p. 5.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 108
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Beyond this General Goodpaster testified that he found Bissell's
assumption of a "circumlocutious" personal conversation between Dulles and
the President "completely unlikely".
"That was simply not the President's way of doing business. He
had made it very clear to us how he wanted to handle matters of
this kind, and we had set up procedures to see that they were then
handled that way." (Goodpaster, pp. 6-7)
According to Goodpaster, after the collapse of the Paris Summit
Conference between President Eisenhower and Premier Khruschev as a result
of the U-2 incident in the Spring of 1960, the Eisenhower Administration
reviewed its procedures for approval of CIA operations and tightened them.
General Goodpaster testified that this review was carried out
"with the aim in mind of being sure we had full and explicit under-
standing of any proposals that came to us and we knew from
[President Eisenhower] that in doing that we were responsive to
a desire on his part." (Goodpaster, p. 7.)
Secondly, according to Goodpaster, the relationship between
President Eisenhower and Allen Dulles was quite different from that
between the President and John Foster Dulles. He said John Foster Dulles
was a confidant of the President while Allen Dulles was not.
p. 8.)
(Goodpaster,
3. Thomas Parrott. Thomas Parrott, a CIA officer, served as
Secretary of the Special Group from 1957 through the end of the Eisenhower
Administration (and thereafter until October 1963). (Parrott, p.
4.)
Parrott stated that, by virtue of this assignment, he functioned as Allen
Dulles' assistant in connection with the Special Group, knew Dulles well,
and gained an understanding of Dulles' method of expression and his
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 109
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9
TOP SEGUEI
10
practice for dealing with the President.
(Parrott, pp. 13-14.)*
Parrott testified that early in 1959, President Eisenhower
directed the Special Group to meet at least once a week to consider, approve,
or reject all significant covert action operations (Parrott, p. 4.)
Parrott testified it would have been "highly unlikely" for President
Eisenhower to have instructed the CIA to carry out a covert operation
without informing the Special Group. Parrott testified:
.revitalization
of this Committee
"as evidenced in his
[the Special Group], [President Eisenhower was] highly conscious of
the necessity to be protective
in this field, and I just
cannot conceive that [President Eisenhower] would have gone off and
mounted some kind of covert operation on his own. This certainly
would not have been consistent with President Eisenhower's staff
method of doing business
"** (Parrott, p. 7.)
4. John Eisenhower. John Eisenhower, President Eisenhower's
son, served in Goodpaster's office as Assistant Staff Secretary from mid-
1958 to the end of the Eisenhower Administration.
(Eisenhower, pp. 5, 9)
He testified that his father had confided secret matters in him "to a very
large extent".
(Eisenhower, p. 3.) For example, he said that after the
Potsdam Conference in July 1945, then Gen. Eisenhower told him that the
United States had developed the atomic bomb at a time when this was highly
* Parrott testified:
"I saw him [Allen Dulles] several times a week for hours at a time.
I had known him somewhat before
but I got to know him very
well indeed during these four years." (Parrott, p. 13.)
·
**Parrott further testified that Allen Dulles followed a practice of
insisting upon specific orders rather than "tacit approval" and he also
found Bissell's assumptions regarding a circumlocutious conversation
between President Eisenhower and Allen Dulles "hard to believe".
(Parrott, p. 14.)
re
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A wh
secret information. (Eisenhower, p. 3.) And he said that as early as
1956, President Eisenhower told him of the secret U-2 flights.
p. 4.)
(Eisenhower,
John Eisenhower testified, as a matter of fact, that President
Eisenhower never told him of any CIA activity involving an assassination
plan or attempt with respect to Castro. (Eisenhower,
p. 5.) Based on
his father's practice in other matters, it was his opinion that President
Eisenhower would have told him if the President had known of any such
activity.
(Eisenhower, p. 5.) He further testified that President Eisenhower
(Eisenhower, p. 8.)
did not deal with important subjects in a circumlocutious manner.
John Eisenhower further testified that it was his father's belief that
no leader was indispensable, and thus assassination was not an alternative
in the conduct of foreign policy.
(iv)
The Documents
1.
(Eisenhower, p. 14.)
The Inspector General's Report
The document latest in date which bears upon the issue of
authorization for Phase I of the Castro assassination efforts is the 1967
Inspector General's Report. In the concluding section of the Report to
Director Helms, the authors advanced several possible Agency responses to
Drew Pearson's public charges regarding CIA/underworld links.* One of the
"1
* On March 3, 1967, Drew Pearson stated in his newspaper column that
there was a U.S. "plot" to assassinate Castro, and that one version
claims that underworld figures actually were recruited to carry out the
plot." (Pearson, Washington Merry Go-Round, March 3, 1967)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 111
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questions they asked was whether the Agency could say it was acting pur-
suant to Government policy or as they put the question: "Can CIA state
or imply that it was merely an instrument of policy?" The answer given
12
was:
"Not in this case. While it is true that Phase Two (the
attempt commencing in April 1962) was carried out in an
atmosphere of intense Kennedy Administration pressure to
do something about Castro, such is not true of the earlier
phase." (I.G., p. 132).
In addition to the I.G. Report, we examined the records of the National
Security Council and the Special Group, as well as other relevant White House
files bearing on the question of authorization for the period from
As we
Castro's rise to power to the end of the Eisenhower Administration.
discuss below, three documents were found which contained references arguably
related to the subject of assassination.
2. The Contemporaneous Documents
In March 1960, the National Security Council and the Special
President Eisenhower had just returned from
Group focused on Cuban policy.
a foreign trip in which
"Latin American Presidents had counseled further forbearance
by the U.S. in the hope that the members of the Organization
of American States would finally see the potential danger in
Cuba and take concerted action." (Gray, Ex. 2, Memorandum of
March 10, 1960 NSC Meeting, p. 8).
Castro was characterized as hostile, but his Communist ties were apparently
then unclear. Indeed, it may have been the prevailing opinion, at that time,
that Castro was not actually a Communist. * For it was stated in the minutes
of the March 10, 1960 NSC meeting:
"there is no apparent alternative to the present government in
the event Castro disappears. Indeed the result of Castro's dis-
appearance might be a Communist takeover." (Gray, Ex. 2, p. 7).
* Castro apparently first announced publicly that he was a "Marxist-Lenist"
on December 2, 1961. (David Larson, Cuba Crisis of 1962, p. 304).
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V
13
Out of these March 1960 meetings of the NSC and Special Group came
the general covert action plan against Cuba.
*
Against this background of general discussions of Cuba, we con-
sidered certain remarks appearing in the records of a March 10, 1960 National
Security Council meeting and a March 14, 1960 Special Group meeting.
The record of the NSC meeting of March 10, 1960 (at which President
Eisenhower was present) states that Admiral Arleigh Burke, in commenting on
Allen Dulles statement that the Cuba covert action plan was in preparation,
"suggested that any plan for the removal of Cuban leaders should be a package
deal, since many of the Cuban leaders around Castro were even worse than Castro."
(Gray Ex. 2, p. 9). And, according to the minutes of a Special Group meeting
on March 14, 1960 (which President Eisenhower did not attend) "there was a
general discussion as to what would be the effect on the Cuban scene if Fidel
and Raul Castro and Che Guevara should disappear simultaneously." (Gray Ex. 3,
p. 2).
Admiral Burke, who served as Chief of Naval Operations from 1955 to
1961, stated in an affidavit** that although he did not have a specific recollec-
tion of the March 10, 1960 meeting of the National Security Council, he had a
clear recollection of the discussions of Cuba policy that took place in the
spring of 1960. (Burke affidavit, p. 1). Burke stated that the reference to
the suggestion by him at the March 10, 1960 meeting "clearly refers to the
* As Gray testified, this plan covered four areas: sabotage, economic sanc-
tions, propaganda, and training of a Cuban exile force for a possible invasion.
Gray stated that this plan had nothing to do with assassination. (Gray, 7/9/75,
p. 17).
** Admiral Burke was unable to testify in person before the Committee
because 
he was 
in the hospital.
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NW 50955
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general covert action plan reported by Allen Dulles at that meeting and to
the general consideration given at that time in the U. S. Government to
identify Cuban groups with which the U.S. might work to overthrow the Castro
regime. (Burke affidavit, p. 1). Burke stated:
It
"In this connection, it was my view that the U.S. must support
those Cuban groups who would have a sufficient power base among
the Cuban people, not merely to overthrow Castro, but to be
able to cope with and dismantle his organization as well.
was my firm belief at the time that many people in Castro's
organization were Communist and that Castro was probably a
Communist. I therefore advocated that any effort to support
groups so as to achieve Castro's overthrow must focus, not
merely on the leaders at the top of the Castro regime, but on
the very strong organization that had been the key to Castro's
rise to power,
and was the basis for his power." (Burke affidavit,
p. 1-2).*
Burke stated further:
14
"The question of a Castro assassination never arose at the March 10,
1960 NSC meeting or at any other meeting or discussion that I
attended or in which I participated. It is my firm conviction
based on five years of close association with President Eisenhower
during my service as Chief of Naval Operations, that President
Eisenhower would never have tolerated such a discussion,
or have permitted anyone to propose assassination, nor would he
have ever authorized, condoned, or permitted an assassination
attempt." (Burke affidavit, p. 2).
Gray testified that the discussion at the March 10 and March 14,
1960 meetings dealt with plans to overthrow the Castro government, rather than
to assassinate Castro himself. He said that Admiral Burke's recorded comment
at the March 10, 1960 NSC meeting was part of a lengthy and general discussion
of the problem of Cuba. At the outset of that discussion, it was Under Secretary
of State Douglas Dillon who pointed out that "the result of Castro's disappearance
might be a Communist takeover."
(Gray Ex. 2, p. 7%; Gray, p. 11). And
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 114
TUP SEORG I
Admiral Burke's reference to a "package deal" for the removal of Cuban
leaders was in direct response to a comment by Allen Dulles recorded in
the minutes that "a plan to affect the situation in Cuba was being worked
11
on. (Gray Ex. 2, p. 9; Gray pp. 13-14). Gray said he believed that
Mr. Dulles "was certainly referring to" the Eisenhower Administration's
plan to train Cuban exiles for an invasion, rather than a targeted attempt
on Castro's life. */ (Gray pp. 14, 45). Gray testified that viewing Admiral
Burke's remarks in context, he believed it was clear that "Admiral
15
comm
why
den It
W/IN.
An A5200
*/
A CIA memorandum of an internal CIA meeting (Memorandum of First
Meeting of Branch 4 Task Force, March 9, 1960), shows that the first
meeting of the CIA task force established to plan the training of a
Cuban exile force was held on March 9, 1960, the day before the March
10, 1960 NSC meeting. (Memorandum of First Meeting of Branch 4 Task
Force, March 9, 1960). At that March 9, 1960, CIA meeting, the CIA
task force discussed "an operation directed at the overthrow of the
Castro regime" and described that operation as one in which a Cuban
exile force would be trained for "6-7 months." In the discussion of
this operation, it was noted that a principal problem was the weakness
of the Cuban exile groups which "had no real leader and are divided
into many parts," but it was hoped that during the long training
period the "opposition groups will have been merged and will have formed
a government-in-exile to which all trained elements could be attached."
(Id., p. 2).
According to the memorandum of the meeting,
chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere division
J. C. King, had stated, "unless Fidel and Raul Castro and Che Guevara could
be eliminated in onepackage which is highly unlikely this operation
can be a long, drawn-out affair and the present government will only be
overthrown by the use of force." (Id., p. 1).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 115
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10
Burke
was expressing his opinion that if you have any plan for the
overthrow of Castro/ it ought to take these factors into consideration, that
you might end up with a Communist government."
(Gray, p. 45).
With respect to the March 14, 1960 Special Group meeting, Admiral
Burke stated that the "general discussion" referred to in the record of that
meeting "clearly did not involve a discussion of assassination of Cuban leaders,
but to the possible effects should only those leaders be overthrown by a group
not powerful enough to also master the organization those leaders had established
in Cuba." (Burke affidavit, p. 2) Burke stated further:
"Thus, it was consistent with my views then that I should have
been recorded in the record of the March 14 meeting as warning
in this discussion that the Communists might move into control
even if these three top leaders should be overthrown. As stated
above, I strongly believed that a strong, organized group must
be in the forefront of any effort to overthrow the Castro
government." (Burke affidavit, p. 2).
In any event, when a question "whether any real planning had been
done for taking direct positive action against Fidel, Raul and Che Guevara"
was subsequently asked at a Special Group meeting on November 3, 1960, the
Deputy Director of the CIA, General Cabell, according to the record of that
meeting, pointed out
"that action of this kind is uncertain of results and highly
dangerous in conception and execution, because the instruments
must be Cubans. He felt that, particularly because of the
necessity for simultaneous action, it would have to be concluded
that (such action) is beyond our capabilities." (Gray Ex. 1, p. 3).
"Admiral Burke said that the
* The record of the March 14 meeting states:
only organized group within Cuba today were the Communists and there was therefore
the danger they might move into control." (Gray Ex. 3, p. 2)
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17
The reference to "direct positive action" is ambiguous and can
be subject to a number of different interpretations, including a
question suggesting exploration of assassination.*
3.
However, it is clear
that at most a question was being asked. Moreover, assuming that "direct
positive action" meant killing, it is significant that shortly after assassi-
nation plots were begun, the CIA Deputy Director told the Special Group that
such action was "beyond our capabilities."
* Testimony varied as to the meaning of the phrase "direct positive action"
and General Cabell's response in the November 3, 1960 memorandum.
Gray testified that the phrase "direct positive action" could be taken
to include assassination, but he did not know whether Mr. Merchant intended
to refer to assassination or not. (Gray, 7/9, p. 9).
Parrott, the author of the memorandum, testified that, although he had
no recollection of the November 3, 1960 meeting, it was his opinion, based
on the context of weekly Special Group meetings and discussion in the Fall of
1960, that 
this discussion centered on the possibility of a palace coup, as
opposed to a paramilitary operation mounted from outside Cuba; General Cabell
was indicating that "we simply do not have agents inside of Cuba to carry out
this kind
" of a coup. (Parrott, pp. 19-21) Parrott also testified that the
phrase "direct positive 
action" was not a euphemism, and that he did not
employ euphemisms in Special Group records, except for references to the
President. (Parrott, pp. 19-21). We discuss in greater detail at pp.
other ambiguous phrases in minutes and memoranda drafted by
and
Parrott.
و
Bissell testified that he found it "difficult to understand" that General
Cabell would have told the Special Group that it was beyond the CIA's capa-
bilities to 
take "direct positive action" (if that referred to assassination)"
in light of Bissell's assumption that General Cabell was informed of the CIA/
underworld assassination effort. (Bissell, 7/17, pp. 15-18).
Mr. Merchant was unable to testify because of ill health and orders of
his physician.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 117
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CAPABILIT
brieting by
C.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE QUESTION OF AUTHORIZATION DURING THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION
(i) PRE-BAY OF PIGS ASSASSINATION PLOTS
1
a.
BISSELL WAS OF THE OPINION THAT DULLES HAD INFORMED
PRESIDENT KENNEDY THAT THE ASSASSINATION OPERATION HAD
BEEN PLANNED AND WAS BEING ATTEMPTED
1
b. BISSELL TESTIFIED HE DID NOT INFORM THE PRESIDENT OR
WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS OF THE ONGOING ASSASSINATION
PLOTS
1
C.
KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS DENIED KNOWLEDGE OF
ASSASSINATION EFFORTS AND GAVE OPINION THAT PRESIDENT
KENNEDY WAS NOT INFORMED
6
d. THE QUESTION OF WHETHER ASSASSINATION EFFORTS WERE
DISCLOSED IN VARIOUS BRIEFINGS OF ADMINISTRATION
OFFICIALS
e.
(i) BRIEFING OF THE PRESIDENT-ELECT
(ii) DISCUSSION WITH BUNDY ON "EXECUTIVE ACTION
CAPABILITY"
(iii) TAYLOR/KENNEDY BAY OF PIGS INQUIRY
(iv) MEMORANDUM TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
CONVERSATION BETWEEN PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND
GEORGE SMATHERS
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 118
10
10
11
12
13
16
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--
FOR INTERNAL COMMITTEE USE ONLY
(DRAFTING SUBCOMMIIIEE)
8/29/75
C. THE QUESTION OF AUTHORIZATION DURING THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION
The evidence on the issue of whether or not assassination plots were
authorized during the Kennedy Administration is divided herein into two
broad sections. The first primarily relates to the assassination operation
involving underworld figures and occurring prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion
of April, 1961. The second section deals with the Post-Bay of Pigs period,
including the Roselli operation in the spring of 1962, Operation Mongoose,
laboratory schemes in early 1963, and the AM/LASH plot in the fall of 1963.
(i) PRE-BAY OF PIGS ASSASSINATION PLOTS
the
The pattern of testimony for this period was essentially the same
as for the Eisenhower Administration. Bissell, once again, said he assumed
and believed that Dulles had met with President Kennedy and informed him, in
a circumlocutious fashion, that the operation had been planned and was being
attempted. Bissell also testified that he (Bissell) did not inform the
President about the assassination efforts or any of the other non-CIA persons with
whom he was working on covert Cuban operations. The Kennedy Administration
officials all testified that they did not know about or authorize the plots.
Furthermore, they said they did not believe the President did or would authorize
an assassination plot.
There were for this period no significant contemporaneous documents.
a.
BISSELL WAS OF THE OPINION THAT DULLES HAD INFORMED PRESIDENT KENNEDY
THAT THE ASSASSINATION OPERATION HAD BEEN PLANNED AND WAS BEING ATTEMPTED
When John F. Kennedy became President in January, 1961, Richard Bissell
I was still Deputy Director for Plans and the principal agency official respon-
sible for the ongoing efforts against the Castro regime, including both the
Bay of Pigs operation and the assassination plots. Bissell is the only sur-
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 119
Page 2
viving CIA policy maker with first hand knowledge of high-level decision-
making in the early phases of the Castro assassination efforts. Bissell
testified that he believed Allen Dulles had informed the President (although
Dulles did not so inform him) and that accordingly the plots had been approved
by the highest authority. Bissell was questioned about how he felt the Pres-
ident would have been made aware of the plots:
"Senator Baker: ...You have no reason to think
that he [Dulles] didn't or he did [brief President
Kennedy]. But the question I put was whether or
not in the ordinary course of the operations of
the CIA as you know it under their traditions,
their rules and regulations, their policies as
you knew them what in your opinion [w]as the
President, President-elect briefed or was he in
the light of all these circumstances?
Bissell:
I believe at some stage the President
and the President-elect both were advised that such
an operation had been planned and was being attempted.
Senator Baker: By whom?
Bissell: I would guess through some channel by
Allen Dulles.
The Chairman:
But you're guessing, aren't you?
Mr. Bissell: I am, Mr. Chairman, and I have said that
I cannot recollect the giving of such briefing at
the meeting with the President-elect in November or
in any meeting with President Eisenhower." (6/9/75,
pp. 38-39).
Bissell's testimony varied with respect to the force with which he stated
his belief that the President had been informed.
Once he referred to it as
"a pure personal opinion" (Bissell, 6/9/75, pp. 60-1); on another occasion he
testified as follows:
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Page 3
"Senator Morgan: Mr. Bissell, it's a serious
matter to attribute knowledge of this sort to
the President of the U.S., especially one who
cannot speak for himself. Is it fair to assume
that out of an abundance of caution you are simply
telling us that you have no knowledge unless you
are absolutely certain?...I gather that you think
...it [assassination plot information] came out
but because of the seriousness of the accusation
you are just being extremely cautious...is that
a fair assumption to make?
Bissell: That is very close to a fair assumption,
sir. It's just that I have no direct knowledge,
first-hand knowledge of his [President Kennedy's]
being advised, but my belief is that he knew of it.
[assassination plans]." (Bissell, 6/9, p. 56).
When asked why he had not himself informed White House officials or the
President of the assassination plots, Bissell said since Dulles was the DCI,
he "left the question of advising senior officials of the government and
obtaining clearances in Allen Dulles' hands" (Bissell, 6/9/75, pp. 29, 33).
As with President Eisenhower, Bissell said that, based upon his testimony
that Dulles knew about the assassination plot, he "assumed" that Dulles
"had at least intimated [to President Kennedy]
that some such thing was underway." (Bissell,
6/9/75, p. 33).*
* The Presidential logs from the Kennedy Administration indicate only one
meeting before the Bay of Pigs invasion at which the President and Allen Dulles
may have met privately. This meeting took place on March 25, 1961. (There is
no record of the meeting. We feel compelled to state that the fact of this
meeting, on the evidence available, is of little, if any significance or
relevance.
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Page 4
Again as part of his "pure personal opinion" (Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 60)
that this was done, Bissell speculated that Dulles would have engaged in a
"circumlocutious" sort of conversation. (Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 6), using
"rather general terms."
Bissell repeatedly coupled Eisenhower and Kennedy together when he
speculated about the manner in which he felt the Presidents would have been
advised to maintain "plausible deniability." (Bissell, 6/9/75, pp. 38, 57;
6/11/75, pp. 5-6):
"In the case of an operation of high sensitivity
of the sort that we are discussing, there was a
further objective that would have been pursued at.
various levels, and that was specifically with
respect to the President, to protect the President.
And, therefore, the way in which I believe that
Allen Dulles would have attempted to do that was to
have indicated to the two successive Presidents the
general objective of the operation that was contem-
plated, to make that sufficiently clear so that the
President either President Eisenhower or President
Kennedy could have ordered the termination of the
operation, but to give the President just as little
information about it as possible beyond an under-
standing of its general purpose. Such an approach
to the President would have had as its purpose to
leave him in the position to deny knowledge of the
operation if it should surface.
--
"My belief a belief based, as I have said, only to
me knowledge of command relationship of Allen Dulles
as an individual, and of his mode of operations is
that authorization was obtained by him in the manner
that I have indicated. I used the word on Monday
"circumlocutious," and it was to this approach that I
referred.
"Assuming for the moment that I am correct, since the
effort would have been to minimize the possibility of
embarrassment to the President, it is, I think, under-
standable that neither I nor anyone else in the Agency
would have discussed this operation on our own initiative
with, for instance, members of the White House staff.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 122
...
1
Page 5
The effort would have been to hold to the
absolute minimum the number of people who knew
that the President had been consulted, had been
notified and had given, perhaps only tacitly,
his authorization." (Bissell, 6/11/75, pp. 5-6).
However, Bissell testified that Dulles never told him he had briefed
President Kennedy and he did not recall asking Dulles.
(Bissell, 6/9/75,
p. 34; 6/11/75, p. xx; 7/17/75, p. 27). In contrast, Bissell testified that
on certain other occasions, Dulles had mentioned that a "circumlocutious" what
approach had been used to brief President Eisenhower on sensitive subjects
(Bissell, 6/11/75, pp. 10-14). Bissell also said that he never asked to
what degree Dulles had advised McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs, of the assassination plot.
6/9/75, p. 34).
Двоит
JFK
(Bissell,
b. BISSELL TESTIFIED HE DID NOT INFORM THE PRESIDENT OR WHITE HOUSE
OFFICIALS OF THE ONGOING ASSASSINATION PLOTS.
When asked if he had informed anyone outside the CIA that an effort to.
assassinate Fidel Castro was underway, Bissell stated, "not to my recollection."
He added that he was not told that any Administration official had been made
aware of such efforts.
(Bissell, 6/9/75, pp. 28-30).
After the change of Administration, McGeorge Bundy was the White House
official who was the liaison with Bissell concerning Cuba and in general was
the principal White House official responsible for CIA matters (Bissell, 6/9/75,
p. 16). Bundy was a former student of Bissell's at Yale and they were personal
friends (Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 28). Bissell testified that he did not tell Bundy
about the ongoing Castro assassination plots (Bissell, 6/9/75, pp. 28-29; 7/22,
p. 31), and Bundy confirmed this (Bundy, p. 41).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 123
Page 6
Cuban affairs during this period leading up to the Bay of Pigs received
active high-level attention. Bissell said that, in a continuation of the kind
of intense weekly scrutiny the Eisenhower Administration had given the invasion
plans (Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 13).
"...almost from the beginning of the Kennedy
Administration, the President himslef and a
number of Cabinet members and other senior
officials took a very active interest in the
operation(s) concerning Cuba." (Bissell, 6/9/75,
p. 16).
Bissell "almost invariably" was present at meetings in which the President
and other senior officials took an "active interest" in Cuba (Bissell, 6/9/75,
p. 17). Bissell testified that he did not inform any of them of the assassin-
ation plot. (Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 39).
C.
KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS DENIED KNOWLEDGE OF ASSASSINATION EFFORTS
AND GAVE OPINION THAT PRESIDENT KENNEDY WAS NOT INFORMED
Testimony was taken by the Committee from all living officials high in
the Kennedy Administration who dealt with Cuban affairs.* The theme of their
testimony which is set forth in detail below was that they had no know-
ledge of any assassination plan or attempt by the U.S. government before or
after the Bay of Pigs invasion.
As with the Eisenhower Administration officials, members of the Kennedy
Administration also said they did not believe the President's character or
style of operating would be consistent with approval of such a matter.
(McNamara, p. 4; Bundy, p. 98%; Taylor, pp. 45,51).
* Most of the testimony from officials high in the Kennedy Administration
dealt with the period after the Bay of Pigs invasion, involving Operation Mon-
goose and related activities. (See Section , infra.) It was during this period
that most of the high officials in the White House, State Department, Defense
Department, and the CIA were drawn into the detailed planning of Cuban operations.
During this period, an extraordinary amount of decision making memoranda and
other documents were genèrated in response to the Cuban situation.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 124
Page 7
Secretary of State Dean Rusk testified:
"I never had any reason to believe that anyone
that I ever talked to knew about had any active
planning of assassination underway.' (Rusk,
pp. 65,49).
Likewise, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stated that he had "no
knowledge or information about...plans or preparations for a possible assass-
ination attempt against Premier Castro." (McNamara, pp. 7,4). [The question
of whether McNamara once raised the issue of assassinating Castro is discussed
at Section
,infra. ]
Roswell Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense under McNamara, said that
killing Castro was not within the mandate of the Special Group which he con-
strued to be the weakening and undermining of "the Cuban system." (Gilpatric,
p. 28).
This was supported by General Maxwell Taylor, who chaired Special Group
meetings on Operation Mongoose. Taylor stated that he had "never heard" of
the assassination effort against Castro (Taylor, pp. 72, 7-8). Taylor stated
that he never raised the question of assassination with anyone. (Taylor, p.
19). Moreover, Taylor testified that he was not aware of a directive for an
assassination effort from the President or the Attorney General, nor was he
aware of a proposal for the assassination of a foreign leader in any form by
anyone to the Special Group (Taylor, pp. 41,45,62).
McGeorge Bundy stated that it was his "conviction" that
"no one in the Kennedy Administration, in the
White House, or in the Capitol, ever gave any
authorization, approval, or instruction of any
kind for any effort to assassinate anyone by the
CIA." (Bundy, p. 54)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 125
rage o
า
Impt.
Furthermore, Bundy testified that he was never told by anyone at any time that
assassination efforts were being conducted against Castro (Bundy, p. 63).
Bundy said that Richard Bissell never informed him about CIA involvement in
assassination attempts against any foreign leader (Bundy, p. 41). Bundy
acknowledged, however, that he had once been briefed by Richard Bissell on
the development of an "executive action capability" at the CIA (see Section
}
infra).*
Walt Rostow, who shared national security duties with Bundy before moving
to the Department of State, testified that during his entire tenure in govern-
ment he "never heard a reference" to an intention to undertake an assassination
effort (Rostow, pp. 10, 12-13, 38).
Asked if he had ever been told anything about CIA efforts to assassinate
Castro, Richard Goodwin, Assistant Special Counsel to the President, replied,
"No, I never heard of such a thing." (Goodwin, p. 13).**
prion
STATEMENTS
* As indicated further below, Bundy also said (i) that the matter of a
Castro assassination was "mentioned from time to time as something to
talk about rather than to consider." (Bundy, p. 73); and (ii) he had a "very
vague, essentially refreshed recollection" that at some time he had heard
about "poison" in connection with a "possibility of action in Cuba" what
stuck in his mind was that it seemed "totally impractical because it was
going to kill a large number of people in a headquarters mess or something
like that." (Bundy, pp. 42-43). Bundy stated flatly, however, that no
assassination plot was approved and that he was never informed about the
various plots. (Bundy, pp. 54, 63-64).
**As indicated below, Goodwin did on two occasions hear questions raised
about assassination. One involved the President, who said he was opposed
(see p.
); the other involved the meeting of August 10, 1962 (see pp.
to
).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 126
Page 9
Presidential Assistant Theodore Sorensen said that his "first-hand
knowledge" of Cuban affairs was limited to the post-Bay of Pigs period
(Sorensen, p. 4). Sorensen stated, however, that his general opinion based
upon his close contact with President Kennedy, was that
verbiage
"such an act [as assassination] was totally
foreign to his character and conscience,
foreign to his fundamental reverence for
human life and his respect for his adversaries,
foreign to his insistence upon a moral dimen-
sion in U.S. foreign policy to his pragmatic
recognition that so horrendous but inevitably
counterproductive a precedent committed by a
country whose own chief of state was inevitably
vulnerable could only provoke reprisals and in-
flame hostility." (Sorensen, p. 5).
Sorensen also said that President Kennedy "would not make major foreign
policy decisions alone without the knowledge or participation of one or more
of those senior foreign policy officials in whose judgment and discretion he
had confidence." (Sorensen, pp. 5-6).
Sorensen concluded his testimony by providing the Committee his judgment
on the following question:
"Q: Would you think it would be possible that
Agency, the CIA could somehow have been under
the impression that they had a tacit authorization
for assassination due to a circumspect discussion
that might have taken place in any of these
meetings?
Sorensen: It is possible, indeed, I think the
President on more than one occasion felt that Mr.
Dulles, by making rather vague and sweeping re-
ferences to particular countries was seeking tacit
approval without ever asking for it, and the Presi-
dent was rather concerned that he was not being
asked for explicit direction and was not being given
explicit information, so it is possible. But on
something of this kind, assassination, I would
doubt it very much. Either you are for it or you
are not for it, and he was not for it." (Sorensen,
7/21/75, pp. 32-33.)
the
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 127
Page 10
d.
THE QUESTION OF WHETHER ASSASSINATION EFFORTS WERE DISCLOSED
IN VARIOUS BRIEFINGS OF ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS.
(i) BRIEFING OF THE PRESIDENT-ELECT.
After the election, in the latter part of November, 1960, Dulles
and Bissell jointly briefed President-elect Kennedy on "the most important
details with respect to the operation which became the Bay of Pigs." (Bissell,
6/9/75, p. 34). Bissell testified that he did not believe the ongoing assass-
ination efforts were mentioned to the President-elect, and that to the best of
his recollection they were not. (Bissell, 6/9/75, pp. 27, 35-36). Bissell
surmised that the reasons he and Dulles did not tell Kennedy at that initial
meeting were: (a) "apparently" they had not thought it was an important
matter*; and (b) they "would have thought that that was a matter of which he
should be advised upon assuming office rather than in advance."
6/9/75, p. 35). The latter comment led to the following exchange:
"The Chairman: Isn't it a strange distinction
that you draw that on the one hand (as) a Presi-
dential designate, as President-elect, he should
have all of the details concerning a planned in-
vasion of Cuba, but that he should not be told
about an ongoing attempt to assassinate Fidel
Castro?
Mr. Bissell:
I think that in hindsight it could
be regarded as peculiar, yes.
"The Chairman:
. (I)t just seems too strange
that if you were charged with briefing the man who
(Bissell,
* This was subsequently repeated by Bissell in response to examination of
his assumption that Dulles probably told President Eisenhower about the assass-
ination operation:
"... the Mafia operation was not regarded as of
enormous importance and there were much more
important matters to talk about with the
President." (Bissell, 7/17/75, p. 25).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 128
Page 11
was to become President of the U.S. on matters
so important as a planned invasion of a neigh-
boring country, and that if you knew at the
time in addition to the planned invasion there
was an ongoing attempt to assassinate the leader
of that country, that you would tell Mr. Kennedy
about one matter and not the other.""
Mr. Bissell: Well, Mr. Chairman, it is quite
possible that Mr. Dulles did say something about
an attempt to or the possibility of making use
of syndicate characters for this purpose. I do
not remember his doing so at that briefing. My
belief is that had he done so, he probably would
have done so in rather general terms and that
neither of us was in a position to go into detail
on the matter. (Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 35).
"
However, Bissell also testified generally that pursuant to the doctrine of
plausible denial, efforts were made to keep matters that might be "embarrassing"
away from Presidents (Bissell, 6/11/75, pp. 5-6).
(ii) DISCUSSION WITH BUNDY ON "EXECUTIVE ACTION CAPABILITY"
As explained in the next section, sometime during the early period
of the Kennedy Administration, Bissell discussed with Bundy the subject of a
"capability" for "executive action" a term said by Bissell to include various
means of "eliminating the effectiveness" of foreign leaders up to and including
assassinations (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 32).
E
There is some dispute concerning when this occurred and who initiated it,
and this subject is discussed at length at Section
9.
infra.
Bissell and Bundy both testified, however, that Bissell did not tell Bundy
in the course of discussing the executive action capability or at any other
time
---
:
of the actual assassination plots against Castro (Bissell, 7/22,
p. 31; Bundy, p. 41).
(However, there was some testimony that the
names of Castro, Trujillo, and Lumumba might have been mentioned in connection
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 129
Page 12
with the discussion of "research" into the capability. (Bissell, 6/11/75,
pp. 50-51)).
(iii) TAYLOR/KENNEDY BAY OF PIGS INQUIRY
Following the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy
convened a "board of inquiry" which reviewed "the causes of...[the] failure"
of the operation (Bissell, 6/9/75, pp. 42,45). The members of the board were
Robert Kennedy; General Maxwell Taylor, Allen Dulles and Admiral Arleigh Burke.
The panel examined the Bay of Pigs failure for several weeks and issued its
report on June 13, 1961. The "Taylor Report" does not mention the assassination
plots.
Bissell was questioned extensively and appeared to General Taylor to have.
been the principal person involved in the operation and much more knowledgeable
than Dulles who had deliberately kept himself out of the planning and delegated
responsibility to Bissell. (Taylor, p. 73).
Bissell testified that he did not disclose to the Taylor/Kennedy Committee
that there had been an assassination effort against Castro (Bissell, 6/9/75,
p. 42). He put forward several reasons for not having done so. First, "the
question was never asked.' Second, he claimed Dulles already knew about the
"
operation. Third, Bissell said "by that time the assassination attempt had been
called off." Fourth, he contended that the assassination effort was "not germane"
because it did not contribute to the failure of the Bay of Pigs.
6/9/75, pp. 44-46; 6/11/75, p. 39).
(Bissell,
Bissell hastened to add that he had no reason to believe" that Allen Dulles,
himself a board member, did not discuss the plots with one or more members
(Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 46).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 130

Page 13
However, both General Taylor and Admiral Burke stated that neither
Bissell nor Dulles informed them of the assassination plots (Taylor, pp. 72-73;
Burke affidavit, 8/25/75, p. 3).
When asked if Richard Bissell ever informed him that underworld figures
had been offered a large sum to assassinate Castro, General Taylor responded,
"No, I never heard that, and it amazes me" (Taylor, p. 72). Taylor said that
during his review of the Bay of Pigs operation no mention was made of an
assassination effort against Castro (Taylor, p. 72). Despite the fact that
Dulles met with Taylor on the Board of Inquiry thirty or forty times, Taylor
testified that Dulles never told him about the plot (Taylor, p. 73).
(iv) MEMORANDUM TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Bissell's testimony that he had not disclosed assassination plots to
the Kennedy/Taylor "court of inquiry" was consistent with his statement that
"I have no knowledge that Robert Kennedy was
advised of this (the plot to kill Mr. Castro)."
(Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 41)..
The Committee tested this statement against other parts of Bissell's
testimony. An attachment to the May 22, 1961 FBI memorandum (regarding the
Las Vegas tap) which Director Hoover had sent to the Attorney General* had
:
quoted Edwards as saying that Bissell in "recent briefings" of Taylor and
Kennedy,
"told the Attorney General that some of the
associated planning included the use of
Giancana and the underworld against Castro.".
(Bissell, 7/17/75, Ex. 3).
When first shown this document, Bissell said,
* A handwritten note from the Attorney General to his assistant on the
face of the memorandum indicates that he had actually seen the document* This
memorandum is discussed in detail at Section
infra.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 131
C
Page 14
"I have no recollection of briefing those
two gentlemen except as members of the Board
of Inquiry that I have described, of which
Allen Dulles himself was a member." (Bissell,
6/11/75, p. 27).
As mentioned above (Section (e), supra), Bissell testified that his briefings
to the Board of Inquiry did not deal with assassination efforts. (Bissell,
6/11/75, pp. 45-46).
Discussing the document in a subsequent appearance before the Committee,
Bissell again said that he had no recollection of any such conversation (Bissell,
7/22/75, p. 56) but he was sure that it did not take place in front of the
Kennedy/Taylor board of inquiry (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 64).
However, Bissell speculated, the report quoted language which "I might
very well have used, that is, the use of the underworld against Castro."
(Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 21).
The examination of Bissell on whether he had had any such discussion and,
if so, why he used such obscure and indirect language, elicited the following
testimony:
"Q: Did you, sometime in May of 1961 communicate
the state of your awareness to the Attorney General
in your briefing to him?
Bissell: Well, there is a report which I was shown,
I think it was last week, I believe it also came
from the FBI, but I could be wrong about that, or
indicating that I did, at that time in May, brief
the Attorney General, and I think General Taylor to
the effect that the Agency had been using I
don't know whether Giancana was mentioned by name,
but in effect, the Underworld against the Castro
regime.
MY G
D
Q: Did you tell them them being the Attorney
General and General Taylor that this use included
actual attempts to assassinate Mr. Castro?"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 132
Page 15
"Bissell: I have no idea whether I did [.]
I have no idea of the wording. I think it
might quite possibly have been left in the
more general terms of using the underworld
against the Castro regime, or the leadership
of the Castro regime.
Q. Mr. Bissell, given the state of your
knowledge at that time, wouldn't that have been
deliberately misleading information?
Bissell: I don't think it would have been.
We were indeed doing precisely that. We were
trying to use elements of the underworld
against Castro and the Cuban leadership.
Q. But you had information, didn't you, that
you were, in fact, trying to kill him?
Bissell: I think that is a way of using these
people against him.
Q. That's incredible. You're saying that in
briefing the Attorney General you are telling
him you are using the underworld against Castro,
and you intended that to mean, Mr. Attorney
General, we are trying to kill him?
Bissell: I thought it signalled just exactly
that to the Attorney General, I'm sure.
Q. Then it's your belief that you communicated
to the Attorney General that you were, in fact,
trying to kill Castro?
Bissell: I think it is best to rest on that
report we do have, which is from a source over
which I had no influence and it does use the
phrase I have quoted here. Now you can surmise
and I can surmise as to just whattthe Attorney
General would have read into that phrase."
(Bissell, 7/22/75, pp. 53-54).
Bissell then testified:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 133
"Q. Was it your intent to circumlocutiously
or otherwise, to advise the Attorney General
that you were in the process of trying to kill
Castro?
Mr. Bissell: [U]nless I remembered the con-
versation at the time, which I don't, I don't
have any recollection as to whether that was
my intent or not." (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 56).
Bissell proceeded to speculate that a "proper" briefing might not
have included any reference to the assassination plot. (Bissell, 7/22/75,
p. 59). He gave two reasons for this speculation: (i) even if he had
"thoroughly briefed" the Attorney General he would have chosen "circumlocutious"
language to tell him about the activity involving Giancana. (Bissell, 7/22/75,
pp. 53-56); and (ii) the assassination effort had been "stood down by then."
(Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 59). Bissell concluded by reiterating that he had "no
knowledge" that the Attorney General was "specifically advised" of the
assassination plot against Castro (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 62).*
e. CONVERSATION BETWEEN PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND GEORGE SMATHERS
George Smathers, former U.S. Senator from Florida, testified that the
subject of the possible assassination of Castro arose in a conversation between
Smathers and President Kennedy on the White House lawn in 1961.**
Smathers
* If the FBI quotation of Edwards is to be accorded significant weight, then
it is important to note that another section of it contradicts Bissell's assump-
tion that Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy had been circumlocutiously advised
by Dulles of the assassination plot. Edwards told the FBI that "Allen Dulles was
completely unaware of Edwards' contact with Maheu" in connection with Cuban opera-
tions.
Bissell's explanation for Edwards' statement was that Edwards was being "pro-
tective" of the DCI. (Bissell, 7/17/75, p. 20). But this testimony must be
reconciled with Bissell's previous testimony that Dulles knew of the operation and
probably would have told the President about it.
** Smathers' testimony about this conversation referred to the transcript of
an Oral History interview, conducted on March 31, 1964, in which his testimony was
based gives an indication that the conversation transpired in 1961, before the
Bay of Pigs invasion in mid-April.
It appears from the White House logs of Presidential meetings that there were
only two occasions in 1961 when Senator Smathers met with the President alone for
as much as twenty minutes. Both of those meetings took place in March. (Supra,
).
P.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 134
Page 17
said he discussed the general Cuban situation with the President many times
(Smathers, p. 6). Smathers had many Cuban constituents, was familiar with
Latin American affairs, and was a long-time friend of the President (Smathers,
p. 6).
Smathers had the "impression" that the President raised the subject of
assassination with him because someone "had apparently discussed this and
other possibilities with respect to Cuba" with the President (Smathers, pp.
16, 25). Smathers had no direct knowledge of any such discussion, nor did he
know who might have been involved (Smathers, pp. 18-19, 25). The President
did not indicate directly that assassination had been proposed to him (Smathers,
p. 18).
According to Smathers:
་་་
does this
imply proposer
duer it
Affect
Negligones
(TADAND
'... [President Kennedy] asked me what reaction
I thought there would be throughout South
America were Fidel Castro to be assassinated....
I told the President that even as much as I dis-
liked Fidel Castro that I did not think it would
be a good idea for there to be even considered
an assassination of Fidel Castro, and the Pres-
ident of the United States completely agreed with
me, that it would be a very unwise thing to do,
the reason obviously being that no matter who did
it and no matter how it was done and no matter
what, that the United States would receive full
credit for it, and the President receive full
credit for it, and it would work to his great
disadvantage with all of the other countries in
Central and South America...I disapproved of it,
and he completely disapproved of the idea."
(Smathers, p. 22).
Smathers further testified that he had said the reason it would work to "great
disadvantage" with the nations of Central and South America was because they would
blame the United States for any assassination of Castro (Smathers, p. 6).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 135
Page 18
what
does this
imply
Smathers said that on a later occasion he tried to raise the subject
1
of "Cuba and what could be done" with President Kennedy (Smathers, p. 22).
The President made it clear to Smathers that he should not raise the subject
with him again.*
Senator Smathers concluded his testimony by indicating that on Cuban
affairs in general, he felt he was "taking a tougher stance than was the
President" (Smathers, p. 24). But Smathers said that he disapproved of even
thinking about assassinating Castro and said he was "positive" that Kennedy
also opposed it (Smathers, p. 16).
* One night at dinner with Senator Smathers, the President emphasized
his point by cracking his plate at the mention of Cuba. (Smathers, p. 22).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 136
-1-
Meeting 8/30/75
(pp. 75-80 reserved by
Senator Tower)
(iii) Kennedy Administration The Question of Authorization Outside the
Agency During the Post Bay of Pigs, Mongoose, and 1963 Periods
1
This section discusses the question of authorization outside the Agency
for the assassination plots during 1962 and 1963 the period of Operation
Mongoose (the 1962 Kennedy Administration program aimed at overthrowing Castro
by an internal revolt), the Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962, and the subse-
quent program in 1963 which saw a more limited covert action program directed
against Cuba.
A.
Recap of the Assassination Activity After the Bay of Pigs
During 1962 and 1963 there were three principal assassination plots.
1.
In the spring of 1962, William Harvey reactivated the contact
with John Roselli and in April provided lethal pills and guns to Roselli and
Cuban associates in Miami. In May it was reported that the pills reached Cuba.
2. In early 19636 the science fiction schemes
and poisoned diving suit were contrived and then abandoned.
exploding sea shell
3. In November 1963 the dissident Cuban who was code-named AMLASH
was given a poison pen device.
B. The Issue of Authority
The fundamental issue dealt with in this section is whether the above
assassination plots were authorized outside the Agency. The issue arises from
the differing perceptions of Helms and his subordinates, on the one hand,
and
members of the Kennedy Administration. including the Director of the
CIA, on the other hand.
While Helms stated that he never received a direct order to assassinate
Castro, Helms testified that he fully believed that the CIA was at all times acting
within the scope of its authority and that he believed a Castro assassination came
within the bounds of the Kennedy Administration's effort to overthrow Castro and his
regime. Helms stated that he never informed McCone or any officials of the Kennedy
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 137
- 2
Administration of the assassination plots. On the other hand, McCone and the sur-
viving members of the Kennedy Administration testified that they did not believe
a Castro assassination was permissible without a direct order, that assassination
was not within the parameters of the Administration's anti-Castro program, and
testified that to their knowledge no such direct order was given to Helms.
Before setting out the testimony in detail, we discuss below the Kennedy
Administration's 1962 covert action program, Operation Mongoose (as well as the
events in 1961 leading to that program) which was designed to overthrow the Castro
regime. An understanding of that program is essential to an evaluation of the testi-
mony on the issue of authorization.
C.
Events From the Bay of Pigs to the Establishment of Mongoose
1. The Taylor Review
11
On April 22, 1961, following the Bay of Pigs failure, the President requested
General Maxwell Taylor to conduct a re-evaluation of "our practices and pro-
grams in the areas of military and paramilitary, guerilla and anti-guerilla
activity which fall short of outright war. The President hoped that Taylor
would give special attention to Cuba. (Letter to Maxwell Taylor, April 22,
1961) Robert Kennedy was to be Taylor's principal colleague in this effort.
The resulting review of the U.S. policy in this area concluded:
•
"We have been struck with the general feeling that there can be no
long-term living with Castro as a neighbor. His continued presence
within the hemispheric community as a dangerously effective exponent
of Communism and Anti-Americanism constitutes a real menace capable
of eventually overthrowing the elected governments in any one or more
of weak Latin American republics.
***
"It is recommended that the Cuban situation be reappraised in the light
of all presently known factors and new guidance be provided for political,
military, economic and propaganda action against Castro." (Report to
the President, June 13, 1961, memorandum No. 4, p. 8)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 138
TOP SECHISH
It is clear from the record, moreover, that the defeat at the Bay of Pigs
had been regarded as a humiliation for the President personally and for the CIA
institutionally.
By July the Special Group had agreed that the basic objective "is to provide
support to a U. S. program to develop opposition to Castro and to help bring about
a regime acceptable to the U. S." (Memo for the Record, July 21, 1961.) Occasional
harrassment operations were mounted during the summer but there was neither over-
all strategy nor much activity.
2. National Security Action Memorandum 100 of October 5, 1961, and the
CIA Intelligence Estimate
The documentary evidence and testimony indicate that in the fall of 1961
the question of the effect of Castro's removal from power and the prospects in
that event, for U. S. military intervention were considered by the Kennedy Admini-
stration.
Two studies were prepared in this connection.
Pursuant to National Security
Action Memorandum 100 ("NSAM 100"), the State Department was asked to assess the
potential courses of action open to the U. S. should Castro be removed from the
and to prepare a contingency plan with the Department of Defense
Cuban scene,
for military intervention in that event. The CIA, prepared an "Intelligence
Estimate" on the "situation and
prospects" in Cuba. As discussed below, the
evidence indicates that the focus of these studies was on the possible courses
of action open to the U. S. in a post-Castro Cuba, rather than on the means
might bring about Castro's removal. However, it a
that assassination
was not excluded from the potential means by which Castro might be removed.
NSAM 100
.24..
On October 5, 1961, Bundy issued National Security Action Memorandum No.
100 ("NSAM 100") (Bundy, Ex 3) entitled "Contingency Planning for Cuba", NSAM
100 was addressed to the Secretary of State stated in full: "In confirmation of
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 139
oral instructions conveyed to Assistant Secretary of State Woodward*, a plan is
desired for the indicated contingency."
Related documents indicate that the subject matter of the contingency
referred to in NSAM 100 was the "possible removal of Castro from the Cuban scene".
(Bundy Ex 3A, Minutes of Special Group Meeting, October 6, 1961, p. 1.)
The Minutes of the Special Group meeting on October 6, 1961, (the day after
the issuance of NSAM 100) state that the Group was told that in addition to an overall
plan for Cuban covert operations," a contingency plan in connection with the pos-
sible removal of Castro from the Cuban scene" was in preparation. (Bundy, Ex 3A,
Memorandum for the Record of Special Group meeting, October 6, 1961, p. 1.)
In addition, a Memorandum for the Record by Parrott on October 5, 1961,
states that Parrott informed Assistant Secretary Woodward's Deputy that "what was
wanted was a plan against the contingency that Castro would in some way or other
be removed from the Cuban scene". (Bundy, Ex 3B, p. 1.) Parrott's memorandum
further stated that in preparing the plan, "the presence and positions of Raul
(Castro) and Che Guevara must be taken into account", and that General Taylor had
told Parrott he preferred "the President's interest in the matter not be mentioned"
toto Woodward. (Bundy, Ex 3B.) Parrott's memorandum also stated that "on the
RET
is being planned".
covert side, I talked to Tracy Barnes in CIA and asked that an up-to-date report»
be furnished as soon as possible on what is going on and
(Bundy, Ex 3B, p. 1.)
*Woodward at that time was Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs.
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 140

Testimony of Bundy
TOP
Bundy testified that the contingency referred to in NSAM 100 and the related
documents was "what would we do if Castro were no longer there", but that
"clearly one of the possibilities would be assassination". (Bundy, p. 77.)
However, Bundy emphasized that NSAM 100 represented an effort to assess the
effect should Castro be removed from power by any means (including assassina-
tion) but "without going further with the notion (of assassination) itself".*
(Bundy, p. 77.)
"If people were suggesting this to you and you were curious about whether it
was worth exploring, one way of getting more light on it without going any fur- .
ther with that notion itself would be to ask political people, not intelligence
people, what they thought would happen if Castro were not there any longer."
(Bundy, p. .)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 141
-6-
Bundy further contended that the President was not considering an assassina-
tion, but rather "what are things going to be like after Castro." (Bundy, p. 81.)'
*
Taylor's Testimony
Taylor testified that he had no recollection of NSAM 100 of the events de-
scribed in the related documents set out above. (Taylor, p. 18.) On the basis of
his review of the documents, Taylor testified that "it sounds like purely a political
***
consideration of the sequence of power in Cuba. Taylor emphasized, moreover,
that "never at any time" did he raise the question of of assassination with Parrott,
or with anybody else. (Taylor, p. 19)
Parrott's Testimony
Parrott, the Special Group Secretary who transmitted the request for the
NSAM 100 study to the State Department, testified that the request for a plan re-
flected in his memorandum of October 5, 1961, and the reference in that memorandum
to the "contingency that Castro would in some way or another be removed from the
Cuban scene" (described above, p. 18), reflected interest in a contingency study
for Castro's removal, but by means 'short of being killed."
"
(Parrott, p. 83)
what based
*Thus, with respect to the desire not to indicate the President's interest in
the plan requested from the State Department, Bundy testified:
"...it was precisely to insulate the President from any false in-
ference that what he was asking about was assassination.
It is easy
to confuse the question; what are things going to be like after.
Castro, with the other question, and we were trying to focus atten-
tion on the information he obviously wanted, which is, what would
happen if we did do this sort of thing, and not get one into the
frame of mind of thinking that he was considering doing it."
(Bundy, p. 81)
**Taylor said he was puzzled by the wording of NSAM 100 and the related documents
and stated, "I just cannot tie in the language here with a plausible explanation."
(Taylor, p. 18)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 142
The CIA's Intelligence Estimate
The CIA study in connection with the consideration of Castro's removal
was an intelligence estimate prepared by the CIA's Board of National Estimates
(which was not part of the CIA's covert action directorate), entitled "The Situation
and Prospects in Cuba"*. The CIA Estimate was pessimistic regarding the chances
for success of a Cuban internal revolt, and further found that a Castro assassina-
tion would likely strengthen the Communist position in Cuba.
was being
discusson
After a general review of the economic, military, and political situation
in Cuba, the CIA estimate concluded that the Castro regime had sufficient popular
and repressive capabilities to cope with any internal threat.
paragraph of the estimate was entitled "If Castro were to Die".
The concluding
"His (Castro's) loss now, by assassination or by natural
causes, would have an unsettling effect, but would almost.
certainly not prove fatal to the regime... (I)ts principal
surviving leaders would probably rally together in the
face of a common danger." (Estimate, p. 9.)
"
It noted that:
How does
That
The CIA study further predicted that should Castro die, 'some sort of power struggle
would almost certainly develop eventually," but that whatever the outcome of such
'significantly" incre
a struggle, the Communist Party's influence would be
(Estimate, p. 9.)
*The IG Report apparently refers to an earlier draft of this intelligence estimate.
(IG, p. 4.) The IG Report, in reporting that many CIA officers interviewed in the
IG investigation stressed the point that "elimination of the dominant figures in a
government...will not necessarily cause the downfall of the government," stated:
"This point was stressed with respect to Castro and Cuba in an internal CIA
draft paper of October 1961, which was initiated in response to General Max-
well Taylor's desire for a contingency plan. The paper took the position
that the demise of Fidel Castro, from whatever cause, would offer little op-
portunity for the liberation of Cuba from Communist and Soviet Bloc control."
(IG, p. 4.) The CIA was unable to locate the draft paper referred to in the
IG Report.
**A cover memorandum by Lansdale transmitting the CIA estimate to Robert Kennedy
stated that the estimate "seems to be the major evidence to be used to oppose
your program" (referring to the proposed overall Mongoose operation). Lansdale's
memorandum criticized the estimate's assessment that "it is highly improbable that
an extensive popular uprising could be fomented" against Castro as a "conclusion
of fact quite outside the area of intelligence.' (Lansdale Memorandum to Robert
Kennedy, 11/62, p.1) As discussed in detail at pp. below. Lansdale's basic
concept for the Mongoose program was to overthrow Castro through an 
internal 
revolt
of the Cuban people.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 143
"
hart
'тся
etav
At the close of the meeting, Robert Kennedy asked Szulc to meet
with President Kennedy the following day (Szulc, p. 25). On November 9,
1961, Szulc, accompanied only by Goodwin, met with President Kennedy
*
for over an hour in the Oval Office. (Szulc, 6/10, p. 25.)
Szulc
recalled that the President discussed "a number of his views on Cuba
in the wake of the Bay of Pigs, asked me a number of questions concerning
my conversations with Premier Castro, and...what the United States could
/or might do in...either a hostile way or in establishing some kind of
a dialogue..." (Szulc, 6/10, pp. 25-26).
Szulc testified that after this general discussion, the President
then asked "what would you think if I ordered Castro to be assassinated. */*/
(Szulc, 6/10, p. 26; Szulc Notes of conversation with President Kennedy,
November 9, 1961). Szulc testified that he replied that an assassination
would not necessarily cause a change in the Cuban system, and that it was
Szulc's personal view that the United States should not be party to murders
and political assassinations. (Szulc, 6/10, p. 26).
Szulc testified that
Do we
Want
Yo
yout
"that
CAI
the
air
rassus
/
пед
STO'S
*/Goodwin testified that President Kennedy met frequently with members of
the press and others who were experts in their fields, but that it was "possible"
that the meeting with Szulc may have been an occasion for the President to con-
sider Szulc for a position in the Administration (Goodwin, p. 29-30).
On November 2, 1961 Goodwin had addressed an "eyes only" memorandum to the
President and the Attorney General outlining a suggested organization for what
became the Mongoose operation. Goodwin proposed five "staff components,"
including "intelligence collection," "guerrilla and underground," and "propa-
ganda." The memorandum stated: "As for propaganda, I thought we might ask
Tad Szulc to take a leave of absence from the Times and work on this one--
although we should check with /USIA Director/ Ed Murrow and Dick Bissell."
(Goodwin Ex. 2, p. 1, 2).
*/*/ Szulc made notes of the conversation with President Kennedy as soon
as he returned to his office, based on his memory of the meeting. President
Kennedy's question regarding a Castro assassination appears in quotation marks
in Szulc's notes, which were made the same day from "reasonably fresh" memory.
(Szulc, 6/10, p.30).
WESTS
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 144
3.
8
ULWILL N
Testimony of Szulc on President Kennedy's November 9, 1961 Question
Regarding a Possible Castro Assassination
Tad Szulc* testified that in a private meeting he had with President Kennedy
on Novebmer 9, 1961, the President asked "Szulc what would you think if I ordered
Castro to be assassinated," and said "I agree with you completely" when
Szulc answered that a Castro assassination should be ruled out on both practical
and moral grounds. Szulc further testified that President Kennedy went on "to
make the point how strongly he and his brother felt that the United States for moral
must not be involved in assassinations.
reasons"
(Szulc, p.27).
In early November 1961 Szulc was asked by Richard Goodwin, the Special Assistant
to President Kennedy, to meet with Attorney General Robert Kennedy on November 8,
1961, to discuss the situation in Cuba. The meeting was an "off-the-record" one
which Szulc attended as a friend of Goodwin's and not as a reporter. (Szulc,
P. 24.)
During the meeting with Robert Kennedy, the discussion centered on 'the
situation in Cuba following the (Bay of Pigs) invasion (and) the pros and cons
of some different possible actions by the U. S. in that context" (Szulc, p. 25).
The subject of assassination was not mentioned during this meeting. (Szulc, p.
31.)
*In November 1961 Tad Szulc was employed as a reporter in the Washington Bureau
of the New York Times (Szulc, p. 24). Szulc had visited Cuba in May-June 1961,
following the Bay of Pigs invasion. (Szulc, p. 24) During the course of that
trip, Szulc had a "series of very long conversations with Castro". (Szulc, p.
24.)
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 145
10
thereupon the President said, "I agree with you completely." Szulc stated
further:
"He /President Kennedy/ then went on for a few minutes
to make the point how strongly he and his brother felt
that the United States for moral reasons should never be
in a situation of having recourse to assassination." (Szulc, p.27).
Szulc's notes of the meeting with the President state:
"JFK then said he was testing me, that he felt the same
--
way he added 'I'm glad you feel the same way'
because indeed U.S. morally must not be part [sic] to
assassinations."
Szulc's notes of the conversation further state:
"JFK said he raised question because he was under
terrific pressure from advisers (think he said intel-
ligence people, but not positive) to okay a Castro
murder. sed / sic he was resisting pressures. (Szulc
note of conversation with President Kennedy, November
9, 1961).
Szulc stated, relying on his memory, that it is "possible"
and he "believed" that President Kennedy used such words as 'someone in the
raise
./111m
intelligence business," as the source of the pressure for a Castro assassina- why
tion.
persons.
(Szulc, 6/10, p. 29). The President did not identify the person or
(Szulc, 6/19, P. 27).
If anyone was in fact putting pressure on the President, there was no
not
Inform
салат...
takos
on
This was particularly metwing
other evidence on this point adduced before the Committee.
troublesome since everyone questioned by the Committee, both within and without
the CIA, denied ever having discussed assassination with the President,
alone having pressured him.
Testimony of Goodwin .
let
TCP SEBRI
Goodwin attended the November 9, 1961 meeting between President
Kennedy and Szulc. (Goodwin, p. 3). Goodwin testified that, after asking
Szulc for his reaction to a suggestion that Castro be assassinated,
President Kennedy said "well, that's the kind of thing I'm never going to do."
(Goodwin, p. 3).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 146
11
Goodwin testified further that several days after the meeting with
Szulc, Goodwin referred to the mention of assassination to Szulc, and President
Kennedy said only "we can't get into that kind of thing, or we would all be
targets". (Goodwin, p. 4, 11.)
4. The Rejection of Assassination in President Kennedy's November 16,
1961 Speech
A few days after the meeting with Szulc and Goodwin, and some six
weeks after the issuance of NSAM 100, President Kennedy delivered a speech at
the University of Washington. In that public address, President Kennedy stated:
"We cannot, as a free nation, compete with our adver-
saries in tactics of terror, assassination, false
promises, counterfeit mobs and crises." (Public Papers
of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 724)
How Does
that
сопрано
w/Mongoose
We discuss in the next section the nature of the program which was initiated
against the Castro regime at the end of November 1961 pursuant to President
Kennedy's instruction, and which continued to the Missile Crisis in the fall of
1962.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 147
TOP SECRET
D. Operation Mongoose
1. The Creation of Operation Mongoose. In November 1962 the
proposal for a major covert program to overthrow Castro was developed.
Richard Goodwin, a special assistant to President Kennedy, and Edward
Lansdale, a military officer with experience in counter-insurgency
operations, played major staff roles in the creation of Mongoose. Both
Goodwin and Lansdale worked closely with Robert Kennedy, who took an
active interest in this preparatory stage and in the later conduct of
Mongoose. On November 1, 1961, Goodwin advised the President that
Robert Kennedy "would be the most effective commander" of the proposed
operation. (Memorandum to the President, November 1, 1961, p. ).
Lansdale, in a memorandum to Robert Kennedy on November 15, 1961, out-
lining the Mongoose proposal, stated that a "picture of the situation
has emerged clearly enough to indicate what needs to be done and to
support your sense of urgency concerning Cuba".
(Memorandum, November 15,
1961, p.
)
At the end of the month, on November 30, 1962, President Kennedy
issued a memorandum recording his decision to begin the Mongoose project--
to "use our available assets
regime".
.
to help Cuba overthrow the Communist
(Lansdale Ex. 17, Memorandum to the Secretary of State,
Defense, et al., November 30, 1961).
TOP SECRET
Important organizational changes were made in establishing Operation
MONGOOSE.
a.
The Special Group Augmented. A new control group, the Special
Group Augmented, was put in charge of Operation MONGOOSE. The SGA con-
sisted of the regular Special Group (i.e., Bundy, Johnson of State,
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 148
Gilpatric of Defense, McCone of CIA, and Gen. Lemnitzer of the Joint
Chiefs) plus Robert Kennedy and General Taylor. Also, Secretaries
Rusk and McNamara more frequently attended its meetings than they did
those of the Special Group itself.
b. General Lansdale as the Chief of Operations of MONGOOSE.
General Edward Lansdale was named the Chief of Operations of the MONGOOSE
activities by President Kennedy. Lansdale had developed a reputation in
the Philippines and Vietnam for having an ability to deal with revolu-
tionary insurgencies in less developed countries. In addition, as a
result of the Bay of Pigs failure, President Kennedy distrusted the CIA
and believed he required someone from outside the Agency to oversee.
major covert action programs. Rather than appoint Robert Kennedy to
head Mongoose as proposed by Goodwin, President Kennedy gave Lansdale
the task of coordinating the CIA's Mongoose operations with those of the
Departments of State and Defense, and made General Taylor the Chairman
of the Special Group Augmented. However, Robert Kennedy did play an active
role in the Mongoose structure, unrelated to his position as Attorney General.
C. CIA Organization for Mongoose. In late 1961 or early 1962, William
Harvey was put in charge of the CIA's Task Force W, the CIA arm for Mongoose
Operations. Task Force W operated under the Special Group Augmented and em-
ployed some 400 people at CIA headquarters and at the Miami Station. McCone
and Harvey were thereafter the principal CIA participants in Operation Mongoose.
Helms attended only some 7 of 40 Mongoose meetings and testified that it 3
was fair to state that McCone and Harvey, rather than lelms, were principally
concerned with Mongoose. Helms was, however, substantially involved in Mongoose
and testified that he "was as interested" in Mongoose as Harvey and McCone were.
(Helms, 7/18, p. 10)
NW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 149
2. Lansdale's Theory and Objective for Mongoose
In the fall of 1961, Lansdale had been asked by President
Kennedy to examine the Administration's Cuba policy and to make recommen-
dations. Lansdale testified that, in reporting his recommendations to
Cestified
he emphasized that "Castro
...
had aroused con-
11
President Kennedy,
siderable affection for himself personally with the Cuban population....'
(Lansdale, p. 4), and that the U.S. "should take a very different course"
from the "harassment" operations that had been directed against Castro
up to that time. (Lansdale, p. 3). These prior U.S. operations were
conceived and led by Americans, Lansdale informed the President. (Lans-
dale, p.
5). In contrast, Lansdale proposed that the U.S. work with
all exiles, particularly professionals who had opposed Batista and then
became disillusioned by Castro. (Lansdale, pp. 4, 10-11).
Lansdale's
ultimate objective was to have "the people themselves overthrow the
Castro regime rather than U.S. engineered efforts from outside Cuba."
☑
(Lansdale, P. 41).
Hence, after his appointment as Chief of Operations, Lansdale's
concept for the MONGOOSE project emphasized as a first step the develop-
ment of leadership elements, and "a very necessary political basis"
among the Cubans opposed to Castro, before any large actions began.
(Lansdale, p. 11). At the same time, Lansdale sought to develop "means
to infiltrate Cuba successfully" and to organize "cells and activiti
inside Cuba ... who could work secretly and safely. Lansdale, p. 11).
Lansdale's plan was designed so as not to "arouse premature actions, not
to bring great reprisals on the people, and abort any eventual success.
(Lansdale, p. 11).
:
ECRET
"P
*/ As Lansdale described his "concept of operation" for Mongoose in a
memorandum to the President on January 18, 1962, it was to "help the
Cubans from within Cuba" to overthrow the Castro regime through a
"revolt of the Cuban people.
(Lansdale Ex. 3, p. 2).
"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 150

3. Bissell's Testimony Concerning Presidential Instruc-
tions to Act More Vigorously, But That Assassination Was Not Included.
Sometime in the early fall of 1961, Bissell was apparently called to
the White House and was said to have been
"chewed out in the Cabinet Room in the White House
by both the President and the Attorney General for,
as he put it, sitting on his ass and not doing any-
thing about getting rid of Castro and the Castro
regime."
NAME
This description comes from the testimony of Samuel Halpern, a middle-
level CIA covert action officer, who said Bissell told him about the
meeting, and directed him to come up with some plans.
36-37).
(Halpern, pp. 8,
Bissell said he did not remember that precise meeting but that
he had been, in essence, told to "get off your ass about Cuba."
(Bissell, 7/25/75, pp. 37-38).
Bissell was asked whether he considered such an instruction
to constitute authority for proceeding to assassinate Castro. He said it
would not, and that "formal and explicit approval" would be required for
assassination action (Id., 38-39).
Bissell also testified that there was in fact no assassination
activity between the pre-Bay of Pigs/Roselli operation and his departure
from the Agency in February 1962.
In late 1961 Halpern became Harvey's Executive Assistant
on Task Force W, the CIA action arm of Operation Mongoose. He testified
that he never heard of the Roselli assassination operation (Halpern
pp.
15-16).
No T
Am
TUP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 151
16.
-
4. The January 19, 1962 Meeting at Which the Attorney General Was
Quoted As Saying Cuba Should Have the "Top Priority" in the United States Government.
On January 19, 1962, a meeting attended by Lansdale, probably Helms, Helms' Executive
Assistant George McManus, and other representatives of the agencies involved in
Mongoose, took place in Attorney General Kennedy's office.* (McManus, p. 6).
Notes taken at the meeting by McManus contain the following passages:
"Conclusion. Overthrow of Castro is Possible"
"
"
'a solution to the Cuban problem today
carried top priority in U.S. Gov/ernmen/t.
No time, money, effort
be spared.
"'Yesterday
1"
or manpower is to
the President had indicated to
him' that final chapter had not been written
its got to be done and will be done."
(McManus Ex. 1, Memorandum, January 19, 1962, p. 2). McManus
stated that the words "the top priority in the U.S. Gov/ernmen/t
time, money, effort or manpower is to be spared" had been spoken by
Attorney General (McManus, pp. 8-9).
no
TOP SECRET
Others who attended the meeting were Brig. Gen. Craig, representing
the Joint Chiefs, Don Wilson of USIA, Major Patchell of the Secretary
of Defense's office, and Frank land of CIA.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 152
-17-
Helms stated that those words reflected the "kind of atmosphere" on which he
relied for his perception that assassination was implicitly authorized.
(Helms,
7/17, p. 60-61.) McManus, who wrote the memorandum, agreed that Robert Kennedy
"was very vehement in his speech" and "really wanted action" but McManus disagreed
with Helms perception, stating that "it never occurred to me" that the words
quoted above from Robert Kennedy included permission to assassinate Castro.
p. 9.) Nor did the spirit of the meeting as a whole give McManus any idea that
assassination was either contemplated or authorized. (Tr., p. 9-10.)*
5. General Lansdale's Mongoose Planning Tasks
(McManus,
On January 18, 1962, Lansdale assigned 32 planning tasks to the agencies parti-
cipating in Mongoose. (Lansdale Ex. 3, Program Review of the Cuba Project.) In a
memorandum to the working group members, Lansdale emphasized that "it is our job to put
the American genius to work on this project, quickly and effectively. This demands a
change from the business as usual and a hard facing of the fact that we are in a com-
bat situation--where we have been given full command." (Lansdale memorandum, 1/20/62,
p. 1.)
The 32 tasks comprised a variety of activities, ranging from intelligence collec-
tion to planning for "use of U. S. military force to support the Cuban popular
clear
iT
WAS
"
With respect to the question of priorities and emphasis in the Kennedy
Administration, there was a great deal of proof showing that Cuba
indeed had a high priority and the very existence of a high level
group like the Special Group Augmented further demonstrates its
importance. MacNamara, for example, stated that. "we were hysterical
about Castro at the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter. (In
the same context, MacNamara stated "I don't believe we contemplated
assassination.) (MacNamara, p. 93). Similarly, General Lansdale în-
formed the members of his inter-agency committee that Mongoose "demands
a change from business-as-usual and a hard facing of the fact that
you're in a combat situation where we have been given full command.'
Memorandum, January 20, 1962, from Lansdale).
nlated
Contemp
ร
Ex.
"
,
"
On the other hand, Sorensen testified that "there were lots of top
priorities, and it was the job of some of /us/ to continually tell
various agencies their particular subject was the top priority" and
although Cuba was "important" it was "fairly well down on the list of
the President's agenda. (Sorensen, p. 12). For example, when told
that his first letter to Khruschev in the secret correspondence that
lasted two or three years would be "the single most important docu-
ment you will write during your Presidency,". President Kenndy said,
"Yes, we get these every day over here." (Sorensen, p.
12).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 153
movement" and developing an "operational schedule for sabotage actions inside
Cuba."
(Lansdale Ex. 3, p. 5, 7.)*
In focusing on intelligence collection, propaganda and various sabotage actions,
Lansdale's tasks were consistent with the underlying strategy of Mongoose to build
gradually towards an internal revolt of the Cuban people. (See p. above.).
Lansdale transmitted a copy of the tasks to Robert Kennedy on January 18, 1962,
with a handwritten note stating "my review does not include the sensitive work I
have reported to you; I felt you preferred informing the President privately."
Lansdale testified that this did not refer to assassinations and that he "never took
up assassination with either the Attorney General or the President."** Lansdale
testified that he could not precisely recall the nature of this "sensitive work"
but that it might have involved a special trip he made under cover to meet Cuban
leaders in Florida and to assess their political strengths. (Lansdale, p. 30.)
*There was testimony regarding one Lansdale plan that a witness thought was an example
of Lansdale's "perspicacity" in planning operations. Parrott, the Secretary to the
Special Group Augmented, testified:
This plan
"I'll give you one example of Lansdale's perspicacity. He
had a wonderful plan for getting rid of Castro.
consisted of spreading the word that the Second Coming of
Christ was imminent and that Christ was against Castro (who)
was anti-Christ. And you would spread this word around Cuba,
and then on whatever date it was, that there would be a mani-
festation of this thing. And at that time--this is absolutely
true--and at that time there would be an American submarine
which would surface just over the horizon off of Cuba and send
up some starshells. And this would be the manifestation of the
Second Coming and Castro would be overthrown..."
"Well, some wag called this operation--by this time Lansdale was
something of a joke in many quarters--and somebody dubbed this
Elimination by Illumination.
(Parrott, p.
.)
**Harvey testified that he never received any instructions from Lansdale to under-
take assassinations, although as noted below (p. ), in August 1962, Lansdale asked
Harvey to consider the feasibility of a plan for the "liquidation" of Cuban leaders.
(Harvey, 7/ /75, p.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 154
19 -
Lansdale also referred, in a memorandum to the Attorney General on
January 27, 1962, to his feeling that "we might uncork the touchdown
play" "independently of the institutional program we are spurring."
(Lansdale Ex. 4, p.1).
Lansdale testified that in this memorandum the
phrase "touchdown play" was a "breezy way of referring to "a Cuban
-revolt to overthrow the regime" rather than to a Castro assassination.
*/
The examples of such "plays cited in the memorandum
(Lansdale, .p.45).-
*/ The testimony was as follows:
"The Chairman: What precisely did you mean by "uncork the
touchdown play independently of the institutional programs
we are spurring?"
--
"General Lansdale: Well, I was holding almost daily meet-
ings with my working group, and in tasking, and finding
how they were developing plans I was becoming more and more
concerned that they kept going back to doing what I felt were
pro forma American types of actions rather than actively ex-
ploring how to get the Cubans into this; and to have them
undertake actions.
" To me,
the touchdown play was a Cuban revolt to over-
throw the regime. I did not feel that we had gotten into
the real internal part of getting Cubans into the action,
and I was concerned about that."
"Senator Baker: In the same context, is it fair to say that
the name of the game was to get rid of Castro or his regime.
and that touchdown play was one of several methods that
might have been used for that purpose?"
"General Lansdale:
Yes."
"Senator Baker: All right, now what was the touchdown play
that you had in mind here?"
. . .
ECRET
"General Lansdale: Well, it was a revolt by the Cubans
themselves a revolution that would break down the police
controls of the state and to drive the top people out of
power and to do that, there needed to be political actions
cells, psychological propaganda action cells, and eventually
when possible, guerilla forces developed in the country in
a safe place for a new government to set up and direct the
revolution that would eventually move into Havana and take over."
(Lansdale, pp. 45-56).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 "Page 155
J
20 -
(e.g., "stir up workers in Latin America and Cuba," work through "ethnic
language groups," "youth elements, or families through the Church") do
*
not contain any indication of assassination. (Lansdale, Ex. 4, p. 1.)
On January 19, 1962, Lansdale added an additional
task to those assigned on January 18. This "Task 33" involved a plan to
"incapacitate" Cuban sugar workers during the harvest by the use of chemical
(Lansdale, p. 29). Lansdale testified that the plan in-
warfare means.
volved the use of non-lethal chemicals to sicken Cubans temporarily and
keep them away from the fields for a 24-48 hour period "without ill effects."
After initial approval for planning purposes (with the notation that it
would require "policy determination" before final approval), the plan was
ultimately cancelled after a study showed it was not feasible and before de-
bate by the SGA. (Lansdale, p. 29, Special Group Minutes, 1/30/62, p. 1.)
"
(Lansdale
Lansdale's 33 tasks were approved for planning purposes
by the Special Group on January 30, 1962 (Minutes of Special Group meeting,
1/30/62, p. 1). Thereafter, on February 20, 1962, Lansdale detailed a
six phase schedule for Mongoose, designed to culminate in October, 1962,
with an "open revolt and overthrow of the Communist regime.'
Ex. 11, Program Review of the Cuba Project, 2/20/62, p. 2). As one of the
operations for the "Resistance" phase proposed for September, 1962, Lansdale
listed "attack on the cadre of the regime, including key leaders." (Id., p. 151).
Lansdale's plan stated:
✓ SECRET
TOD GEODE
Lansdale's memorandum described the "touchdown plays" as follows:
"It may be a special effort which professional labor
operators can launch to stir up workers in Latin America
and Cuba. It may be through ethnic-language groups; Spain
has an untapped action potential. It could be a warming-up
of the always lively youth element in Latin America and
Cuba, through some contacts specially used. It could be with
the families through the Church, with families resisting the
disciplined destruction of social justice by the Communists.
could be an imaginative defection project which cracks the top
echelon of the Communist gang now running Cuba."
It
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 156
21 -
"This should be a 'Special Target' operation
Gangster elements might provide the best recruit-
ment potential for actions against police G2
/intelligence/ officials." (Id., p. 151). */
Lansdale testified that early in the Mongoose opera-
tion he had suggested to the working level representatives of the Mongoose
agencies that they get in touch with "criminal elements" to obtain intelli-
gence and "possible actions against the police structure" in Cuba. (Lans-
dale, p. 104). But Lansdale conceded that his proposal to recruit
gangster elements for attacks on "key leaders" contemplated the targeted
killing of individuals, in addition to the casualties that might occur in
(Lansdale, p. 107).
the course of the revolt itself.
These 33 plans of Lansdale were, however, never
As
approved for implementation by the Special Group Augmented.
discussed below in greater detail (see p. ), the Special Group Augmented
tabled Lansdale's six phase plan altogether in February 1962, and directed
Lansdale to plan for and conduct an intelligence collection plan only.
(Memo, 3/2/62; Minutes of Special Group Augmented Meeting, 3/5/62).
a. Lansdale's Rejection of a Suggestion That a Propaganda
Campaign, Including Rewards for Assassination, Be Explored
On January 30, 1962, the representative of the Defense Department and the
Joint Chiefs on the Mongoose Working Group forwarded for Lansdale's con-
sideration "a concept for creating distrust and apprehension in the Cuban
Communist Hierarchy" (Lansdale Ex. 1, Memorandum, 1/30/62, from Craig
to Lansdale, p. 1). This concept, titled Operation Bounty, was described as
a "system of financial rewards, commensurate with position and stature,
for killing or delivering alive known Communists." (Id., p. 2) Under the
concept, leaflets would be dropped in Cuba listing rewards, which
...
*/ An earlier reference to use of gangster-type elements had appeared
in a CIA memorandum for the Special Group on January 24, 1962. Commenting
on Task 5 of Lansdale's original 32 tasks (which called for planning for
"defection of top Cuban government officials"), the CIA memorandum noted
that planning for the task will "necessarily be based upon an appeal made
inside the island by intermediaries" and listed "crime syndicates" along
with other groups as possible intermediaries.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 157
were proposed as ranging from $5,000 for an "informer" to $100,000 for
11
'government officials.".
self. (Id., p. 3).
grate
A reward of "2¢" was listed for castro nim-
Lansdale testified that price was designed "to deni-
Castro in the eyes of the Cuban population." (Lansdale, Tr. 26).
Lansdale testified that he "tabled" this concept when
he received it, on the ground that "I did not think that it was something
that should be seriously undertaken or supported further." (Lansdale, p. 26).
Lansdale did not bring the proposal before the Special Group Augmented.
6. The Control System for. Mongoose Operations.
In establishing the Mongoose Operation
on November 30, 1961, President Kennedy had emphasized that the Special
Group should be "kept closely informed" of 'Mongoose activities.
randum by the President, 11/30/62%; Goodwin, p. ).
(memo-
In practice, as Samuel Halpern, Harvey's Executive Assistant on
the CIA Mongoose Task Force W testified, this resulted in the submission
of "specific detailed plans for every activity carried out by the task
(Halpern, p. 16). Halpern testified that those plans were sub-
force."
mitted "in nauseating detail:"
"It went down to such things as the gradients on the
beach, and the composition of the sand on the beach
in many cases. Every single solitary thing was in
those plans, full details, times, events, weaponry,
how it was going to happen, who was going to do what
the full details of every single thing we did
(Halpern, p. 17).
TUP
SECRET
Harvey similarly characterized the control process (Harvey, 6/25,
p. 123), as one which required the submission of "excruciating detail" and
where it was understood that the Special Group Augmented was to be given
...
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 158
23
an opportunity to debate and decide after weighing the strengths and
weaknesses of any given proposed action.
a. The Documentary Evidence
(Harvey, 6/25, pp. 114, 124).
The documentary evidence illustrates the tight control pro-
cedures set out for Mongoose by the Special Group Augmented. For example,
as discussed above (p. ), Lansdale initially submitted 32 specific tasks
with his 'basic concept" on January 18, 1962 for consideration by
the Special Group Augmented.
(Lansdale Ex. 3) After consideration
in February, the Special Group Wo
Comment
of Lansdale's concept and the 32 tasks
Augmented ordered Lansdale to cut back Iris plan to limit it to an
intelligence collection program for the March-May 1962 period, rather
than the five-stage plan to culminate in an October "popular revolution"
as originally conceived by Lansdale. (Nemo 3/2/62, by Lansdale) In
approving the intelligence collection program, the Special Group Aug-
mented pointed out that:
"
any actions which are not specifically spelled
out in the plan but seem to be desirable as the pro-
ject progresses, will be brought to the Special Group
for resolution." (Helms Ex. 1, 7/18, p.1)
In addition, the Guidelines for the Mongoose program
on
ASSASS...
ECRET
emphasized the Special Group Augmented's responsibility for control and
prior approval of important operations:
"The Special Group (5412 Augmented) is resso
for providing policy guidance to the (Mongoose) project,
for approving important operations and for monitoring.
progress. (Guidelines for Operation Mongoose, March 14,
1962, p.2)
Further indication of the Mongoose control process is the request given
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 159
24
to Helms a month prior to Harvey's trip to meet Roselli in Miami. Pur-
suant to the discussion at the Special Group's meeting on March 5, Helms
was asked to estimate "for each week as far into the next twelve months
as possible
inside Cuba
the members and type of agents you will establish
(and) brief descriptions
(Memo to Helms from Lansdale, March 5, 1962)
of actions contemplated.
Moreover, the approved plan for Operation Mongoose, as of
the time of Harvey's meeting with Roselli in Miami required that any
proposal to supply arms and equipment to particular resistance
groups inside Cuba "be submitted to the Special Group for decision,
ad hoc
་་
(Lansdale Memo to
"
April 11, 1962, p. ).
And the Guidelines for the Mongoose program emphasized that, after specific
tasks were approved by the Special Group Augmented and given to participating
agencies by Lansdale, normal command channels were to be observed. As the
Guidelines stated:
During this period, General Lansdale will continue
as Chief of Operations, calling directly on the
participating departments and agencies for support
and implementation of agreed tasks. The heads of
these departments and agencies are responsible for
performance through normal command channels to
higher authority. *_/ (Guideline for Operation Mon-
goose, March 14, 1962, p.2)
* The initial draft of these Guidelines had referred to the President but
was later amended to read "higher authority." (Draft Guidelines, March
5, 1962, p.2) The minutes of the consideration of these Guidelines were
also amended with respect to the manner in which the Guidelines were approved.
On March 16, 1962, a Memorandum for Record of "Discussion of Operation
Mongoose with the President" of the Special Group (Augmented) stated:
"In the presence of the Special Group (Augmented)
the President was given a progress report on Operation MON-
GOOSE. The guidelines dated March 14, 1962 were circulated
and were used as the basis of the discussion. After a
prolonged consideration of the visibility, noise level and
risks entailed, General Lansdale and the Special Group (Aug-
mented) were given tacit authorization to proceed in accordance
with the guidelines.
(footnote cont'd.)
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Page 160

T
24a
In a Memorandum to McCone on April 10, 1962, Harvey recognized that the
Special Group Augmented control process required advance approval of "major
operations going beyond the collection of intelligence."
that these "tight controls" were unduly "stultifying: "
But Harvey stated
"To permit requisite flexibility and professionalism
for a maximum operational effort against Cuba, the
right controls exercised by the Special Group and the
present time-consuming coordination and briefing pro-
cedures should, if at all possible, be made less
restrictive and less stultifying." (Memo, April 10, 1962, .
Harvey to McCone, p.4) *
Even as the Cuban Missile Crisis approached, and the pressure to
act against the Castro regime increased through a "stepped up" Mongoose
plan, the Special Group continued to insist on prior approval of sensitive
operations. Thus, when the Special Group Augmented on September 14,
1962, approved in principle a proposed set of operations,
(Footnote cont'd)
However, a note at the bottom of this memorandum, dated March 22, 1962,
stated:
This minute was read to the Special Group
(Augmented) today. The Group was unanimous in feeling
that no authorization, either tacit or otherwise, was
The members of the Group
given by higher authority.
asked that the minute be amended to indicate that the
Group itself had decided to proceed in accordance with
the Guidelines.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 161
C
Bundy, speaking to the Group,
25
11 ... made it clear that this did not constitute
a blanket approval of every item in the paper and
that sensitive ones such as sabotage, for example,
will have to be presented in more detail on a case
by case basis." (Memo of Special Group Augmented
meeting, September 14, 1962, p. ).
Helm's and the members of the Special Group Augmented differed on
whether or not these control requirements were consistent with Helms' per-
ception that assassination was permissible without a direct order. We
discuss that testimony below at
7. The Pattern of Mongoose Action. The documentary evidence and the
testimony reveal that the Kennedy Administration pressed the Mongoose opera-
tion with vigorous language and
although the collection of intelligence
information was the central objective of Mongoose up until August 1962.
sabotage and para military actions were conducted.**
re
SECRE
major sabotage operation aimed at a large Cuban copper mine and other.
sabotage operations. As Lansdale described them in his testimony, the
sabotage acts involved 'blowing up bridges to stop communications and
blowing up certain production plants" (Lansdale, p. 36). And during
the Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962, sabotage was increasingly urged.
*/ In early March, 1962, the SGA recognized the need to begin "preliminary
actions involving such things as spotting, assessing and training
action-type agents" but the Group agreed that it must "keep its hand
tightly" on these actions. The Group saw, however, that such control
might not be completely effective and recognized "that many of the
agents infiltrated would be of an all-purpose type%3B that is, they would
be trained in paramilitary skills, as well as those of exclusively
intelligence concern. It was noted that once the agents are within the
country, they cannot be effectively controlled from the U.S., although
every effort will be made to attempt such control." (Minutes of
Special Group meeting, March 5, 1962).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 162
26 -
(See p. above.) Thus, Helms
At the same time, however, the record shows that the Special Group Aug-
mented turned away from proposed sabotage and similar violent action throughout
1962, including the period of the Missile Crisis.
noted in a memorandum of a meeting on October 16, 1962, that Robert Kennedy in ex-
pressing the "general dissatisfaction of the President" with Hongoose, "pointed out
that (Mongoose) had been underway for a year... that there had been no acts of sabo-
tage and that even the one which had been attempted had failed twice". (Memorandum
by Helms, October 16, 1962, p. 1.) Similiarly a memorandum to Helms by his Execu-
tive Assistant (who spent full time on Cuba matters), which reviewed the Mongoose
program in the aftermath of the Missile Crisis, stated:
"During the past year, while one of the options of the
project was to create internal dissension and resistance
leading to eventual U.S. intervention, a review shows
that policymakers not only shied away from the military
intervention aspect but were generally apprehensive of
sabotage proposals. (McManus, Ex. 2, p. 1, McManus, p. 11).
Harvey testified that this assessment of the Special Group Aug-
mented's position was an accurate one. (Harvey, 6/25, p. ). This is
also borne out by the record of Mongoose activity. For example, after
Lansdale's initial six phase plan to overthrow Castro by the fall of 1962,
the single phase approved for January August 1962 was described by Lans-
dale as "essentially an intelligence collection" effort.
April 11, 1962, by Lansdale). Indeed, the guidelines for Operation Mon
approved on March 5, 1962, stated that the acquisition of int
the "immediate priority objective of U.S. efforts
(Memorandum,
GRET
intelligence
coming months."
(Taylor Ex. 3, p. 2, Guidelines for Operation Mongoose, March 14, 1962).
The Guidelines further stated that although other covert actions would be
undertaken concurrently with intelligence collection, these were to be on
2.
a scale "short of those reasonably calculated to inspire a revolt" in Cuba.
(Id.,
p. 2). And the Special Group stipulated that Mongoose action beyond
the acquisition of intelligence "must be inconspicuous." (Memorandum,
3/2/62, Lansdale, p.
3).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Päge 163
C
- 27 -
With the scheduled conclusion of that intelligence collection
phase in August 1962, the Special Group Augmented considered whether to
adopt a "stepped-up Course B plus," which, in contrast to Phase I, was
designed to inspire a revolt against the Castro regime.
the Special Group Augmented, 8/8/62, from Lansdale, p. 1).
(Memorandum for
Initially, the
The
Special Group Augmented decided against this course and in favor of a "CIA
variant," at a meeting of Special Group Augmented principals on August 10,
1962. (Minutes of Special Group Augmented meeting, August 10, 1962).
"CIA variant," which was proposed by McCone on August 10, posited more
limited actions to avoid inciting a revolt and sought not Castro's over-
throw, but a split between Castro and "old-line Communists.
"
(Id., p. 2).
The onset of the Missile Crisis caused an initial reversion to the
stepped-up Course B plan, but ultimately, however, an order was issued on
October 30, 1962 to halt all sabotage operations. (Lansdale, Ex.8, Memo
by Lansdale, 10/30/62)
Thus, on August 20, Taylor told the President that the Special
Group Augmented perceived no likelihood of an overthrow of the Castro govern-
ment by internal means without direct U.S. military intervention, and
that the Special Group Augmented favored a more agressive Mongoose program.
(Memo from Taylor to President.) Shortly thereafter, on
August 23, McGeorge Bundy issued NSC Memo Number 181 to Lansdale and Taylor
stating that, at the President's directive, "the line of activity projected
for Operation MONGOOSE Plan B plus should be developed with all possible
speed." One week later, on August 30, the CIA was instructed by the Special
Group Augmented to submit a list of possible sabotage targets they might
propose and it was noted that this list could serve as the limit for action
on the Agency's own initiative: "The Group, by reacting to this list, could
define the limits within which the Agency could operate on its own initiative."
Special Group Augmented Minutes of August 30, 1962.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 164
-28-
Thus, at a Special Group Augmented meeting on October 4, 1962, Robert
Kennedy stated that the President "is concerned about progress on the Mongoose
program and feels that more priority should be given to trying to mount sabotage
operations". And Robert Kennedy urged that "massive activity" be undertaken
within the Mongoose framework. In line with this proposal, the Special Group
Augmented decided that "considerably more sabotage" should be undertaken, and that
"all efforts should be made to develop new and imaginative approaches with the pos-
sibility of getting rid of the Castro regime". (Minutes of Special Group Aug-
mented meeting, October 4, 1962, p. )*. On October 30, 1962, however, the
order to stop all sabotage operations was issued (Lansdale, Ex. 8).**
* The SGA also decided on October 4, 1962, that Robert Kennedy would chair
the Group's meetings "for the time being." (Id., P. ). Subsequently,
at a meeting on October 16, 1962, Robert Kennedy stated that he was
going to give Mongoose "more personal attention" in view of the lack of
progress and would hold daily meetings with the working group represen-
tatives, i.e., Lansdale, Harvey, and the other Agency members. (Harvey,
Ex. 12, Memorandum of Meeting, October 16, 1962, by Helms, p. 1). Helms
testified that he did not recall any such daily meetings with the
Attorney General, but he had the impression there may have been several
at first, but then they ceased. (Helms, 7/17/ , pp. 54-55).
**Harvey testified that he had a "confrontation" with Robert Kennedy
at the height of the Missile Crisis concerning Harvey's order that
agent teams be sent into Cuba to support any conventional U.S. mili-
tary operation that might occur. Harvey stated that Robert Kennedy
"took a great deal of exception" to this order and as a result McCone,
ordered Harvey to stop the agent operations. (Harvey, 7/11, p. 30-$1.
Elder, McCone's assistant at the time, similarly described this incl-
dent and stated that, although Harvey had attempted to get guidance
from top officials during the Missile Crisis, Harvey "earned another
black mark as not being fully under control". (Elder, p. 34-35.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 165
-28a-
As Sorensen (a member of the Executive Committee established to deal with
the Missile Crisis) testified, even though Cuba was the "No. 1 priority" dur-
ing the Missile Crisis, and "all alternatives, plans, possibilities were ex-
haustively surveyed" during that time, the subject of assassination was never
raised in the high-level National Security Council Executive Committee (of which
Helms was not a member) that was formed to deal with the Missile Crisis.
(Sorensen, 7/21, p. 11.)***
* **
There are references in the Special Group Augmented records to attacks
on Soviet personnel in Cuba. The record of the SGA meeting on September 9,
1962, states:
"It was suggested that the matter of attacking and
harassing of Soviet personnel within Cuba should be
considered." (SGA Minutes, 9/9/62, p. ).
Earlier, on August 31, 1962, Lansdale had included a task "to provoke
incidents between Cubans and Bloc personnel to exacerbate tensions,"
in a proposed projection of actions for Phase II of Mongoose. (Memo-
randum to SGA, 8/31/62, from Lansdale, Action No. 47). The Special Group
thereafter decided, as a means of "emphasizing such activity" to replace
that task with one to "cause actions by Cubans against Bloc personnel,"
and to note that "consideration will be given to provoking and conducting
physical attacks on Bloc personnel. (Memorandum to Taylor, Rusk, and
MacNamara, 9/12/62, from Lansdale, pp. 1-2).
"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 166
29
_ :
E.
The Issue of Authority Outside the Agency
This section discusses the evidence as to whether there was authorization
from outside the Agency for the assassination activity that took place during
the Mongoose operation.
TR. 7/17, p.4)
As discussed below in detail, both Helms and the Kennedy Administration
officials agreed that no direct order was ever given for Castro's assassina-
tion and that no one outside the Agency (including McCone) was informed
about the assassination activity. Helms testified, however, that he believed
the assassination activity was permissible and that it was within the scope
of the authority given to the Agency. McGone and the other Kennedy Admini-
stration officials disagreed, testifying that assassination was not permissible
without a direct order and that a Castro assassination was not within the
authorized bounds of the Mongoose operation.
In April 1962, when the poison pills were given to Roselli in Miami,
Helms was the CIA Deputy Director in charge of covert operations and reported
to McCone, the CIA Director. Helms had succeeded Bissell in this job,
following Bissell's retirement in February, 1962, as a consequence of the
failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Helms testified that, after the Bay
of Pigs, "Those of us who were still (in the Agency) were enormously anxious
to try and be successful at what we were being asked to do by what was then
a relatively new Administration. We wanted to earn our spurs with the
President and with other officers of the Kennedy Administration." (Helms
1. Helms' Testimony Concerning Authority
As set forth below, Helms testified that while he doubted whether
he was initially informed that Harvey gave poison pills to Roselli and did
not recall having authorized a Castro assassination in that form, nevertheless,
Helms had authorized the 1962 assassination plot because "we felt that we
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 167
were operating as we were supposed to operate, that these things if
not specifically authorized, at least were authorized in general terms."
(Helms, 6/13, p.61)
a. His Perception of Authority
Need clearen
STATOmont
op prossure
order
Helms testified that based upon the "intense" pressure exerted by the
Kennedy Administration to overthrow Castro it was his perception that the CIA
was at all times acting within the scope of its authority with respect to:
assassination activity. * But, Helms testified that there was no direct order
assassinate Castro from anyone, including the President of the Attorney General.
(Helms, 6/14, 83.)
P.
.)
(This point is discussed in detail infra p.
(Helms, 6/13, p. 137: Helms, 7/17, p. 62, 7/17 p. 4-5.) Helas testified that
this authority, as he perceived it, was implicit in the U. S. policy and attitude
towards Castro. (Helms, 6/13, p. 165.) As Helms testified:
"I believe it was the policy at the time to get rid of Castro
and if killing him was one of the things that was to be done
in this connection, that was within what was expected."
(Helms, 6/13, p. 137.)
*The extent to which pressure in fact existed "to do something about Castro" is
discussed in detail in the section immediately above dealing with Operation Mon-
goose, its strategy of causing an internal revolt of the Cuban people against
Castro, the strict control system established by the Special Group Augmented, and
the pattern of intelligence collection and sabotage activity actually authorized
and undertaken.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 168
Helms testified that "I remember vividly (the pressure to overthrow
Castro) was very intense."
(Helms, 6/13, p. 26.) Helms stated that this pres-
sure intensified during the period of Operation Mongoose during late 1961 and
throughout 1962, and then continued on through much of 1963. (Helms, 6/13, p. 27.)
As these pressures rose, "obviously the extent of the means that one thought
were available, obvious increased too." (Helms, 6/13, p. 26.)
Helms stated that during the Mongoose Operations period "it was made abundantly
clear...to everybody involved in the operation that the desire was to get rid of
the Castro regime and to get rid of Castro...the point was that no limitations
were put on this injunction." (Helms, 7/17, p. 16-17). In Helms' testimony,
the following exchange occurred:
"Senator Mathias: 'Let me draw an example from history.
When Thomas A. Beckett was proving to be an annoyance,
as Castro, the King said who will rid me of this man.
He didn't say to somebody go out and murder him. He said
who will rid me of this man, and let it go at that.
"Mr. Helms: 'That is a warming reference to the problem.'
"Senator Mathias: 'You feel that spans the generations
and the centuries?!
"Mr. Helms: "I think it does, sir.'
"Senator Mathias: 'And that is typical of the kind of thing
which might be said, which might be taken by the director or
by anybody else as presidential authorization to go forward?'
"Mr. Helms : 'That is right. But in answer to that, I re-
alize that one sort of grows up in [the] tradition of the
time and I think that any of us would have found it very.
difficult to discuss assassinations with a President of the
U.S. I just think we all had the feeling that we're hired
out to keep those things out of the oval office.'
"Senator Mathias:
Yet at the same time you felt that some
spark had been transmitted, that that was within the per-
missible limits?'
"Mr. Helms: 'Yes, and if he had disappeared from the scene
they would not have been unhappy. (Helms Tr. 6/13,¨pp. 72-73)
111
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 169
- 30a
Helms said that although he never was told by his superiors to kill Castro
(Helms, 7/17, p. 15), there was at the same time never any injunction laid down
by the Kennedy Administration that proscribed a Castro assassination: "No member
of the Kennedy Administration. ...ever told me that (assassination) was proscribed,
(or) ever referred to it in that fashion..." (Helms, 7/71, p. 18.) "Nobody ever
said that (assassination) was ruled out..." */(Helms 7/17; p. 43
GRET
llelms stated that during the Mongoose period, the delivery of Pis
assassination of Castro, "with all the other things that were going on at that
time...seemed to be within the permissible part of this effort." (Helms, 6/13,
p. 99.)
"In the perceptions of the time and the things we were trying to do this
was one human life against many other human lives that were being lost."
(Helms, 6/13, p. 64.)**/
r
*As Helms declared: "In my 25 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, I always
thought I was working within authorization, that I was doing what I had been
asked to do by proper authority and when I was operating on my own I was doing
what I believed to be the legitimate business of the Agency as it would have been
expected of me." (Helms, 6/13, p. 30-31.)
**As set out above (p.. __), Helms stated: "...people were losing their lives
in raids, a lot of people had lost their life at the Bay of Pigs, agents were
being arrested left and right and put before the wall and shot." (Helms, 6/13,
p. 64.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 170

b.
Helms
Testimony That He Had No Direct Order to Assassinate
Castro and Did Not Inform the President or the Special Group
of the Assassination Activity
Helms testified that there was no direct order to assassinate Castro.
He said that his perceptions of authority did not reach the point where he could
testify that he had specific instructions to kill Castro. As he put it:
"I have testified as best I could about the atmosphere
of the time, what I understood was desired, and I don't
want to take refuge in saying that I was instructed to
specifically murder Castro. ." (Helms, 6/13, p.88).
On the question of whether the President was informed of any
assassination plots, Helms pointed out that "nobody wants to embarrass a
President of the United States (by) discussing the assassination of foreign
"the
leaders in his presence" (6/13, p. 29), and that the Special Group was
mechanism that was set up.
things did not explode in the President's face and that he was not
. to use as a circuit breaker so that these
also.
CRET
responsible for them." (6/13, p. 29). However Helms
that he had "no knowledge that a Castro assassination was ever authorized
by the Special Group (Augmented)" (6/13, pp. 28-29).
In addition, Helms said he never informed the Special Group Augmented
or any member of that Group that Harvey had given the pills to Roselli
in Miami "because I am not even sure I knew about it at the time." (Helms,
7/18, p.18).*/ Helms also stated he never told Robert Kennedy about any
assassination activity and my "presumption is he wasn't informed" (Helms,
6/13, p.58), and that "Harvey kept (the Roselli pill plot) pretty much
in his back pocket." (Helms, 6/13, pp.57-58).
Helms further testified that although Robert Kennedy was "constantly
in touch" with him in 1962 and 1963, Robert Kennedy never instructed Helms
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 171
31a
to assassinate Castro:
"The Chairman. 'Since he was on the phone to you
repeatedly did he ever tell you to kill Castro?'
"Mr. Helms. 'No.'
"The Chairman: 'He did not?'
"Mr. Helms: Not in those words, no.
7/17, p.13)*/
Any Yor
то
Ml to
NOT to do
,T
(Helms,
рции
7
раёт
PARTicularly
when 
learn on 
mason
"plot"
terminion
*
Helms immediately reiterated after this exchange that his perception of
authority for a Castro assassination rested on the pressure exerted by the
Administration against Castro. The exchange between the Chairman and Helms
continued as follows:
"The Chairman: 'Well, did he ever tell you in other words
that clearly conveyed to you the message that he wanted
to kill Castro?'
I
"Helms: 'Sir, the last time I was (before the Committee),
did the best I could about what I believed to be the parameters
under which we were working, and that was to get rid of Castro.
And I don't, I am sorry to say
see how one would have
expected that a thing like killing or murdering or assassinating
would become part of a large group of people sitting around a
table in the United States Government. I can't imagine any
Cabinet officer wanting to sign off on something like that.
can't imagine anybody wanting something in writing saying I
have just charged Mr. Jones to go out and shoot Mr. Smith."
(Helms, 7/17, pp. 13-14)
I
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 172
C. Helms Testimony that he. Doubted Whether he had
Authorized a Specific Assassination Attempt or was Informed
of the Passage of the Pills
There is some doubt whether Helms ever authorized a specific attempt
at Castro's assassination, or was informed of the passage of the pioson
pills to Roselli in April, 1962. Although Helms testified that Harvey
regularly reported to Helms on Harvey's Mongoose work (Helms, 6/13, p.95),
and Helms "would have thought" that Harvey would have reported to Helms
the transfer of the pills into Cuba (Helms, 6/13, p.105), Helms does not
recall Harvey ever telling him that the pills were delivered to Roselli.
(Helms, 7/17, p.22).
Thus, as indicated above, Helms, testified he never informed the Special
Group Augmented or any member of that Group that Harvey had given the pills
to Roselli in Miami "because I am not even sure I knew about it at the time.
(Helms, 7/18, p. 18.)* And with respect to the pills, Helms testified that,
although he agreed to the Harvey-Roselliapperption (and believed there was
"
implicit authorization for assassination activity) he testified "I never re-
call having okayed the killing of Castro myself in that form." (Helms, 7/17,
P. 9.)
d.
Helms' Perception of Robert Kennedy's Position on a Castro
Assassination
In testifying as to his perception of authority, Helms emphasized the
particular role played by Robert Kennedy in pressing for progress and results
*/ Helms' testimony that he may not have been informed that the pills were
delivered is corroborated by Harvey's testimony. Harvey testified that
when he returned from Miami he reported to Helms on his contacts with
Roselli. But Harvey said that he only "briefed Helms generally", on the
subjects of Harvey's takeover of the Roselli operation, the prospects
of the operation, and the fact that Harvey had dropped Maheu and Giancana
from the operation. (Harvey, 6/25, p.65).
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539
Page 173
Robert Kennedy often talked directly with Helms and other CIA officials
working on the Mongoose program, outside of the Special Group Augmented
(Helms, 7/17, p.13; 7/18, pp.60-61).. As Helms stated:
channels.
"I can say absolutely fairly we are constantly in
touch with each other in these matters. The Attorney
General was on the phone to me, he was on the phone
to Mr. Harvey, to Mr. Fitzgerald, his successor. He
was on the phone even to people on Harvey's staff, as
I recall it." (Helms, 7/17, p.13).
Helms said that although he did not know whether a Castro
assassination would have been morally acceptable to Robert Kennedy,
Helms believed that Robert Kennedy "would not (have been) unhappy if
(Castro) had disappeared off the scene by whatever means."
(Helms,
7/17. p.17-18). And Helms stated that Robert Kennedy never
that a Castro assassination was ruled out. (Helms, 7/17, p.21).
told him
However, Helms further testified that although Robert. Kennedy was
"constantly in touch" with Helms and their exchanges were marked by de-
tailed, factual, and highly specific discussions on anti-Castro operations.
Robert Kennedy never raised the subject of a Castro assassination and never
instructed Helms to assassinate Castro.** Helms further testified that he had
no knowledge that Robert Kennedy "was ever asked to specifically approve
an assassination plot." (Helms, 6/13, p. 57.).
i's
Q: "So it was your impression that he was sort of setting the tone for
the group's action or activity."
A:
"Oh, yes...there wasn't any doubt about that. He was very much
interested in this and spent a great deal of time on it." (Helms,
6/13, p. 22.)
**The telephone records of the Attorney General's office indicate frequent
contact between the Attorney General and Helms and Helms stated that his
conversations with Robert Kennedy were "candid and that "he and I used to
deal in facts most of the time. (Helms 6/13, p.63.) Helms testified as
to the level of detail in his talks with Robert Kennedy:
"
"For example, we had projects to land sabotage teams.*/
Well, (the Attorney General would ask) have you got the
team organized, did the team go? Well, no, we've been
delayed a week because the weather is bad or the boats
don't run, or something of this kind. It even got down
to that degree of specificity." (Helms, 7/17, p.40)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 174
And, as stated above, Helms also testified that "Harvey kept Phase 2
(the Roselli pill operation) pretty much in his back pocket" and that al-
though Helms stated "I do not know this for sure," he testified it was
his "presumption" that Robert Kennedy was not informed of the Phase 2
(Helms, 6/13, p. 57-58.)
operation.*
e. Helms' Testimony as to Why He Did Not Obtain a Direct
Order
Helms testified that assassination "was not part of the CIA's policy"
or a part of CIA's "armory".
(Helms, 6/13, p. 87-881) And, in his own
view, Helms said that he "never liked assassination". (And, in fact, banned
its use
years after he became CIA Director.) (Helms,
Moreover,
Helms testified that he had serious reservations regarding the
CIA working with underworld figures. (Helms, 7/18 p.31). When Harvey
proposed to contact Roselli to see if gangster links
Cuba could be
SECRET
developed, Helms "had very grave doubts about the wisdom
underworld figures. (Helms, 6/13, p.33; 7/18, p.31).
Despite these reservations, Helms did not seek approval for.
the assassination activity because he said assassination was not
by him
rather
than
a subject that he felt should be aired with higher authority. (Helms, 7/18, DC/:
pp. 31-32).
With respect to the question of obtaining express authority
*
Helms based this presumption on a review of relevant documents at the
time of his testimony. (Helms, 6/13, p.58).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 175
from the Special Group or Special Group Augmented, Helms stated:
I didn't see how one would have expected that a thing like killing or
murdering or assassination would become a part of a large group of people
sitting around a table in the United States Government." (Helms, 7/17,
p. 14). And with regard to informing the President or obtaining explicit
authority from him, Helms stated that "nobody wants to embarrass a Presi-
dent of the United States (by) discussing the assassination of foreign
11
leaders in his presence. (Helms, 6/13, p. 29).
Thus, in the following exchange Helms stated that it "wouldn't have
occurred to me to ask" for clarification or express authority for assass-
ination activity from Robert Kennedy or the Special Group:
"Senator Huddleston: " '...it did not occur to you to
inquire of the Attorney General or of the Special
Group or of anyone that when they kept pushing and
asking for action...to clarify that question of
whether you should actually be trying to assassinate?"
"Mr. Helms: "I don't know whether it was in training
experience, tradition or exactly what one points to,
.but I think to go up to a Cabinet officer and say,
am I right in assuming that you want me to assassinate
Castro or to try to assassinate Castro, is a question
it wouldn't have occurred to me to ask."
***
"Senator Huddleston:
"
...
(because assassination has such
serious consequences) seems to fortify the thought that
I would want to be dead certain, I would want to hear
it from the horse's mouth in plain, simple English language
before I would want to undertake that kind of activity."
(Helms, 7/17, pp.51-52).
Helms also pointed out his reason for not seeking expre
in the following exchange:
thori
TOP SECRET
"Senator Morgan: "In light of your previous statement
that this is a Christian country and that this Committee
has to face up to the prime moral issue of whether or not -
killing is...acceptable...don't you think it would have
taken affirmative permission or authority to kill, rather
than just saying it was not eliminated from the authority
or you were not restricted...?"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 176
"
- 36 -
"Mr. Helms: ...killing was not part of the CIA's policy.
It was not part of the CIA's armory...but in this Castro
operation...I have testified as best I could about the
atmosphere of the time, what I understood was desired (and)
that this was getting rid of Castro, if he had been gotten
rid of by this means that this would have been acceptable
to certain individuals...I was just doing my best to do
what I thought I was supposed to do." (Helms, 6/13. pp.87-88).
When asked why he did not seek clarification from the Special
Group, its members, or Robert Kennedy whether it was "in fact, the
policy of the U.S. Government to actually kill Fidel Castro," Helms
answered "I don't know..."
"...There is something about the whole chain of episodes
in connection with this Roselli business that I am
simply not able to bring back in a coherent fashion.
And there was something about the ineffectuality of all
this, or the lack of conviction that anything ever
happened, that I believe in the end made this thing
simply collapse, disappear. And I don't recall what I
was briefed on at the time. Maybe I was kept currently
informed and maybe I wasn't, and today I don't remember
it... But I do not recall ever having been convinced
that any attempt was really made on Castro's life.
since I didn't believe any attempt had been made on
Castro's life, I saw no reason to pursue the matter
further." (Helms, 7/18, pp.31-32).
And
f. Helms Perception of the Relevance of Special Group
Controls to Assassination Activity
The evidence concerning the control system established by the
Special Group for the Mongoose Operation is discussed above (see p.
Helms stated, however, that the control system established by the
Special Group for Mongoose was not intended to apply to assassination
activity. (Helms, 7/18, p.21). Thus, with respect to the Special Group
Augmented's decision on March 5, 1962 that major operations going beyond
the collection of intelligence must receive advance approval, Helms
stated that this referred to "rather specific items tha
Group had on its agenda" from the outset of Mongoose.
SECRET
the special
(Helms, 7/18,
p.21). Since assassination was not among such items, Helms stated
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 177
- 37 -
that the Special Group would not have expected assassination
activity to come under this particular policy. (Helms, 7/18,
p.21). And with respect to the Special Group Augmented's desire
to "keep its hands tightly on preliminary actions" leading
towards sabotage and other actions beyond intelligence collection,
Helms stated that was the kind of injunction "that appears in all
kinds of governmental minutes of meetings." (Helms, 7/18,
p.17).
Helms said he regarded these as "general injunctions: rather than
an "all inclusive injunction" to keep the Group informed of all matters.
(Helms, 7/18, −.17).
Helms said he recognized, however, that there were limits on
permissible activity during Mongoose. */ (Helms, 7/18,p.9). Thus,
Helms stated that although there were "no limitations" on actions
to remove Castro during Mongoose, there were restraints on sabotage
operations and he did not understand the absence of specific limitations
to authorize more drastic actions, such as committing the U.S. military
(Helms, 7/18, p.9).
to an invasion of Cuba.
In addition, Helms testified that he saw no need to inform the
Special Group of the Harvey-Roselli operation because that operation was
characterized by "ineffectuality" and a "lack of conviction that anything
ever happened." (Helms, 7/18, p.32). Helms stated he did not belie
any attempt had been made on Castro's life by virtue of
in Miami with Roselli.
(Helms, 7/18, p.32).
TOP
meetings
Helms testified, that although loss of life was implicit in the
Mongoose operations,
"I think there was an effort made not to take tacks
that would recklessly kill a lot of people and not
achieve very much. I think there was an effort, if you
had a sabotage operation, not to throw a lot of hand
grenades into a city, but rather take out the power.
plant which would actually damage the economy of the
country. There was an effort made to find devices that
would seem to have a useful end. (Helms, 7/17, p.63-64).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 178
2. Harvey's Testimony Concerning Authority
a. Harvey's Perception of Authority
Harvey stressed that at all times he was acting as a line officer re-
porting to his immediate superior within the Agency, the Deputy Director for
covert actions (first Bissell, then Helms.) * (Harvey, 6/25, p. 83).
Similarly, Harvey also pointed out that his information with respect
to authorization from outside the agency came from the Deputy Director:
"(a)t no time during this entire period...did I ever personally
believe or have any feeling that I was either free-wheeling or
end-running or engaging in any activity that was not in response
to a considered, decided U. S. policy, properly approved, admittedly,
perhaps, or through channels and at levels I personally had no in-
volvement in, or first-hand acquaintance with, and did not consider
it at that point my province to, if you will, cross-examine either
the Deputy Director or the Director concering it." (Harvey 6/25,
p. 83.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 179
39
Thus, Harvey relied upon his superiors within the Agency for authority.
Indeed, Harvey indicated that his perception of the authorization for the
1962 assassination activity may have come from the period when Allen Dulles
was DCI. As Harvey stated:
"But I had every right to believe organizationally,
humanly, whatever way you want to put it, that nothing
that was being told to me by Bissell had not in fact
come to him from /Allen Dulles].
But Harvey made clear that this did not imply that McCone knew of or au-
thorized the assassination activity:
"The Chairman: 'That doesn't necessarily mean that be-
cause the previous director had knowledge that Mr. McCone
had knowledge. It is not like a Covenant that runs in
the land.""
"Mr. Harvey: 'No, of course not, and they don't always
brief their successors." (Harvey, 6/25, p. 85.)
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 180

b.
Harvey and the Special Group Augmented
Harvey testified that he never informed the Special Group Augmented,
or any of its members individually, of the ongoing assassination plots. As
we described earlier, the Special Group Augmented and its Mongoose program
began its Cuba activities in late 1961 through 1962. Harvey attended.many
of the Special Group Augmented meetings as the CIA's representative.
testified that at no time was assassination discussed at any of the meetings,
except for the August 10, 1962 meeting.*
He
-where
CRUCIAL
MEETY
Goes
We took substantial testimony covering the April/May 1962 period when
the underworld contact was reactivated, the pills were passed to Roselli and
delivered to Cuba. Harvey had been appointed several months earlier as head
of the CIA's Task Force W, which operated under the Special Group Augmented as.
the CIA's action arm for Mongoose activities.
то
MC Y
Bunby
In the latter part of April, Harvey went to Miami where the CIA had its
large (at least 200 persons) JM/WAVE Station. As Harvey testified, in addition
to his meeting with Roselli and the delivery of the poison pills, Harvey's trip.
had other totally unrelated (in Harvey's view) purposes as well:
"...this was one of a number of periodic trips for the
purpose of reviewing in toto... the actual and potential
operations at the Miami base...and this covered the whole
gamut from personnel administration, operational support
in the way of small craft [and] so on.."(Harvey., 7/11,
pp. 15-16).
ECRET
Tom Harvey on
The Special Group Augmented expected to receive a report
his April trip to Miami. On April 19, 1962, while Harvey was in Miami, Lansdale
told the Special Group Augmented that:
"Upon the return of Mr. Harvey from his current field visit,
more specific information on the status of agent training
and operations should be made available." (Memorandum for
* This meeting and the testimony concerning it is treated in depth in the
section, infra, pp. _
+
Coorwin
test
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 181
the Special Group, April 19, 1962, from Lansdale, P.. ). On April 26,
1962, the Special Group Augmented was informed by Lansdale that Harvey
was in Florida "initiating a new series of agent infiltrations" and would
return to Washington on April 30. (Memorandum for the Special Group
Augmented/, April 26, 1962, from Lansdale.) At the Special Group meeting
on the same day General Taylor requested that Harvey "attend the next meet-
"
ing and report on agent activities.' (Memorandum for the Record, April 26,
1962, by McCone.) The next day, April 26, 1962, Harvey was sent a memorandum
informing him of General Taylor's request as well as the fact that McCone
wanted to meet with Harvey and Lansdale "immediately on your return to dis-
cuss the Task Force activities," (Memorandum for Action, Elder to Harvey,
April 27, 1962.)
Harvey did report to the Special Group upon his return but did not
mention his meeting with Roselli or the delivery of the pills and the weapons.
Harvey testified that when he reported to the Special Group Augmented
on his trip to Miami, he did not inform them or, indeed, any individual
outside the Agency, that he had given the pills
p. 16.)*
li. " (Harvey, 7/11,
And when McCone asked Harvey to brief him on what Harvey had done.
in Miami, Harvey did not tell McCone of the pills. As indicated above,
Harvey did not believe it was necessary to do so. (Harvey, 7/11, p. 17.)*
*llarvey testified with respect to why he did not brief the Special Group Augmented,
in the following exchange:
"Q.:
'...Did you believe that the White House did not
want the Special Group to know?""
"A.:
'Well, I would have had no basis for that belief,
but I would have felt that if the White House (tasked)
this (operation to the CIA) and wanted the Special
Group to know about it, it was up to the White House
to brief the Special Group and not up to me to brief-
them, and I would have considered that I would have
been very far out of line and would have been subject
(Harvey Tr. 7/11, p. 77).
to severe censure.
11*
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 182
-42-
The minutes of the May 3, 1962, Special Group Augmented meeting make no
mention of Harvey's above-related plot activities. The minutes of that meet-
ing show that on his return from Miami, Harvey gave a progress report to the
Special Group Augmented on "agent teams" and the "general field of intelli-
gence". (Harvey, Ex. 3, Memorandum of Special Group Augmented Meeting, May
1962, p. 1.) Harvey reported that three agent teams had been infiltrated and
that 72 actual or potential reporting sources were also in place. (Harvey Ex. 3,
p. 1.)
Shortly after the May 3 meeting, General Taylor went to see the President to
give him what he called a "routine briefing" (Taylor Tr.
p.
General Taylor's memorandum of his briefing of the President similarly makes
no reference to Harvey's contacts with Roselli or the delivery of pills and
(Memorandum for Record May 7, 1962, by General Taylor.) Taylor testified
that he had never heard of Harvey delivering pills to poison Castro, or of any
assassination attempts. (Taylor Tr.
guns.
, p. 42.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 183
3. Testimony of Kennedy Administration Officials
In addition to examining the actual nature of the Mongoose operation (discussed
above at p.
_), we took considerable testimony from Kennedy Administration offi-
cials on the question of authority for a Castro assassination in the Mongoose
period. Set out in the section below is the testimony of the Kennedy Administra-
tion officials principally involved in the Mongoose operation and the Special Group
Augmented, all of whom testified the assassination plots were not authorized. These
were McCone, the Director of CIA and a member of the Special Group Augmented;
General Taylor, Chairman of the Special Group Augmented; General Lansdale, Chief of
Operations for Mongoose; Special Group Augmented members Bundy and Gilpatric; Secre-
tary of State Rusk; and Secretary of Defense McNamara. Their testimony focused on
the principal issues raised by Helms, including: (1) whether any authority for a
Castro assassination existed; and (2) whether they had knowledge of any Castro assassi-
nation activity.*
why prior to
In the succeeding section we discuss the August 10, 1962, meeting where the subject
of a Castro assassination was raised..
a. Testimony of McCone
McCone testified that at no time during his service in the Kennedy Administration
as DCI (1961-1963), did President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy or any member of the Cabi-
net or White House staff discuss with him any Castro assassination plans or operations.
(McCone, p. 44.)
As discussed above in greater detail, McCone, the Director of Central Intelligence
and Helms immediate superior, testified he did not authorize and was not informed
about, the assassination activity. (McCone, p. 3.)
*In addition, the Committee questioned the Kennedy Administration members as to the
likelihood that an assassination order might have been given to Helms by Robert
Kennedy through a "back channel", outside the normal chain of command; however,
Helms subsequently appeared and testified that no such order was ever” "given by
Robert Kennedy.
above.)
(See p.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 184
McCone pointed out that although the Cuban problem was discussed in terms
of "dispose of Castro," or "knock off Castro", these terms were meant to refer
to "the overthrow of the Communist Government in Cuba" and not a Castro assassi-
nation. (McCone; p. 44; McCone Ex. 4, memorandum April 14, 1967, to Helms.)
McCone further stated that "it is very hard for me to believe"
that Robert Kennedy would have initiated a Castro assassination activity
without consulting with the Special Group Augmented. (McCone, p. 52).
b. · Testimony of Taylor
Taylor served as Chairman of the Special Group Augmented
during the Mongoose Operation (Taylor, 7/9, p. ). In addition, Taylor
also served as President Kennedy's Military Representative and Intelligence
Advisor after the Bay of Pigs until his appointment as Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff in November 1962 (Taylor, 7/9, p. ; Bundy, 7/11,
p. 25).
Taylor testified that a Castro assassination plan was
"never" submitted to the Special Group Augmented, either orally or in
writing. (Taylor, p. 41). Taylor further testified that he and the
Special Group Augmented were never told of the passage of the poison
pills to Roselli in April 1962, and that the passage of these pills
without the knowledge of the Special Group Augmented was "entirely,
completely out of the context and character of the way the /Special
Group Augmented/ operated or the way it would accept" that an operation
was properly authorized. (Taylor, p. 43). And Taylor testified that
although the Special Group Augmented was "certainly anxious for the
downfall of Castro" an "assassination never came up" in the meetings
and discussions of the Special Group Augmented.
(Taylor, p. 62).
32
мятка
proposon
With respect to whether President Kennedy or Robert
Kennedy or Robert Kennedy might have bypassed the Special Group Aug-
mented to deal directly with Helms or CIA officers to assassinate
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 185
Castro, Taylor testified that this would have been "entirely con-
tradictory to every method of operation I ever saw on the part of
the President and his brother."
(Taylor, p. 45). Taylor stated "the
President and the Attorney General would never have gone around" the
Special Group Augmented. (Taylor, p. 49).
Although Taylor acknowledged that Robert Kennedy
frequently pushed for more direct action during Mongoose, Taylor
stated that "there was no suggestion of assassination" in these urgings.
(Taylor, p. 67). Taylor testified that Robert Kennedy dealt directly
with Lansdale outside Special Group Augmented channels "only for the
purpose of imparting his own sense of urgency" but "never" would
Robert Kennedy have done so on substantive issues:
"Senator Hart of Colorado: But on substantive issues,
he wouldn't, in effect, been dealing behind your back?"
"General Taylor:
Never. Never. That was not his way."
(Taylor, p. 53). */
C. Testimony of Lansdale
Lansdale testified that he "was very certain" that
he never discussed a Castro assassination with either President Kennedy
The evidence showed, however, that there were occasions, when the
Attorney General dealt with those concered with Mongoose without
consulting General Taylor. For example, as discussed in greater de-
tail (in the section on Mongoose operations) on January 18, 1962,
General Lansdale sent a copy of his program review to Robert Kennedy
attached to which was a cover memorandum indicating that other "sensi-
tive work" not in the review was to be dealt with only between the
President, the Attorney General, and Lansdale. The nature of that
work (which Lansdale testified involved political contacts in the Cuba
exile community) is discussed at p. above.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 186
night hav
т
or Robert Kennedy:
"The Chairman: You do not recall ever having discussed with
the Attorney General a plan or a proposal to assassinate
Fidel Castro?"
"General Lansdale: No. And I am very certain Senator, that
such a discussion never came up...neither with the Attorney
General or the President." (Lansdale, p. 18.)*
Lansdale further testified that the plausible deniability concept had no part
in the fact that he never discussed a Castro assassination with President Kennedy
or the Attorney General.** Lansdale testified that he "had doubts" that assassina-
tion was a "useful action, and one which I had never employed in the past, and dur-
ing work in copying with revolutions and I had considerable doubts as to its utility
and I was trying to be very pragmatic." (Lansdale, p. 31.). When asked if he thought
the President was not aware of efforts to depose Castro and his government by any
means including assassination, Lansdale answered "I am certain he was aware of ef-
forts to dispose of the Castro regime. I am really not one to guess what he knew
of assassinations, because I don't know." (Id., p. 32.)
.
With regard to the Castro assassination attempts, Lansdale testified that
Harvey "never" told him that Harvey was attempting to assassinate Castro.
p. 24.) Lansdale stated:
"I had no knowledge of such a thing. I know of no order
or permission for such a thing and I was given no infor-
mation at all that such a thing was going on by people
who I have now learned were involved with it."
(Lansdale, p. 58). *
(Lansdale,
*/ Thus, when Lansdale was questioned about the "touchdown plays"
(discussed in detail above at p. ¨), there was this testimony:
"Senator Baker: Now do you completely rule out the possibility
that the touchdown play had to do with the possible assassination
efforts against Fidel Castro?"
"General Lansdale: Yes
I never discussed, nor conceived, nor
received orders about an assassination of Castro with my dealings
with either the Attorney General or the President."
**/ "Senator Baker: Is that the reason you didn't, because of the
principle of deniability?"
"General Lansdale: No, it wasn't. The subject never came up,
and I had no reason to bring it up with him.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 187
"1
TO
47
As discussed below in detail at pp
after the subject
of a Castro assassination was raised at the August 10, 1962 meeting of the
Special Group Augmented, Lansdale directed Harvey to prepare a plan for the
"liquidation" of Cuban leaders. However, no such plan was ever prepared and,
as the IG Report concluded, the August 10 meeting was "unrelated to any actual
attempts at assassination." (IG, p. 118).
With respect to the possibility that Robert Kennedy
might have by-passed the SGA and Lansdale to deal directly with Agency
officials on a Castro assassination, Lansdale testified:
"I never knew of a direct line of communication
between the President or the Attorney General and Harvey
apart from me on this...."
During the course of the Committee's investigation
into these allegations of assassination efforts by the U.S. government,
however, General Lansdale spoke with several reporters concerning the
subject of a Castro assassination plan in 1962. Lansdale's comments
the reporters are dealt with below in connection with the August 10,
1962, meeting of the Special Group.
LU
*/
"Senator Huddleston: You never had any reason to believe that
the Attorney General had dealt directly with Mr. Harvey?"
"General Lansdale: I hadn't known about that at all, no.
11
"Senator Huddleston: ... You have no reason to believe that he
might have broached (a Castro assassination) with the Attorney
General?"
"General Lansdale: I wouldn't know that I certainly didn
know it."
"Senator Huddleston: You had no reason to believe that there
was any kind of activity going on in relation to Cuba outside
of what you were proposing or what was coming before the Special
Group?"
"General Lansdale: No, I was supposed to know it all, and I
had no indication that I did not know it all (except for one
operation by Harvey unrelated to assassinations)."
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 188
DET
40
d.
Testimony of Bundy
Bundy served as President Kennedy's Special Assistant
for National Security Affairs throughout the Kennedy Administration.
(Bundy, P. 2). In addition, Bundy participated in the planning that
led to the creation of Operation Mongoose and was a member of the
Special Group Augmented.
(Bundy, pp. 34, 87).
Bundy testified that the matter of a Castro assassination
was "mentioned from time to time" over the period 1961-1963 but "never to
me that I can recall by the President." (Bundy, p. 73). Bundy emphasized
that the question came up "as something to talk about rather than to
consider." (Bundy, p. 73.)
Bundy testified that it was his conviction that "no
one in the Kennedy Administration, in the White House
ever gave
any authorization, approval, or instruction of any kind for any effort
to assassinate anyone by the CIA." (Bundy, p. 54.). Bundy testified
that he knew and worked on an intimate basis with both President Kennedy
and Robert Kennedy during the entire Kennedy Administration, and testi-
fied that it was "incredible" that they would have authorized a Castro
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 189
TOP SECRET
assassination, either explicitly or implicitly as a result of pressure
they exerted in the anti-Castro effort:
:
"The Chairman: Based upon that acquaintanceship, do you
believe, under any of the circumstances that occurred
during that whole period, either one of them would have
authorized the assassination of Fidel Castro?"
"Mr. Bundy: I most emphatically do not
If you have
heard testimony that there was pressure to do something
about Cuba, there was. There was an effort, both from the
President in his style and from the Attorney General in
his style to keep the government active in looking for
ways to weaken the Cuban regime. There was. But if you,
as I understand it, and not even those who pressed the
matter most closely as having essentially been inspired
by the White House can tell you that anyone ever said to
them, go and kill anyone.
Let me say one other thing about these two men,
and
that is that there was something that they really wanted done,
they did not leave people in doubt, so that on the one
hand, I would say about their character, their purposes,
and their nature and the way they confronted international
affairs that I find it incredible that they would have
ordered or authorized explicitly or implicitly an assassi-
nation of Castro. I also feel that if, contrary to every-
thing that I know about their character, they had had such a
decision and such a purpose, people would not have been in
any doubt about it." (Tr. 98-99).
Bundy was asked "have you any way to explain to the Com-
mittee, as to why Mr. Helms would testify that he...had no doubts,
that the Agency was fully authorized to proceed to not only develop
schemes, but to engage in active attempts to assassinate Castro?"
Bundy replied: "I have no explanation of that." (Bundy, pp. 99-100) -
Bundy further testified that despite the extreme sense of
urgency that arose during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Castro's assassi-
nation was never discussed, and it was "totally inconsistent" with the
policies and actions taken by the President and Robert Kennedy in that
NW 50955
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FORET

50-
i
crisis for them to have authorized a Castro assassination. (Bundy, p. 95,
97-98).*
Bundy further stated that he was never told by anyone that assassination
efforts were underway against Castro, that underworld figures were hired by
the CIA in this regard, or that Harvey was engaged in Castro assassination ac-
tivity. (Bundy, p. 63.)
_why!
Bundy testified that he heard about the concept of "executive action"
"Some time in the early months of 1961". (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 4.) But since
this was presented to him as an untargeted capability only he did not "dis-
courage or dissuade" the person who briefed him on this. (Bundy, p. 4, 7, 10.)
When asked if he had any recollection of any specific covert plans that involved
poisons in conjunction with activities against Cuba, Bundy stated
I do
"I have no recollection of any specific plan.
have a very vague, essentially refreshed recollection
that I heard the word poison at some point in connec-
But that
tion with a possibility of action in Cuba.
is as far as I have been able to take it in my own
memory. (Bundy, p. 42).
Bundy stated further that this recollection relating to poison involved a
proposal that seemed "impractical" because it was going to kill a large group
of people in a headquarters mess, or something of that sort. (Bundy, P.
* Bundy stated:
"
is that
www.ww
42-43).
11 the most important point I want to make
I find the notion that they separately, privately encouraged,
ordered, arranged efforts at assassination totally incon-
sistent with what I knew of both of them. And, as an
example, I would cite and one among very many
the role
played by the Attorney General in the Missile Crisis, because
it was he who, most emphatically, argued against a so-called
surgical air strike or any other action that would bring
death upon many, in favor of the more careful approach which
was eventually adopted by the President in the form of a
quarantine or a blockade.' (Bundy, p. 98).
"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 191
With respect to the possibility that Robert Kennedy
may have authorized assassination outside of Special Group Augmented
channels, Bundy stated that although Robert Kennedy did spur people
to greater effort during Mongoose, "he never took away from the
existing channel of authority its authority or responsibility."
(Bundy, pp. 47-48). Bundy further testified that there existed be-
tween Robert Kennedy and Maxwell Taylor (the Special Group Augmented
Chairman) 'a relation of real trust and confidence. In view of this
relation, Bundy stated it was his opinion that Robert Kennedy would
not have by-passed Taylor to develop a "back-channel" relationship
with someone else to assassinate Castro. (Bundy, p. 87).
e.
Testimony of MacNamara
MacNamara served as Secretary of Defense throughout
In that capacity, he repre-
the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.
sented the Department of Defense as a member of the Special Grou
the Special Group Augmented during the Mongoose Operations.
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 192
McNamara stated that he had no knowledge or information of any proposal
for the assassination of Premier Castro coming from President Kennedy.or
Robert Kennedy. McNamara, 7/11/75, p. 4.) He did note that "we were hysteri-
cal about Castro at the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter, and that there
was pressure from (President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy) to do something about
Castro. But I don't believe we contemplated assassination.
We did, however,
contemplate overthrow."
(McNamara, p. 93.)
There occurred during McNamara's testimony an exchange which is appropriate
to set out in full because of the manner in which it captures the dilemma posed
by the evidence on the question of authority:
" The Chairman. We also have received evidence from
your senior associates that they never participated in
the authorization of an assassination attempt against.
Castro nor ever directed the CIA to undertake such
attempts.
We have much testimony establishing the chain of
command where covert action was concerned, and all of
it has been to the effect that the Special Group or
the Special Group Augmented had full charge of covert
operations, and that in that chain of command any proposal
of this character or any other proposal having to do
with covert operations being directed against the
Castro regime, or against Castro personally, were to
be laid before the Special Group Augmented and were not
to be undertaken except with the authority of that
group and at the direction of that group.
Now, at the same time we know from the evidence
that the CIA was in fact engaged during the period
in a series of attempts to assassinate Castro.
Now, you see what we are faced with is this dilemma.
Either the CIA was a rogue elephant rampaging out of
control, over which no effective direction was being
given in this matter of assassination, or there was
SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 193
some secret channel circumventing the whole structure
of command by which the CIA and certain officials in
the CIA were authorized to proceed with assassination
plots and assassination attempts against Castro. Or the
third and final point that I can think of is that
somehow these officials of the CIA who were so engaged
misunderstood or misinterpreted their scope of authority.
Now it is terribly important, if there is any way that we
can find out which of these three points represented what
actually happened. That is the nature, that is the
quandary.
Now, is there anything that you can tell us that would
assist us in finding an answer to this central question?
Mr. McNamara. I can only tell you what will further your
uneasiness. Because I have stated before and I believe
today that the CIA was a highly disciplined organization,
fully under the control of senior officials of the govern-
ment, so much so that I feel as a senior official of the
government I must assume responsibility for the actions
of the two, putting assassination aside just for the
moment. But I know of no major action taken by CIA during
the time I was in the government that was not properly
authorized by senior officials. And when I say that I
want to emphasize also that I believe with hindsight we
authorized actions that were contrary to the interest of the
Republic but I don't want it on the record that the CIA
was uncontrolled, was operating with its own authority
and we can be absolved of responsibility for what CIA
did, again with exception of assassination, again which
I say I never heard of.
The second point you say that you have, you know that
CIA was engaged in a series of attempts of assassination.
I think to use your words. I don't know that. I accept
the fact that you do and that you have information I was
not aware of. I find that impossible to reconcile. I just
can't understand how it could have happened and I don't
accept the third point, that they operated on the basis
of minunderstanding, because it seems to me that the
McCone position that he was opposed to it, his clear
recollection and his written memo of 1967 that I was strongly
opposed to it, his statement that Murrow opposed all should
eliminate any point of misunderstanding. Sofrankly can't
reconcile. (TR. 38-41)
McNamara further stated that "I find it almost inconceivable
assassination attempts were carried on during the Konnedy Administra
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 194
RET
-54-
days without the senior members know it, and I understand the contradiction that
this carries with respect to the face." (McNamara, p. 4.) He further emphasized
that for the President or Robert Kennedy to have approved a Castro assassination
was "totally inconsistent with everything I know about the two men." (McNamara
p.. 90.)
f. Testimony of Gilpatric
Gilpatric served as Deputy Secretary of Defense throughout the Kennedy Admini-
stration. (Gilpatric, p. 5%; Gilpatric Ex. 1, p. 5.) In that capacity, Gilpatric
represented the Department of Defense as a member of the Special Group and the
Special Group Augmented during the Mongoose operation. (Gilpatric, p. 5.)
Gilpatric testified that he understood the mandate of
the Special Group during Mongoose was not to kill Castro, but to "so under-
mine, so disrupt the Cuban system under Castro that it could not be
effective."* (Gilpatric, p. 28). Gilpatric emphasized that "it was the
system we had to deal with" and words such as "get rid of Castro" were
said "in the context of the system, of the
me
government he had installed
and was presiding over, but of which /Castro/ was only to
patric, p. 29).
" (Gil-
*
Initially in his first appearances before the Committee Mr. Gilpatric
was unable to recall any of the events or characters involved in Operation
Mongoose. He failed to recall that General Lansdale was the Chief of
Operations for the project, or Lansdale's involvement in the Special
Group Augmented even though Gilpatric recommended Lansdale for pro-
motion to Brigadier General. Gilpatric testified that the lapse of time,
approximately fifteen years, had impaired his memory on these events.
(Gilpatric, pp. 6-9.) (Insert possible proposed additional language by
Smothers.)
NW 50955
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Gilpatric said that he knew of no express restriction
that would have barred the killing of Castro. But Gilpatic testified that
he understood "There were limits on the use of power" and that these pre-
cluded the use of assassination. (Gilpatric, p. 31). Thus, while Gil-
patric said that it was "perfectly possible" that one might reasonably
have inferred assassination was authorized, nevertheless, the limits on
action set down by the Special Group Augmented would have
required that specific efforts be made by one receiving general instructions
to clarify whether those instructions authorized assassination. */ He added
that "within our charter, so to speak, the one thing that was off limits
In this context of the Mongoose
was military invasion." (Id. p. 45).
charter, Gilpatric, when asked whether the "killing of Castro by a para-
military group (would) have been within bounds." he responded, "I know of
no restriction that would have barred it." (Id.) In response to a ques-
tion as to whether there was any concern for the limits on the activities
of personnel involved in these raids and infiltration efforts, Gilpatric
said: "No, to the contrary. The complaint that the Attorney General had,
if we assume he was reflecting the President's views on it, was that the
steps taken by the CIA up to that point, and/ their plans were too petty,
were too minor, they weren't massive enough, they weren't going to be ef-
fective enough."
(Id., p. 47.) However, as discussed above at p.
on March 5, 1962, the Special Group Augmented had agreed, with respect to
"action-type" agents, that it "must keep its hand tightly" on these agents'
activities, and although once such agents were inside Cuba they could not
be "effectively controlled," the Group would make "every effort...to attemp
such control."
*/ In Gilpatric's testimony, there was the following exchange:
"Senator Huddleston:...It's on the basis of these words that
everybody admits were used, like replace or get rid of, on
the basis of these kinds of conversation alone that Helms/
was firmly convinced and that apparently went right down
through the whole rank of command, firmly convinced that he
had the authority to move against the life of a head of state.
(Footnote continued on next page.).
pusht
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 196
Cilpatric testified that "it was not unusual" for Presi-
dent Kennedy and Robert Kennedy to deal directly with people at various
levels in the Executive Branch.
(Gilpatric, p. 58). With respect to Mon-
goose, Gilpatric said that Robert Kennedy was the "moving spirit" (Gil-
patric, p. 11). But Gilpatric stated that Robert Kennedy's role was "prin-
cipally to spur us on, to get going, get cracking."
(Gilpatric, p. 47). Thus,
although Robert Kennedy frequently complained that the plans of the CIA and
Mongoose weren't "massive enough" and that "we should get in there and
○ do more," Gilpatric pointed out that Robert Kennedy was not making specific
proposals in these urgings, and the result he desired was a general one
"to limit the Castro regime's effectiveness," rather than any specific measure.
(Gilpatric, p. ˚47).
g.
Testimony of Rusk
Dean Rusk served as Secretary of State throughout the
Kennedy Administration.
Rusk participated in a number of Special Group
Augmented meetings during the Mongoose operation.
(Rusk, p. ).
(Footnote continued from previous page.)
Now this disturbs me, and I don't know whether our councils of govern-
ment operate that way in all areas or not, but if they do then it seems
to me it would raise a very serious question as to whether or not the
troops are getting the right orders.'
"Mr. Gilpatric.... I thought there were limits on the use of power and
that was one of them."
"Senator Huddleston. And going beyond that would require that some
body make a specific effort to make sure he understood precisely wrat
they were talking about, would that be your interpretation?"
"Mr. Gilpatric. It would." (Gilpatric, p. 31).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 197
SECRET
Rusk testified that he had never been informed of any
Castro assassination plans or undertakings and had no knowledge of any
such activity.
(Rusk, p. 52).
Rusk further testified that he found it "very hard to
believe" that President Kennedy or Robert Kennedy would have, in the course
of urging action against Castro, sanctioned the use of any measure against
Castro. */ Rusk said that, while it was "possible" that a person, in good
faith, might have thought specific courses of action were authorized from
the emphasis given to taking action against Castro, nevertheless Rusk testi-
fied that with respect to a Castro assassintion,
"It would have been an abuse of the President and the
Attorney General if somebody had thought they were
getting that without confirming that this was, in fact,
an official, firm policy decision. (Rusk, pp. 98-99).
With respect to whether President Kennedy or Robert
Kennedy might have communicated directly with Helms or Harvey on a Castro
assassination effort, Rusk testified that, based on his experience and the
manner in which foreign affairs matters were handled, I don't see how it could
have happened." (Rusk, p. 99).**/
*
"Senator Huddleston... (Do) your contacts with Robert Kennedy or Presi-
dent Kennedy, indicate to you that they were agitated to such an extent
about Cuba and Mongoose progress that in a conversation with someone
urging them to get off their rear-end and get something done that they
might convey the message that they meant anything, go to any length to
do something about the Castro regime?
"Mr. Rusk. I find it very hard to believe that Robert Kennedy standing
alone, or particularly Robert Kennedy alleging to speak for President
Kennedy, would have gone down that trail...
"
**/"Senator Mondale...We asked General Taylor yesterday whether he thought
something of informal, subterranean, whatever kinds of communications
from the highest level to Helms would have been possible without his
(Footnote continued on following page.)
NW 50955
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CRET
-58-
h.
Testimony of Sorensen
Sorensen served as a Special Assistant to President Kennedy during
Sorensen was a member of the National Security
the entire Kennedy Administration.
Council Executive Committee that dealt with the Missile Crisis, although he
was not involved with Mongoose.
Sorensen testified that in his daily personal meetings with the
President and at all the National Security Council meetings he attended, there
was "not at any time any mention
much less approval by him of any U.S.-
(Sorensen, p. 4). Based
sponsored plan to assassinate any foreign leaders"
upon his close contact with President Kennedy, Sorensen stated that it was his
opinion that:
"such an act (as assassination) was totally foreign to his
character and conscience, foreign to his fundamental reverence
for human life and his respect for his adversaries, foreign to
his insistence upon a moral dimension in U.S. foreign policy
and his concern for his country's reputation abroad, and
foreign to his pragmatic recognition that so horrendous but
inevitably counter-productive a precedent committed by a
country whose own chief of state was inevitably vulnerable."
(Sorensen, p. 5).
(Footnote continued from previous page.)
knowledge, and he said he felt that was incredible, he didn't think it
was possible.
Do you think that it would be likely that an informal order around
channels, say to Helms or to Harvey--
The Chairman. Over a three-year period.
Senator Mondale. Over a three-year period would have been possible.
without your being informed?
....
Mr. Rusk. Theoretically, Senator, one would have to say it is possible.
Senator Mondale. But based on your experience?
Mr. Rusk. In terms of practicality, probability and so forth, I don't
see how it could have happened.
You know those things, in these circles we were moving in could not
be limited in that way. You know the echoes would come back."
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 199
F.
The August 10, 1962 Meeting
As indicated above (see p.
1
__), the question of a Castro assassination
was raised at a meeting of the Special Group Augmented on August 10, 1962.
Thereafter, on August 13, 1962, Lansdale directed Harvey to include in a
proposed plan for Phase II of Mongoose a plan for the "liquidation of leaders"
as an option. We took considerable testimony and examined the documents
relating to the August 10 meeting, the nature of the discussion of a Castro
assassination, and Lansdale's subsequent request for a contingency plan.
Du
At the outset, it should be noted that the documents and testimony
showed that discussion of a Castro assassination at the Agust 10, 1962 meeting
had no connection to the assassination activity-undertaken by Harvey and
As the CIA
Roselli, or any other Castro assassination plans or efforts.
Inspector General found:
"The subject (of a Castro assassination) was raised
at a meeting at State on 10 August 1962, but it is
unrelated to any actual attempts at assassination.
It did result in a MONGOOSE action memorandum by
Lansdale assigning to CIA action for planning
liquidation of leaders. (IG, p. 118).
The finding of the Inspector General is supported both by the chrono-
logy of the Castro assassination efforts and the testimony of Harvey. The
chronology shows that it was three months prior to the August 10, 1962 meet-
ing that Harvey gave Roselli the poison pills for use against Castro, and
that shortly thereafter (and well before August 10, 1962) Harvey was informed
that the pills were inside Cuba.
(see p.
August 10, 1962 meeting there was no Castro
above). Moreover, after the
assassination activity during
goes
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never
racion
thes
INTRO?
the remainder of 1962.
(see p.
above).
In addition, Harvey (who attended the August 10, 1962 meeting and
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 200

recalled that the question of a Castro assassination was raised) declared
that the discussion was not related to his assassination activity with Ro-
selli. (Harvey, 7/11, pp. 48-50). Harvey further testified that he did not
view the August 10, 1962, discussion of a Castro assassination as authoriza-
tion for the Roselli operation because "the authority, as I understood it,
for this particular operation went back long before the formation" of the
(Harvey, 7/11, p. 49).
Special Group Augmented.
1. The Contemporaneous Documents
a. Lansdale's August 13, 1962 Memorandum
Following the August 10, 1962 meeting, Lansdale sent a memorandum on
August 13, 1962, to Harvey and the other members of Lansdale's interagency
working group .*/ (Lansdale Ex. 15, Memorandum from Lansdale, August 13, 1962).
The Memorandum began by stating: "In compliance with the desires and guidance
expressed in the August 10 policy meeting on Operation Mongoose, we will
produce an outline of an alternate Course B for submission." (Lansdale
Ex. 15, p. 1).
"I be-
Lansdale further set out his concept of what was required:
lieve the paper need contain only a statement of objectives and a list of
implementing activities. The list of activities will be under the heading
Intelligence, Political, Economic, Psychological, Paramilitary, and
(Lansdale Ex. 15, p. 1).
of:
Military."
* In addition to Harvey, copies of Lansdale's August 13, 1962, memorandum were
sent to Robert Hurwitch (State Dept), Gen. Benjamin Harris (Defense Dept) and
Don Wilson (U.S. Information Agency). (Lansdale Ex. 15.)
In his testimony, Gen Harris identified a document drafted by the Mongoose Work-
ing Group in the Defense Dept shortly before the August 10 meeting. The document
listed a number of steps that could be taken in the event of an intensified Mon-
goose program that might involve U. S. military intervention. One such step was
"assassinate Castro and his handful of top men." (Harris Ex. 4.) Gen. Harris
stated that this was "not out of the ordinary in terms of contingency planning...
it's one of the things you look at. (Harris, p. 37.) There was no evidence that
this document was distributed outside the Defense Dept's Mongoose working group.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 201
Lansdale's memorandum then assigned to Harvey papers on the following
subjects by the means of the following passage, which contained a deleted
phrase:
"Mr. Harvey: Intelligence, Political, /words deleted],
Economic, (sabotage, limited deception), and Paramilitary."
(Lansdale, Ex. 15, p. 1).
According to a memorandum by Harvey to Helms the following day, August
14, 1962, the words deleted from the above-quoted passage were "including
liquidation of leaders."
1962, to Helms).
(Lansdale Ex. 16, Memorandum by Harvey, August 4,
b. Harvey's August 14, 1962 Memorandum
When Harvey received Lansdale's August 13 memorandum, Harvey wrote
a memorandum to Helms attaching a copy of Lansdale's August 13 Memorandum, and
noting that Harvey had excised the words "including liquidation of leaders."
(Lansdale Ex. 16, Memorandum, August 14, 1962, from Harvey to Helms). Har-
vey's Memorandum stated:
"The question of assassination, particularly of
Fidel Castro, was brought up by Secretary McNamara
at the meeting of the Special Group (Augmented) in
Secretary Rusk's office on 10 August. It was the
obvious consensus at that meeting, in answer to a
comment by Mr. Ed Murrow, that this is not a sub-
ject which has been made a matter of official
record. I took careful notes on the comments at
this meeting on this point, and the Special Group
(Augmented) is not expecting any written comments
or study on this point. (Lansdale Ex. 16).
:
Harvey's memorandum further stated that, on receipt of Lansdale's
memorandum, Harvey had called Lansdale's office and pointed out "the inad-
missibility and stupidity of putting this type of comment in writing in such
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 202
a document," and that the CIA "would write no document pertaining to this
and would participate in no open meeting discussing it." (Lansdale Ex. 16,
P. 1).
C.
The Minutes of the August 10, 1962 Meeting
The minutes of the August 10 meeting contain no reference to the sub-
ject of a Castro assassination. (Memorandum for Record, Special Group Aug-
mented Meeting, August 10, 1962, by Parrott, hereafter referred to as the
"August 10 Minutes"). Parrott, the author of the August 10 Minutes, testi-
fied that he did not recall a discussion of assassination at that meeting,
but the fact that the minutes do not reflect such a discussion is not an
(Parrott, p. 34). Parrott
pointed out that his minutes "were not intended to be a verbatim transcript
of everything that was said," since the purpose of his minutes was "to
interpret what the decisions were and to record those and to use them as
a useful action document." (Parrott, 34-35). Parrott testified:
indication that the matter did not come up.
"we had 15 or 16 people (at the August 10, 1962
meeting)...all of them well informed, all of
them highly articulate.
This meeting, as I recall, went on for several
hours...Now I'm sure that particularly in a
group like this that there were a great many
proposals made that were just shot down
immediately." (Parrott, p. 34-35).
Parrott further testified that he did not record proposals that were
quickly rejected at the August 10 meeting.
(Parrott, p. 35). Parrott
stated that, although he had no recollection of a discussion of Castro's
assassination at the August 10 meeting, he would infer from the related
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 203
-63-
documents (the Lansdale and Harvey Memoranda of August 13 and 14) that the
subject was raised but "it never got off the ground.. . Therefore, I did not
"
record it. (Parrott, p. 35).
The documents and testimony of Parrott suggest several possible in-
ferences with respect to the nature of the discussion of a Castro assassination
at the August 10 meeting.
memorandum, it is possible that a contingency plan was requested but that it
First, as indicated by the Lansdale and Harvey
was decided not to make this "a matter of official record."
(Lansdale
Ex. 16, p. 1). However, if it had been decided to commission a written
contingency plan, as Lansdale requested Harvey prepare, it is difficult to
see how this request could have been reconciled-with a decision to make to
written record.
minutes,
Second, it is possible that, as Parrott's testimony indicated, the
subject was raised but quickly rejected. This inference is apparently con-
sistent with the fact that the subject did not appear in Parrott's
and perhaps, although less so, with Harvey's August 14 Memorandum.
Memorandum states that the Special Group Augmented "is not expecting any
written comments or study on this point."
(Lansdale Ex. 16, p. 1).
Harvey's
Before turning to the testimony on these questions, we discuss the
context of the August 10 discussion of a Castro assassination as reflected
in the minutes of the August 10 Meeting.
plausible
dewIANLIY
Consistont
do the
plan
deni
Como
To
W
d. The August 10 Meeting
The August 10 Meeting was held to decide upon a further course of action
to succeed the intelligence collection phase of Mongoose which was scheduled
to conclude in August. (McCone, p. 34). As a policy meeting, there were in
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 204
-64-
attendance a larger number of officials than usually participated in Special
Group Augmented meetings. The Meeting was chaired by Secretary of State
Rusk (and held in his office), and attended by a total of 15 officials,
including the principals of the agencies taking part in Mongoose, i.e.,
Secretary Rusk, Secretary McNamara, CIA Director McCone, and USIA Director
Murrow.
At the August 10 meeting, General Lansdale proposed that a "stepped-up
Course B" be adopted for Mongoose, (August 10 Minutes, p. ); This plan
involved operations to "exert all possible diplomatic, economic, psychologi-
cal, and other overt pressures to overthrow the Castro-Communist regime, without
overt employment of U.S. military." (Memorandum for Special Group Augmented,
August 8, 1962, p.
1).
However, the Special Group Augmented decided against consideration of
the "stepped-up Course B". In the discussion of Lansdale's Course B proposal,
Rusk "emphasized the desirability of attempting to create a split between
Castro and old-line Communists". (August 10 Minutes, p. 2). In addition,
McNamara questioned whether the practice of building up agents in Cuba would
not lead to actions that "would hurt the U.S. in the eyes of world opinion".
(August 10 Minutes, p. 2) (A remark which seems inconsistent with McNamara
at the same Meeting raising the question of assassination in any sense' of
advocacy). The Minutes state that McNamara's concern "led to the suggestion
by General Taylor that we should consider changing the overall objective
✓ of Mongoose from one of overthrowing the Castro regime" to one of causing
its failure. (August 10 Minutes, p. 2).
BOUT IT
Not
туропе
inconsisim
14/H15
Approve
SAMOTAGE
+7e
Hence, in lieu of Lansdale's "stepped-up Course B", the Special Group this woulding
hip+ w
in
eye
(
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 205
ос
world
Augmented chose a plan advanced by McCone that assumed Castro's continuance
in power and had the more limited objective of splitting off Castro from
"old-line Communists".*
(August 10 Minutes, p. 2). The decision and "action"
of the Special Group Augmented at the August 10 meeting was stated as follows:
"The principal members of the Special Group felt,
after some discussion, that the CIA variant should
be developed further for consideration at next Thurs-
day's meeting of the Special Group. McCone was asked
to stress economic sabotage, and to emphasize
measures to foment a Castro-oldline Communist split."
(August Memorandum, p. 2).
***
"Action to be taken:
CIA to prepare a new version of its variant plan,
in accordance with the above-summarized discussion.
This should be ready by Wednesday, August 15."
(August 10 Memorandum, p. 3).
It was therefore in this context that Lansdale's August 13 Memorandum
to Harvey stated that "in compliance with the desires and guidance expressed
in the August 10 policies meeting on Operation Mongoose, we will produce an
outline of an alternate Course B. "Indeed, pursuant to the August 10 decision
to adopt McCone's proposal for a more limited plan that assumed Castro's
continuation in power, Lansdale's memorandum stated that a CIA paper titled
"Operational Plan (Reduced Effort) will be used as the starting basis."
(Lansdale Ex. 15, p. 1).
McCone
*/ The August 10 Minutes show that McCone pointed out that the stepped-up
Course B "will risk inviting an uprising, which might result in a Hungary
type blood bath if unsupported". (August 10 Minutes, p. 2).
"emphasized that the stepped-up plan should not be undertaken unless the
U.S. is prepared to accept attributability for the necessary actions,
including the eventual use of military force". (August 10 Minutes).
August 10 Minutes further stated that, in McCone's view, the CIA variant
"would avoid all of these dangers because it would not invite an uprising".
(August 10 Minutes, p. 2).
The
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 206
In view of the issues raised by these documents we took testimony
from the principal participants in that meeting. In particular, we discuss
below the testimony as to whether Lansdale's request for an assassination
plan reflected the desire of the SGA or was contemplated by the SGA's decision
to proceed with a plan of "reduced effort" that posited Castro's continuance
in power.
2. The Testimony
As set out below, Harvey, McCone, and Goodwin recall the question of
a Castro assassination was raised at the August 10 meeting.* We discuss
that testimony, first with respect to the August 10 meeting itself, and,
second, with regard to the action that followed that meeting.
a.
Testimony as to the August 10 Meeting
(1) Testimony of McCone
McCone testified that the question of a "liquidation" or removal of
Castro and other Cuban leaders arose at the August 10 meeting in the context
of "exploring the alternatives that were available" for the next phase of
Mongoose. (McCone, p. 33). McCone testified that he did not recall who
made this suggestion, but that he and Mr. Murrow took "strong exception"
to the suggestion. A memorandum of McCone's recollection of the August 10
Meeting, written in 1967, **/states:
*/ Other participants (Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, and Gilpatric) did not recall
the August 10 discussion.
**/ On April 14, 1967, after McCone left the CIA, he dictated a memorandum
of his recollection regarding the August 10, 1962 meeting. The memoran-
dum was prompted by a telephone call from the newspaper columnist, Jack
Anderson, who at that time was preparing a column on Castro assassination
(Continued on the following page.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 207
C
"I took immediate exception to this suggestion,
stating that the subject was completely out of
bounds as far as the USG (U.S. Government) and
CIA were concerned and the idea should not be
discussed nor should it appear in any papers,
as the USG could not consider such actions on
moral or ethical grounds." (McCone Ex. 4).
McCone testified that there was no decision at the August 10 meeting
that assassination should not be part of any program,
but that "the subject
was just dropped" after his objection. (McCone, p. __). McCone's 1967
memorandum stated that
"At no time did the suggestion receive serious
consideration by the Special Group (Augmented)
nor by any individual responsible for policy."
(McCone, Ex. 4).
(2) Testimony of Harvey
did h
wh.
Harvey's testimony that the August 10 discussion was unrelated to any
). With
actual Castro assassination activity is discussed above (see p.
respect to that discussion itself, Harvey testified that it was his recollection
that the question of a Castro assassination was raised by Secretary McNamara.
(Harvey, p. 30). Harvey said it was his impression that McNamara raised the
question as one of "shouldn't we consider the elimination or assassination"
(Harvey, p. 30).
of Castro..
With respect to the reaction of the Special Group Augmented to this.
(Footnote continued from the previous page.).
HALL w/
+A
Anyone
After talking
attempts, implicating President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.
with Anderson on the telephone, at Robert Kennedy's request, McCone dic-
tated the April 14, 1967 memorandum, which stated that at one of several
Mongoose meetings on August 8, 9 or 10, 1962, "I recall a suggestion being
made to liquidate top people in the Castro regime, including Castro."
(McCone, Ex. 4, p. 1).
0256
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 208
suggestion, Harvey testified:
"I think the consensus of the Group was to sweep
that particular proposal or suggestion or question
or consideration off the record and under the rug
as rapidly as possible. There was no extensive
discussion of it, no discussion, no back and forth
as the whys and wherefores and possibilities and
so on."
(Harvey, p. 30).
(3) Testimony of Coodwin
Goodwin testified that he had a recollection of "limited certainty"
that the subject of a Castro assassination was raised at the August 10
meeting. */
Goodwin testified that "I am unable to say with any certainty who it
was" who raised the subject of a Castro assassination at the August 10
(Goodwin, 7/18, p. 8)**/
meeting.
*/ In a staff interview prior to his testimony, Goodwin recalled the date
of the meeting at which a Castro assassination was raised as falling in
early 1961, after the Bay of Pigs. (Memorandum of Staff Interview with
Goodwin, May 27, 1975, p. 2). After reviewing the Minutes of the August
10, 1962 meeting and the Lansdale and Harvey memoranda of August 13 and
14, respectively, Goodwin testified that he had "misplaced the date of
the meeting in my own memory. (Goodwin, 7/18, p. 7). In placing the
incident on August 10, 1962, Goodwin stated
"
"Now, of course, you know, it may not be. That's the best
recollection I now have. It's a little better than the earlier
one, but it's not certain." (Goodwin, 7/18, p. 8).
**/In a magazine article in June 1975, Goodwin was quoted as stating that
at one of the meetings of a White House task force on Cuba it was McNamara
who "said that Castro's assassination was the only productive way of deal-
ing with Cuba." (Branch and Crile, "The Kennedy Vendetta," Harpers,
July, 1975, p. 61). In his testimony on July 18, 1975, Goodwin stated:
"that's not an exact quote" in the article, and explained further:
(Footnote continued on following page.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 209
-69-
(4) Testimony of McNamara
McNamara testified that, although he had no recollection of the question
of a Castro assassination being raised at the August 10 meeting, he did
express opposition to any assassination attempt or plan when he spoke with
McCone several days after the August 10 meeting. (McNamara, p. 7,8).
McNamara's testimony with respect to his conversation with McCone is dis-
cussed below with the testimony as to actions after the August 10 meeting.
b. Testimony as to Actions After the August 10, 1962 Meeting
(1) Testimony of McCone
McCone testified that he called McNamara after he received Lansdale's
August 13 Memorandum and,
"insisted that that Memorandum be withdrawn
because no decision was made on this subject, and
since no decision was made, then Lansdale was
quite out of order in tasking the Central In-
telligence Agency to consider the matter."*/
(Footnote continued from the previous page.)
"I didn't tell (the author of the magazine article)
that it was definitely McNamara, that very possibly it
was McNamara. He asked me about McNamara's role, and
I said it very well could have been McNamara."
(Goodwin, 7/18, p. 33).
If Goodwin's recollection was as uncertain as he swore it was in his
testimony, it is difficult to understand how he could have spoken in the terms
he testified he did to the author of the magazine article, particularly in
view of Goodwin's statement that "it's not a light matter to perhaps destroy
a man's career on the basis of a fifteen year old memory of a single sentence
that he might have said at a meeting without substantial certainty in your
own mind and I do not have that." (Goodwin, pp. 34-35).
*
McCone's 1967 Memorandum stated:
"Immediately after the meeting, I called on Secretary McNamara
personally and re-emphasized my position, in which he heartily
agreed. I did this because Operation Mongoose--an interdepartmental
affair--was under the operational control of (the Defense Depart-
ment)... (McCone Ex. 4).
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-10-
McCone also testified that McNamara agreed that the Lansdale Memorandum
should be withdrawn for the same reason expressed by McCone, i.e. because the
topic of a Castro assassination had not been given consideration by the Special
Group Augmented. (McCone, P. 39).
(2) Testimony of Harvey
" Har-
As discussed above (see p.
Harvey's Memorandum of August 14, 1962
states that upon receiving Lansdale's August 13 Memorandum, Harvey demanded
that Lansdale excise the words referring to "liquidation of leaders.'
vey's Memorandum further stated that "the Special Group (Augmented) is not
This latter passage
expecting any written comments or study on this point."
raises the issue whether Harvey meant to state that the Special Group Aug-
mented authorized a Castro assassination plan or activity but that no written
record should be made. In his testimony, Harvey clarified this point by
stating that the Special Group did not express a desire to proceed with the
suggestion of a Castro assassination:
"Senator Schweiker:...was it understood in an
unwritten way that (assassination) was to pro-
ceed?"
"Mr. Harvey: Not to my knowledge, no....
If there was any unwritten understanding on
the part of the members of the Special Group
concerning this, other than what was said at the
meeting, I do not know of it..."
(Harvey, pp. 30-31).
пот
NOT 
resp
To the
Harvey further testified that shortly after the August 10 meeting,
то
рт
McCone told Harvey that he had called McNamara to state that assassiantion
should not be discussed and that he had told McNamara that if he was involved
in such matters, he might be excommunicated from his church.
(Harvey, p. 25).
FEEL
did Harvey Fore.
Abon
T
relat w/
LATOR ATTEMPTS
NW 50955
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-11-
(3) Testimony of McNamara
McNamara testified that he did not recall any discussion of a Castro
assassination at the August 10 meeting, but that he did express opposition
to any assasssination attempt when McCone telephone him after Lansdale's
August 13 memorandum was brought to McCone's attention.
McNamara stated that
(McNamara, P. 7,8).
"I agreed with Mr. McCone that no such planning
should be undertaken." . (McNamara, p. 8).
McNamara stated further that
"I have no knowledge or information about any other
plans or preparations for a Castro assassination."
(McNamara, p. .7).
(4)
Testimony of Elder
Elder
Elder, a career CIA officer, served as McCone's Executive Assistant
from May 1962 until McCone's departure from the Agency in April 1965.
testified that he was present when McCone telephone McNamara after the August
Elder stated that McCone told McNamara
10 meeting.
"the subject you just brought up, I think it is highly
improper.
It
I do not think it should be discussed.
is not an action that should ever be condoned. It is
not proper for us to discuss, and I intend to have it
expunged from the record."
(Elder, p. 23).
Elder testified that this was the essence of the conversation but that he
remembered "several exact phrases, like 'would not be condoned' and
proper". (Elder, pp. 23, 24).*/
im-
*/ Elder, who stated he heard both McCone and McNamara's pact of the tele-
phone conversation via a speaker phone, said that McNamara "just more
or less accepted what Mr. McCone said without comment or rejoinder."
(Elder; p. 24).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 212
-72-
When Harvey later received Lansdale's August 13 memorandum, McCone
spoke to Harvey in Elder's presence, and "McCone made his views quite clear
in the same language and tone...that he used with Mr. McNamara."
p. 25).
(Elder,
Elder testified that Harvey did not tell McCone that Harvey was
engage in the Castro assassination effort at that time.
(Elder, p. 25).
Elder also described a meeting he had with Helms in Elder's office
shortly after the August 10 meeting to convey to Helms McCone's views re-
garding the subject of assassinations.
Elder stated:
"I told Mr. Helms that Mr. McCone had expressed
his feeling to Mr. McNamara and Mr. Harvey that
assassination could not be condoned and would not be
approved. Furthermore, I conveyed Mr. McCone's
statement that it would be unthinkable to record
in writing any consideration of assassination
because it left the impression that the subject
had received serious consideration by governmen-
tal policymakers, which it had not. Mr. Helms
responded, 'I understand.' The point is that
I made Mr. Helms aware of the strength of Mr.
McCone's opposition to assasination. I know that Mr.
Helms could not have been under any misapprehension
about Mr. McCone's feelings after this conversation."
(Elder Affidavit, 8/_/75, p. _).
(5) Testimony of Lansdale
Lansdale testified that he recalled that the subject of Castro's
assassination surfaced at the August 10 meeting, but that the "consensus was
...hell no on this and there was a very violent reaction." `(Lansdale, p. 20).
With respect to why he asked Harvey on August 13 for a Castro assasination
plan, Lansdale testified:
"Senator Baker: Why did you, three days later
if they all said, hell no, /go/ ahead with it?"
заможняти
7/2/magin
iFs. Minter
would have
✓
4/2c70x
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 213
--
"General Lansdale:...the meeting at which they
said that was still on a development of my original
task, which was a revolt and an overthrow of a
regime. At the same time, we were getting intelligence
accumulating very quickly of something very different
taking place in Cuba than we had expected, which was
the Soviet technicians starting to come in and the
possibilities of Soviet missiles being placed there...
At that time, I thought it would be a possibility
someplace down the road in which there would be some
possible need to take action such as assassination/."*/
(Lansdale, p. 21).
Lansdale stated that he had only one brief conversation with Harvey
after the August 13 memorandum in which Harvey stated "he would look into it...
see about developing some plans" but that was the last Lansdale ever heard
of the matter. (Lansdale, p. 124). Lansdale stated that with the develop-
ment of the Missile Crisis, Mongoose "was being rapidly shifted out of con-
sideration" and thus "I wasn't pressing for answers...
it was
very obvious that another situation was developing that would be handled
quite differently in Cuba." (Lansdale, P. 124).
Lansdale testified that he was "very certain" that a discussion of a
Castro assassination plan or proposal never came up in his discussions with
Robert Kennedy or with President Kennedy, and that he had originated the
request to Harvey for plan without discussing the matter with anyone:
*/
"Q:...Why, if it is true that assassination idea
was turned down on August 10, you sent out your
memo of August 13?"
"General Lansdale:...I don't recall that thoroughly,
I don't remember the reasons why I would."
"Q:
Is it your testimony that the August 10 meeting
turned down assassinations as a subject to look into,
and that you nevertheless asked Mr. Harvey to look
into it?"
"General Lansdale: I guess it is, yes. The way you
put it to me now has me baffled about why I did it.
I don't know." (Lansdale, pp. 123-124.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 214
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
"Senator Baker:...did you originate this idea of
laying on the CIA a requirement to report on the
feasibility of the assassination of Castro or did
someone else suggest that?"
"General Lansdale: .I did, as far as I recall."
"Senator Baker: Who did you discuss it with before
you laid on that requirement?"
"General Lansdale: I don't believe I discussed it with
anyone.'
"
"Senator Baker: Only with Harvey?"
"General Lansdale:
Only with Harvey."
"Senator Baker: Did you ever discuss it with Helms?"
"General Lansdale:
I might have, and I don't believe
that I did. I think it was just with Harvey."
"Senator Baker: Did you ever discuss it with Robert
Kennedy?"
"General Lansdale: No, not that I recall."
"Senator Baker: With the President?"
"General Lansdale:
No."
(Lansdale, pp. 19-20).
Page 215
-12-
C.
Testimony of News Reporters as to Lansdale's Comments on
the August 10 Meeting
During the Committee's investigation, news reports concerning the
August 10 meeting and Lansdale's request for a Castro assassination plan
appeared in the press. Two of these reports were based on statements made
by Lansdale to David Martin of the Associated Press and Jeremiah O'Leary
of the Washington Star-News. In view of the apparent conflict between
Lansdale's testimony to the Committee and what Lansdale was reported to have
said to Martin and O'Leary, the Committee invited these reporters to testify
as to Lansdale's statements to them. Martin testified under a subpoena
issued by the Committee pursuant to Senate Resolution 21. O'Leary appeared
voluntarily but stated the policy of his newspaper with regard to disclosing
news sources precluded him from any comment going beyond that contained in
a prepared statement he read under oath. O'Leary's statement declared that
his news report "represents accurately my understanding of the relevant in-
formation I obtained from news sources. (O'Leary, page 5).
"
We discuss below Martin's testimony and the news reports as they compare
to Lansdale's testimony.
(1) The Martin News Report
Martin's news report stated, in its lead paragraph:
"Retired Maj. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale
said Friday that acting on orders from
President John F. Kennedy delivered
through an intermediary, he developed
plans for removing Cuban Premier Fidel
Castro by any means including assassination."
(Ex. 2 to Martin Affidavit)
Martin testified that this lead paragraph was accurate and that it was
a conclusion which he drew based upon the totality of his interview on
"
May 30, 1975 with Lansdale. (Martin, pp. 19-20) In contrast, Lansdale
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 216
-76-
testified that, after reading Martin's report in the press, he told. Martin
"your first sentence is not only completely untrue, but there is not a
single thing in your story that says it is true." (Lansdale, p. 65)
As discussed above (see p. _), Lansdale testified that on his own initiative
he had originated the request to Harvey without discussing the matter with
anyone and that a Castro assassination plan never came up in his discussions
with Robert Kennedy (or with President Kennedy).
In view of Martin's testimony that the lead paragraph of his report
was a conclusion based on the totality of his interview with Lansdale, it
should be noted that the remainder of Martin's story does not state that
Lansdale was ordered by President Kennedy or Robert Kennedy to develop
plans for a Castro assassination. The report quotes Lansdale as stating
пот
Inconsist
"I was working for the highest authority in the land...the President"
and goes on to state that Lansdale said he did not deal directly with
the President but worked through" an intermediary more intimate to the
President than Bundy. */ It can be noted that the phrases "working for"
and "working through" are not the same as the lead paragraph's conclusion
that Lansdale was "acting on orders" to develop a Castro assassination plan.
In addition, subsequent paragraphs in the Martin report indicate that Lansdale
said the decision to include assassination in his planning was Lansdale's
own, as he testified it was to the Committee. Thus. the Martin report states
Lansdale said that assassination was "one of the means he [Lansdale/
considered," that it was Lansdale's belief that assassination would not have
been "incompatible" with his assignment, and that Lansdale said "I just wanted
to see if the U.S. had any such capabilities."
*/
1
The Martin report states that Lansdale refused to provide this
intermediary's name for the record. In respecting the confidentiality
of news sources, the Committee didnot seek to ask Martin what was said
off the record to him in the course of his newsgathering efforts. (Martin,
p.
.).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 217
-77-
Moreover, in his testimony as to the conversation with Lansdale on
Rather,
May 30, 1975 that was the basis for his report, Martin said he did not
specifically ask Lansdale if he had acted on orders with regard to an
assassination plan, nor did Lansdale say he acted on orders.
Martin asked Lansdale "who were you working for?"*/ When Martin did
specifically ask Lansdale in a subsequent conversation on June 4, 1975
if he had acted on orders, Martin testified that Lansdale stated that
he had not. In this subsequent conversation on June 4, 1975, Martin
said he asked Lansdale specifically, "were you ever ordered by President
Kennedy or any other Kennedy to draw up plans to assassinate Castro?"
(Martin, p. 21). Martin testified that Lansdale replied "no" and that
his orders were "very broad." (Martin, p. 21). Martin further testified
that in this June 4 conversation he asked Lansdale whether "any assassination
planning you did was done on your own initiative," and that Lansdale replied
"yes." (Martin, p. 21). Martin stated that it was his belief that his
June
conversation was at variance with Lansdale's statements to him
on May 30, 1975. (Martin, p. 21). It may also be the case, based on
Martin's testimony as to the differences between the questions he posed to
Lansdale on May 30 and on June 4, 1975, that he and Lansdale may have
misunderstood each other.
поте
vention
11
Martin testified that his conversation with Lansdale on May 30, 1975.
involved two subjects: 1) "what were you (Lansdale) doing in August 1962"
(Martin, p. 16), and 2) "who were you working for. (Martin, p. 17).
Martin stated that in the first portion of the conversation dealing with
Lansdale's activities in August 1962, Lansdale stated, according to
Martin, "I just wanted to see if the U.S. had any such capabilities" and
that this included "assassination" as well as other means of disposing
of Castro. As to the second portion of the conversation, Martin stated
he asked Lansdale "who were you working for" and Lansdale replied "on that
project I was working for the highest authority in the land.' (Martin, p. 18).
"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 218
-78-
(2) The O'Leary Report
O'Leary's news report read as follows in its lead paragraphs:
"Retired Maj. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale has named
Robert F. Kennedy as the administration official
who ordered him in 1962 to launch a CIA project
to work out all feasible plans for "getting rid
of" Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro.
"Lansdale, in an interview with the Washington
Star, never used the word "assassination" and
said it was not used by Kennedy, then the attor-
ney general.
But he said there could be no doubt that "the.
project for disposing of Castro envisioned the
whole spectrum of plans from overthrowing the
Cuban leader to assassinating him."
O'Leary's report also stated that "Lansdale said he was contacted
by Robert Kennedy in mid-summer of 1962...." In his appearance before the
Committee, O'Leary pointed out that this reference to the mid-summer of
1962 modified the reference in the lead paragraph of his report.
(O'Leary,
p.
13).
In his testimony, Lansdale said he submitted a statement to the
Washington Star stating that this report was "a distortion of my
remarks." (Lansdale, p.61). Lansdale testified that he stated to
the Washington Star that "perhaps someplace in the planning there
is something about what to do with a leader who would threaten the
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 219
-19-
lives of millions of Americans with Soviet Missiles 7...but I can
say I never did receive any order from President Kennedy or from
Robert Kennedy about taking action against Castro personally."
(Lansdale, pp.61-62).
Lansdale further testified that he told
O'Leary that he did take orders from Robert Kennedy, but made clear
that "it was on a very wide-ranging type of thing." (Lansdale, p.62).
Lansdale testified as follows concerning his statement to the Star
following the O'Leary report:
"After the story appeared, the... Washington Star
asked me what wide-ranging things were you talking
about?
"I said there were economic matters and military
matters and military things and they were very
wide-ranging things. I said perhaps all O'Leary
I was
was thinking of was assassination.
"
thinking of far wider than that. (Lansdale, pp.62-63)
O'Leary's report makes clear that Lansdale did not state that
Robert Kennedy instructed Lansdale to develop an assassination
plan. The O'Leary report states:
"Lansdale said he is certain Robert Kennedy's
instructions to him did not include the word
"assassination.' He said the attorney general,.
as best he could recall, spoke in more general
terms of exploring all feasible means and
practicalities of doing something "to get rid
of" Castro.
In view of the above, it appears that although he may have been
imprecise in his conversations with O'Leary and Martin, Lansdale never-
theless did not tell them that he was ordered to develop an assassination
plan by Robert Kennedy or the President. As discussed above (see p.
Lansdale testified that he never discussed a Castro assassination with
President Kennedy or with Robert Kennedy. Lansdale's reported statements
that he was ordered to plan to "get rid of Castro by all feasible means'
is also consistent with Lansdale's testimony, as well as that of the other
witnesses, with respect to the objective of the Mongoose operation.
As
NW 50955
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discussed above in section
-80-
'
however, it was the testimony of all
witnesses except Helms that such statements did not include assassination.
Lansdale's statements to O'Leary and Martin appear consistent with his
sworn testimony that it was his own idea to request an assassination plan
from Harvey and that he did not discuss this idea with anyone except Harvey.
_above). With respect to this latter point, however, it is
(see p.
a fact that Lansdale's request for an assassination plan followed almost'
immediately after the August 10 meeting, where the question of a Castro
assassination was raised. Hence, it is not unreasonable to conclude that
the raising of the question of a Castro assassination at the August 10
meeting prompted Lansdale to request an assassination plan (although it
was the finding of the IG Report as well as the testimony of Harvey that
the August 10 meeting had no relation to the question of authorization for
the 1962 assassination plot).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 221
="
H.
porate Helms testimony on 9/12/75).
R1080
The Question of Authorization for the 1963 Assassination Plot
1. The 1963 Assassination Plot
TOP SECRET
This section discusses the specific question of authorization above the Agency
for the delivery of the poison pen to AM/LASH on November 22, 1963, and reviews
certain policies of the Kennedy Administration during 1963 which are relevant to
that question.*/ (The facts relating to the poison pen plot are set out at pp.
above).
2.
The Issue of Authority.
Much of the testimony of Helms and the Kennedy Administration members dis-
cussed in the preceding section (see pp.
to ) is relevant to the question
of authorization for the 1963 assassination activity. Once again there was no
evidence that anyone above the Agency was informed about or specifically authorized
the plot.
As in the case of the 1962 assassination plot, however, Helms testified that
he believed the 1963 assassination activity was permissible in view of his
perception of continuing pressure exerted by the Administration to overthrow Castro
and his perception that there were no limits placed on the means that could be
used to achieve Castro's downfall.
(Helms, 9/11/75, pp. 11-13).7
The testimony of Helms and the Kennedy Administration members on the issue
of whether the pressure to overthrow Castro made assassination permissible with-
out a direct order is discussed in detail in the preceding section and is not re-
peated here. Before turning to Helms' specific testimony relating to AM/LASH
(including his view that AM/LAsh was not seen as a potential assassin) we
discuss below the Kennedy Administration Cuba policy in 1963.
In
*/The evidence showed that the "science-fiction" devices of an exploding sea
shell and a poison diving suit were abandoned at the laboratory stage within the
CIA and that no authorization was sought for their development or eventual use.
Mence, the focus in this section is on the activity involving the delivery of the
poison pen to AM/LASH.
.pt.
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 222
www
- 2
TOP SLORET
general, the 1963 covert action program and pressure was less
intense than it had been in 1962.
3.
The Kennedy Administration's Policy Towards Cuba in 1963
(a) Organization
The Mongoose Operation was disbanded following the Cuban
Missile Crisis. An interagency "Cuban Coordinating Committee"
was established within the State Department with responsibility
for developing covert action proposals. (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 148.)
The review and approval function was taken from the Special Group
Augmented (which passed out of existence) and was placed under
the Special Group, chaired by Bundy. (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 148.)
U.S. policy towards Cuba in 1963 was also treated in the
National Security Council's Standing Group, the successor to
the Executive Committee which had dealt with the Missile Crisis.
Members of the Standing Group included Robert Kennedy, McNamara,
McCone, Bundy and Sorensen.
We discuss below four aspects of the Kennedy Administration's
1963 Cuba policy. These are: (1) the Standing Group's discus-
sion of possible developments in the event of Castro's death;
(2) the Standing Group's discussion of policy options; (3) the
covert action program approved by the Special Group; and (4) the
diplomatic effort to explore the possibility of reestablishing re-
lations with Castro. The first three of these took place in the
Spring or early Summer of 1963; the fourth aspect
to communicate with Castro
1963 assassination activity.
wwww www
the effort
took place at the same time as the
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 223
- 3 -
(b) The Discussion of the Contingency of Castro's Death
In the Spring of 1963, the Standing Group discussed con-
tingency planning in the event of Castro's death. The documen-
tary evidence and testimony indicated that Castro's death was
discussed as a contingency which might occur independent of
U.S. action. The Group found that the possibilities for
favorable developments to the United States should Castro die
were "singularly unpromising". (Summary Record of Standing Group
Meeting, May 28, 1963, p. 1).
(Bundy
The discussion stemmed from a memorandum by Bundy which
discussed "possible new directions" for U.S. Cuban policy.
Memorandum to the Standing Group, April 21, 1963). The memoran-
dum distinguished between (i) events which might occur indepen-
dently of U.S. action and (ii) steps the U.S. might "initiate".
(Bundy memorandum, p. 2.)
When the Standing Group discussed the Bundy memorandum,
Robert Kennedy proposed a study of the "measures we would take
following contingencies such as the death of Castro or the shoot-
ing down of a U-2." (Bundy Ex. 6E, Summary Record of NSC Stand-
ing Group Meeting, April 23, 1963, p. 2). The downing of a U-2
had been listed in the Bundy memorandum as a subject for contin-
gency planning under the category of steps for which the U.S.
must "await events" as distinguished from "initiate actions".
Bundy's follow-up memorandum, an agenda for a further Stand-
ing Group discussion of Cuban policy, listed the subject of a
TOP CERCREST
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 224
-4-
Castro death contingency under a category comprising subjects
not involving U.S. initiatives, e.g., "occurrence of revolt
or repression in the manner of Hungary", attributable inter-
ference by Castro in other countries", and "the reintroduction
of offensive weapons". (Bundy Ex. 6-G, 4/29/63).
After the meeting of April 23, 1963, the Standing Group
assigned to CIA's Office of National Estimates*/ the task of
estimating possible developments if Castro should die.
(Bundy
Ex. 6-H, Memorandum for Members of the Standing Group, May 2,
1963).
The resulting paper analyzed the various forces which would
come into play in Cuba after Castro's death, including the
likely behavior of Castro's top aides, Raul Castro and Che
Guevara, as well as possible Soviet reaction. (Bundy Ex. 6-1,
Draft Memorandum by Office of National Estimates titled "Develop-
ments in Cuba and Possible U.S. Actions in the Event of Castro's'
Death", pp. 2-5, hereafter called the "ONE paper"). The ONE
Paper concluded that "the odds are that upon Castro's death, his
brother Raul or some other figure in the regime would, with Soviet
backing and help, take over control".**/
*/The Office of National Estimates is the research division of the
CIA responsible for analyzing foreign intelligence. The Office is
not part of the CIA's covert operations organization.
**/The ONE Paper also saw little chance that a government disposed
towards the United States would be able to come to power without ex-
tensive U.S. military support: "Anti-Moscow Cuban nationalists would
require extensive U.S. help in order to win, and probably U.S. military
intervention." (Bundy Ex. 6-I, p. ii).
TAD CRODIST
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 225
In addition, the ONE Paper warned that the United States
would most likely be blamed if Castro should die by another's
hand. "If Castro were to die by other than natural causes the
U.S. would be widely charged with complicity, even though it
is widely known that Castro has many enemies". (Bundy Ex. 6-I,
p. 4.)
The ONE Paper also identified a number of possible U.S.
actions in the event of Castro's death, ranging along a spec-
trum that included no U.S. initiatives, action to support a
government in exile, quarantine and blockade, and outright
invasion. (Bundy Ex. 6-I, pp. 7-12.)
On May 28, 1963, the Standing Group discussed the ONE Paper.
The Standing Group found that "all of the courses of action
[open to the U.S. should Castro die] were singularly unpromising".
(Summary Record of NSC Standing Group Meeting No. 7/63, May 28,
1963, p. 1).
Bundy agreed that the Standing Group "certainly posed the
question" in the Spring of 1963 as to what would happen if Castro
died or were killed. (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 130.) But he testified
that he had no recollection of a Castro assassination being on
the minds of Standing Group members when they discussed this
contingency. (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 14.) */
*/As indicated above p. ), Bundy did recall that over the
period 1961 and 1963 "the subject of a Castro assassination was _
mentioned from time to time by different individuals", but said that
he was not aware of "much discussion in the Spring of 1963 on that
subject". (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 140.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 226
TOP
6-
Bundy testified, however, that one reason for getting an
estimate of this kind was to get it on record that we should
not be "fussing" with questions of assassination and that it
was not a sound policy. (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 142.)
Bundy further testified that it was not unusual to assess
the implications of a foreign leader's possible death, giving
the cases of Stalin and DeGaulle as examples. In the case of
Castro, Bundy said he felt it was only prudent to attempt to
assess the question of a post-Castro Cuba since Castro was
such a "dominant figure". (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 145.)
(c)
The Standing Group's Discussion of U.S. Policy
Towards Cuba
The Standing Group's documents indicate it continued tọ
assume the desirability of harassment, but recognized therė
were few practical measures the U.S. could take that were
likely to achieve Castro's overthrow.
In his April 21, 1963 memorandum on "Cuban Alternatives".
Bundy identified three possible new alternatives: (1) forcing
"a non-Communist solution in Cuba by all necessary means"
(2) insisting on "major but limited ends", or (3) moving "in
the direction of a gradual development of some form of accommo-
dation with Castro". (Bundy Memorandum to the Standing Group,
April 21, 1963, p. 3.) These alternatives were discussed at
Standing Group meetings on April 23 and May 28, 1963.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 227
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C
· 7 -
Sorensen, who participated in these meetings, testified
that the "widest possible range of alternatives" were dis-
cussed, but that "assassination was not even on the list".
(Sorensen, 7/21/75, p. 4.). He said that consideration of
possible options such as forcing, "a non-Communist solution
in Cuba by all necessary means" did not encompass assassina-
tion:
"[this] could not have included or implied assassina-
tion. Instead, it expressly referred to 'the develop-
ment of pressures' and 'gradual escalation of the con-
frontation in Cuba' to produce an overthrow of the
regime, including 'a willingness to use military force
to invade Cuba'. Such a course was obviously not
adopted by the President, and in any event expressed
an approach far different from assassination".
sen affidavit, 7/25/75, p. 4). */
(Soren-
The record of the first Standing Group discussion of Bundy's
memorandum shows that a number of alternatives were discussed (none
of which involved assassination) but no conclusions were reached.
On May 28, 1963, the Standing Group met again.
McCone argued
for steps to "increase economic hardship" in Cuba, supplemented
by sabotage to "create a situation in Cuba in which it would be
possible to subvert military leaders to the point of their acting
*/ The Bundy memorandum also used the phrase "all necessary measures"
to describe the steps the U.S. was willing to take to "prevent" a di-
rect military threat to the U.S. or to the Western Hemisphere from Cuba.
Sorensen explained the meaning of this phrase in the context of the
April 23 discussion of Kennedy Administration policy.
"[this phrase] could not by any stretch of semantics
or logic have included assassination or any other
initiative. It reflected the purely defensive posture
implemented six months earlier when long-range missiles
and other offensive weapons were placed in Cuba
(Sorensen affidavit, 7/25/75,pp
RET
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:
- 8
to overthrow Castro".
(Summary Record of NSC Standing Group
McNamara said that
Meeting No. 7/63, May 28, 1963, p. 1.)
sabotage would not be "conclusive" and suggested study of
"economic pressures which could upset Castro."! Robert Kennedy
said "the U.S. must do something against Castro, even though
we do not believe our actions would bring him down". (Id.,
p. 2)
In conclusion, Bundy summarized by stating that the task
was "to decide now what actions we would take against Castro,
acknowledging that the measures practical for us to take will
not result in his overthrow". (Id., p. 2.)
(d)
The Special Group's Authorization of a Sabotage Pro-
gram Against Cuba
During the first six months of 1963, little, if any,
sabotage activity against Cuba was undertaken.*/ However, on
June 19, 1963, following the Standing Group's discussion of Cuba
policy in the Spring, President Kennedy approved a Cuba sabotage
program.**/ (Memorandum for the Special Group, 6/19/63, p. 1.)
*/ At an April 3, 1963. meeting on Cuba, Bundy stated that no
sabotage operations were then underway because the Special Group "had
decided.
that such activity is not worth the effort expended on
it." (Memorandum of Meeting on Cuba, 4/3/63, p. 1).
**/ The sabotage program approved on June 19, 1963 was directed at
"Four major segments of the Cuban economy", (1) electric power; (2)
petroleum refineries and storage facilities; (3) railroad and high-
way transportation and (4) production and manufacturing. (Memoran-
dum for the Special Group, June 19, 1963, p. 1) Operations under this
program were to be conducted by CIA-controlled Cuban agents from a
U.S. island off Florida and it was to complement a similar effort de-
signed to "develop internal resistance elements which could carry out
sabotage." (Id., p. 2.)
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In contrast to the Mongoose program, which sought to build
toward an eventual internal revolt, the 1963 covert action
program had a more limited objective, i.e., "to nourish a
spirit of resistance and disaffection which could lead to
significant defections and other byproducts of unrest". (Id.,
p. 2.)
After the initial approval, particular intelligence and
sabotage operations were submitted to the Special Group for
specific prior authorization. On October 3, 1963, the Special
Group approved nine operations in Cuba, including several
sabotage operations. And on October 24, 1963, thirteen major
sabotage operations were approved to be undertaken in the
period November 1963 through January 1964, including the sabo-
tage of an electric power plant, an oil refinery, and a sugar
mill. (Memorandum, July 11, 1975, CIA Review Staff to Select
Committee, on "Approved CIA Covert Operations into Cuba.").
(e) The Diplomatic Effort to Explore an Accommodation With
Castro
As early as January 4, 1963, Bundy proposed to President
Kennedy that the possibility of communicating with Castro be
explored. (Bundy Ex. 6, Memorandum to the President, January 4,
1963, p. 3.) Bundy's memorandum on "Cuba Alternatives" to the
Standing Group on April 23, 1963, also listed the "gradual de-
velopment of some form of accommodation with Castro" among
policy alternatives. (Bundy memorandum, p. 3).
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10
And, at a meeting on June 3, 1963, the Special Group agreed.
it would be a "useful endeavor" to explore "various possibili-
ties of establishing channels of communication to Castro".
(Memorandum of Special Group meeting, June 6, 1963, p. 2).
In the Fall of 1963, William Atwood was a Special Advisor
to the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations with the rank
of Ambassador. (Atwood, 7/10/75, p. 3.) Atwood testified
that during the period of September-November, 1963, he held a
series of talks with the Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations
to discuss opening negotiations on an accommodation between
Castro and the United States. (Atwood, pp. 5-9.)
Atwood testified that at the outset he informed Robert
Kennedy, who told him that the effort "was worth pursuing". (Atwood, p.6).
Atwood said he regularly reported on the talks to the White
House and to his superior at the United Nations, Adlai Steven-
son.
(Atwood pp. 6-7.) Atwood further stated that he was told
by Bundy that President Kennedy was in favor of "pushing towards
an opening toward Cuba" to take Castro "out of the Soviet
fold and perhaps wiping out the Bay of Pigs and maybe getting
back into normal". (Atwood, p.7-8 .)
Atwood stated that he believed the only people who knew of
his contacts with the Cubans were the President, Harriman, Steven-
son, Robert Kennedy, Bundy, Bundy's assistant, and journalist Lisa
Howard. (Howard had initially placed Atwood in contact with the
Cuban Ambassador after reporting to Atwood that during a
trip to Cuba she had learned Castro was anxious to establish
TOP
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11
communications with the United States.
Thereafter Howard
served as an intermediary in arranging Atwood's meetings with
the Cubans. (Atwood, pp. 4, 18)).
Atwood also testified that he arranged for a French
journalist, Jean Daniel, to visit the White House prior to.
Daniel's scheduled trip to see Castro.
(Atwood, p. 19.)
(According to an article by Daniel in December, 1963, Daniel
met with President Kennedy on October 24, 1963. They discussed
the prospects for reestablishing U.S.-Cuba relations and
President Kennedy asked Daniel to report back to him after
seeing Castro.) */
:
Atwood's efforts reached their high point on November 18,
1963, when Atwood spoke by telephone with a member of Castro's
staff in Cuba. (Atwood, p. 8). Pursuant to White House in-
structions, Atwood informed Castro's staff member that the
U.S. favored preliminary negotiations at the U.N. (rather than
in Cuba as proposed by the Cubans), and that the U.S. desired
to work out an agenda for these talks. (Atwood, pp. 8-9).
After receiving Atwood's report on this conversation, Bundy told
Atwood that after the Cuban agenda was received, President
Kennedy wanted to see Atwood to "decide what to say and
*/ Daniel, Unofficial Envoy: A Historic Report from Two Capitals,
(New Republic, December 14, 1963). Daniel was with Castro when Castro
received the report of President Kennedy's assassination. Daniël,
When Castro Heard the News, (New Republic, December 7, 1963).
TOP
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 232
དང།།:
i
- 12 -
whether to go or what we should do next' (Id., p. 9.) Four
days later, on November 22, 1963, (the same day. AM/LASH was given
the poison pen), Jean Daniel was meeting with Castro. On that
same day, President Kennedy was assassinated. With the change of
Administrations, Atwood's talks with the Cubans became less fre-
quent and eventually ended in early 1964.
(Atwood, p. 10.)
4. Testimony on the Question of Authorization for the
AM/LASH Poison Pen Device
(a) Testimony of Helms
(i) The October 29 Meeting and the Use of Robert
Kennedy's Name Without Obtaining His Approval
As discussed above in detail (see pp. ), Fitzgerald met
with AM/LASH on October 29, 1963, in a foreign capital. Fitz-
gerald represented to AM/LASH that he was the personal represen-
tative of Robert Kennedy, and gave AM/LASH assurances of full sup-
port should AM/LASH succeed in overthrowing Castro.
The IG Report states that, according to Fitzgerald, Helms and
Fitzgerald discussed the planned meeting with AM/LASH and Helms de-
cided "it was not necessary to seek approval from Robert Kennedy for
Fitzgerald to speak in his name". (IG, pp. 88-89). In his testimony,
Helms stated he did not recall such a discussion with Fitzgerald, but
that he believed he had pre-existing authority to deal with AM/LASH
with respect to "a change in government" (as opposed to assassination)
and that this made it unnecessary to obtain Robert Kennedy's approval.*,
"I felt so sure that if I went to see Mr. Kennedy that he would have
*/The following exchange occurred in Helms' testimony:
"Sen. Hart of Michigan: Dealing with respect to "what?
A change in government, or assassination?"
Mr. Helms: A change in government, Senator Hart. This is
what we were trying to do.
(Helms, 6/13/75, p. 132)
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NW 50955
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said yes, that I didn't think there was any need to." (Helms,
6/13/75, p. 132.)
Helms said his view was that AM/LASH was a political
action agent, not a potential assassin, and that the meet-
ing with AM/LASH and his decision not to contact Robert
Kennedy should be viewed in that light:
"
...given this Cuban of his standing and all
the history...of trying to find someone inside Cuba
who might head a government and have a group to re-
place Castro...this was so central to the whole theme
of everything we had been trying to do, that I find
it totally unnecessary to ask Robert Kennedy at that
point (whether) we should go ahead with this. This
is obviously what he had been pushing, what every-
body had been pushing for us to try to do...let's
get on with doing it. (Helms, 6/13/75, pp. 117-118),*/
(ii) The Delivery of the Poison Pen on November 22
While Helms stated that the delivery of a poison pen to
AM/LASH was not part of an assassination plot, Helms testified
,
*/As discussed above (see pp.
there was conflicting testi-
mony from CIA officers as to whether they viewed AM/LASH as an
assassin and as to the purpose of giving him the poison pen. The docu-
mentary evidence, however, indicates that AM/LASH in 1963 was intent
upon assassinating Castro, that the CIA officers knew of this, and,
in addition to offering a poison pen, told AM/LASH they would
supply him with high powered rifles with telescopic sights. (see
P.
above).
"
Helms testified that because Amlash 'was the asset we were looking
for, (w) e didn't want him to blow himself or blow anything else by
getting involved in something like this [assassination] and have it
fail. We wanted him to stay in place. (Helms, 6/13/75, p. 131).
Helms stated that "at no time was it the idea of [the AM/LASH-1] case
officers, or those people in the chain behind, to use [AM/LASH-1] to
assassinate Castro. (Helms, 6/13/75, p. 135).
"
Helms further stated
...there was an enormous amount of
temporizing with this fellow to keep him on the team, to keep him
working away at this job, but to try and persuade him that this was not
the way to go about it. (Helms, 6/13/75, p. 135). Helms testified
that AM/LASH-1 was given the poison pen "because he was insisting on
something and this was a temporizing gesture rather than giving him
some kind of a gun he had asked for.. (Helms, 6/13
"
135)
NW 50955
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TOP
14
wwww
that he believed Castro's assassination was within the scope of the CIA's
/(Helms, 9/12/75, pp. 11-12).] As in the case of the 1962 plots,
authority.
Helms based this on the vigor of the Administration's policy towards Cuba
✓ and his perception that there were no limits put on the means that could
be used in the effort against Castro. (Helms, 9/12/75, pp. 11-12). Thus,/
Helms testified that after the missile crisis the U.S. continued to conduct
"
covert actions whose purpose was "to overthrow Castro. (Helms, 6/13/75,
p. 24.) /Helms was asked whether it was his opinion that the offer of the poison
pen to AM/LASH was authorized because it came within the scope of the 1963 pro-
gram against Castro.
°
Helms responded:
"I think the only way I know how to answer that is that I
do not recall when things got cranked up in 1963 any dramatic
changes or limitations being put on this operation. There
was still an effort by whatever device, and perhaps only.
slightly differently oriented at this time, to try to get rid
of Castro...But I do not recall specific things being said,
now, (we are not) going to do this, we're not going to do that,
and we're not going to do the other thing, and we will do just
these things."/
(b) Testimony of Administration Officials
As with the Mongoose period, the Administration officials agreed that
they were not informed about any assassination plot and that there was no order that.
Castro be assassinated.
Again, they disagreed with Helms' position that an assassi-
nation plot could be undertaken without express authority. The only added part
relating to the AM/LASH plot was certain testimony which asserted that it was in-
conceivable that the President would have approved an assassination plot at the very
same time he had authorized talks to explore the possibility of improved relations
with Castro.*/
*/Rusk testified that "I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe" and that "I
just can't conceive" President Kennedy would have authorized the passage of an assas-
sination device for use against Castro while Atwood was exploring the possibility
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 235
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TOP SECRET
Since Helms did not claim any higher specific authorization for or
knowledge of the AM/LASH assassination plot, however, the additional issue
posed by that testimony does not really arise.
(continued)
of normalizing relations with Castro. (Rusk, 7/10/75, p. 85). Similarly, Bundy
testified he "absolutely" did not believe President Kennedy would have authorized:
or permitted an assassination device to have been passed at the same time a
possible rapprochment with Castro was being pursued. (Bundy, 7/11/75, p. 151).
On the other hand, when the possibility of exploring better relations with
Castro was initially raised (but before any talks were begun) Bundy indicated
that it could be explored on a "separate track" while other proposed actions,
such as sabotage, were going on. (Agenda for Special Group meeting of 4/29/63,
p. 2.)
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NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 236
Subcommittee Meeting
9/9/75. Approved Draft. -
d.
The Question of Authorization in the Johnson Administration
1. Summary of the Assassination Activity. As discussed above (see pp.
the Agency delivered arms to AM/LASH in Cuba in March and June 1964.
In early
1965 after AM/LASH became more insistent that a Castro assassination was neces-
sary and had asked for a silenced weapon, the Agency put AM/LASH in contact with
the leader of an anti-Castro group, B-1, with the intention that AM/LASH obtain
such a weapon. Thereafter, the Agency learned that AM/LASH had received a
silencer and other special equipment from B-1 and was preparing to assassinate
Castro.
:
2. The Issue of Authorization. The issue of authority in the Johnson Admini-
stration is similar to that in the Kennedy Administration. During this phase of
the AM/LASH plot, Helms continued as Deputy Director for covert operations, and
the principal members of the Kennedy Administration continued in their positions
in the relevant period of the Johnson Administration (Robert Kennedy left the
Administration in the midst of this period, on
).* Helms' testimony
),
that he believed a Castro assassination was within the scope of the CIA's authority
in view of Administration policy towards Cuba applied to the AM/LASH operation in
both 1963 and 1964-65. (Helms, 6/13/75, p. 137-138.) Again, there was no evidence
that McCone or anyone above the Agency specifically authorized or knew about the
1964-65 plot. We discuss below four other matters occurring during the Johnson
(1) the covert action program against Cuba in 1964-1965; (2)
Administration:
the Special Groups' action in investigating reports of Cuban exile underworld
*Rusk (Secretary of State), McNamara (Secretary of Defense), McCone (Director
of Central Intelligence); and Bundy (Special Assistant for National Security
and Chairman of the Special Group).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 237
2
SENSITIVE
plots to assassinate Castro; (3) Helms' report to Rusk that CIA was not in-
volved with AM/LASH in a Castro assassination plot; and (4) Helms' briefing
of President Johnson on the 1967 IG Report on alleged CIA assassination plots.
3. The Covert Action Program Against Cuba in 1964-1965. According to the
minutes of a Special Group meeting on April 7, 1964, which he chaired, President
Johnson decided to discontinue the use of CIA-controlled sabotage raids against
Cuba. *
(Memorandum of Special Group Meeting, April 7, 1964, p. .) A memoran-
dum by McCone indicated that in deciding this question, President Johnson abandoned
the objective of Castro's overthrow.**
At the April 7, Special Group meeting, Rusk had emphasized his opposition to
the use of sabotage raids, stating his belief that they were unproductive, and
had a "high noise level" that called attention to them. In addition, Rusk stated
that "he suspects the Cuban exiles who actually conduct the raids of possible
wishing to leave fingerprints pointing to U. S. involvement in order to increase
that involvement." (Memorandum of Special Group Meeting, April 7, 1964, page.2.)
*A memorandum by Bundy on April 7, 1964, listed seven aspects of the covert action
program which had been in effect. These were: (1) collection of intelligence;
(2) covert propaganda to encourage low risk forms of active and passive resistance;
(3) cooperation with other agencies in economic denial; (4) attempts to identify
and establish contact with potential dissident elements inside Cuba; (5) indirect
economic sabotage%; (6) CIA-controlled sabotage raiding; and (7) autonomous opera-
tions. (Memorandum for the Record of the Special Group, April 7, 1964, p. 1-2.)
**At the April 7, 1964, meeting Rusk and Bundy opposed continuation of sabotage
actions by CIA-controlled assets as "unproductive" and impractical. McCone dis-
agreed, noting that the covert action program relied on a "well-planned series
of sabotage efforts". (Memorandum of Special Group Meeting, April 7, 1964, p. 3.)
In this connection, Bundy noted that since the approval of the current sabotage
in June 1963 "policymakers... had turned sabotage operations on and off to such
an extent that (the sabotage program) simply does not, in the nature of things,
appear feasible". (Id., p. 2.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 238
3.
SENOTTIVE
4. The Special Group Investigation of Reported Castro Assassination Plots
by Cuban Exiles. On June 10, 1964, Helms informed McCone by memorandum that
Agency officials had learned of several plots of Cuban exiles to assassinate
Castro and other Cuban leaders. (Memorandum, Helms to McCone, June 10, 1964.)
Several of the plots, according to the memorandum, involved "people apparently
associated with the Mafia". Reportedly the exiles had offered people associated
with the Mafia $150,000 to perform the deed. In his memorandum, Helms stated that
the sources of the reports were parties to the plots and in submitting the in-
formation to Agency officers were presumably seeking legal immunity should the
plots succeed.
(Id., p. 1.)
Helms' memorandum, however, made no mention of any of the CIA assassination
plots against Castro.*
(Footnote continued from previous page.)
In a memorandum the day after President Johnson's decision to stop CIA-controlled
sabotage operations, McCone stated: "the real issue to be considered at the
meeting and by the President was a question of whether we wished to implement
the policy (outlined in certain memoranda) or abandon the basic objective of bring-
ing about the liquidation of the Castro Communist entourage and the elimination
of Communist presence in Cuba and thus rely on future events of an undisclosed
nature which might accomplish this objective". (Memorandum by McCone, April 8,
1964, p.
In the context of the Special Group's discussion, McCone's use of the words "liqui-
dation" and "elimination" appears to be another example of inartful language. A
literal interpretation of these words leaves one with the impression that assassina-
tion was contemplated. But the context of the discussion does not bear out such an
interpretation. Thus in specifying what he meant by "future events of an undisclosed
nature" McCone pointed to "extreme economic distress caused by a sharp drop in
sugar prices", and "other external factors". (Id, p. 8.) McCone testified that
such references as the "elimination" or "liquidation" of the Castro regime did not
refer to assassination. (McCone, p. _____.)
**Moreover, according to Bundy, no one from the CIA or anyone else informed him at
the meetings that "in earlier years there had been a relationship with...persons
allegedly involved with the criminal syndicate--in order to accomplish the assassi-
nation of Fidel Castro". (Bundy, p. 71.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 239
4
SENOTTIVE
Indeed, it stated that "Agency officers made clear to each of the sources that
the United States Government would not under any circumstances, condone the
planned actions".
(Id., p. 1.)
When the Special Group considered the information in Helms memorandum on
June 18, 1964, McCone stated he was "somewhat skeptical" and proposed additional
investigation, but "others, including Mr. Bundy, felt that the U. S. was being
put on notice and should do everything in its power to ascertain promptly the
veracity of the reports and then undertake prevention". (Memorandum of Special
Group Meeting, June 18, 1964.) In a memorandum on the June 18 meeting, McCone
indicated he had dissented from the Special Group's decision, stating his be-
lief that the Special Group was "overly exercised" and that he was inclined to
dismiss the matter as "Miami cocktail party talk". McCone noted, however, that
the Special Group "was more concerned than I and therefore planning to discuss
the subject with the Attorney General and possibly Mr. Hoover".
June 18, 1964, p. 1.).
(Memorandum
The Special Group decided that the reports be transmitted to the Attorney
General "as a matter of law enforcement". (Id.) Robert Kennedy was informed of
this matter a few days later and stated that the Justice Department would investi-
gate. (Memorandum of Meeting, 22 June 1964.) Thereafter the FBI conducted an
investigation, the results of which were submitted to the Special Group on
August 19, 1964, by McCone.* (Memorandum, August 19, 1964, McCone to Bundy.)
The FBI
*McCone's memorandum summarized seven FBI reports on its investigation.
found that several of the persons it interviewed stated they had knowledge of
the exile's plots and had reported the information to the CIA. Others inter-
viewed denied knowledge of the plans.
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5
SENSITIVE
5. Helms' Report to Rusk that CIA was not Involved with Amlash in a
Castro Assassination. Plot
lations with Amlash.
In March 1966, Helms reported to Rusk by memorandum on the CIA's re-
(Rusk Ex. 7, Memorandum, March 7, 1966, Helms to Rusk).
In this report, Helms stated that the CIA's contact with Amlash was for "the
express purpose" of intelligence collection.
(Id.). Noting Cuban press
claims that Amlash and a second Cuban had been involved with the CIA in a
Castro assassination plot, Helms stated:
The Agency was not involved with either of
these two men in a plot to assassinate
Fidel Castro, as claimed in /a Cuban news
release/ nor did it ever encourage either
of these two persons to attempt such an act.
(Rusk Ex. 7, p. 1).
The Helms memorandum to Rusk made no mention of the fact that CIA officers,
with Helms' knowledge, had offered a poison pen to Amlash on November 22, 1963,
that CIA had supplied arms to Amlash in 1964, or that CIA had put Amlash in touch
with B-1 to enable him to obtain a silenced weapon to assassinate Castro.
In his testimony, Helms stated that this memorandum to Rusk was "inaccurate"
and "not truthful".
(Helms, 6/13/75, p. 115.)
The CIA's copy of the Helms' memorandum to Rusk contains a typed notation
in which Helms' signature was recommended by the CIA's then Deputy Director for
Plans, Thomas Karamessines. (Rusk Ex. 7, p. 2.) Helms testified that the day
before his June 13, 1975, testimony to the Committee he had asked Karamessines
why the memorandum to Rusk had been written as it was. Helms stated he and Kara-
messines concluded they did not know the reason but Helms speculated that "it
may be until we conducted (the 1967 IG investigation) somewhat later we didn't
have the facts straight, or maybe we had the facts straight then but we did not
have them straight later". "(Helms, 6/13/75, p. 115.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 241
6
الي ان الاطاريح
6.
Helms' Briefing of President Johnson on the 1967 Inspector General's
Report. Drew Pearson's article in the spring of 1967 alleging U. S. involve-
ment in plots to assassinate Fidel Castro prompted President Johnson to re-
quest Helms, who by then had become the DCI, to conduct an investigation. The
result was the Inspector General's Report of May 23, 1967. (Helms, 6/13/75, p. 35.)
After receiving the report, Helms briefed the President "orally about the contents".
(Id. at 36.) During his testimony, Helms was shown his handwritten notes apparently
prepared for his briefing of the President. Those notes carried the story through
mid-1963. When asked if he told President Johnson that, according to the 1967
study, the efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro had continued into Johnson's
presidency, Helms replied, "I just can't answer that, I just don't know. I can't
recall having done so". (Id. at 38.) He did note that it would not have
occurred to him to brief President Johnson on the 1964 AM/LASH gun deliveries
because "I don't think one would have approached the AM/LASH thing as an assassina-
tion plot against Castro". (Id. at 39.) Helms had testified that AM/LASH was an
intelligence and political action agent.
, p. .) The IG Report
however, treated the AM/LASH operation as an assassination plot. (IG, p.
(Helms,
In his
7. Helms Testimony on Authorization in the Johnson Administration.
testimony, Helms was asked if the Agnecy regarded "whatever marching orders
they had obtained prior to the dealth of President Kennedy as still being valid
and operative" when President Johnson succeeded to the office. Helms replied:
.)'
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 242
7
SLRONTIVE
This is not very clear to me at this stage. A lot
of the same officers were serving President Johnson
as they served President Kennedy, and...I can't re-
call anymore whether there was any specific issue
about whether this was taken up with President
Johnson at any meeting or any session. If it had
been, I would have thought there would have been
records someplace." (Helms, 6/13, p. 139.)
When asked whether President Johnson had been informed of or had authorized
continuing efforts to assassinate Castro, Helms replied indirectly that "the
Special Group would have continued to consider these matters, and I would have
assumed that whoever was chairing the Special Group would have in turn reported
to the President, which was the usual practice". (Id.)
But the records of the Special Group do not show any consideration of a
Castro assassination or of the AM/LASH plot during the Johnson Administration
(or earlier). And, as discussed above, there was no evidence that McCone or
anyone above the Agency was informed of or specifically authorized the AM/LASH
plots.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 243
D.
CONGO
1.
Agreed to by subcommittee 10/10/75
Pending (1) Rewrite per Subcommittee
Editing and (2) Insertion of
Gottlieb and Tweedy Testimony
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2.
3.
: 4.
Introduction
Dulles Cabled Leopoldville That "Removal"
of Lumumba is an Urgent Objective in "High
Quarters"
CIA Encouraged Congolese Efforts to "Eliminate"
Lumumba, Who Was Viewed as a "Grave Danger" Even
After Being Deposed and Placed in U.N. Protective
Custody
The Plot to Assassinate Lumumba
(a)
(b)
(c)
Dulles Cabled Again for "Elimination"
of Lumumba, and a Messenger Was Sent to
Congo With a Highly Sensitive
Assignment
Gottlieb Delivered Lethal Substance to
Hedgman in the Congo for the Assassi-
nation of Lumumba: September 1960 .
Hedgman Testified That Gottlieb Told
Him That President Eisenhower Had
Ordered the Assassination of Lumumba
Page
1
1
3
8
14
15
18
22
(d) Headquarters Makes the Assassination
Plot "Highest Priority" and Authorizes
Steps in Furtherance of It
24
(e)
The Chief of Station Moves Forward
With Assassination Plot
31
(i) The Chief of Station Testified
That He Requested and Received
Confirmation of the Assassination
Plan from Headquarters
(ii)
The Chief of Station Took "Explora-
tory Steps" in Furtherance of the
Assassination Plot and Testified
That He Destroyed Cable Traffic
Related to the Plot
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 244
31
34.
5.
(f)
-ii-
Testimony of Bissell and Tweedy About the
Degree of Support for and Perpetration of the
Assassination Plot :
Page
41
(i) Tweedy Had No Recollection of the Operation
To Poison Lumumba
41
(ii) Tweedy Testified That He Discussed With
Bissell the Feasibility of Assassinating.
Lumumba and He Cabled Hedgman About Gaining
Access to Lumumba for the Purpose of
Assassination
(iii)
Bissell Testified That He Did Not Recall
Whether the Assassination Operation Had.
Moved from Planning to Implementation
But it Was Not Against Agency Policy to
Send Poisons to the Congo
The Question of a Connection Between the Assassination.
Plot and Other Actions of CIA Officers and Operatives
in the Congo
(a)
(b)
44
48
O'Donnell's Operations in the Congo
2.3
52
53
(i)
Tweedy and the Chief of Station Agreed That
a Senior Case Officer Should be Sent to
the Congo to Concentrate on the Assassi-
nation Operation
53
(ii)
Bissell Discussed Assassination of
Lumumba With O'Donnell and Sent Him
to Congo: October-November 1960
54
(iii)
Bissell Testified That He Asked O'Donnell
to Plan and Prepare for an Assassination
Operation
59
(iv)
O'Donnell Arrived in the Congo and
Learned That a Virus Was in the
Station Safe
60
00
(v)
'O'Donnell Planned to "Neutralize"
Lumumba by Turning Him Over to
Congolese Authorities and Requested
the Assignment of Agent QJWIN to
Leopoldville as His Alter Ego
Agent QJWIN's Mission in the Congo: November-
December 1960
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 245
65
67
6.
-iii-
(c) QJWIN's Connection to Project ZRRIFLE
(d)
Agent QJWIN Was Asked By Hedgman's Operative
WIROGUE to Join an "Execution Squad":
December 1960
The Question of Whether the CIA Was Involved in
Bringing About Lumumba's Death in Katanga
(a)
Lumumba's Escape from UN Custody, Capture.
by Congolese Army, and Imprisonment at
Thysville: November 27-December 3, 1960
Page
72
74
79
79
(b)
Transfer of Lumumba to Katanga Where He
Was Killed:
January 17, 1960
81
7.
The Question of the Level at Which the Assassination
Plot Was Authorized
82
(a) High-Level Meetings at Which "Getting Rid
of Lumumba" is Discussed
84
(i) Dillon Testified That the Question of
Assassination Was Raised at Pentagon
Meeting: Summer 1960 .
84
(ii)
Robert Johnson Testified That He Heard
the President Order Lumumba's Assassi-:
nation at an NSC Meeting.
88.
(iii)
The President's "Extremely Strong
Feelings" Lead the Special Group to
Consider Anything That Might Get Rid
of Lumumba and Dulles Cables for Lumumba's
Removal: August 25-26, 1960
101
(iv) NSC Meeting of September 21, 1960: Dulles
Said Lumumba Would Remain a Grave Danger
Until "Disposed Of"
106
(b)
Testimony of Eisenhower White House Officials
That They Knew of No Presidential Consideration
of Assassination
110
(c)
Richard Bissell Testified That He "Strongly
Inferred" That the Assassination Effort Against
Lumumba Was Authorized By President Eisenhower
and Allen Dulles
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539
Page 246
114
DRAFT: OCTOBER 6, 1975
Frederick D. Baron
TOP SECRET
For Internal Committee
Use Only
D. CONGO
1.
Introduction
The Committee has received solid evidence of a CIA
plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba. The plot proceeded to
the point where lethal substances and instruments specifically
intended for use in an assassination were placed in the hands
of the CIA Chief of Station in Leopoldville by an Agency
scientist.
Although these instruments of assassination were never
used, a number of questions are presented by the Lumumba case
which reflect general issues that run throughout the Committee's
assassination inquiry. First, did CIA officers and operatives
in the Congo take steps to attempt the assassination of Lumumba?
Second, how high in the United States government was the
source of authorization for the CIA assassination plot? Finally,
was the CIA connected in any way to the events that actually led
to the death of Lumumba while in Congolese custody?
A thread of historical background is necessary to weave these
broad questions together with the documents and testimony re-
ceived by the Committee.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 247
-2-
In the summer of 1960, there was a great deal of concern
at the highest levels in the United States government about the
role of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. * Lumumba, who served briefly
as Premier of the newly independent nation, was viewed with alarm
by United States foreign policymakers because of what they perceived
as his magnetic public appeal and his leanings toward the Soviet
Union.
Under the leadership of Lumumba and the new President,
Joseph Kasavubu, the Congo declared its independence from Belgium
on June 30, 1960. In the turbulent month that followed, Lumumba
threatened to invite Soviet troops to hasten the withdrawal of
Belgian armed forces. The United Nations Security Council re-
quested a Belgian withdrawal and dispatched a neutral force
to the Congo to preserve order. In late July, Lumumba visited
Washington and received pledges of economic aid from Secretary
of State Christian Herter.. At the beginning of September,
Soviet airplanes, trucks, and technicians were arriving in the
province where Lumumba's support was strongest.
By mid-September, Lumumba sought protection from the UN
guard in Leopoldville after losing a struggle over the leadership
of the government with Kasavubu and Joseph Mobutu, Chief of Staff
of the Congolese armed forces. In early December, Mobutu's troops
captured Lumumba while he was traveling toward his stronghold at
* Since the period in which the events under examination occurred,
the names of many geographical units and governmental institutions
have changed. For instance, the nation formerly known as the Republic
of the Congo is now the Republic of Zaire and the present capital city,
Kinshasa, was known then as Leopoldville. For the sake of clarity in
dealing with many of the documents involved in this section, the names
used in this report are those which applied in the early 1960's, con-
temporaneously with the events under consideration.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 248
-3-
Stanleyville, and he was imprisoned. The central government of
the Congo transferred Lumumba on January 17, 1961 to the custody
of authorities in the province of Katanga, which was asserting its
own independence at that time. Several weeks later, the Katangese
authorities announced Lumumba's death.
There are various accounts of the circumstances and timing
of Lumumba's death. The United Nations investigation of the inci-
dent concluded that Lumumba was killed on January 17.*
2.
Dulles Cables Leopoldville That "Removal" of Lumumba
is an Urgent Objective in "High Quarters"
Shortly after the Congolese declaration of independence
from Belgium on June 30, 1960, the CIA assigned a new Chief of
Station to the Congo. The Chief of Station said that the briefings ·
he received at CIA headquarters in preparation for his departure
contained no discussion of the possibility of assassinating Patrice
Lumumba (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 8). On his brief return to head-
quarters in connection with Lumumba's visit to Washington in late
July, the Chief of Station again heard no discussion of assassi-
nating Lumumba (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 9).
During August, great concern about Lumumba's political
strength in the Congo was growing among the foreign policy-makers
of the Eisenhower Administration.** This concern was nurtured
* Report of the Commission of Investigation, 11/61, UN
Security Council, Official Records, Supplement for October,
November, and December.
** See Section 5, infra, for full discussion of the prevailing
anti-Lumumba attitude in the United States government as shown by
minutes of the National Security Council and Special Group and the
'testimony of high Administration officials.
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 249
-4-
by intelligence reports such as that cabled to CIA headquarters
by the new Chief of Station:
EMBASSY AND STATION BELIEVE CONGO EXPERIENCING
CLASSIC COMMUNIST EFFORT TAKEOVER GOVERNMENT.
MANY FORCES AT WORK HERE: SOVIETS ... COMMUNIST
PARTY, ETC. ALTHOUGH DIFFICULT DETERMINE MAJOR
INFLUENCING FACTORS TO PREDICT OUTCOME STRUGGLE
FOR POWER, DECISIVE PERIOD NOT FAR OFF. WHETHER
OR NOT LUMUMBA ACTUALLY COMMIE OR JUST PLAYING
COMMIE GAME TO ASSIST HIS SOLIDIFYING POWER, ANTI-
WEST FORCES RAPIDLY INCREASING POWER CONGO AND
THERE MAY BE LITTLE TIME LEFT IN WHICH TAKE ACTION
TO AVOID ANOTHER CUBA.... (CIA Cable IN 39706,
Leopoldville to Director, 8/18/60.)
This cable also stated the Chief of Station's operational "OBJECTIVE
[OF] REPLACING LUMUMBA WITH PRO WESTERN GROUP" (CIA Cable, 8/18/60).
Bronson Tweedy, then Chief of the Africa Division of CIA's clan-
destine services, replied the same day that he was seeking State
Department approval for the proposed operation based upon "OUR
BELIEF LUMUMBA MUST BE REMOVED IF POSSIBLE" (CIA Cable Out 59741,
Tweedy to Leopoldville, 8/18/60). On August 19, Richard Bissell,
Director of CIA's covert operations branch, signed a follow-up
cable to Leopoldville: "YOU ARE AUTHORIZED PROCEED WITH OPERATION"
(CIA Cable OUT 59959, Director to Leopoldville, 8/19/60).
Several days later, the Chief of Station reported that a plan
to assassinate Lumumba had been proposed to President Kasavubu by
Congolese leaders:
ANTI-LUMUMBA LEADERS APPROACHED KASAVUBU
WITH PLAN ASSASSINATE LUMUMBA
KASAVUBU
REFUSED AGREE SAYING HE RELUCTANT RESORT
VIOLENCE AND NO OTHER LEADER SUFFICIENT
STATURE REPLACE LUMUMBA. (CIA Cable IN 42761,
Leopoldville to Director, 8/24/60.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 250

-5-
This incident indicates that the CIA was aware that there was
some Congolese support for the assassination of Lumumba, but that
the moderate President of the Congo still respected Lumumba and
refused to consider assassination.
On August 25, 1960, Allen Dulles attended a meeting of the
Special Group the National Security Council subcommittee re-
sponsible for the planning of covert operations.* In response to
the outline of some CIA plans for political actions against
Lumumba, such as arranging a vote of no confidence by the Congolese
Parliament, the Special Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs reported that the President
had expressed extremely strong feelings
on the necessity for very straightforward
action in this situation, and he wondered
whether the plans as outlined were sufficient
to accomplish this. (Special Group Minutes, 8/25/60.)
After this discussion, the Special Group.
finally agreed that planning for the Congo
would not necessarily rule out "consideration"
of any particular kind of activity which might
contribute to getting rid of Lumumba.
(Special Group Minutes, 8/25/60.)
* This Special Group meeting and the testimony about its
significance on the issue of authorization is discussed in detail
in Section 5 (iii), infra.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 251
-6-
The next day, Allen Dulles personally signed a cable* to
the Leopoldville Chief of Station which stressed the urgency of
"removing" Lumumba:
IN HIGH QUARTERS** HERE IT IS THE CLEAR-
CUT CONCLUSION THAT IF LLL [LUMUMBA] CON-
TINUES TO HOLD HIGH OFFICE, THE INEVITABLE
RESULT WILL AT BEST BE CHAOS AND AT WORST
PAVE THE WAY TO COMMUNIST TAKEOVER OF THE
CONGO WITH DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE
PRESTIGE OF THE UN AND FOR THE INTERESTS OF
THE FREE WORLD GENERALLY. CONSEQUENTLY
WE CONCLUDE THAT HIS REMOVAL MUST BE AN
URGENT AND PRIME OBJECTIVE THAT UNDER EXISTING
.CONDITIONS THIS SHOULD BE A HIGH PRIORITY OF
OUR COVERT ACTION. (CIA Cable, OUT 62966,
Director to Leopoldville, 8/26/60.)
Dulles cabled that the Chief of Station was to be given "WIDER
along the lines of the previously authorized opera-
AUTHORITY"
"INCLUDING
tion to replace Lumumba with a pro-Western group
EVEN MORE AGGRESSIVE ACTION IF IT CAN REMAIN COVERT" (CIA Cable,
8/26/60). "WE REALIZE THAT TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY MAY PRESENT
THEMSELVES TO YOU," the cable continued (CIA Cable, 8/26/60).
* Cables issued under the personal signature of the DCI are
a relative rarity in CIA communitations and call attention to the
importance and sensitivity of the matter discussed..
**As discussed in Section 5(c), infra, Richard Bisell testified
that Allen Dulles would have used the phrase "higher quarters" to
refer to the President (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 48).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 252
-7-
:
´ Dulles also authorized the expenditure of up to $100,000 "TO
CARRY OUT ANY CRASII PROGRAMS ON WHICH YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OPPOR-
.
TUNITY TO CONSULT HQS" (CIA Cable, 8/26/60). He assured the
Chief of Station that the message had been "SEEN AND APPROVED AT
COMPETENT LEVEL" in the State Department (CIA Cable, 8/26/60).
But the Director of Central Intelligence made a special point
of assuring the Chief of Station that he was authorized to act
unilaterally in a case where the United States Ambassador to the
Congo would prefer to remain uninformed:
TO THE EXTENT THAT AMBASSADOR MAY DESIRE
TO BE CONSULTED, YOU SHOULD SEEK HIS CON-
CURRENCE. IF IN ANY PARTICULAR CASE, HE
DOES NOT WISH TO BE CONSULTED YOU CAN ACT
ON YOUR OWN AUTHORITY WHERE TIME DOES NOT
PERMIT REFERRAL HERE (CIA Cable, 8/26/60).
This mandate raises a question as to whether the DCI was contem-
plating a particular form of action against Lumumba which the
Ambassador would want to be in a position to "plausibly deny"
United States involvement.
DDP Richard Bissell testified that he
was "almost certain" that he was informed about the Dulles cable
shortly after its transmission and that it was his "belief" that
the cable was a circumlocutious means of indicating that the
President wanted Lumumba to be killed (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 33,
64-65).*
:
* See Section 5(c), infra, for additional testimony by Bissell
on the question of authorization for the assassination effort
against Lumumba.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 253
-8-
.3.
CIA Encourages Congolese Efforts to "Eliminate"
Lumumba, Who is Viewed as a "Grave Danger" Even After
Being Deposed and Placed in UN Protective Custody
On September 5, 1960, President Kasavubu dismissed
Premier Lumumba from the government despite the strong support
for Lumumba that existed in the Congolese Parliament.
After losing
the ensuing power struggle with Kasavubu and Mobutu, who seized
the government by a military coup on September 14, Lumumba sought
protection from the United Nations peace-keeping force. The
evidence indicates that the ouster of Lumumba from the government
did not alleviate the concern about him in the United States govern-
ment.
Rather, the CIA and high Eisenhower Administration
officials* continued to view him as a threat, at least until
early December when he was captured by Mobutu's troops and im-
prisoned. During this period, CIA officers in the Congo advised
and aided Congolese contacts known to have any intent to kill
Lumumba. They also opposed the resumption of the democratic process
after the coup. by reopening the Parliament because of the
likelihood that this would return Lumumba to power.
The day after Lumumba was deposed by Kasavubu, two CIA
officers met with a high level Congolese politician who had a
close relationship to the Leopoldville Station. The Station re-
ported to CIA headquarters that the politician had made a response
A detailed treatment of the expressions of continued concern
over Lumumba at the National Security Council level is set forth
in Section
infra.
>
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 254
-9-
to
a remark by the Chief of Station that implied that he might.
assassinate Lumumba:
TO COS COMMENT THAT LUMUMBA IN OPPOSITION IS
ALMOST AS DANGEROUS AS IN OFFICE, [THE
CONGOLESE POLITICIAN] INDICATED UNDERSTOOD
AND IMPLIED MIGHT PHYSICALLY ELIMINATE
LUMUMBA. (CIA Cable, IN 49679, Leopoldville
to Director, 9/7/60.).
The cable continued to report that the Chief of Station had offered
to assist this politician "IN PREPARATION NEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAM"
and assured him that the United States would supply technicians
(CIA Cable, 9/7/60).
As the chaotic struggle for power raged, the Chief of
the Africa Division succinctly summarized the prevalent U. S.
apprehension about Lumumba's ability to influence events in the
Congo by virtue of personality, irrespective of his official
position:
LUMUMBA TALENTS AND DYNAMISM APPEAR OVER-
RIDING FACTOR IN REESTABLISHING HIS POSITION.
EACH TIME IT SEEMS HALF LOST. IN OTHER WORDS
EACH TIME LUMUMBA HAS OPPORTUNITY HAVE LAST
WORD HE CAN SWAY EVENTS TO HIS ADVANTAGE.
(CIA Cable, OUT 69233, Director to Leopoldville,
9/13/60).
The day after Mobutu's coup, the Chief of Station reported
that he was serving as an advisor to a Congolese effort to "elimi-
nate" Lumumba due to his "fear" that Lumumba might, in fact, have
been strengthened by placing himself in UN custody, which afforded
a safe base of operations:
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 255
-10-
:
STILL DIFFICULT DETERMINE WHETHER MOBUTU HAS.
SUFFICIENT CONTROL ARMY TO ENFORCE DECISIONS
ANNOUNCED NIGHT 14 SEPTEMBER. STATION ADVISED
[TWO MODERATE CONGOLESE POLITICIANS] TRY WORK
WITH [KEY CONGOLESE CONTACT] IN EFFORT ELIMI-
NATE LUMUMBA. FEAR UN PROTECTION WILL GIVE
LUMUMBA OPPORTUNITY ORGANIZE COUNTER ATTACK.
ONLY SOLUTION IS REMOVE HIM FROM SCENE SOONEST.
(CIA Cable, IN 13374, Leopoldville to Director,
9/15/60.)
On September 17, another CIA operative in the Congo met
with a leading Congolese senator. At this meeting, the senator.
requested a clandestine supply of small arms to equip some
Congolese Army troops. The cable to CIA headquarters concerning
the meeting reported:
[CONGOLESE SENATOR] REQUESTED CLANDESTINE
SUPPLY SMALL ARMS TO EQUIP
TROOPS
RECENTLY ARRIVED LEOP[OLDVILLE] AREA
[THE SENATOR] SAYS THIS WOULD PROVIDE CORE
ARMED MEN WILLING AND ABLE TAKE DIRECT
ACTION .. [SENATOR] RELUCTANTLY AGREES
LUMUMBA MUST GO PERMANENTLY. DISTRUSTS
[ANOTHER CONGOLESE LEADER] BUT WILLING MAKE.
PEACE WITH HIM FOR PURPOSES ELIMINATION
LUMUMBA (CIA Cable, IN 14228, Leopoldville
to Director, 9/17/60.)
The CIA operative told the Congolese senator that "HE WOULD EXPLORE
POSSIBILITY OBTAINING ARMS" and recommended to CIA headquarters
that they should
HAVE [ARMS] SUPPLIES READY TO GO AT
NEAREST BASE PENDING (UNITED STATES]
DECISION THAT SUPPLY WARRANTED AND NECES-
SARY (CIA Cable, 9/17/60).*
* This recommendation proved to be in line with large scale
planning at CIA headquarters for clandestine paramilitary support
to anti-Lumumba elements. On October 6, 1960, Richard Bissell and
Bronson Tweedy signed a cable concerning plans which the Chief of
Station was instructed not to discuss with State Department repre-
sentatives or operational contacts:
(footnote continued on next page)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 256
-11-
Several days later, while warning a key Congolese
leader about coup plots led by Lumumba and two of his supporters,
the Chief of Station
URGED ARREST OR OTHER MORE PERMANENT DISPOSAL
OF LUMUMBA, GIZENGA, AND MULELE (CIA Cable,
IN 15643, Leopoldville to Director, 9/20/61).
Gizenga and Mulele were Lumumba's lieutenants who were
leading his supporters while Lumumba was in UN custody.
(Footnote continued from previous page)
[IN] VIEW UNCERTAIN OUTCOME CURRENT DEVELOP-.
MENTS [CIA] CONDUCTING CONTINGENCY PLANNING
FOR CONGO AT REQUEST POLICY ECHELONS. THIS
PLANNING DESIGNED TO PREPARE FOR SITUATION
IN WAY [UNITED STATES] WOULD PROVIDE CLAN-
DESTINE SUPPORT TO ELEMENTS IN ARMED
OPPOSITION TO LUMUMBA.
CONTEMPLATED ACTION INCLUDES PROVISION ARMS,
SUPPLIES AND PERHAPS SOME TRAINING TO ANTI-
LUMUMBA RESISTANCE GROUPS.
(CIA Cable OUT 04697, Director to Leopoldville,
10/6/60.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 257
-12-
:
Throughout the fall of 1960, the CIA continued to view
Lumumba as a serious political threat while he remained in UN
protective custody.* One concern was that if the Parliament
which had been closed by the coup
were re-opened and the moderates
* Both Richard Bissell and Bronson Tweedy, then Chief of the
CIA Africa Division, confirmed that the CIA continued to view
Lumumba as a threat even after he placed himself in UN custody
(Bissell, 9/10/75, PP. ; Tweedy, 9/9/75, pp. ). Both
Bissell and Tweedy referred to two factors to substantiate this
view: first, Lumumba was a spellbinding orator with the ability
to stir masses of people to action%; and second, the UN forces did
not restrain Lumumba's freedom of movement and the Congolese army
surrounding them were often lax in maintaining their vigil.
[Quote/Cite from transcripts.]
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 258
-13-
failed to obtain a majority vote, the "PRESSURES FOR [LUMUMBA'S]
RETURN WILL BE ALMOST IRRESISTABLE" (CIA Cable, IN 33499,
Leopoldville to Director, 10/26/60).* Another general concern
at CIA headquarters was that foreign powers would intervene in
the Congo and bring Lumumba to power (CIA Cable, OUT 81720, Director
to Leopoldville, 10/17/60). Similarly, throughout this period
Lumumba was viewed by CIA officials and the Eisenhower Adminis-
tration** as a stalking horse for "what appeared to be a Soviet...
effort to take over the Congo" (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 10, 45).
During this period, the Leopoldville station continued to
maintain close operational relationships with, and offer aid to,
Congolese contacts who expressed a desire to assassinate Lumumba***
although there is no direct evidence that aid was provided for the
specific purpose of assassination.
* A CIA Cable (IN 37289) from Leopoldville to the Director
on November 3, 1960 returns to this theme: the opening of the
Congolese Parliament by the United Nations is opposed because it
"WOULD PROBABLY RETURN LUMUMBA TO POWER.'
**See Section
meetings.
infra, on such analysis at high-level policy
***. A Congolese security officer in liaison with the CIA on an
attempt to tap Lumumba's phones "IMPLIED HE TRYING HAVE [LUMUMBA]
KILLED BUT ADDED THIS MOST DIFFICULT AS JOB WOULD HAVE BE DONE
BY AFRICAN WITH NO APPARENT INVOLVEMENT WHITE MAN. (CIA Cable,
IN 34867, Leopoldville to Director, 10/28/60.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 259
-14-
4. The Plot to Assassinate Lumumba
In the fall of 1960, a scientist from CIA headquarters
delivered to the Chief of Station in Leopoldville lethal bio-.
logical substances to be used to assassinate Patrice Lumumba.
The Chief of Station testified that after requesting and receiving
confirmation from CIA headquarters that he was to carry out the
scientist's instructions, he proceeded to take "exploratory steps"
in furtherance of the assassination plot. The Chief of Station
testified that in the course of his discussion with the CIA
scientist, Sidney Gottlieb, he was informed that President Eisenhower
had ordered the assassination mission against Patrice Lumumba.
Gottlieb's mission to the Congo was both preceded and followed by
general cables urging the "elimination" of Lumumba sent from CIA
headquarters in an extraordinarily restricted "Eves Only" channel
including two messages under the personal signature of Allen Dulles.
Station.
The lethal substances were never used by the Chief of
But despite the fact that Lumumba had placed himself in
the protective custody of the UN peace-keeping force shortly
before the poisons were delivered to the Chief of Station, there
is no clear evidence that the assassination operation was termi-
nated before Lumumba's death. There is, however, no direct evidence
of a connection between the CIA assassination plot and the events
which actually led to Lumumba's death.*
* See Section 6, infra, for a discussion of the evidence about
the circumstances that led to Lumumba's death in Katanga.
NW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 260

-15-
(a)
Dulles Cables Again for "Elimination" of Lumumba,
and a Messenger is Sent to Congo With a Highly
Sensitive Assignment
On September 19, 1960, several days after Lumumba placed him-
self in the protective custody of the United Nations peacekeeping
force in Leopoldville, Richard Bissell and Bronson Tweedy signed
a cryptic cable to Leopoldville to arrange a clandestine meeting
between the Chief of Station and "Sidney Braun, who was traveling
to the Congo on an unspecified assignment:
"
WILL
IT
["SID"] SHOULD ARRIVE APPROX 27 SEPT.
ANNOUNCE HIMSELF AS "SID FROM PARIS".
URGENT YOU SHOULD SEE ["SID"] SOONEST POSSIBLE
AFTER HE PHONES YOU. HE WILL FULLY IDENTIFY
HIMSELF AND EXPLAIN HIS ASSIGNMENT TO YOU.
(CIA Cable, OUT 71464, Bissell/Tweedy to Chief.
of Station, 9/19/60.)
The cable bore a highly unusual sensitivity indicator
that restricted circulation at CIA headquarters to the
"PROP"
Chief of the Africa Division.*
* In a letter of September 23, 1975, the Chief of the CIA Review
Staff informed the Committee that "PROP" was normally used "to
denote sensitive personnel matters" (Seymour R. Bolton to Frederick
A. O. Schwarz and Frederick D. Baron, 9/23/75. It appears that this
sensitivity indicator, while created for other purposes, was utilized
by Bissell, Tweedy, and the Chief of Station to restrict distribution
of their communications about an assassination operation. The cable
traffic cited in this report that was sent through the PROP channel
did not touch upon personnel matters except in terms of recruiting
additional CIA officers and agents for the assassination operation.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 261
-16-
:
The Bissell/Tweedy cable informed the Chief of Station that
he was to continue to use this indicator for
ALL [CABLE] TRAFFIC THIS OP, WHICH YOU
INSTRUCTED HOLD ENTIRELY TO YOURSELF.
(CIA Cable, 9/19/60.)
The Chief of Station referred to herein as "Hedgman"*
testified to a clear, independent recollection of receiving such
a cable. Hedgman stated that in September of 1960 he received a
"most unusual" cable from CIA headquarters (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 11,
.43). The cable advised, in his words, that:
someone who I would have recognized would
arrive with instructions for me.... I
believe the message was also marked for my
eyes only and contained instructions
that I was not to discuss the message with
anyone. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 12-13.)
Hedgman said that the cable did not specify the kind of instruc-
tions he was to receive, and it "did not refer to Lumumba in any
way" (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 12).
Three days after the Bissell/Tweedy message that Hedgman was
to meet "Sid" in Leopoldville, Bronson Tweedy uses the same sensi-
tivity indicator on a cable sent to Hedgman on an "Eyes Only"
basis (CIA Cable, OUT 74837, Tweedy to Leopoldville, 9/22/60).
* Due to fear of reprisal from Lumumba's followers, the Chief
of Station for the Congo from mid-summer 1960 through 1961 testi-
fied under the alias "Hedgman" (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 2; 8/25/75,
p. 4).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 262
-18-
On September 24, Allen Dulles personally issued a cable to
Leopoldville expressing in absolute terms his desire to "eliminate":
Lumumba:
WE WISH GIVE EVERY POSSIBLE SUPPORT IN
ELIMINATING LUMUMBA FROM ANY POSSIBILITY
RESUMING GOVERNMENTAL POSITION OR IF HE
FAILS IN LEOP [OLDVILLE], SETTING HIMSELF
IN STANLEYVILLE OR ELSEWHERE. (CIA Cable,
OUT 73573, Dulles to Leopoldville, 9/24/60.)
Dulles had expressed a similar view three days before in the
presence of the President at an NSC meeting, stating:
Mobutu appeared to be the effective power in
the Congo for the moment but Lumumba was not
yet disposed of and remained a grave danger
as long as he was not disposed of. (NSC
Minutes, 9/21/60)
(b) Gottlieb Delivers Lethal Substances to the Chief of
Station in the Congo for the Assassination of Lumumba
:
The Chief of Station reported through the PROP channel to Bronson
Tweedy that he had made contact with the man dispatched to Leopoldville
with a highly sensitive assignment on September 26. (CIA Cable
IN 18989, Leopoldville to Tweedy, 9/27/60) This was the same
week in which Dulles cabled about the "elimination" of Lumumba
and made his statement to the NSC about the "grave danger" that
existed as long as Lumumba was not "disposed of".
Hedgman testified about the identity of "SID" -- the messenger
referred to in the first cable through the PROP channel:
Q: Who was the messenger who arrived?
Hedgman: Mr. Sidney Gottlieb
NW 50955
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Tweedy's cable indicated that a third country national would be
required as an agent in the PROP operation:
IF DECIDED SUPPORT FOR PROP OBJECTIVES,
BELIEVE ESSENTIAL SUCH BE PROVIDED THROUGH
THIRD NATIONAL CHANNEL WITH [AMERICAN]
ROLE COMPLETELY CONCEALED. (CIA Cable,
9/22/60.)
Tweedy expressed reservations about two agents that the station
was using for other operations and said "WE ARE CONSIDERING A
THIRD NATIONAL CUTOUT CONTACT CANDIDATE AVAILABLE HERE WHO MIGHT.
FILL BILL"* (CIA Cable, 9/22/60). Despite Tweedy's concern about
the two existing station contacts, he indicated that the Chief of
station and his "colleague" presumably the man identified as
"Sid" who was to arrive in the Congo shortly to explain the PROP
operation to Hedgman were to be afforded considerable latitude
☐ in exercising their judgment on the conduct of the operation:
YOU AND COLLEAGUE UNDERSTAND WE CANNOT READ
OVER YOUR SHOULDER AS YOU PLAN AND ASSESS
OPPORTUNITIES. OUR PRIMARY CONCERN MUST BE
CONCEALMENT [AMERICAN] ROLE, UNLESS OUT-
STANDING OPPORTUNITY EMERGES WHICH MAKES
CALCULATED RISK FIRST CLASS BET. READY
ENTERTAIN ANY SERIOUS PROPOSALS YOU MAKE
BASED OUR HIGH REGARD BOTH YOUR PROFESSIONAL
JUDGMENTS. (CIA Cable, 9/22/60.).
* This is probably a reference to agent QJWIN, who was later
dispatched to the Congo. His mission is discussed in Sections
and
infra.
'
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 264
19
Q: And at that time, you knew who he was?
Hedgman:
Agency
I recognized him as an officer of the
I believe he referred to the
fact that I had received a message and that he
was the person concerned. (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
pp. 15-16)
The message carried by Gottlieb, then Science Advisor to
DDP Richard Bissell, was unmistakeably clear according to Hedgman:
Hedgman: It is my recollection that he advised me or
my instructions were, to eliminate Lumumba.
Q: By eliminate, do you mean assassinate?
Hedgman: Yes. I would say that was
my under-
standing of the primary means. I don't think it was
probably limited to that, if there was some other way
of doing it..
Q: Of doing what?
Hedgman: Of removing him from a position of political
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 17-18.)
threat.
Hedgman said that he and Gottlieb also may have discussed non-
lethal means of removing Lumumba as a "political threat", but
he said, "I cannot recall with certainty on that" (Hedgman,
8/21/75, p. 28).
however:
He clearly recalled the discussion of assassination,
Q: And what did Mr. Gottlieb indicate with regard to
the possibility of physically eliminating him?
Hedgman: It was my understanding that that was
probably expected of me.
And again:
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 18.)
Q: I take it that once you started discussing these
lethal agents, there was no doubt in your mind that
the kind of elimination he was there particularly to
discuss was killing Lumumba?
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 265
-20-
Hedgman: There was no doubt in my mind that
this was one of the way(s), and probably what
they thought was the only way that would work
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 25).
Hedgman explained Gottlieb provided him with poisons as a means
of assassination:
Q: And what did he tell you with regard to
how that might be accomplished?
Hedgman:
He brought some biological agents.
I assume that that's the correct word. But in
any case, poisonous agent with him, which he
passed to me....
These were lethal biological substances?
Hedgman: Yes. That was my understanding
as a non-expert. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 18-19.)
Hedgman testified that he received "rubber gloves, a mask, and a
syringe" along with the poisons and that Gottlieb instructed him
in their use (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 20-21). Hedgman indicated that
this paraphernalia was for administering the poisons to Lumumba :
:
Q: [W]hen he [Gottlieb] came to the Congo
to give you lethal biological agents for
the assassination of Lumumba, was it clear
at that time that the means for administering
those biological agents was to inject them
into a substance that was to be ingested by
Lumumba, whether it be food, or drink, or
toothpaste or any other substance that was
to be ingested?
Hedgman: That's my recollection, yes.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 82; accord. p. 24.)
Hedgman said that the means of assassination was not restricted
to use of the poisons provided by Gottlieb:
This was not a sine qua non that I employ this.
If there were another method, another way, it
would have been acceptable. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 19.)
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 266
-21-
For example, Hedgman testified that he may have "suggested"
shooting Lumumba to Gottlieb as an alternative to poisoning
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 27-29)
There was a firm requirement, however, that the means of assassi-
nation should not be traceable to the United States:
The biological substance, or specimens, what
have you, I think it was up to my judgment,
and if there was a better way
certainly.
[T]he point I now recall was in no way, if I
implemented these instructions, no way could
it be traced back to the United States. It.
had to be a way which could not be traced
back
either to an American or the United
States government. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 19.)
•
Hedgman said Gottlieb assured him that the poisons were pro-
duced to meet this requirement:
I believe I raised the point that poisons left
traces in the human body, which could be found
on autopsy
I believe that I was assured
that these lethal agents would (leave]
normal traces found in people that die of
certain diseases. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 23.)
Hedgman said that he had an "emotional reaction of great sur-
prise" when it first became clear that Gottlieb was there to discuss
an assassination plan (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 30). But the Chief of
Station said that he did not give any indication that he would not
carry out the instructions (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 46). Instead, he
told Gottlieb he "would explore this" (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 46)
and left him with the following impression:
I think it would be a fair impression that he would
take away the thought that I was going to look into it
and try and figure if there was a way I believe I
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 267
-22-
stressed the difficulty of trying to carry
out such an operation. (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
P. 47.)
The cable that Hedgman sent to headquarters reporting his
initial contact with Gottlieb was clearly an affirmative response
to the assignment. The Chief of Station said that he and Gottlieb
were "ON SAME WAVELENGTH." (CIA Cable IN 18989, Leopoldville to
Tweedy, 9/27/60.) Hedgman was "afraid" that Mobutu's government
was "weakening under" foreign pressure to effect a reconciliation
with Lumumba, and said:
HENCE BELIEVE MOST RAPID ACTION CONSISTENT
WITH SECURITY INDICATED.
(CIA Cable, 9/27/60.)
(c) Hedgman Testified That Gottlieb Told Him That
President Eisenhower Had Ordered the Assassination
of Lumumba
Hedgman testified that in the course of their meeting in
Leopoldville, Dr. Gottlieb informed him that President Eisenhower
had authorized the assassination of Lumumba :
Q: Did you raise with him the question of authori-
zation of such instructions to you?
Hedgman: Yes, I did. That's my quite strong
recollection, that I did.
Q:
What do you recall in essence was what you
said to him?
...
Hedgman: In essence, I think I must have pointed
out that this was not a common or usual Agency tactic,
and I may have probably said that I never heard of
it being done, which I had not, never in my training
or previous work in the Agency had I ever heard any
references to such, in my recollection at least, such
methods. And it is my recollection I asked on whose
authority these instructions were issued.
Q፡ And what did Mr. Gottlieb reply?
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 268
-23-
Hedgman: It is my recollection that he identi-
--
the President.
and I cannot recall
" or whether he'
fied the President, and I cannot
of the United States
whether he said "the President,
identified him by name. (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
pp. 30-31.)
Hedgman continued to explain that he was told "something to the
effect that the President had instructed the Director" (Hedgman,
8/21/75, pp. 32, 34). Hedgman was clear that the ultimate source
of authority for the assassination mission was the President:
Q: Your understanding then was that these
instructions were instructions coming to you
from the office of the President?
Hedgman: That's correct.
Q:
Or that he had instructed the Agency, and
they were passed on to you?
Hedgman: That's right.
2:
You are not the least unclear whether or
not you became aware with a very clear im-
pression that the President's name had been
invoked in some fashion?
Hedgman: Yes. I came ○ certainly that is my
recollection.
Q: You have no doubt about that?
Q: At the time.
Hedgman: At the time, I certainly felt that I
was under instructions from the President, yes.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 32-33.).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 269
-24-
Hedgman cautioned that he was recalling events long past:
Hedgman:
Gentlemen, after fifteen years, I cannot
be 100 per cent certain, but I have always, since
that date, had the impression in my mind that these
orders had come from the President. (Hedgman,
8/21/75, p. 34.)
But he left no doubt about the strength of his "impression":
Q: You have a very firm recollection that he
(Gottlieb] represented to you that the President
of the United States directed the assassination of
Patrice Lumumba, is that correct?¨
Hedgman: That's my recollection.
8/21/75, p. 102; accord, p. 34.)
Yes.
(Hedgman,
(d) Headquarters Makes the Assassination Plot "Highest
Priority" and Authorizes Steps in Furtherance of It'
On the basis of his talks with "Sid,'
11
Hedgman listed a
number of "possibilities" for covert action against Lumumba. At
the top of the list was the suggestion that a particular agent
be used in the following manner:
HAVE HIM TAKE REFUGE WITH BIG BROTHER.
WOULD THUS ACT AS INSIDE MAN TO BRUSH UP
DETAILS TO RAZOR EDGE. (CIA Cable, 9/27/60.)
Hedgman indicated that he would begin to follow this course by re-
calling the agent to Leopoldville. (CIA Cable, 9/27/60.) He in-
formed headquarters: "PLAN PROCEED ON BASIS PRIORITIES AS LISTED
ABOVE, UNLESS INSTRUCTED TO CONTRARY" (CIA Cable, 9/27/60).
On September 30, the Chief of Station urged that head-
quarters authorize "exploratory conversations" with this agent so
NW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 270

-25-
that he could proceed with the plan that was his top priority:
NO REALLY AIRTIGHT OP POSSIBLE WITH ASSETS
NOW AVAILABLE. MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN CANCELLING
OP OR ACCEPTING CALCULATED RISKS OF VARYING
DEGREES.
[IN] VIEW NECESSITY ACT IMMEDIATELY, IF AT
ALL, URGE HQS AUTHORIZE EXPLORATORY CONVER-
SATIONS TO DETERMINE IF [AGENT] WILLING TAKE
ROLE AS ACTIVE AGENT OR CUT-OUT THIS OP.
(WOULD APPROACH ON HYPOTHETICAL BASIS AND NOT
REVEAL PLANS.) IF HE APPEARS WILLING ACCEPT
ROLE, WE BELIEVE IT NECESSARY REVEAL OBJEC-
TIVE OP TO HIM.
. REQUEST HQS REPLY [IMMEDIATELY]. (CIA
Cable, IN 20857, Leopoldville to Tweedy,
9/30/60.)
Hedgman's cables
channel
mounted.
- -
sent for Tweedy's "Eyes Only" in the PROP
indicated that the assassination operation had been
They show that a specific operational plan had been set
in motion to the extent that Hedgman thought that it would have
to be clearly "cancelled" by headquarters before he would stop
proceeding with the plan. Hedgman's description of the means
of maintaining the security of the operation could be taken as
a reference to a lethal biological agent which would be slow to
take effect or which would leave no traces:
ALTHOUGH TOO EARLY SEE SPECIFIC DETAILS
[AGENT'S] PART IN OP, BELIEVE RISK MINI-
MIZED IF HE LEAVES AREA BEFORE EFFECTS OP
ARE APPARENT. (CIA Cable, IN 20857,
Leopoldville to Tweedy.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 271
-26-
The same day, through the PROP channel, Hedgman received
authorization from headquarters to proceed with his top priority
plan:
YOU ARE AUTHORIZED HAVE EXPLORATORY TALKS
WITH SCHOTROFFE TO ASSESS HIS ATTITUDE.
TOWARD POSSIBLE ACTIVE AGENT OR CUTOUT ROLE.
APPRECIATE MANNER YOUR APPROACH TO
PROBLEM. (CIA Cable, OUT 75900, Fields to
Leopoldville, 9/30/60.)
In this cable, Glenn Fields, Assistant Chief of the Africa Division,
expressed a "HOPE
FOR MODERATE HASTE" (CIA Cable OUT 75900,
Fields to Leopoldville, 9/30/60.)
According to the report of the Chief of Station, Gottlieb
left the Congo to return to headquarters on October 5 in view of
the "EXPIRATION DATE HIS MATERIALS" (CIA Cable IN 24171, Leopold-
ville to Tweedy, 10/7/60). The "expiration" of Gottlieb's
"materials" probably refers to the date beyond which the substances.
would no longer have lethal strength. Although the relation of
the "expiration date" to Gottlieb's departure is unclear from the
cables, it probably signifies that some of the biological substances
had lost their toxicity. Nonetheless, the Chief of Station indi-
cated that Gottlieb left some biological substances that were still
lethal and that he intended to proceed with the assassination
operation:
[SID] LEFT CERTAIN ITEMS OF CONTINUING USE-
FULNESS. [CHIEF OF STATION] PLANS CONTINUE
TRY IMPLEMENT OP. (CIA Cable IN 24171,
Leopoldville to Tweedy, 10/7/60.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 272
-27-
By this point, Hedgman had conducted his "exploratory con-
versation" with the agent who was his best candidate for gaining
access to Lumumba (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 60). Hedgman testified
that the subject he "explored" was the agent's ability to find a
means to inject poison into Lumumba's food or toothpaste. (Hedgman,
8/21/75, p. 60):
I believe that I queried the agent who had
access to Lumumba, and his entourage, in
detail about just what that access, what
access he actually had, as opposed to speak-
ing to people. In other words, did he have
access to the bathroom, did he have access
to the kitchen, things of that sort.
I have a recollection of having queried him
on that without specifying why I wanted to
know this. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 48.)
On October 7, the Chief of Station reported to headquarters
on this meeting:
CONDUCTED EXPLORATORY CONVERSATION WITH
[AGENT] ... AFTER EXPLORING ALL POSSIBILITIES
[AGENT] SUGGESTED SOLUTION RECOMMENDED BY
HOS. ALTHOUGH DID NOT PICK UP BALL, BELIEVE
HE PREPARED TAKE ANY ROLE NECESSARY WITHIN
LIMITS SECURITY ACCOMPLISH OBJECTIVE.
Hedgman testified that his exploratory steps left him with
doubts about the wisdom or practicality of the assassination plot:
[C]ertainly I looked on it as
a pretty wild
scheme professionally. I did not think that
it ... was practical professionally.
Certainly
to keep the U.S. out of it....
I explored it, but I doubt that I ever really
expected to carry it out.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 111.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 273
-28-
However, his cables indicate that he was planning to con-
tinue to implement the operation and sought the resources to do
it successfully. He urged headquarters to send him an alternate
operative for the assassination mission in the event that they
found his first choice unacceptable:
IF HQS BELIEVE [AGENT'S CIRCUMSTANCES]
BAR HIS PARTICIPATION, WISH STRESS NECES-
SITY PROVIDE STATION WITH QUALIFIED THIRD
COUNTRY NATIONAL. (CIA Cable IN 24171,
Leopoldville to Tweedy, 10/7/60.)
Tweedy cabled the Chief of Station the same day that he "HAD.
GOOD DISCUSSION YOUR COLLEAGUE 7 OCT" -. presumably referring to
a de-briefing of Gottlieb upon his return to the United States.
(CIA Cable OUT 78336, Tweedy to Leopoldville, 10/7/60.) Tweedy
indicated that he was
CONSIDERING DISPATCHING THIRD COUNTRY
NATIONAL OPERATOR WHO, WHEN HE ARRIVES,
SHOULD THEN BE ASSESSED BY YOU OVER
PERIOD TO SEE WHETHER HE MIGHT PLAY
ACTIVE OR CUTOUT ROLE ON FULL TIME BASIS.
(CIA Cable OUT 78336, Tweedy to Chief of
Station, 10/7/60.)
This expression of support for the operation was followed by
an extraordinary pair of cables from headquarters on October 15,
1960. One of these cables was issued by a desk officer in CIA's
Africa Division and released under Bronson Tweedy's signature, as
Division Chief, and sent to Leopoldville through standard CIA
channels, which would allow for distribution of the message to
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 274
-29-
appropriate personnel in the CIA station and the United States
embassy. This cable generally discussed the possibility of
E
covertly supplying certain Congolese leaders with funds and
military aid (CIA Cable OUT 81476, Director to Leopoldville,
10/15/60). This cable also delimited the kind of action against
Lumumba that would be authorized:
ONLY DIRECT ACTION WE CAN NOW STAND BEHIND.
IS TO SUPPORT IMMOBILIZING OR ARRESTING
[LUMUMBA], DESIRABLE AS MORE DEFINITIVE
ACTION MIGHT BE. ANY ACTION TAKEN WOULD
HAVE TO BE ENTIRELY CONGOLESE.. (CIA Cable
OUT 81476, Director to Leopoldville,
10/15/60.)
On the same day that this message was dispatched, a second
cable was sent to Leopoldville. This cable was issued personally
by Bronson Tweedy and sent in the special PROP channel for
Hedgman's "EYES ONLY" (CIA Cable OUT 81396, Tweedy to Chief of
Station, 10/15/60).
YOU WILL NOTE FROM CABLE THROUGH NORMAL
CHANNEL CURRENTLY BEING TRANSMITTED A PARA [GRAPH]
ON PROP TYPE SUGGESTIONS. YOU WILL PROBABLY RE-
CEIVE MORE ALONG THESE LINES AS STUMBLING BLOC
[LUMUMBA] REPRESENTS INCREASINGLY APPARENT ALL
STUDYING CONGO SITUATION CLOSELY AND HIS DIS-
POSITION SPONTANEOUSLY BECOMES NUMBER ONE CON-
SIDERATION.
RAISE ABOVE SO YOU NOT CONFUSED BY ANY
APPARENT DUPLICATION. THIS CHANNEL REMAINS FOR
SPECIFIC PURPOSE YOU DISCUSSED WITH COLLEAGUE AND
ALSO REMAINS HIGHEST PRIORITY. (CIA Cable OUT
81396, Tweedy to Chief of Station, 10/15/60).
Thus, Tweedy resolved the apparent duplication of cables by indi-
cating that communications about the assassination mission were
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 275
-30-
202
restricted to the PROP channel and that the assassination
mission was to move forward. He went on to request Hedgman's
reaction to the prospect of sending a senior CIA case officer to
the Congo on a "DIRECTED ASSIGNMENT TO CONCENTRATE ENTIRELY
THIS ASPECT" (CIA Cable OUT 81396, Tweedy to Chief of Station,
10/15/60). This referred to CIA officer Justin O'Donnell, who
testified that in late October he was asked by Richard Bissell to
undertake the mission of assassinating Lumumba. *
In the course of suggesting the assignment of an additional
officer to the Congo, the cable provided insight into the reason
that the assassination mission had not progressed more rapidly
under the Chief of Station:
SEEMS TO US YOUR OTHER COMMITMENTS TOO HEAVY
GIVE NECESSARY CONCENTRATION PROP. (CIA
Cable OUT 81396, Tweedy to Chief of Station,
10/15/60.)
Again, in contradiction of the limitations on anti-Lumumba
activity outlined in the cable sent through normal channels,
Tweedy's cable also proposed a plan to kidnap Lumumba:
POSSIBILITY USE COMMANDO TYPE GROUP FOR
ABDUCTION [LUMUMBA], EITHER VIA ASSAULT
ON HOUSE UP CLIFF FROM RIVER OR, MORE
PROBABLY, IF [LUMUMBA] ATTEMPTS ANOTHER
BREAKOUT INTO TOWN REQUEST YOUR VIEWS.
(CIA Cable OUT 81396, Tweedy to Chief of
Station, 10/15/60.)
* For a full account of the meeting between Bissell and
O'Donnell and O'Donnell's subsequent activities in the Congo, see
Section 5(a), infra.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 276
-31-
This series of cables sent
during, and after
Gottlieb's visit to the Congo demonstrated a clear intent at CIA
headquarters to authorize and support rapid progress on the assassi-
nation mission. The cables also show an intent to severely re-
strict knowledge of the assassination operation among officers in
CIA's Africa Division and among United States personnel in the
Congo, including those who were aware of and involved in other
covert activities.
(e)
The Chief of Station Moves Forward With Assassination
Plot
The testimony of the Chief of Station, taken fifteen
years after the events in question and without benefit of review
of the cables discussed above, was compatible with the picture
derived from the cables of a fully authorized and tightly restricted
assassination operation. Hedgman's testimony is at variance from
the cables only with respect to the lack of vigor with which he
claims to have pursued the assignment which he dealt with in an
affirmative, aggressive manner in the cables.
(i)
The Chief of Station Testified That He Requested
and Received Confirmation of the Assassination
Plan from Headquarters
Hedgman testified that, after receiving Gottlieb's
instructions, he cabled CIA headquarters seeking confirmation that
he was to carry out Gottlieb's instructions (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
.p. 36). Hedgman did not recall whether he identified Gottlieb by
name, and he doubted that he "would have" mentioned the President
in such a cable (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 36, 43).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 277
-32-
Hedgman described the extraordinary security precautions he
took cabling his request for confirmation of the assassination in-
structions:"
There was some special channel
because
it was handled differently than any other
normal message. For example, it was not put
on a regular cable form, which, you know,
you have several copies for your various files.
And it was my recollection that I personally
carried the message to the communicator to
encrypt, and that was worded in a doublt-talk
way that even the communicator would not
necessarily know what it was about."
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 42-43.)
This description approximates the PROP channel that was used for
all cables relating to the assassination mission.
Hedgman testified that soon after cabling his request for con-
firmation that he was to carry out the assassination assignment,
he received an affirmative reply from headquarters:
I believe I received a reply which I interpreted
to mean yes, that he was the messenger and his
instructions were. ... duly authorized.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 37-38.)
Despite the cryptic nature of the cables, Hedgman said "I was con-
vinced that yes, it was right." (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 44, 50.)
Hedgman did not recall receiving any indication, either from
Gottlieb or by cable, that he was to await further authorization
before using the poisons (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 38). Hedgman ex-
pressed some uncertainty about whether he "had an absolute free
hand" to proceed with an assassination attempt without receiving
"final confirmation" (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 38, 47, 53).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 278
-33-
Hedgman summarized his testimony on this question in his
second appearance:
made
I probably had authority to act on my own
but ... it was possible that I had to go
back and get clearance for my action.
(Hedgman, 8/25/75, p. 11; see also 8/21/75,
P. 39.)
Hedgman testified, however, that a "policy decision" had been
that assassination had been "approved" as "one means" of
eliminating Lumumba as a political threat (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 52).
I thought the policy decision had been made
in the White House, not in the Agency, and
that the Agency had been selected as the
Executive Agent, if you will, to carry out
a political decision. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 52.)
Although Hedgman assumed that the President had not personally
selected the means of assassination, he testified that he was under
the impression that the President had authorized the CIA to do so
and to proceed to take action:
Hedgman:
I doubt that I thought the
President had said, you use this system.
But my understanding is the President had
made a decision that an act should take
place, but then put that into the hands of
the Agency to carry out his decision.
Q: Whatever that act was to be, it was
clearly to be assassination or the death
of the foreign political leader?
Hedgman:
Yes.
Q: Instigated by the CIA, initiated by the CIA?
Hedgman: Certainly if those if Dr. Gottlieb's
Iethal agents were employed, that would have been
the result, yes. ' (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 104.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 279
-34-
Nonetheless, Hedgman said he had no "desire to carry out
these instructions" (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 106).
Whether or not
he felt there was authority to attempt an assassination without
seeking final confirmation, he said that he would have checked
with headquarters before taking action:
I think probably that I would have gone back
and advised that I intended to carry out and
sought final approval before carrying it out
had I been going to do it, had there been a
way to do it. I did not see it as
a
matter which could be accomplished practically,
certainly. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 51-52.)
He proceeded to affirm that his reason for seeking a final approval
would have been to receive assurances about the practicality of the
specific mode of assassination that he planned to use (Hedgman,
8/21/75, p. 53).
(ii) The Chief of Station Took "Exploratory Steps" in
Furtherance of the Assassination Plot and Testified
That He Destroyed Cable Traffic Related to the Plot
Hedgman testified that after Gottlieb's visit, he locked
the lethal substances in the bottom drawer of his safe, "probably".
sealed in an envelope marked "Eyes Only" with his name on it
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 48-49). He said that his secretary was
the only other person with access to the safe and that she would
not have examined a package marked in this fashion (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
´p. 49).
Hedgman testified that it was "possible" that he pre-
served the poisons in his safe until after Lumumba's death; at any
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 280

-35-
"
rate, they were not disposed of before Lumumba was 'successfully
neutralized" by being captured and imprisoned by the Congolese
government (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 85-86) at the beginning of
December, 1960. Hedgman said that he does not recall taking the
poisons out of his safe on any occasion other than when he disposed
of them on the banks of the Congo River:
I think that I took them out probably in a
briefcase, or an air bag of some sort, and
I believe that the things like the rubber
gloves and the mask were thrown away in a
bushy area or something where, you know, if
they were found, it didn't matter that much.
I believe I buried the other matters.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 84.)
Hedgman testified, however, that in the intervening months,
while the poisons were in his safe, he took "exploratory steps"
in furtherance of the assassination plot (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 60).
He said that he sent several cables to CIA headquarters, after his
request for confirmation of the assassination instructions, which
"probably reflected further steps I had taken" (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
pp. 59-60).
Hedgman stated that his cables to headquarters on this matter
were essentially "progress reports" on his attempts to find a means
of access to Lumumba (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 50). He also said that
he "would bet on the fact that there was at least one or two more
[cables] back" to him from CIA headquarters in response (Hedgman,
8/21/75, p. 50). .
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 281
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The cable traffic conforms to Hedgman's recollection. For
two months after Gottlieb's arrival in the Congo, a regular stream
of messages flowed between the Leopoldville Chief of Station and
headquarters through the PROP channel. In late September and early
October the cables concerned the initiation of Hedgman's top priority.
plan recruiting the aid of a particular agent thought to have
sufficient access to Lumumba's entourage to be able to poison
Lumumba.* In mid-October, Tweedy notified the Chief of Station
that the assassination mission remained "HIGHEST PRIORITY", and
he suggested sending additional personnel to Leopoldville to in-
tensify "CONCENTRATION" on this operation (CIA Cable OUT 81396, Tweedy
to Chief of Station, 10/15/60).**
These cables were followed by Hedgman's report to Tweedy on
October 17 that the agent he had picked for the assassination mission
* CIA Cable IN 18989, Chief of Station to Tweedy, 9/27/60;
CIA Cable IN 20857, Chief of Station to Tweedy, 9/30/60; CIA Cable
OUT 75900, Fields to Chief of Station, 9/30/60; CIA Cable IN 24171,
Chief of Station to Tweedy, 10/7/60. See Section
full treatment of these cables.
**See Section
cable.
supra, for.
supra, for more complete text of this
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 282
-37-
HAS NOT BEEN ABLE PENETRATE ENTOURAGE.
THUS HE HAS NOT BEEN ABLE PROVIDE OPS
INTEL NEEDED THIS JOB. (CIA Cable
IN 28936, Chief of Station to Tweedy,
'10/17/60.)
Hedgman testified that this operative left Leopoldville "sometime
in October" which terminated their discussions about gaining access
to Lumumba for the purpose of assassinating him (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
p. 61). The Chief of Station continued to communicate with head-
quarters about finding a means to move forward with the assassina-
tion operation and securing the necessary manpower to do so.
Hedgman confirmed Tweedy's view that although the assassination
operation was still his highest priority, he was overburdened with
responsibility for other operations so that he could not concentrate
on the progress of the assassination mission:
ALTHOUGH MAINTAINING PRIORITY INTEREST THIS
OP, ABLE DEVOTE ONLY LIMITED AMOUNT TIME,
VIEW MULTIPLE OPS COMMITMENTS. (CIA Cable,
IN 28936, 10/17/60.)
Due to his workload, the Chief of Station responded enthusiastically
to Tweedy's suggestion of an additional case officer:
IF CASE
BELIEVE EARLY ASSIGNMENT SENIOR CASE OFFICER
HANDLE PROP OPS EXCELLENT IDEA
OFFICER AVAILABLE [CHIEF OF STATION] WOULD
DEVOTE AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE TO ASSISTING
AND DIRECTING HIS EFFORTS. (CIA Cable
IN 28936, 10/17/60.)
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The Chief of Station concluded this cable with the following
cryptic recommendation, reminiscent of his testimony that he
may have "suggested" shooting Lumumba to Gottlieb as an alternative
to poisoning (ledgman, 8/21/75, pp. 27-29):
IF CASE OFFICER SENT, RECOMMEND HQS
POUCH SOONEST HIGH POWERED FOREIGN MAKE
RIFLE WITH TELESCOPIC SCOPE AND SILENCER.
HUNTING GOOD HERE WHEN LIGHTS RIGHT.
HOWEVER AS HUNTING RIFLES NOW FORBIDDEN,
WOULD KEEP RIFLE IN OFFICE PENDING OPENING
OF HUNTING SEASON. (CIA Cable IN 28936,
10/17/60.)
The
The first sentence of Hedgman's recommendation clearly refers
to sending a sniper rifle to the Congo via diplomatic pouch.
rest of the message is probably an oblique reference to the
possibility of shooting Lumumba at the "OPENING OF HUNTING SEASON"
in other words, at the first opportunity to find Lumumba outside
the residence where he remained in UN protective custody. This
interpretation is bolstered by a report sent the next month by
the Chief of Station through the PROP channel for Tweedy's "EYES,
ALONE." Hedgman's cable described the stalemate which prevailed from
mid-September until Lumumba's departure for Stanleyville on
November 27; Lumumba was virtually a prisoner in UN custody, but
inaccessible to CIA agents and the Congolese:
TARGET HAS NOT LEFT BUILDING IN SEVERAL
WEEKS. HOUSE GUARDED DAY AND NIGHT BY
CONGOLESE AND UN TROOP.... CONGOLESE
TROOPS ARE THERE TO PREVENT TARGET'S
ESCAPE AND TO ARREST HIM IF HE ATTEMPTS.
UN TROOPS THERE TO PREVENT STORMING OF
PALACE BY CONGOLESE. CONCENTRIC RINGS
OF DEFENSE MAKE ESTABLISHMENT OF OBSER-
VATION POST IMPOSSIBLE. ATTEMPTING GET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 284
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COVERAGE OF ANY MOVEMENT INTO OR OUT OF
HOUSE BY CONGOLESE.... TARGET HAS DISMISSED
MOST OF SERVANTS SO ENTRY THIS MEANS SEEMS
REMOTE. (CIA Cable IN 42478, Chief of
Station to Tweedy.)
Hedgman testified that all of his cable traffic about the
assassination question would have been sent with the same
extraordinarily stringent security precautions -- presumably re-
ferring to the PROP channel which concerned Gottlieb's visit
and the confirmation of authorization for his instructions:
I would have sent in a special channel
anything dealing with Lumumba, at least
that would touch upon his removal in one
way or another. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 62.)
The Chief of Station also testified that sometime before
leaving the Station, he destroyed all cable traffic relating to
the assassination mission (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 89). Hedgman's
best recollection was that he had received instructions to destroy
those cables (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 96). Hedgman said he had never
before in his tenure as Chief of Station in the Congo destroyed
cable traffic because of its sensitivity (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 91)..
But he stated that the cables relating to assassination were
destroyed because of their extremely sensitive nature.* He said
* It is possible that copies of cables dealing with such a
sensitive operation were also destroyed at CIA headquarters.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 285
-40-
that eventually
I destroyed a great deal of traffic, because
the Congo was a highly sensitive area in
which at one period I recall we had all
of our files in the burn barrels. I mean,
when you wanted a file, you went over and
dug it out of the burn barrell. (Hedgman,
8/21/75, p. 91.).
At the conclusion of his testimony about the assassination
plot, the Chief of Station was asked to give a general characteri-
zation of the advisability of the plot and the tenor of the times
in which it took place. His response indicated that although he
was willing to carry out what he considered a duly authorized
order, he was not convinced of the necessity of assassinating
Lumumba :
I looked upon the Agency as an executive
arm of the Presidency.... Therefore, I
suppose I thought that it was an order
issued in due form from an authorized
authority..
On the other hand, I looked at it as a
kind of operation that I could do without,
that I thought that probably the Agency.
and the U.S. government could get along
without. I didn't regard Lumumba as the
kind of person who was going to bring on
World War III or something.
I might have had a somewhat different
attitude if I thought that one man could
bring on World War III and result in the
deaths of millions of people or something,
but I didn't see him in that light. I saw
him as a danger to the political position.
of the United States in Africa, but
nothing more than that. (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
pp. 110-111.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 286
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(f)
Testimony of Bissell and Tweedy About the Degree
of Support for and Perpetration of the Assassination
Plot
There is a great variance between the testimony of Richard
Bissell and Bronson Tweedy and the picture of the assassination
plot presented by the Chief of Station and the cable traffic from
the period. While the weight of the evidence demonstrates that
the assassination effort was the "highest priority" at CIA head-
quarters among operations in the Congo, Bissell has no direct
recollection of Gottlieb's mission to the Congo and Tweedy can
recall nothing more than consideration of the feasibility of an
assassination attempt.
(i) Tweedy Had No Recollection of the Operation
To Poison Lumumba
As Chief of the Africa Division, Bronson Tweedy was the principal
liaison at CIA headquarters with the Chief of Station in Leopoldville
for all instructions, plans, and progress reports concerning the
effort to assassinate Lumumba, which were communicated through the
special PROP channel. Most of the reports and recommendations
cabled to headquarters by the Chief of Station on the assassination
operation were marked for Tweedy's "Eyes Only."
Tweedy personally signed both the cable which initially informed
the Chief of Station that "SID" would arrive in Leopoldville, with
an assignment (CIA Cable OUT 71464, Bissell/Tweedy to Chief of
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 287
-42-
Station, 9/19/60) and the cable of October 7 indicating that he
had debriefed Gottlieb upon his return from the Congo (CIA Cable
OUT 78336, Tweedy to Chief of Station, 10/7/60). Tweedy was also
the "Eyes Only" recipient of Hedgman's reports on Gottlieb's
arrival in the Congo (CIA Cable IN 18989, Chief of Station to
Tweedy, 9/27/60) and the subsequent communications about the plan
which emerged from the discussions between Gottlieb and Hedgman
as the top priority infiltration of an agent into Lumumba's en-
tourage to administer a lethal poison to the Congolese leader (CIA
Cable IN 20857, Chief of Station to Tweedy, 9/30/60; CIA Cable,
Chief of Station to Tweedy, 10/7/60; CIA Cable, Chief of Station
to Tweedy, 10/17/60).
Tweedy testified, however, without benefit of reviewing these
cables, that he had no knowledge of the plot to poison Lumumba :
? Do you have any knowledge of a messenger
from CIA headquarters having to go to the Congo
to provide the Chief of Station in the Congo
with instructions to carry out the assassination
of Lumumba, if possible, and also provide him
with the tools to carry out such an assassination,
namely, poisons and medical equipment for admin-
istering them?
Mr. Tweedy. No, I do not. (Tweedy, 9/9/75, pp. 30-31)
* See Sections 4(a) 4(e) for full treatment of the cables sent
in the PROP channel between Tweedy and the Chief of Station in
Leopoldville..
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 288
-43-
When asked his opinion about the truth of the testimony received
by the Committee that poisons were delivered to the Congo by
Gottlieb, who carried instructions that they were to be used in
the assassination of Lumumba, Tweedy replied:
There is nothing in my experience with the
Agency which would really bear on that
point whatsoever.
(Tweedy, 9/9, pp. 39-39)
a courier,
"I will bet I knew it, but I don't recall it" (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 35).
Tweedy testified that it was "perfectly possible" for lethal bio-
logical substances to have been sent to the Congo, "but I don't
recall it" (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 30).
Tweedy added that if Gottlieb went to the Congo as
to come to
In response to a question about whether he knew about a cable
from headquarters informing Hedgman that a messenger was
the Congo with instructions for him, Tweedy said that he would be
"very surprised if I didn't [know], but I certainly have no recoll-
ection of it whatsoever (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 31).
Tweedy said that he "was not going to gainsay" the testimony of
the Chief of Station that a cable was sent to headquarters through
a special channel requesting confirmation that the instructions
were to be carried out but he did not recall it (Tweedy, 9/9, pp.
32-33).
Tweedy commented that rather than questioning the truth of the·
testimony of the Chief of Station,* the discrepancies in their
*
Tweedy expressed a high regard for the general credibility of the
Chief of Station. Tweedy said that he never had occasion 
to doubt
Hedgman's veracity or integrity, adding, "I would trust his memory
and I certainly trust his integrity." (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 36)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 289
-44-
testimony could be attributed to his own lack of recall:
I had to
I really am having trouble with this.
be reminded of so many things. [T]he things
that I recall the most vividly about all my
African experiences were. the things I was
basically concerned with all the time, which was
putting this division together and the rest of
it.
When it comes to operational detail I start
fuzzy and you would have thought with something
like thinking about Mr. Lumumba in these terms,
that I would have gone to bed and got up thinking
about Lumumba, I can assure you this wasn't the
(Tweedy, 9/9, p. 34)
case.
Tweedy was firm, however, in his disbelief that "Gottlieb would
have left instructions with the Chief of Station which would have
empowered [him]. to go out and assassinate Lumumba, without any
further recourse or reference to headquarters" (Tweedy, 9/9, pp. 32,
Tweedy said:
36).
In such a matter of this kind, headquarters would
have wanted to have a last word up to the last
minute. (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 36)
(ii)
Tweedy Testified That He Discussed With Bissell
the Feasibility of Assassinating Lumumba and He
Cabled Hedgman About Gaining Access to Lumumba
For the Purpose of Assassination
Despite Tweedy's lack of recollection about the actual plot to
poison Lumumba, he did recall exploring the feasibility of an assass-
ination attempt.
Tweedy testified that he had discussed the subject of assassinating
Lumumba "more than once" with Richard Bissell in the fall of 1960
(Tweedy, 9/9, pp. 14-15). Tweedy stated that he did not know
NW .50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 290

)
-45-
whether Bissell had consulted with any "higher authority" about
exploring the possibilities for assassinating Lumumba (Tweedy,
9/9, p. 28): Generally, Tweedy said, when he received an instruc-
tion from Bissell he would proceed to implement it on the assump-
tion that it was fully authorized above the level of DDP:
I would proceed with it on the basis that he
was authorized to give me instructions and it
was up to him to bloody well know what he 
was
empowered to tell me to do. (Tweedy, 9/9, p.13)
Tweedy characterized his discussions with Bissell about assass-
inating Lumumba as "contingency planning" (Tweedy, 9/9/75, p. 28):
I think it came up in the sense that
Tweedy..
Dick would have said we probably better be
thinking about whether it might ever be necessary
or desirable to get rid of Lumumba, in which case
we presumably should be in position to assess
whether we could do it or not successfully.
Q. Do it, meaning carry off an assassination?
Tweedy. Yes, but it was never discussed with him
in any other sense but a planning exercise,
never were we instructed to do anything of this
kind. We were instructed to ask whether 
such 
a
thing would be feasible and to have the Chief of
Station be thinking along those lines as well.
(Tweedy, 9/9, p. 15)
Tweedy said that the planning that he undertook pursuant to his con-
versation with Bissell included "a few" cables that he remembers
sending to the Chief of Station asking him
to keep in mind what sort of access one might ever
have had to Lumumba. .[in] the eventuality that
we might wish to get rid of Mr. Lumumba personally.
(Tweedy, 9/9, pp. 19-21)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 291
-46-
Tweedy did not recall inquiring about gaining access to Lumumba for
the purpose of abducting him from UN custody (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 24);
rather he "supposed" that various means of assassination were
being explored:
Q. Would this be access to shoot him or would this
be access to his personal food or drink or toiletries?
Tweedy. I suppose all those types of things might
have been considered. (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 23).
Q. In your discussions with Bissell, about the
feasibility of an assassination operation, did
poisons come up as one means that was being con-
sidered and which the Chief of Station should explore?
Tweedy. I am sure it must have. After all, there
are not many ways of doing it. Shoot a man, poison
him, of course you could, I suppose, stab him or
something like that. But basically you are talking
about a contingency plan which I assume has the best
possibility of protecting the involvement of the U.S.
Government and if you want to do it in a manner which
would be as distant, if that is the right word, as
possible, I think poison would then stand high on
the list of possibilities..
Tweedy did not "recall specifically" the response from the Chief
of Station, but said he was "sure" that he received "a serious
answer.
a disciplined reply to an instruction from headquarters"
(Tweedy, 9/9, pp. 23,27).
Although Tweedy did not recall sending or receiving cables in a
special channel concerning the "messenger" to the Congo or confirm-
ation of his instructions, he acknowledged that the cables exploring
access to Lumumba for the purpose of assassination would have been
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 292
-47-
sent in a channel that was even more closely restricted than the
Tweedy
normal CIA cable traffic (Tweedy, 9/9, pp. 22, 32-33).
:
said destruction of such cable traffic would have been left to the
discretion of the Chief of Station and he did not know whether
Hedgman destroyed the Station's copies (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 22).
conver-
Tweedy said "I would be surprised if I didn't" have a
sation with Sidney Gottlieb about "anything in his inventory that
could possibly be used, including lethal biological substances
(Tweedy, 9/9, pp. 68-69). Tweedy "suspected" that "the first
.conversation along these lines would undoubtedly have been held
between Dick Bissell and Sidney Gottlieb," which Tweedy then would
have "followed-up" (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 69).
Tweedy maintained that the period in which he explored the
means of access for assassinating Lumumba remained "a planning
interval and at no point can I recall that I ever felt it was im-
minent that somebody would say 'go'" (Tweedy, 9/9. pp. 18-19):
Tweedy. It was always my assumption that at the
time anything like this should occur there would
have been some kind of real focus on the problem
at probably a very considerable policy level with-
in the Agency.
and it never occurred to 
me 
that
I would get a call or Bissell would ask me to come
down to his office and sya go to it.
ever in a position where he said that I would .
We never got
merely implement plan so-and-so.
that far.
Nor were we
Q. You didn't have any action plans for the
assassination of Lumumba that you had prepared or
were aware of? .
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 293
-48-
Tweedy. No. Planning, yes, but nothing that
ever got anywhere. (Tweedy, 9/9, p. 19)
It is difficult to reconcile the cable traffic with Tweedy's
testimony that no action plans were launched and that no authoriz-
ation for implementing the assassination operation, authorization
for Hedgman's approach to his agent to explore access to Lumumba's
entourage is in accord with Tweedy's description of his inquiries
about gaining access to Lumumba.
However, the fact that Tweedy was personnaly informed that the
Chief of Station "PLANS CONTINUE TRY IMPLEMENT OP" (CIA Cable IN
24171, Chief of Station to Tweedy, 10/7/60) is harder to reconcile
with his statements that a "go ahead" on the operation was never
imminent, especially in light of Tweedy's PROP cable the next week
which told the Chief of Station that Lumumba's
DISPOSITION SPONTANEOUSLY BECOMES NUMBER ONE.
CONSIDERATION. . . THIS CHANNEL REMAINS FOR
SPECIFIC PURPOSE YOU DISCUSSED WITH COLLEAGUE
AND ALSO REMAINS HIGHEST PRIORITY (CIA Cable
OUT 81396, Tweedy to Chief of Station, 10/15/60)
(iii) : Bissell Testified That He Did Not Recall
Whether The Assassination Operation Had
Moved From Planning To Implementation
But It Was Not Against Agency Policy to
Send Poisons to The Congo
Richard Bissell testified that he did not remember discussing
the feasibility of assassinating Lumumba with Bronson Tweedy, but it
seemed "entirely probable" to him that such discussions took place
(Bissell, 9/10, pp. 3-4).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 294
-49-
Bissell said that
Bissell said he "may have" given Tweedy specific instructions about
steps he was to take to further an assassination plan, but he did
not remember to do so (Bissell, 9/10,p.4).
exploring access to Lumumba -"almost certainly" seeking information
would have
from the Chief of Station about access for poisoning
been a "key part" of his "planning and preparatory activity" but
he had no specific recollection of cable communications on this
Bissell remembered that he was
subject (Bissell, 9/10, pp. 6-8).
aware that the Chief of Station had an agent thought to have direct
access to Lumumba (Bissell; 9/10, p. 80).
Bissell testified that he "most certainly" approved any cables
that Tweedy sent to the Chief of Station seeking information about
gaining access to Lumumba but it was so sensitive a matter (Bissell,
9/10, p. 8) Bissell added:
I think Mr. Tweedy, on the basis of an oral author-
ization from me, would have had the authority to
send such a cable without my signing off on it.
(Bissell, 9/10, p. 8)
Bissell believed that Tweedy would have known of Gottlieb's trip
to the Congo, although it was possible that Tweedy was "cut out of
knowledge of the specific operation" (Bissell, 9/10, p. 21).
Bissell's lack of recollection of discussing his assignment to
Justin O'Donnell with Tweedy was the reason for his speculation that
* Bissell's assignment to O'Donnell is discussed in Sections 5(a)
(i) and 5(a)(ii), infra.
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Tweedy might have been unaware of the true purpose of Gottlieb's
visit (Bissell, 9/10, pp. 20-22).
I
Bissell did not recall cables concerning the dispatch of a
messenger and subsequently confirming that his instructions were
to be followed, but he said "This sounds highly likely.
would expect, given the background; that the confirmation would.
have been forthcoming" (Bissell, 9/10, p. 43).
It was "very probable," according to Bissell, that he discussed
the assassination of Lumumba with Sidney Gottlieb, who was then
his Science Advisor (Bissell, 9/10, p. 14). Bissell said that on a
number of occasions he discussed with Gottlieb "the availability
of means of incapacitation, including assassination" (Bissell, 9/10,
P. 60).
Although he had no "specific recollection," Bissell assumed
that, if Gottlieb went to the Congo, he had approved the mission,
(which "might very well" have dealt with the assassination of
Lumumba) (Bissell, 9/10, pp. 18, 20, 44). Despite his absence of
specific recollection of these events, Bissell said, "There is
nothing in mind that I remember that would be in conflict" with the
testimony of the Chief of Station that Gottlieb carried poisons to
the Congo (Bissell, 9/10, p. 35).
Bissell testified that it would not have been against CIA policy
in the fall of 1960 to send poisons to the Congo (Bissell, 9/10, p. 35).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 296
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He classified "the act of taking the kit to the Congo.
in the planning stage" (Bissell, 9/10, p. 49).
as still
Bissell acknowledged,
however, that the dispatch of poisons and paraphernalia with which
to administer them was an extraordinary event:
It would indeed have been rather unusual to send
such materials
sort.
- - -
a specific kit.
of this
out to a relatively small station, unless
planning for their use were quite far along.
(Bissell, 9/10, p. 37).
Nonetheless, Bissell said that he "probably believed" that he
had sufficient authority at that point to direct CIA officers to
move from the stage of planning to implementation (Bissell, 9/10,
pp. 60-61). In light of his absence of a specific recollection of
these events, he stated that "if it be taken as established that Mr.
1.1 Gottlieb
Gottlieb took specific instructions 'to implement,
would not have been acting beyond the mandate given to him by
Bissell and it would show that the assassination plot "had then passed
into an implementation phase" and that "authorization was given"
(Bissell, 9/10/ pp. 39, 41, 49).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 297
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5.
The Question of a Connection Between the Assassination
Plot and Other Actions of CIA Officers and Operatives
in the Congo
Justin O'Donnell, a senior CIA officer in the clandestine
operations division in 1960, testified that during this period he
had been asked by DDP Richard Bissell to go to the Congo to carry
out the assassination of Lumumba (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, pp. 11-12).
O'Donnell said that he refused to participate in an assassination
operation, but proceeded to the Congo to attempt to draw Lumumba
away from the protective custody of the UN guard and place him in
the hands of Congolese authorities (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, pp. 13-14).
Shortly after O'Donnell's arrival in the Congo he was
joined by a CIA agent with a criminal background who was used the
following year by the CIA as part of a program to develop a stand-by
assassination capability. Late in 1960, one of the operatives of
the Chief of Station in Leopoldville approached this agent of
O'Donnell's with a proposition to join an "execution squad" (CIA
Cable IN 18739, Leopoldville to Director, 12/7/60).
Despite the fact that O'Donnell was initially approached
to be part of the plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, it is un-
likely that O'Donnell was actually involved in the implementation
Whether there is any connec-
of that plot by the Chief of Station.
tion between the assassination plot and either of the two operatives
QJWIN and WIROGUE is less clear.
wwwwwwww.
NW 50955
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NW 50955
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(a)
O'Donnell's Operations in the Congo
(i) Tweedy and the Chief of Station Agreed That a
Senior Case Officer Should be Sent to the Congo
to Concentrate on the Assassination Operation
In early October, 1960, several cables sent in the
specially restricted PROP channel dealt with a plan to send a "senior
case officer" to the Congo to aid the Chief of Station with the
assassination operation.* On October 7, Bronson Tweedy informed
Hedgman that he "WOULD EXPECT DISPATCH TDY [TEMPORARY DUTY] SENIOR
CASE OFFICER RUN THIS OP" by supervising a third country national
operative (CIA Cable OUT 78336, Tweedy to Chief of Station, 10/7/60).
On October 15, Tweedy requested Hedgman's reaction to the sugges-
tion of dispatching the senior case officer as soon as possible to
concentrate on the assassination operation (CIA Cable OUT 81396,
Tweedy to Chief of Station, 10/15/60). Two days later, the Chief
of Station replied affirmatively:
BELIEVE EARLY ASSIGNMENT SENIOR CASE OFFICER
HANDLE PROP OPS EXCELLENT IDEA. (CIA Cable
IN 28936, Chief of Station to Tweedy).
The Chief of Station advised that his responsibilities for "MULTIPLE
OPS" had restricted the amount of time he was able to devote to the
assassination operation (CIA Cable, 10/17/60).
* See Section 4(e), supra, for full treatment of these cables.
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(ii) Bissell Discussed Assassination of Lumumba With
O'Donnell and Sent Him to Congo: October-November 1960
Probably shortly after the Chief of Station's cable of
October 17 requesting the assignment of a senior case officer to
concentrate on the assassination operation, Richard Bissell broached
'the subject with CIA officer Justin O'Donnell.
At that time, O'Donnell was the Deputy Chief of a com-
ponent of the Directorate of Plans the CIA's covert action arm
O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 8).
Justin O'Donnell testified that in October of 1960, he
was asked by Richard Bissell to undertake the mission of assassi-
nating Patrice Lumumba (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, pp. 11-12; 9/11/75,
pp. 19, 43):
O'Donnell: He called me in and he told me
he wanted to go down to the Belgian Congo,
the former Belgian Congo, and to eliminate
Lumumba
Q: What did you understand him to mean by
eliminate?
O'Donnell: To kill him and thereby eliminate
his influence.
Q:
What was the basis for your interpreting his
remarks, whatever his precise language, as
meaning that he was talking about assassination
rather than merely neutralizing him through
some other means?
O'Donnell: It was not neutralization
Clearly the context of our talk was to kill
him. (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, PP. 11-12.)
O'Donnell reacted strongly to Bissell's instruction:
I told him that I would absolutely not
have any part of killing Lumumba. He said,
I want you to go over and talk to Sidney
Gottlieb. (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 12.)
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Gottlieb was a CIA scientist who was at that time the Science
Advisor to Bissell (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 14).
O'Donnell said it was "inconceivable that Bissell would direct
such a mission without the personal permission of Allen Dulles"
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 44). But the question of authorization
was never raised by Bissell:
I assumed that he had authority from Mr. Dulles
in such an important issue, but it was not dis-
cussed, nor did he purport to have higher.
authority to do it. (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 15.)
O'Donnell promptly met with Gottlieb and testified that he was
"sure that Mr. Bissell had called Gottlieb and told him I was coming
over" (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 13; 9/11/75, p. 7).
O'Donnell said
lethal
that Gottlieb told him "that there were four or five
means of disposing of Lumumba" (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 13). O'Donnell
recalled that "one of the methods was a virus and the others in-
cluded poison" (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 12; 9/11/75, p. 7). O'Donnell
said that Gottlieb "didn't even hint
that he had been in the
Congo and that he had transported any lethal agent to the Congo"
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 7-A).
After speaking with Gottlieb, O'Donnell said:
I then left his office, and I went back to
Mr. Bissell's office and I told him in no
way would I have any part in the assassina-
tion of Lumumba ... and reasserted in
absolute terms that I would not be involved
in a murder attempt. (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 43.)
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O'Donnell said that in one of his two conversations with
Bissell about Lumumba, he raised the prospect "that conspiracy
to commit murder being done in the District of Columbia might be
in violation of federal law" (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 14). He said
that Bissell "airily dismissed" this prospect (O'Donnell, 6/9/75,
P. 14).
O'Donnell
Despite his refusal to participate in assassination,
agreed to go to the Congo on a general mission to "neutralize"
Lumumba as a political factor" (O'Donnell, 9/11/75,
pp. 43-44):
I said I would go down and I would have no
compunction about operating to draw Lumumba
out [of UN custody], to run an operation to
neutralize his operations which were against
Western interests, against, I thought,
American interests. (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 13.)
O'Donnell added that his objective was to
neutralize Lumumba's influence ... and his
activities against [a Congolese leader],
whom at that time you might say was our close.
instrument, he was the man we had put our
chips on. (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 20.)
Bissell also recalled that, after their discussions about assassi-
nation, O'Donnell went to the Congo "with the assignment ... of
looking at other ways of neutralizing Lumumba" (Bissell, 9/10/75,
p. 53). :
Although O'Donnell did not formulate a precise plan until he
reached the Congo, he discussed a general strategy with Bissell:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 302
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Mr. O'Donnell: I told Mr. Bissell that I
would be willing to go down to neutralize
his activities and operations and try to bring
him out [of UN custody] and turn him over to
the Congolese authorities, that is correct.
Senator Mondale: Was it discussed then that
his life might be taken by the Congolese
authorities?
Mr. O'Donnell: It was, I think, considered
in the not to have him killed, but then
it would have been a Congolese being judged
Yes, I
by Congolese for Congolese crimes.
think it was discussed. (O'Donnell, 6/9/75,
p. 38.).
There was a "very, very high probability" that Lumumba would re-
ceive capital punishment at the hands of the Congolese authorities,
But O'Donnell
according to O'Donnell (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 24).
"had no compunction about bringing him out and then having him
tried by a jury of his peers" (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 14).
Although O'Donnell had expressed his aversion to assassination
to Bissell and had undertaken a more general mission to "neutralize"
Lumumba's influence, it was clear to him that Bissell was still
interested in the assassination of Lumumba:
in leaving at the conclusion of our second
discussion he said, well, I wouldn't
rule out that possibility meaning the
possibility of the elimination or the killing
of Lumumba I wouldn't rule it. In other
words, even though you have said this, don't
rule it out.. There is no question about
it, he said, I wouldn't rule this other out,
meaning the elimination or the assassination
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 45).
O'Donnell had a distinctive recollection that after his second dis-
cussion of Lumumba with Bissell, he met with Richard Helms in order
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 303
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to make his opposition to assassinating Lumumba a matter of
record (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, pp. 44-45):
[I]n the Agency, since you don't have
documents, you have to be awfully canny
and you have to get things on record, and
I went into Mr. Helms' office, and 
I
said, Dick, here is what Mr. Bissell
proposed to me, and I told him that I
would under no conditions do it, and Helms
said you're absolutely right. (O'Donnell,
6/9/75, pp. 15-16).
Richard Helms testified that it was "likely" that he had such a
conversation with O'Donnell and he assumed that O'Donnell's version
of their conversation was correct (Helms, 9/16/75, pp. 22-23).*
William Harvey testified that O'Donnell had informed him
about the conversations with Bissell:
Mr. O'Donnell came to me and said that he
had been approached by Richard Bissell
to undertake an operation in the Congo, one
of the objectives of which was the elimina-
He also told me
tion of Patrice Lumumba.
that he had declined to undertake this
assignment. (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 9.)
Harvey said that in a later conversation with Bissell, Bissell told
him that he had asked O'Donnell to undertake such an operation
(Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 9).
O'Donnell said that within forty-eight hours of his second dis-
cussion with Bissell, he departed for the Congo (O'Donnell, 9/11/75,
pp. 45-46).
* Helms testified that he did not follow-up on this conversa-
tion in any way. He did not recall why O'Donnell had gone to the
Congo or what his mission was (Helms, 9/16/75, 
pp. 32-33).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 304
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(iii)
Bissell Testified That he Asked ()'Donnell to Plan
and Prepare for an Assassination Operation
Bissell remembered "very clearly" that he and O'Donnell
discussed the assassination of Lumumba in the fall of 1960 (Bissell,
6/9/75, p. 75) and that O'Donnell reacted negatively (Bissell,
9/11/75, p. 18). According to Bissell, O'Donnell said that he
thought that assassination "was an inappropriate action and that
the desired object could be accomplished better in other ways"
(Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 54).
Bissell also confirmed the fact that he had asked
P. 44).
O'Donnell to see Sidney Gottlieb (Bissell, 9/10/75,
Bissell differs with O'Donnell's account on only one
important point the degree to which Bissell's initial assign-
ment to O'Donnell contemplated the mounting of an operation as
O'Donnell flatly testified that
opposed to contingency planning.
In his first
Bissell requested him to attempt to kill Lumumba.
testimony on the subject, Bissell said that he asked O'Donnell
"to investigate the possibility of killing Lumumba" (Bissell,
In a later appearance,
6/11/75, p. 54; see also pp. 55, 75).
however, Bissell stated that O'Donnell "had been asked to plan
and prepare for" the assassination of Lumumba (Bissell, 9/10/75,
p. 24).
Bissell said that after his conversations with O'Donnell, he
felt that it would be necessary to "postpone" the assassination
operation because, "given O'Donnell's reaction; there was a risk
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 305
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that the planning of such an operation would be blown" (Bissell,
9/10/75, p. 25). Despite his impression that he might have de-
activated assassination operations against Lumumba at that time,
Bissell could not preclude the possibility that the Hedgman/
Gobblieb poison plot continued to move foward:
[T]his had been in my mind a very sensitive
with the
assignment to him, limited
--
knowledge of it limited very narrowly even
And it is difficult to
within the Agency.
separate recollection from inference on
But I seem to recollect that
occasion.
after this conversation with him, I wanted
this put very much on the back burner and
Now that
inactivated for quite some time.
doesn't rule out the possibility that some
action through completely different channels
But the best of
might have gone forward.
my recollection is, I viewed this not only
as terminating the assignment for him, but
also as reason for at least postponing any-
(Bissell,
thing further along that line.
9/10/75, pp. 25-26).
In Tweedy's mind, O'Donnell's eventual mission to the Congo was
linked to assessing the possibility for assassinating Lumumba
rather than to a general plan to draw Lumumba out of UN custody
(Tweedy, 9/9/75,.p. 26).
(iv)
O'Donnell Arrived in the Congo and Learned That
a Virus Was in the Station Safe
On October 29, the Chief of Station was informed through
the PROP channel that Justin O'Donnell was soon to arrive in Leo-
poldville "IN FURTHERANCE THIS PROJECT" (CIA Cable OUT 86798, Fields
to Chief of Station, 10/29/60).
On November 3, O'Donnell arrived
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 306
-61-
in Leopoldville (CIA Cable IN 38052, Leopoldville to Director,
11/4/60). Chief of Station Hedgman testified that he had been
made aware by cable that O'Donnell was coming to the Congo
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 40). Hedgman said it was "very possible"
that as a new Chief of Station he took the dispatch to the Congo
of a senior officer like O'Donnell as a signal that CIA headquarters
was "dissatisfied with my handling" of Gottlieb's instructions.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 42).
Hedgman had a general picture of O'Donnell's mission:
similar to
I understood it to be that
mine, that is, the removal or neutrali-
zation of Lumumba ... I have no clear
recollection of his discussing the assassi-
nation. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 54.).
Hedgman said that he had no recollection of O'Donnell indicating
one way or the other whether he was considering assassination as
a means of "neutralizing" Lumumba (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 55).
Hedgman said, "in view of my instructions, I may have assumed that
he was considering assassination (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 55). Gen-
erally, however, Hedgman perceived O'Donnell as being unenthusiastic
about his mission (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 56, 88-89).
When O'Donnell arrived in the Congo, he met with the Chief of
Station, who informed him that there was "a virus in the safe"
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 7-A; 6/9/75, p. 16). O'Donnell said he
assumed it was a "lethal agent" (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 37), although
Hedgman was not explicit:
I knew it wasn't for somebody to get his polio
shot up to date. (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 16.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 307
NW 50955
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He added that if the virus was to be used for medical purposes,
"it would have been in the custody of the State Department"
personnel, not the CIA station (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 36).
But O'Donnell
O'Donnell said that he did not recall that Hedgman mentioned
the source of the virus (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 8).*
assumed that it had come from Sidney Gottlieb's office:
It would have had to have come from Washington,
in my estimation, and I would think, since it
had been discussed with Gottlieb that it
probably would have emanated from his office.
(O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 28.)
Hedgman did not recall discussing Gottlieb's trip to the Congo
with O'Donnell, but "assumed" that he did so (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
pp. 60-61).
O'Donnell was "certain" that the virus had arrived before he
did (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 24). He was surprised to learn that
such a virus was being held at the Leopoldville station because
he had refused an assassination mission before departing for the
Congo (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 17)...
O'Donnell stated that he knew of no other instance where a
lethal biological substance was in the possession of a CIA station
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 50). He assumed that its purpose was
assassination:
* When O'Donnell was informed about Hedgman's testimony on
the visit of Gottlieb to the Congo and the plot to poison Lumumba,
he said, "I believe absolutely in its credibility" (O'Donnell,
9/11/75, p. 53). O'Donnell found nothing in the facts as he knew
them, nor in Hedgman's character to raise a question about that
testimony. O'Donnell regarded Hedgman as 'an honest and a decent
man" (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 19) "a totally truthful man"
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 56).
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www.www
I 1
-63-
My feeling definitely is that it was for a
specific purpose, and was just not an all-
purpose capability there begin held for tar-
gets of opportunity, unspecified targets.
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 49.) ·
At several points, O'Donnell stated that he did not think that
Lumumba was the target specified for the use of the virus (O'Donnell,
6/9/75, p. 17; 9/11/75, p. 48). But he allowed for that possibility:
I supposed it was for a lethal operation, very
possibly Lumumba, but very possibly in connec-
tion with other people. (O'Donnell, 6/9/75,
p. 24; accord. 6/9/75, p. 17.)
His final word on the subject was that he assumed that the "specific
purpose" of the virus was the assassination of Lumumba (O'Donnell,
9/11/75, p. 50).
O'Donnell said that the Chief of Station never indicated that
O'Donnell was to employ the virus (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 52). In
fact, O'Donnell testified that Hedgman "never discussed his assassi-
nation effort, he never even indicated that this was one. (O'Donnell,
9/11/75, P. ·54.).
"
While Hedgman has no direct recollection of discussing his
assassination operation with O'Donnell, he "assumed" that he had
at least discussed with O'Donnell the problem of gaining access to
Lumumba for the purpose of assassinating him (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
PP. 55, 60).
O'Donnell testified, however, that because he was
"morally opposed to assassination" he would "absolutely not" have
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 309
-64-
explored the means by which such access could be gained, nor would
he have undertaken a mission to the Congo if it involved assess-
ment of the situation for an assassination operation by someone
else (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 26)..
O'Donnell was "sure" that he "related everything" to Hedgman
about his conversations with Bissell concerning the assassination
of Lumumba (O'Donnell; 9/11/75, p. 46). Hedgman, however, had no
recollection of learning this from O'Donnell (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
p. 56).
Beyond this, O'Donnell said that his discussions of assassi-
nation with Hedgman were general and philosophical, dealing with
"the morality of assassinations" (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, pp. 46, 54):
From my point of view I told him I had
moral objections to it, not just qualms,
but objections. I didn't think it was
the right thing to do.. (O'Donnell,
9/11/75, p. 9).
When asked to characterize Hedgman's attitude toward assassination
based on those discussions, O'Donnell said:
a
I will answer your question just as fairly
and as scrupulously as I can. I have
great deal of respect for Hedgman. And if
he said something, I would believe him to
be speaking the truth as he knew it without
shading it.... The best I could say, I
think, would be this, that he would not have
been opposed in principle to assassination in
the interests of national security.... I
know that he is a man of great moral per-
ception and decency and honor, and so forth.
And that it would disturb him to be engaged in
something like that. But I think I would
have to say that in our conversations, my
memory of those, at no time would he rule it
out as being a possibility. (O'Donnell,
9/11/75, p. 18.)
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(v)
O'Donnell Planned to "Neutralize" Lumumba by Turning
Him Over to Congolese Authorities and Requested the
Assignment of Agent QJWIN to Leopoldville as His
Alter Ego
After Justin O'Donnell arrived in the Congo, he formu-
lated a plan for "neutralizing" Lumumba by drawing him away from
the custody of the UN force which was guarding his residence:
O'Donnell: [W]hat I wanted to do was to
get him out, to trick him out, if I could,
and then turn him over to the legal
authorities and let him stand trial. Be-
cause he had atrocity attributed to him for
which he could very well stand trial.
0፡ And for which he could very well have
received capital punishment?
O'Donnell:
Yes. And I am not opposed to
capital punishment. (O'Donnell, 9/11/75,
pp. 20-21.)*
To implement his plan, O'Donnell made arrangements to rent "an ob-
servation post over the palace in which Lumumba was safely ensconced"
JUST
* According to an earlier report from the Chief of Station, it
was the view of the Special Representative of the Secretary General
of the United Nations that arrest by Congolese authorities was
A TRICK TO ASSASSINATE LUMUMBA" (CIA Cable Leop
of Station to Director, 10/11/60). The Chief of Station proceeded
to recommend Lumumba's arrest in the same cable:
STATION HAS CONSISTENTLY URGED [CONGOLESE] LEADERS
ARREST LUMUMBA IN BELIEF LUMUMBA WILL CONTINUE BE
THREAT TO STABILITY CONGO UNTIL REMOVED FROM
SCENE (CIA Cable, 10/11/60).
Chief
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(O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 20).*
O'Donnell also "spotted" a member
of the UN guard and made his acquaintance to recruit him for an
attempt to lure Lumumba outside UN protective custody (O'Donnell,
6/9/75, p. 20; 9/11/75, p. 21).
O'Donnell said that he cabled progress reports on his plan to
CIA headquarters (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 26). He also said that
he informed the Chief of Station about his plan (O'Donnell, 9/11/75,
p. 56).
In connection with his effort to draw Lumumba out of UN. cus-
tody, O'Donnell arranged for a CIA agent, whose code name was
QJWIN, to come to the Congo to work with him (O'Donnell, 9/11/75,
p. 19):
What I wanted to use him for was
counter-espionage […].... I had to screen.
the U.S. participation in this
by
using a foreign national whom we knew,
trusted, and had worked with .
the
idea was for me to use him as an alter
ego. (O'Donnell Tr., pp. 19-20.)
In mid-November, two cables from Leopoldville urged CIA head-
quarters to send QJWIN as soon as possible (CIA Cable IN 41261,
Leopoldville to Director, 11/11/60) with this message:
LOCAL OPERATIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRE
IMMEDIATE EXPEDITION OF QJWIN TRAVEL TO
LEOPOLDVILLE. (CIA Cable IN 41556,
Leopoldville to Director, 11/13/60.)
* A cable from the Chief of Station to Tweedy in mid-November
reported that the double guard of United Nations and Congolese
troops around Lumumba's residence thwarted this plan: "CONCENTRIC
RINGS OF DEFENSE MAKE ESTABLISHMENT OF OBSERVATION POST IMPOSSIBLE"
(CIA Cable IN 42478, Chief of Station to Tweedy, 11/14/60). .
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1-67-
The cables contained no exploration of this sense of urgency about
the "operational circumstances."
(b) Agent QJWIN's Mission in the Congo: November-December
1960
QJWIN was a foreign citizen with a criminal background,
recruited in Europe (Memorandum to CIA Finance Division, Re:
Payments to QJWIN, 1/31/61), and supervised by CIA officer Arnold
Silver. In November 1960, at O'Donnell's request (O'Donnell, 6/9/75,
p. 19), agent QJWIN was dispatched to the Congo by Silver, to under-
take a mission that "might involve a large element of personal risk."
(CIA Cable IN 36814, 11/2/60.)*.
A dispatch from the CIA headquarters on his pending trip
to Africa made clear the high degree of sensitivity accorded to
his mission:
In view of the extreme sensitivity of the ob-
jective for which we want him to perform his
task, he was not told precisely what we want
him to do.... Instead, he was told ... that
we would like to have him spot, assess, and
recommend some dependable, quick-witted
persons for our use.... It was thought best
to withhold our true, specific requirements
pending the final decision to use [him].
(CIA Dispatch, AUDW-147, 11/2/60.)
* Part of the purpose in dispatching QJWIN to Africa was to
send him from the Congo to another African country for an unspeci-
fied mission. QJWIN's mission to this country is not explained
in the cable traffic between CIA headquarters and the various sta-
tions that dealt with him.
There is no indication in CIA files as to whether QJWIN com-
pleted this mission. O'Donnell said he had no knowledge of any
mission that would have taken QJWIN to this country (O'Donnell,
9/11/75, pp. 32-33).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 313
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This message itself was deemed too sensitive to be retained
at the station: "this dispatch should be reduced to cryptic
necessary notes and destroyed after the first reading." (CIA
Dispatch, AUDW-147, 11/2/60.)
QJWIN arrived in Leopoldville on November 21, 1960 (CIA Cable
IN 49486, 11/29/60) and returned to Europe in late December 1960
(CIA Cable OUT 54710, Director to Leopoldville, 12/9/60).
The CIA Inspector General's Report said that QJWIN
had been recruited earlier by Arnold Silver
for use in a special operation in the Congo
[the assassination of Patrice Lumumba] to be
run by Justin O'Donnell. (I.G. Report, p. 38.)
However, both O'Donnell and Bissell testified that O'Donnell re-
fused to be associated with an assassination operation.* Instead,
O'Donnell said he went to the Congo to attempt to snatch Lumumba
from the protective custody of the U.N. guard and place him in
the hands of the Congolese army. (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, pp. 13-14,
37.)
According to O'Donnell, QJWIN was a man who was capable of
undertaking an assassination mission:
O'Donnell:
I would say that he would not
be a man of many scruples.
Q: So he was a man capable of doing anything?
O'Donnell:
I would think so, yes.
2: And that would include assassination?
O'Donnell: I would think so.
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, pp. 35-36.)
*See Sections 5(a) (ii) and 5(a) (iii) above.
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But O'Donnell had no knowledge that QJWIN was ever used for an
assassination mission (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, pp. 36, 42).
28).
O'Donnell said that, as far as he knew, he was the only CIA
officer with supervisory responsibility for QJWIN and QJWIN did
not report independently to anyone else (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, P.
When asked if it was possible that QJWIN had a mission independent
of that he was performing for O'Donnell, he said:
O'Donnell: Yes, that is possible or
it could have been that somebody contacted
him after he got down there, that they
wanted him to do something along the lines
of assassination. I don't know. (O'Donnell,
9/11/75, p. 29.)
But he discounted this possibility as "highly unlikely" because it
would be a departure from standard CIA practice
placing an agent
in a position of knowledge superior to that of his supervising
officer (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 29).
Despite O'Donnell's doubt that QJWIN had an independent line
of responsibility to the Chief of Station, a cable of November 29
shows that Hedgman was aware of WIN's activities.
In that cable, the Chief of Station reported through the PROP
channel to Tweedy that QJWIN had begun implementation of a plan to
"PIERCE BOTH CONGOLESE AND UN GUARDS" to enter Lumumba's residence
and "PROVIDE ESCORT OUT OF RESIDENCE" (CIA Cable IN 49486, Chief
of Station to Tweedy, 11/29/60). O'Donnell said that he had directed
QJWIN to make the acquaintanceship of the member of the UN force
whose help he sought for the plan to snatch Lumumba from UN custody
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 315
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This
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 21). But Lumumba had left UN custody at
this point to travel toward his stronghold at Stanleyville.
did not deter QJWIN:
VIEW CHANGE IN LOCATION TARGET, QJWIN
ANXIOUS GO STANLEYVILLE AND EXPRESSED
DESIRE EXECUTE PLAN BY HIMSELF WITHOUT
USING ANY APPARAT (CIA Cable, 11/29/60)..
It is unclear whether this latter "plan" contemplated assassina-
tion as well as abduction. An affirmative reply from headquarters
came through the PROP channel the next day which was also suscep-
tible of interpretation as an assassination order:
CONCUR QJWIN GO STANLEYVILLE.... WE ARE
PREPARED CONSIDER DIRECT ACTION BY QJWIN
BUT WOULD LIKE YOUR READING ON SECURITY
FACTORS. HOW CLOSE WOULD THIS PLACE [UNITED
STATES] TO THE ACTION? (CIA Cable OUT 98314,
Chief of Africa Division to Chief of Station,
11/30/60.)
O'Donnell said that agent QJWIN's stay in the Congo was
extensive with my own, allowing for the fact that he came after I
did." (O'Donnell, 6/9/75, p. 19.) O'Donnell said he left the
Congo around the time of Lumumba's death in Katanga at the hands
of Congolese authorities. (O'Donnell, p. 20.) QJWIN left in
December shortly after Lumumba was captured by the Congolese army.
In a memorandum to arrange the accounting for QJWIN's activities
in the Congo, William K. Harvey under whom O'Donnell had worked
before being detached for assignment to the Congo noted the
success of QJWIN's mission: "QJWIN was sent on this trip for a
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 316
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specific, highly sensitive operational purpose which has been
completed" (Memorandum for Finance Division from William K. Harvey,
1/11/61). O'Donnell explained Harvey's reference to the fact that
QJWIN's mission had been "completed" by saying that once Lumumba
was in the hands of the Congolese authorities "the reason for
the mounting of the project ... had become moot" (O'Donnell,
9/11/75, p. 35). When asked if he and QJWIN were responsible for
Lumumba's departure from UN custody and subsequent capture, O'Donnell
said: "Absolutely not" (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, p. 35). Harvey did not
recall the meaning of the memorandum, but he assumed that O'Donnell's
return from the Congo constituted the "completion" of QJWIN's
mission (Harvey, affidavit, p. ).
Despite the indication in the Inspector General's Report that'
QJWIN may have been recruited initially for an assassination mission
and the suggestive language of the cables at the end of November,
there is no clear evidence that QJWIN was actually involved in any
assassination plan or attempt. The CIA officers who were involved
in or knowledgeable of an assassination plot against Lumumba gave
no testimony that tended to show that QJWIN was related to that plot.
The Chief of Station had a "vague recollection" that QJWIN'
was in the Congo working for Justin O'Donnell. (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
P. 95.)
But Hedgman did not recall why QJWIN was in the Congo.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 95.) QJWIN was not a major operative of
Hedgman's. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 95.) Richard Bissell and Bronson
Tweedy did not recall anything about QJWIN's mission in the Congo
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 317
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(Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 54-57; Tweedy, 9/9/75, pp. 54, 61).
William Harvey, from whose division QJWIN was on loan for
his Congo assignment, had no specific knowledge of WIN's activities
in the Congo:
I
I was kept informed of the arrangements for
QJWIN's trip to the Congo and, subsequently,
of his presence in the Congo. I do not know
specifically what QJWIN did in the Congo.
do not think that I ever had such knowledge.
If QJWIN were to be used on an assassination
mission, it would have been cleared with me.
I was never informed that he was to be used
for such a mission. (Harvey affidavit, p. .)
He stated that Arnold Silver probably wrote the memoranda con-
cerning QJWIN and submitted them for HARVEY's signature (larvey
affidavit, P. ).
(c) QJWIN's Connection to Project ZRRIFLE
After leaving the Congo in early 1961, QJWIN was used by
CIA officer William Harvey as the principal asset in Project ZRRIFLE,
a project which included research into a capability to assassinate
foreign leaders.* QJWIN's role in Project ZRRIFLE was to "SPOT"
figures of the European underworld who could be utilized as agents
by the CIA if required. Harvey stated that before the formation
of Project ZRRIFLE:
* For a full treatment of Project ZRRIFLE, see Section
infra, on the "Executive Action Capability.".
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 318
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Arnold Silver had not previously used
QJWIN as an assassination capability or
even viewed him as such. (Harvey affi-
davit, p. >
Although Harvey also had discussions with Sidney Gottlieb in connec-
tion with Project ZRRIFLE, he believed that Gottlieb never mentioned
to him either QJWIN's activities in the Congo or Gottlieb's own
trip to Leopoldville (Harvey affidavit, p. ). Harvey had con-
sulted with Arnold Silver about the initiation of Project ZRRIFLE
(Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 52).
The Chief of Station in Leopoldville testified that he had
never heard of Project ZRRIFLE, nor was he aware of any CIA project
to develop the capability of assassinating foreign leaders.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 93.) Furthermore, Hedgman said that he was
"quite certain" that he never discussed assassination capabilities
or assets with Harvey at any time. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 95.)
Hedgman testified that Arnold Silver came to the Congo on a counter-
intelligence mission during his tenure, but they did not discuss
the plan to assassinate Lumumba.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 92.).
An interesting note on the value accorded QJWIN by the CIA
and the inherent predicament for an intelligence agency that employs
hoodlums is found in a cable from CIA headquarters to Arnold Silver
in 1962. The CIA had learned that QJWIN was about to go on trial
in Europe on smuggling charges. The cable suggested:
IF
INFOR TRUE WE MAY WISH ATTEMPT QUASH
CHARGES OR ARRANGE SOMEHOW SALVAGE QJWIN FOR
OUR PURPOSES. (CIA Cable OUT 73943, 4/18/62.)
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539
Page 319
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(d) Agent QJWIN Was Asked By Hedgman's Operative WIROGUE
to Join an "Execution Squad": December 1960.
The one incident where there is an explicit reference to
assassination in connection with QJWIN involved his contact with
WIROGUE, another asset of the Congo station.
"
WIROGUE was an "essentially stateless" European who was
He was
a forger and former bank robber" and had fought with the French
Foreign Legion. (Inspector General Memorandum, 3/14/75.)
sent to the Congo after being given plastic surgery and a toupee
by the CIA so that he would not be recognized by Europeans traveling
through the Congo. (I.G. Memorandum, 3/14/75.) WIROGUE was
assessed by the CIA as a man who "LEARNS QUICKLY AND CARRIES OUT
ANY ASSIGNMENT WITHOUT REGARD FOR DANCER" (CIA Cable OUT 86554,
Africa Division to Leopoldville, 10/27/60).
"
The Chief of Station described WIROGE as 'a man with a
rather unsavory reputation, who would try anything once, at least."
(Hedgman, 3/21/75, p. 96.) Hedgman used him as "a general utility
agent" because "I felt we needed surveillance capability, develop-
ing new contacts, various things." (Hedgman, 3/21/75, p. 96.)
Hedgman supervised WIROGUE directly and did not put WIROGUE in
touch with Justin O'Donnell. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 97.)
A report on agent WIROGUE, prepared for the CIA Inspector
General's office in 1975, described the training and tasking he
received:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 320

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On 19 September 1960 two members of Africa
Division met with him to discuss "an opera-
tional assignment in Africa Division." In.
connection with this assignment, WIROGUE/1
was to be trained in demolitions, small arms
and medical immunization.... In October 1960
a cable to Leopoldville stated that
Headquarters [had] ... intent to use him as
utility agent in order to "(a) organize and
conduct a surveillance team; (b) intercept
packages; (c) blow up bridges; and (d) execute
other assignments requiring positive action.
His utilization is not to be restricted to
Leopoldville." (I.G. Memorandu, 3/14/75.) ·
WIROGUE made his initial contact with Hedgman in Leopoldville on
December 2, 1960 (CIA Cable IN 18739, 12/17/60). He was given two
instructions by Hedgman: (1) to "build cover during initial period;"
and (2) to "spot persons for [a] surveillance team" of intelligence
assets in the province where Lumumba's support was strongest.
Cable IN 18739, 12/17/60.)
(CIA
Soon after receiving these instructions, agent WIROGUE approached
QJWIN and asked him to join an "execution squad." This incident is
described by Leopoldville Chief of Station Hedgman in a cable to
CIA headquarters (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 99):
QJWIN WHO RESIDES SAME HOTEL AS WIROGUE REPORTED
LATTER TOLD HIM HE HAD LIVED ALASKA, JAPAN, SOUTH
AMERICA, GERMANY AND OTHER PARTS EUROPE. QJWIN
SAID WIROGUE SMELLED AS THOUGH HE IN INTEL BUSINESS.
STATION DENIED ANY INFO ON WIROGUE. 14 DEC QJWIN
REPORTED WIROGUE HAD OFFERED HIM THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS
PER MONTH TO PARTICIPATE IN INTEL NET AND BE MEMBER
"EXECUTION SQUAD." WHEN QJWIN SAID HE NOT INTERESTED,
WIROGUE ADDED THERE WOULD BE BONUSES FOR SPECIAL JOBS.
UNDER QJWIN QUESTIONING, WIROGUE LATER SAID HE WORK-
INF FOR [AMERICAN] SERVICE.
IN DISCUSSING LOCAL CONTACTS, WIROGUE MENTIONED
QJWIN BUT DID NOT ADMIT TO HAVING TRIED RECRUIT HIM.
THEN [CHIEF OF STATION] TRIED LEARN WHETHER WIROGUE
HAD MADE APPROACH LATTER CLAIMED HAD TAKEN NO. STEPS.
[CHIEF OF STATION] WAS UNABLE CONTRADICT, AS DID NOT
WISH REVEAL QJWIN CONNECTION [CIA]. (CIA Cable,
Leopoldville to Director, 12/17, 60.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 321
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The cable also expressed Hedgman's concern about WIROGUE's
actions:
LEOP CONCERNED BY WIROGUE FREE WHEELING
AND LACK SECURITY. STATION HAS ENOUGH HEAD-
ACHES WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT AGENT WHO NOT
ABLE HANDLE FINANCES AND. WHO NOT WILLING
FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. IF HQS DESIRES, WILLING
KEEP HIM ON PROBATION, BUT IF CONTINUE HAVE
DIFFICULTIES, BELIEVE WIROGUE RECALL BEST
SOLUTION. (CIA Cable, Leopoldville to Director,
12/17/60.)
WIROGUE's attempt to recruit QJWIN for an execution squad is
explained by Hedgman as a mistake and by the actions of QJWIN as
an unauthorized, unexpected contact which he did not initiate.
The Chief of Station testified that he had not instructed
WIROGUE to make this kind of proposition to QJWIN or anyone else.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 100.) He added:
I would like to stress that I don't know what'
WIROGUE was talking about as a[n] "execution
squad," and I am sure he was never tasked to
go out and execute. anyone. (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
p. 100.)
Hedgman suggested that WIROGUE may have concocted the idea of an
execution squad:
His idea of what an intelligence operative
should do, I think, had been gathered by
reading a few novels or something of the
sort. (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 100.)
Justin O'Donnell had no knowledge of an attempt by anyone
connected to the CIA to recruit an execution squad and no recollec-
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 322
NW 50955
-77-
tion of WIROGUE (O'Donnell, 9/11/75, pp. 39-42).
O'Donnell men-
tioned that agent QJWIN was considered for use on a "strong arm
squad," but said that this was for purposes more general than
assassinations:
surveillance teams where you have to go
into crime areas
where you need a
fellow that if he gets in a box can fight
his way out of it.
P. 36).
(O'Donnell, 9/11/75,
Richard Bissell recalled nothing of the WIROUGE approach to
QJWIN (Bissell, 9/11/75, p. 71). Bronson Tweedy did recall that
WIROGUE was "dispatched on a general purpose mission" to the Congo
(Tweedy, 9/9/75, p. 63). But Tweedy testified that WIROGUE would
"absolutely not" have been used on an assassination mission against
Lumumba because "he was basically dispatched, assessed and dealt
with by the balance of the Division" rather than by the two people
in the Africa Division Tweedy himself and his deputy, Glenn
Fields
wwww wwww
wwww geny
who would have known that the assassination of Lumumba
was being considered (Tweedy, 9/9/75, pp. 64-65).
The Chief of Station said that if the WIROGUE incident was
connected to an actual assassination plan, he would have transmitted
a message in a more narrowly restricted channel than that in which
this cable was sent. His cable on WIROGUE's approach to QJWIN was
sent to headquarters with a security designation that allowed much
wider distribution than the PROP cables that he sent and received
concerning the Gottlieb assassination assignment. (Hedgman, 8/21/75,
p. 102.) In contrast, he limited distribution of the cable about
DocId: 32423539 Page 323
-78-
WIROGUE only as a CIA officer would "normally do
speak in a derogatory manner of an asset."
p. 101)
when you
(Hedgman, 8/21/75,
The Chief of Station maintained that WIROGUE's proposition
to QJWIN to join an "execution squad" could be attributed to
WIROGUE's "freewheeling" nature. Hedgman said:
I had difficulty controlling him in that he
was not a professional intelligence officer
as such. He seemed to act on his own without
seeking guidance or authority ... I found
he was rather an unguided missile
the
kind of man that could get you in trouble be-
fore you knew you were in trouble....
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 96-97).
But Hedgman did not disavow all responsibility for WIROGUE's actions:
[I]f you give a man an order and he carries it
out and causes a problem for the Station, why
then as Chief of Station, well, you accept
responsibility.
(Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 97.)
In sum, the Chief of Station testified that despite the fact
that the CIA was interested in the assassination of Lumumba during
this period, agent WIROGUE's attempt to form an "execution squad"
was an unauthorized, maverick action, unconnected to the CIA assassi-
nation plan.
Nonetheless, the fact that WIROGUE was to be trained in "medical
immunization" (I.G. Memorandum, 3/14/75) raises the possibility
that he was connected to the plot to assassinate Lumumba by means
of lethal biological substances. The 1975 report on WIROGUE's
case
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 324
-79-
The
by the Inspector General's office leaves this question open.
report concludes with the statement that "WIROGUE/1 spent most of
his time trying to develop contacts and was not directly involved
in any particular operation." . (I.G. Memorandum, 3/14/75.) But,
when the report was circulated in the Inspector General's office,
the following comment was handwritten by Scott Breckinridge, one
of the principal authors of the 1967 report on CIA involvement in
assassination attempts: "ROGUE's pitch is too clear to be dis-
carded out of hand as 'exceeding instructions.
3/14/75)
(I.G. Memorandum,
6. The Question of Whether the CIA Was Involved in Bringing
About Lumumba's Death in Katanga
There is no direct evidence of CIA involvement in bring-.
ing about Lumumba's death in Katanga. The CIA officers most closely
connected to the plot to poison Lumumba testified uniformly that
they knew of no CIA involvement in Lumumba's death.
(a).
Lumumba's Escape from UN Custody, Capture by
Congolese Army, and Imprisonment at Thysville:
November 27-December 3, 1960
The strongest hint that the CIA may have been involved
in the capture of Lumumba by Mobutu's troops after his departure
from UN custody on November 27, was contained in a PROP cable from
the Chief of Station to Tweedy on November 14 (CIA Cable IN 42478,
Chief of Station to Tweedy, 11/14/60). In the cable, Hedgman re-
ported that an agent of his had learned that Lumumba's
POLITICAL FOLLOWERS IN STANLEYVILLE DESIRE THAT
HE BREAK OUT OF HIS CONFINEMENT AND PROCEED TO
THAT CITY BY CAR TO ENGAGE IN POLITICAL ACTIVITY.
(CIA Cable, 11/14/60.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 325
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The Chief of Station was confident that he would have foreknowledge
of Lumumba's departure and that action plans were prepared for that
eventuality:
DECISION ON BREAKOUT WILL PROBABLY BE MADE
SHORTLY. STATION EXPECTS TO BE ADVISED BY
[AGENT] OF DECISION WHEN MADE... STATION
HAS SEVERAL POSSIBLE ASSETS TO USE IN EVENT
OF BREAKOUT AND STUDYING SEVERAL PLANS OF
ACTION. (CIA Cable, 11/14/60.)
There is no other evidence, however, that the CIA actually
gained prior knowledge of Lumumba's plan to depart for Stanleyville.
In fact, a cable from Leopoldville on the day after Lumumba's
escape betrays the station's complete ignorance about the circum-
stances of Lumumba's departure (CIA Cable IN 43484, Leopoldville
to Director, 11/28/60).
But the same cable raises at least a question as to whether
the CIA was involved in the capture of Lumumba enroute by Congolese
troops:
[STATION] WORKING WITH [CONGOLESE GOVERNMENT]
TO GET ROADS BLOCKED AND TROOPS ALERTED
[BLOCK] POSSIBLE ESCAPE ROUTE. (CIA Cable,
11/28/60.).
A cable of December 2 reporting Lumumba's capture militates
against CIA involvement, however, because it portrays the Congolese
forces as the source of the station's information (CIA Cable IN 10643,
Leopoldville to Director, 12/3/60).
The Chief of Station testified that he was "quite certain that
there was no Agency involvement in any way" in Lumumba's departure
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 326
-81-
from UN custody and that he had no foreknowledge of Lumumba's
plan (Hedgman, 8/21/75, pp. 63-64). He stated that he consulted
with Congolese officers about the possible routes Lumumba might
take to Stanleyville, but he was "not a major assistance" in track-
ing down Lumumba prior to his capture (Hedgman, 8/21/75, p. 65).
Despite the fact that O'Donnell had planned to draw Lumumba
out of UN custody and turn him over to Congolese authorities, he
insisted that Lumumba escaped by his own devices and was not tricked
by the CIA (O'Donnell, 9/11/75; p. 22).
(b)
Transfer of Lumumba to Katanga Where He Was Killed:
January 17, 1960
The contemporaneous cable traffic shows that the CIA was
kept informed of Lumumba's condition and movements in January of
1961 by the Congolese and that the CIA still considered Lumumba
a serious political threat. But there is no direct evidence of
CIA involvement in bringing about Lumumba's death in Katanga.
* Excerpts from cable traffic of January 1961 and from the
testimony of CIA officers Hedgman, Tweedy, O'Donnell, and Helms
(investigative report) should be inserted.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 327
-82-
SECTION 7: Rewritten per
Subcommittee Instructions,
10/20/75 (FDB)
7.
The Question of the Level at which the Assassination Plot
Was Authorized
The chain of events revealed by the documents and testimony
is strong enough to permit a reasonable inference that the assas-
sination plot was authorized by the President. It is clear that
Allen Dulles authorized the plot.
At the least, the chronological relationship between strong
Presidential or other White House expressions of hostility to
Lumumba and CIA steps toward the assassination of Lumumba is close
enough to make it appear that Dulles thought he was acting in re-
sponse to pressure from above in approving assassination as
means of removing Lumumba from the political scene.
one
Nevertheless, there is enough countervailing testimony by
Eisenhower Administration officials and enough ambiguity in the
records of high-level policy meetings to raise a doubt as to whether
President Eisenhower intended an assassination effort against Lumumba.
The chain of significant events in the Lumumba case begins with.
the testimony that President Eisenhower made a statement at a meet-
ing of the National Security Council in the Summer or early Fall of
1960 that came across to one staff member in attendance as an order
for the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. The next link is a memo-
randum of the Special Group meeting of August 25, 1960, which indi-
cated that when the President's "extremely strong feelings on the
necessity for very straightforward action" were conveyed, the Special
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 328
:
Group
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agreed that planning for the Congo would not necessarily
rule out "consideration" of any particular kind of ac-
tivity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba.
(Minutes of Special Group Meeting, 25 August 1960)
The next day CIA Director Allen Dulles, who had attended the Special
Group meeting, personally cabled to the Chief of Station in Leopold-
ville that Lumumba's "REMOVAL MUST BE AN URGENT AND PRIME OBJECTIVE
A HIGH PRIORITY OF OUR COVERT ACTION" (CIA Cable OUT 62966,
Dulles added: "YOU CAN ACT ON
Dulles to Leopoldville, 8/26/60).
YOUR OWN AUTHORITY WHERE TIME DOES NOT PERMIT REFERRAL HERE.
"
Although the Dulles cable does not explicitly mention assassina-
tion, Richard Bissell the CIA official under whose aegis the as-
testified that, in
sassination effort against Lumumba took place
his opinion, this cable was a direct outgrowth of the Special Group
meeting and signaled to him that the President had authorized assas-
sination as one means of removing Lumumba (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 33-
34, 61-62; see Section 7(c), infra). Bronson Tweedy, who bore the
primary administrative responsibility for activities against Lumumba,
testified that the Dulles cable confirmed the policy that no measure,
including assassination, was to be overlooked in the attempt to re-
move Lumumba from a position of influence (Tweedy, 10/9/75, pp. 4-5).
On September 19, 1960, Bissell and Tweedy cabled the Chief of
Two days later,
Station to expect a messenger from CIA headquarters.
in the presence of the President at a meeting of the National Security
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 329
6,, 'ཝཱགཱཉྩནྡཀཾཤདཱ 'ཝཱ ཝཱ ཙ ཝཱརཱ
-84-
Council, Allen Dulles stated that Lumumba "would remain a grave
danger as long as he was not yet disposed of" (Memorandum, 460th
NSC Meeting, 9/21/60). Five days after this meeting, a CIA scien-
tist arrived in Leopoldville and provided the Chief of Station
with lethal biological substances, instructed him to assassinate
Lumumba, and informed him that the President had authorized this
operation.
Two mitigating factors weaken this chain just enough so that
it will not support an absolute finding of Presidential authoriza-
tion for the assassination effort against Lumumba.
First, the two officials of the Eisenhower Administration re-
sponsible to the President for national security affairs testified
that they knew of no Presidential approval for, or knowledge of, an
assassination plot.
Second, the minutes of discussions at meetings of the National
Security Council and its Special Group do not record an explicit
Presidential order for the assassination of Lumumba. The Secretary
of the Special Group maintained that his memoranda reflect the ac-
tual language used at the meetings without omission or euphemism
for extremely sensitive statements (Parrott, 7/10/75, pp. 18-19).
NSC staff executives stated, however, that there was a strong pos-
sibility that a statement as sensitive as an assassination order
would have been omitted from the record or handled by means of euphe-
Several high Government officials involved in policy-making
mism.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 330

-85-
and planning for covert operations testified that the language in
these minutes clearly indicated that assassination was contemplated
at the NSC as one means of eliminating Lumumba as a political
threat; other officials testified to the contrary.
(a) High-Level Meetings at which "Getting Rid of Lumumba"
Was Discussed
(i)
Dillon Testified that the Question of Assassina-
tion Was Raised at Pentagon Meeting: Summer 1960
In late July 1960, Patrice Lumumba visited the United
States and met with Secretary of State Christian Herter and Under-
secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon. While Lumumba was in Washing-
ton, D.C., Secretary Herter pledged aid to the newly formed Govern-
ment of the Congo (New York Times, 7/28/60, p.
According to Dillon, the impression that Lumumba left
with the Government officials was that of an irrational, almost
psychotic personality:
When he was in the State Department meeting, either with
me or with the Secretary in my presence
he would.
never look you in the eye. He looked up at the sky. And
a tremendous flow of words came out. He spoke in French,
and he spoke it very fluently. And his words didn't ever
have any relation to the particular things that we wanted
to discuss
You had a feeling that he was a per-
son that was gripped by this fervor that I can only char-
acterize as messianic
[H]e was just not a rational
•
being. (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 24.)
Dillon said that the willingness of the United States Government to
work with Lumumba vanished after these meetings:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 331
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www.
[T]he impression that was left was
very bad, that
this was an individual whom it was impossible to deal
with. And the feelings of the Government as a result
of this sharpened very considerably at that time
We [had] hoped to see him and see what we could do to
come to better understanding with him. (Dillon, 9/2/75,
pp. 23-24.)
Dillon testified that shortly after Lumumba's visit to Washing-
ton, in late July or August, he attended a meeting at the Pentagon
where representatives of the State Department, Defense Department,
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the CIA were present (Dillon, 9/2/75, pp.
17-20, 25-26).*
According to Dillon, "a question regarding the possibility of
an assassination attempt against Lumumba was briefly raised" at the
meeting (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 15; see also 17, 25). Dillon did not
recall anything about the language used in raising the question
(Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 30). Dillon assumed that when the subject of
Lumumba's assassination was raised, "it was turned off by the CIA"
(Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 30). Dillon said that "the CIA people, whoever
they were, were negative to any such action" (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 18).
This opposition "wasn't moral," according to Dillon, but rather an
objection on the grounds that it was "not a possible thing" (Dillon,
9/2/75, p. 18). Dillon said the CIA reaction "might have been" made
out of the feeling that the group was too large for such a sensitive
*
Dillon was unable to recall the precise date of this meeting (Dil-
lon, 9/2/75, pp. 25-26).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 332
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discussion (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 60).
Dillon was clear about the fact that "top level" CIA people.
were in attendance, although he did not remember who lodged the
negative reaction to the assassination question (Dillon, 9/2/75,
PP. 22, 25). He said it "would have to have been either Allen.
Dulles, or possibly [General] Cabell. most likely Cabell"
(Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 25). He added that it was "very likely" that
Richard Bissell was in attendance (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 21).
Dillon stated that this discussion could not have served as
authorization for an actual assassination effort against Lumumba
(Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 31). But he believed that the expression of
concern typified a prevalent attitude toward Lumumba that might
have justified the CIA's development of a capability to assassinate
him:
I think they could have decided they wanted to develop
the capability .. just by knowing the concern that
everyone had about Lumumba.
They wouldn't have
had to tell anyone about that. That is just developing
their own internal capability, and then they would have
to come and get permission. (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 30).
Dillon testified that he had never heard any mention of the plot to
poison Lumumba; nor, by implication, had he heard even a hint that
the CIA asked permission to mount such an operation (Dillon, 9/2/75,
p. 50). But after being informed of the poison plot, Dillon made
the following comment about the Pentagon meeting he attended:
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I think it is
likely that it might have been
the beginning of this whole idea on the CIA's part that
they should develop such a capacity. And maybe they
didn't have it then and went to work to develop it be-
ginning in August. (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 61)
Dillon said that it was unlikely that formal notes were taken at the
meeting or preserved because it was a small "ad hoc" group rather
than an official body (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 18). Such interdepartmen-
tal meetings were "not unusual," according to Dillon (Dillon, 9/2/
75, p. 20).
The only officials Dillon named as probable participants other
than the CIA representatives were Deputy Secretary of Defense James
Douglas and Assistant Secretary of Defense John N. Irwin II (Dillon,
9/2/75, pp. 19, 21). Douglas stated that it was possible that he
attended such a meeting at the Pentagon, but he does not recall it
(Douglas affidavit, 9/5/75). Nor does he recall the question of
Lumumba's assassination ever being raised in his presence (Douglas
affidavit, 9/5/75). . Likewise, Irwin stated that it was "likely".
that he attended the meeting to which Dillon referred; but he did
not remember whether he was present "at any meeting at the Pentagon
where the question of assassinating Patrice Lumumba was raised"
(Irwin affidavit, 9/22/75, p. 3).
(ii)
Robert Johnson Testified That He Heard the Presi-
dent Order Lumumba's Assassination at an NSC
Meeting
Robert H. Johnson, a member of the National Security
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Council staff from 1951 to January 1962, offered what he termed a
"clue" to the extent of Presidential involvement in the decision to
assassinate Lumumba (Johnson, 6/18/75, pp. 4-5).* Johnson re-
counted the following occurrence at an NSC meeting in the Summer
of 1960 which began with a briefing on world developments by the
Director of Central Intelligence:
*
Robert Johnson introduced his testimony with the following state-
ment:
I would like to preface my remarks by pointing out
that my decision to offer testimony to this committee has
In
involved for me a profound personal, moral dilemma.
my role as a member of the NSC Staff for ten and one-half
years, I was privy to a great deal of information that in-
volved relationships of confidentiality with high officials
of the United States government. I have always taken very
seriously the responsibilities implied in such relation-
ships.
These responsibilities extend, in my view, far beyond
questions of security classification or other legal or
foreign policy concerns. They relate to the very basis of
human society and government to the relationships of
trust without which no free society can long survive and
no government can operate.
I have been forced by recent developments; however, to
weigh against these considerable responsibilities my broad-
er responsibilities as a citizen on an issue that involves
major questions of public morality, as well as questions
of sound policy. Having done so, I have concluded, not
without a great deal of reluctance, to come to your commit-
tee with information bearing upon your inquiry into govern-
ment decisions relating to the assassination of foreign
leaders. (Johnson, 6/18/75, pp. 4-5)
After his tenure on the staff of the National Security Council,
Robert Johnson served from 1962 to 1967 on the Policy Planning Coun-
cil at the Department of State.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 335
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in attrit um má b
At some time during that discussion, President Eisen-
hower said something I can no longer remember his words
that came across to me as an order for the assassina-
tion of Lumumba who was then at the center of political
conflict and controversy in the Congo. There was no dis-
cussion; the meeting simply moved on. I remember my sense
of that moment quite clearly because the President's state-
ment came as a great shock to me. I cannot, however, re-
construct the moment more specifically.
Although I was convinced at the time and remained
convinced when I thought about it later. that the Presi-
dent's statement was intended as an order for the assas-
sination of Lumumba, I must confess that in thinking about
the incident more recently I have had some doubts. As is
well known, it was quite uncharacteristic of President
Eisenhower to make or announce policy decisions in NSC
meetings. Certainly, it was strange if he departed from
that normal pattern on a subject so sensitive as this.
Moreover, it was not long after this, I believe, that Lu-
mumba was dismissed as premier by Kasavubu in an action
that was a quasi-coup. I have come to wonder whether what
I really heard was only an order for some such political
action. All I can tell you with any certainty at the
present moment is my sense of that moment in the Cabinet
Room of the White House. (Johnson, 6/18/75, pp. 6-7)
Johnson "presumed" that the President made his statement while "look-
ing toward the Director of Central Intelligence" (Johnson, 6/18/75,
p. 11). He was unable to recall with any greater specificity the
words used by the President (Johnson 9/13/75, p. 10).
When asked about the strength of the possibility that he had
heard only a general directive for the political overthrow of Lumumba,
Johnson testified that it was his clear impression at the time of the
meeting, and has remained so for the fifteen years since, that he had
heard an assassination order:
Would it be fair to say that although you al-
Tow for the possibility that a coup or some more general
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 336
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political action was being discussed, it is your clear
impression that you had heard an order for the assassi-
nation of Lumumba?
Johnson: It was my clear impression at the time.
Q: And it remains your impression now?
Johnson: It remains my impression now. I have reflect-
ed on this other kind of possibility, but that is the
sense .. that persists. (Johnson, 9/13/75, pp. 24-25)
Johnson explained that his allowance for the possibility that he had
heard an order for a coup did not disturb his recollection of hear-
ing an assassination order:
It was a retrospective reflection on what I had heard,
and since this coup did occur, it occurred to me that
it was possible that that is what I heard, but that
would not change my sense of the moment when I heard
the President speak, which I felt then, and I continue
to feel, was a statement designed to direct the dispos-
al, assassination, of Lumumba. (Johnson, 9/13/75, p. 12)
Johnson stated that the incident provoked a strong reaction
from him:
I was surprised
that I would ever hear a President
say anything like this in my presence or the presence of
a group of people. I was startled. (Johnson, 6/18/75,
P. 13)
A succinct summary of Johnson's testimony was elicited by Senator
Mathias in the following exchange:
Mathias:
What comes across is that you do have a
memory, if not of exact words, but of your own reaction
really to a Presidential order which you considered to
be an order for an assassination.
Johnson:
Mathias:
That is correct.
And that although precise words have escaped
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 337
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weiler
you in the passage of fifteen years, that sense of shock
remains?
Johnson: Right. Yes, sir. (Johnson, 6/18/75, p. 8)
After the meeting, Johnson, who was responsible for writing the
memorandum of the discussion, consulted with a senior official on
the NSC staff to determine how to handle the President's statement
in the memorandum and in the debriefing of the NSC Planning Board
that followed each meeting:
I suspect but no longer have an exact recollection
that I omitted it from the debriefing. I also do not re-
call how I handled the subject in the memo of the meet-
ing, though I suspect that some kind of reference to the
President's statement was made. (Johnson, 6/18/75, p. 7).
In his second appearance, Johnson reiterated that it was "quite like-
ly that it was handled through some kind of euphemism or may have
been omitted altogether" (Johnson, 9/13/75, p. 21).*
*
In 1960, Johnson was Director of the Planning Board Secretariat
third in command on the NSC staff. He attended NSC meetings to take
notes on the discussions whenever one of the two senior NSC officials
was absent.
one
Johnson testified that the person with whom he consulted about the
manner of recording the President's statement in the minutes was
of the two top NSC staff officials at that time: NSC Executive Secre-
tary James Lay or Deputy Executive Secretary Marion Boggs (Johnson,
9/13/75, pp. 12-13). Johnson could not recall which of the two offi-
cials he had consulted, but he "inferred" that it must have been the
"top career NSC staff person present" at the meeting where he heard
At both of the
the President's statement (Johnson, 9/13/75, p. 12).
NSC meetings where the President and Johnson were present for a dis-
cussion of Lumumba August 18 and September 7 -- James Lay was ab-
sent and Marion Boggs served as Acting Executive Secretary.
Marion Bogg's statement about his method of handling the situation
described by Johnson is in accord with Johnson's testimony:
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Το
- As Johnson stated, his testimony standing alone is "a clue,
rather than precise evidence of Presidential involvement in decision-
making with respect to assassinations" (Johnson, 6/18/75, p. 5).
determine the significance of this "clue," it must be placed in the
context of the records of the NSC meetings attended by Johnson,
testimony about those meetings, and the series of events that pre-.
ceded the dispatch of poisons to the Congo for Lumumba's assassina-
tion.
In the Summer of 1960, there were four NSC meetings where de-
velopments in the Congo were discussed at which Robert Johnson was
present. The President was not in attendance at two of those occa-.
sions July 15 and July 21 (NSC Minutes, 7/15/60%; NSC Minutes,
I have no independent recollection of being consulted by.
Mr. Johnson about how to handle in the memorandum of dis-
I am
cussion any sensitive statement regarding Lumumba.
not saying I was not consulted; merely that I do not re-
member such an incident. If I had been consulted, I
would almost certainly have directed Mr. Johnson to omit
the matter from the memorandum of discussion. (Boggs
affidavit, 10/10/75, p. 2)
James Lay, who attended other NSC meetings where Lumumba was discuss-
ed (e.g., September 21, 1960), also confirmed the fact that NSC min-
utes would not be likely to record a statement as sensitive as
Presidential order for an assassination, if such an order were given:
If extremely sensitive matters were discussed at an
NSC meeting, it was sometimes the practice that the
official NSC minutes would record only the general
subject discussed without identifying the specially
sensitive subject as the discussion. In highly
sensitive cases, no reference to the subject would
be made in the NSC minutes. (Lay affidavit, 9/8/75,
p. 2) ..
a
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 339
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7/21760). Nonetheless, the attitude toward Lumumba even at these
early meetings was vehement:
Mr. Dulles said that in Lumumba we were faced with a
person who was a Castro or worse. . Mr. Dulles went
on to describe Mr. Lumumba's background which he de-
scribed as "harrowing"
It is safe to go on the
assumption that Lumumba has been bought by the Commun-
ists; this also, however, fits with his own orienta-
tion. (NSC Minutes, 7/21/60)
The President presided over the other two NSC meetings.
After look-
ing at the records of those meetings, Johnson was unable to deter-
mine with certainty which one was the meeting at which he heard the
President's statement (Johnson, 9/13/75, p. 16).
However, the chronology of meetings, cables, and events in the
Congo during this period makes it most likely that Johnson's testi-
mony refers to the NSC meeting of August 18, 1960.
The meeting of August 18 took place at the beginning of a series
of events that preceded the dispatch of a CIA scientist to Leopold-
ville with poisons for the assassination of Lumumba.* The Septem-
ber 7 meeting took place in the midst of this series of events.
*
The major events in the series, each of which is discussed in de-
tail in other sections of the report, may be summarized as follows:
The week following the NSC meeting of August 18, the Special Group
was informed of the President's "extremely strong feelings about the
necessity for very straightforward action" and the Group agreed to
. consider "any particular kind of activity which might contribute to
getting rid of Lumumba" (Special Group Minutes, 8/25/60). At this
meeting, DCI Allen Dulles commented that "he had taken the comments
referred to seriously and had every intention of proceeding as vig-
orously as the situation permits" (Special Group Minutes, 8/25/60;
see Section 7(a)(iii), infra). The next day, Dulles sent an "Eyes
Only" cable under his personal signature to the Chief of Station in
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The NSC meeting of August 18, 1960, was held three weeks before
the "quasi-coup" in the Congo the dismissal of Lumumba by Kasavubu
which Johnson remembers as taking place "not long after" he heard
the President's statement. The only other meeting at which Johnson
could have heard the statement by the President was held on Septem-
ber 7, two days after this event.
Robert Johnson's memorandum of the meeting of August 18, 1960,
indicates that Acting Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon* introduced
* Leopoldville, indicating that it had been concluded in "HIGH QUAR-
TERS" that Lumumba's "REMOVAL MUST BE AN URGENT AND PRIME OBJECTIVE
AND THAT .
THIS SHOULD BE A HIGH PRIORITY OF OUR COVERT ACTION"
(CIA Cable OUT 62966, Dulles to Chief of Station, 8/26/60). The Dul-
les cable added:
INCLUDING EVEN MORE
YOU CAN
WE WISH GIVE YOU WIDER AUTHORITY
AGGRESSIVE ACTION IF IT CAN REMAIN COVERT
ACT ON YOUR OWN AUTHORITY WHERE TIME DOES NOT PERMIT RE-
FERRAL HERE. (CIA Cable, 8/26/60) (See Section 2, supra,
for more complete treatment of this cable.)
On September 19, a CIA scientist was dispatched from headquarters
to the Congo on an extraordinarily sensitive assignment (CIA Cable
OUT 71464, Bissell/Tweedy to Chief of Station, 9/19/60; see Section
4(a), supra). On September 21, in the presence of the President at
an NSC meeting, Allen Dulles stated that Lumumba "remained a grave
danger as long as he was not disposed of" (NSC Minutes, 9/21/60; see
Section 7(a)(iv), infra). Finally, on September 26, the CIA scien-
tist arrived in the Congo, provided the Chief of Station with lethal
biological substances, instructed him to assassinate Lumumba, and in-
formed him that the President had ordered the DCI to undertake an as-
sassination effort (see Sections 4(a)-4(c), supra). The Chief of
Station stated that he received confirmation from CIA headquarters
that he was to follow the instructions he had been given (see Section
4(e)(i), supra).
"
** In 1960, Dillon served as Undersecretary of State, the "number two
position in the State Department, the name of which subsequently
changed to Deputy Secretary of State. In this position, he frequently
(Continued
)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 341
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In the course of
his remarks, Dillon maintained that the presence of United Nations
troops in the Congo was necessary to prevent Soviet intervention at
the discussion of U.S. policy toward the Congo.
Lumumba's request:
If
Lumumba carried out his threat to force the UN
out, he might then offer to accept help from anyone.
The elimination of the UN would be a disaster which,
Secretary Dillon stated, we should do everything we
could to prevent. If the UN were forced out, we might.
be faced by a situation where the Soviets intervened by
invitation of the Congo. (NSC Minutes, 8/18/60)
The discussion then continued to raise the spectre of an alliance be-
tween Lumumba and the Soviet Union:
Secretary Dillon said that he [Lumumba] was working to
serve the purposes of the Soviets and Mr. Dulles pointed
out that Lumumba was in Soviet pay. (NSC Minutes, 8/18/
60)
In this context, the following exchange between President Eisenhower
and Secretary Dillon was recorded:
The President said that the possibility that the UN would
We should keep
be forced out was simply inconceivable.
the UN in the Congo even if we had to ask for European
troops to do it. We should do so even if such action was
used by the Soviets as the basis for starting a fight.
Mr. Dillon indicated that this was State's feeling but
that the Secretary General and Mr. Lodge doubted whether,
if the Congo put up really determined opposition to the
UN, the UN could stay in. In response, the President
stated that Mr. Lodge was wrong to this extent
talking of one man forcing us out of the Congo%3B of Lumum-
ba supported by the Soviets. There was no indication, the
wwwwwwww.
we were
Dillon
served as Acting Secretary of State and either attended or was
kept informed about NSC and Special Group meetings.
later served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Kennedy.
(Dillon, 9/2/75, pp. 2-4.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 342
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President stated, that the Congolese did not want
UN support and the maintenance of order. Secretary
Dillon reiterated that this was State's feeling
about the matter. The situation that would be
created by a UN withdrawal was altogether too
ghastly to contemplate. (NSC Minutes, 8/18/60)
This is the only statement about Lumumba which the memorandum of
the meeting attributed to the President.
As reported, it clearly does not contain an order for the
assassination of Lumumba. But the statement does indicate extreme
The President was so
Presidential concern focused on Lumumba:
disturbed by the situation in the Congo that he was willing to
risk a fight with the Soviet Union and he felt that Lumumba was
the "one man" who was responsible for this situation, a man who
did not represent the sentiments of the Congolese people in the
President's estimation.
After reviewing NSC documents and being informed of Robert
Johnson's testimony, Douglas Dillon stated his "opinion that it
is most likely that the NSC meeting of August 18, 1960 is the
meeting referred to by Mr. Johnson." (Dillon affidavit, 9/15/75.)
However, Dillon testified that he did not "remember such a thing"
as an explicit Presidential order for the assassination of
Lumumba (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 32). Dillon explained how he thought
the President may have expressed himself about Lumumba :
Dillon:
It could have been in view of this.
feeling of everybody that Lumumba was [a] very
difficult if not impossible person to deal with, and
was dangerous to the peace and safety of the world,
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 343
-98-
that the President expressed himself, we will have.
I
to do whatever is necessary to get rid of him.
don't know that I would have taken that as a
clearcut order as Mr. Johnson apparently did. And
I think perhaps others present may have interpreted
it other ways. (Dillon, 9/2/75, pp. 32-33.)
Q: Did you ever hear the President make such a
remark about Lumumba, let's get rid of him, or let's
take action right away on this?
Dillon: I don't remember that. But certainly this
was the general feeling of Government at that time,
and it wouldn't have been if the President hadn't
agreed with it. (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 33.)
Dillon said that he would have thought that such a state-
ment "was not a direct order to have an assassination" (Dillon,
9/2/75, p. 33). But he testified that it was "perfectly
possible" that Allen Dulles would have translated such strong
Presidential language about "getting rid of" Lumumba into
authorization for an assassination effort (Dillon, 9/2/75,.
pp. 34-35):
I think that Allen Dulles would have been quite
responsive to what he considered implicit autho-
rization, because he felt very strongly that we
should not involve the President directly in
things of this nature. And he was perfectly
willing to take the responsibility personally
that maybe some of his successors wouldn't have
been. And so I think that this is a perfectly
plausible thing, knowing Allen Dulles. (Dillon,
9/2/75, p. 34.)
Marion Boggs, who attended the meeting of August 18, as
Acting Executive Secretary of the NSC, stated after reviewing
the Memorandum of Discussion at that meeting:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 344
:
-99-
I recall the discussion at that meeting, but have no
independent recollection of any statements or dis-
cussion not summarized in the memorandum. Specifically,
I have no recollection of any statement, order or
reference by the President (or anyone else present
at the meeting) which could be interpreted as favor-
ing action by the United States to bring about the
assassination of Lumumba.* (Boggs affidavit, 10/10/75,
pp. 1-2.)
The Memorandum of Discussion at the NSC meeting of Septem-
ber 7, 1960--the only other meeting at which Johnson could have
heard the President's statement--records only a brief, general
discussion of developments in the Congo (NSC Minutes, 9/7/60).
As part of Allen Dulles' introductory intelligence briefing on
world events, the Memorandum related his remarks on the situation
in the Congo following Kasavubu's dismissal of Lumumba from his
position in the government (NSC Minutes; 9/7/60, p. 4).
Neither
the length nor the substance of the record of this discussion.
indicates that Lumumba's role in the Congo received the same
intense kind of consideration as the NSC had given it on August
18.** There is no record of any statement by the President
* Boggs added:
"Based on my whole experience with the NSC, I would have
considered it highly unusual if a matter of this nature
had been referred to in a Council meeting where a number
(Boggs
of persons with no 'need to know' were present.'
affidavit, 10/10/75, p. 2.)
"
**The NSC minutes of the meeting of September 7, deal with
the discussion of the Congo in two pages (NSC Minutes, 9/7/60,
pp. 4-5). By comparison, the August 18 meeting required an
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اعدة القدر کا شام کے
during this "discussion (NSC Minutes, 9/7/60, pp. 4-5).
Nevertheless, in the course of his briefing Dulles
expressed his continuing concern over the amount of personnel
and equipment that was being sent to the Congo by the Soviet
Union, primarily to aid Lumumba (NSC Minutes, 9/7/60, p. 5).
Dulles concluded this part of his briefing with an observation
that demonstrated that Lumumba's dismissal from the government
had not lessened the extent to which he was regarded at the
a potent political threat in any power struggle in the
NSC as
Congo:
Mr. Dulles stated that Lumumba always seemed to
come out on top in each of these struggles.
(NSC Minutes, 9/7/60, p. 5.)
The day after this NSC meeting, Gordon Gray made a pointed
reminder of the President's concern about the Congo to Allen
Dulles at a meeting of the Special Group:
Mr. Gray said that he hoped that Agency people in
the field are fully aware of the top-level feeling
in Washington that vigorous action would not be
amiss. (Special Group Minutes, 9/8/60
.)
There are three possible interpretations of the failure
of NSC records to reveal whether the President ordered the
assassination of Lumumba at one of these meetings.
First, an
extraordinarily lengthy (fifteen pages) summary of discussion
on the Congo and related policy problems in Africa, indicating.
that this topic was the focal point of the meeting (NSC
Minutes, 8/18/60, pp. 1-15).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 346
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assassination order could have been issued but omitted from
the records. Robert Johnson testified that it was "very
likely" that the Presidential statement he heard would have
been handled by means of a euphemistic reference or by
complete omission "rather than given as [a]
direct quo-
tation" in the Memorandum of Discussion (Johnson, 9/13/75,
P. 14).
Second, as illustrated by Douglas Dillon's testimony,
the President could have made a general statement about "getting
rid of" Lumumba with the intent to convey to Allen Dulles that
there was implicit authorization for an assassination effort..
Third, despite general discussions about removing Lumumba, the
President may not have intended to order the assassination of
Lumumba even though Allen Dulles may have thought an assassina-
The three White House staff
tion effort had been authorized.
members responsible to the President for national security
Gordon Gray,
affairs testified that there was no such order.
Andrew Goodpaster, and John Eisenhower were all in attendance
at the NSC meetings of August 18 and September 7.*
(iii)
The President's "Extremely Strong Feelings" Led
The Special Group to Consider Anything That Might
Get Rid of Lumumba: August 25, 1960
On August 25, 1960 five men** attended a meeting of the
* See Section 7(b), infra, for a general treatment of the
testimony of Gray, Goodpaster and Eisenhower.
**There were four standing members of the Special Group at
this time: Allen Dulles, Director of Central Intelligence
; 
Gordon
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 347
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:
Thomas
Special Group, the subcommittee of the National Security
Council responsible for planning covert operations.
Parrott, a CIA officer who served as Secretary to the Group,
began the meeting by outlining the CIA operations that had
been undertaken in "mounting an anti-Lumumba campaign in the
Congo" (Special Group Minutes, 8/25/60). This campaign involved
covert operations through certain labor groups and "the planned
attempt
to arrange a vote of no confidence in Lumumba"
in the Congolese Senate (Special Group Minutes, 8/25/60).
The outline of this campaign evoked the following dialogue :
The Group agreed that the action contemplated is
very much in order. Mr. Gray commented, however,
that his associates had expressed extremely strong
feelings on the necessity for very straightforward
action in this situation, and he wondered whether the
plans as outlined were sufficient to accomplish this.
Mr. Dulles replied that he had taken the comments
referred to seriously and had every intention of pro-
ceeding as vigorously as the situation permits or
requires, but added that he must necessarily put himself
in a position of interpreting instructions of this kind
within the bounds of necessity and capability.
finally agreed that planning for the Congo would not
necessarily rule out 'consideration' of any particular
kind of activity which might contribute to getting rid
of Lumumba. (Special Group Minutes, 8/25/60, p. 1.)
It was
Both Gordon Gray and Thomas Parrott testified that refer-
ence to Mr. Gray's "associates" was a euphemism for President
}
Gray, Special Assistant to the President for National Security
Affairs; Livingston Merchant, Undersecretary of State for Political
Affairs; and John N. Irwin II, Assistant Secretary of Defense.
Also in regular attendance was Thomas A. Parrott, Secretary to
the Special Group:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 348
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Eisenhower which was employed to preserve "plausible deniabil-
ity" by the President of discussion of covert operations
memorialized in Special Group Minutes (Gray, 7/9/75,
Parrott, 7/10/75, pp. 8-9).
P.
273
The four living participants at the meeting have all stated
that they do not recall any discussion of or planning for the
assassination of Lumumba (Merchant affidavit, 9/8/75, p. 1;
32;
Irwin affidavit, 9/22/75, pp. 1-2; Gray, 7/9/75, pp. 27,
Parrott, 7/10/75, pp. 25-26). Gray said that he did not con-¨
sider the President's desire for "very straightforward action".
to include "any thought in his mind of assassination" (Gray,
7/9/75, p. 32). Parrott testified to the same effect, maintain-
ing that he would have recorded a discussion of assassination
in explicit terms in the Special Group Minutes if such a dis-
cussion had taken place (Parrott; 7/10/75, pp. 26-27).
John N. Irwin II acknowledged, however, that while he did
not have "any direct recollection of the substance of that meet-
ing", the reference in the minutes to the planning for "getting
rid of Lumumba" was "broad enough to cover a discussion of
assassination" (Irwin affidavit, 9/22/75, p. 2).
Irwin's interpretation is shared by Douglas Dillon and
Richard Bissell--two high government officials who were not
participants at this Special Group meeting but who were involved
in the planning and policymaking for covert operations in the
Congo during this period.
NW. 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 349
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As a participant in National Security Council meetings
of this period, Dillon said that he would read the Special
Group minutes of August 25, 1960, to indicate that assassina-
tion was within the bounds of the kind of activity that might
be used to "get rid of" Lumumba (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 42).
Dillon noted that the reference in the minutes to the fact
that Allen Dulles stated that he "had taken the comments
referred to seriously" probably pointed to the President's
statement at the previous NSC meeting at which Robert Johnson
took notes (Dillon, 9/2/75, pp. 39-40).
When asked whether the CIA would have the authority to
mount an assassination effort against Lumumba on the basis of
the discussion at the Special Group, Dillon said:
But cer-
They would certainly have the authority to plan.
It is a close question whether this would be
enough to actually go ahead with it.
tainly the way this thing worked, as far as I
know, they didn't do anything just on their own.
think they would have checked back at least
with the senior people in the State Department
or the Defense Department. (Dillon, 9/2/75,
p. 43.)
Dillon said that if the CIA checked with the State Depart-
ment, it might have been done in such a way that it would not
appear on any record (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 43).
Dillon added that
"to protect the President as the public representative of the
U.S. from any bad publicity in connection with this", Allen'
Dulles "wouldn't return to the President" to seek further
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 350

-106-
approval if an assassination operation were mounted (Dillon,
9/2/60, pp. 42-43).
Richard Bissell stated that in his opinion the language
of the Special Group Minutes of August 25, 1960 indicated
that the assassination of Lumumba was part of a general
strategy at the NSC and within the CIA for removing Lumumba
from the political scene (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 29, 32).
Bissell added:
The Agency had put a top priority, probably, on
a range of different methods of getting rid of
Lumumba in the sense of either destroying him
physically, incapacitating him, or eliminating
his political influence. (Bissell, 9/10/75
,
p. 29.)
Bissell pointed to the Special Group Minutes of August 25,
1960 as
a "prime example" of the circumlocutious manner in
which a topic like assassination would be discussed by high
government officials:
Bissell: When you use the language that no particu-
lar means were ruled out, that is obviously what 
it
meant, and it meant that to everybody in the room
.
Meant that if it had to be assassination
, that 
that
was a permissible means.
You don't use language of that kind except to mean
in effect, the Director is being told, get rid of
the guy, and if you have to use extreme means up
(
Bissell,
to and including assassination, go ahead.
9/10/75, pp. 32-33.)
Bissell added that this message was, "in effect", being given
to Dulles by the President through his representative Gordon
Gray (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 33).
(iv) NSC Meeting of September 21, 1960: Dulles Said
Lumumba Would Remain a Grave Danger Until
"Disposed Of"
In the course of his intelligence briefing to the NSC
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 351
-107-
પ
on September 21, 1960, Allen Dulles stressed the danger of
Soviet influence in the Congo. Despite the fact that Lumumba
had been deposed from his position as Premier and was in UN
a threat, especially
'custody, Dulles continued to regard him as
in light of reports of an impending reconciliation between
Lumumba and the post-coup Congolese government:
Mobutu appeared to be the effective power in the
Congo for the monent but Lumumba was not yet
disposed of and remained a grave danger as long
as he was not disposed of. (NSC Minutes,
9/21/60.)
Three days after this NSC meeting, Allen Dulles sent a
personal cable to the Chief of Station in Leopoldville which
included the following message:
WE WISH GIVE EVERY POSSIBLE SUPPORT IN ELIMINATING
LUMUMBA FROM ANY POSSIBILITY RESUMING GOVERNMENTAL
POSITION OR IF HE FAILS IN LEOP[OLDVILLE], SETTING
(CIA Cable,
HIMSELF IN STANLEYVILLE OR ELSEWHERE.
OUT 73573, Dulles to Leopoldville, 9/24/60.)
On September 26, Sidney Gottlieb, under assignment from
CIA headquarters, arrived in Leopoldville (CIA Cable IN 18989,
Leopoldville to Director, 9/27/60), provided the Chief of
Station with poisons, instructed him to assassinate Lumumba;
and assured him that there was Presidential authorization for
this mission (see Sections 4(b)-4(c), supra).
Marion Boggs, NSC Deputy Executive Secretary, who wrote
the memorandum of the discussion of September 21, did not
interpret Dulles' remark as referring to assassination:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 352
-108-
I have examined the memorandum (which I prepared)
summarizing the discussion of the Congo at the
I 
recall the
September 21, 1960 meeting of the 
NSC.
discussion and believe it is accurately and adequately
I have no 
recollection
summarized in the memorandum.
of any discussion of a possible assassination of Lumumba
at this meeting. With specific 
reference to the state-
ment of the Director of Central Intelligence
believe this is almost a literal rendering of what Mr.
Dulles said. My own interpretation of this 
statement
was that Mr. Dulles was speaking in the 
context of
efforts being made within the Congolese 
government 
to
force Lumumba from power. I did not 
interpret it as
(Boggs affidavit 10/10/75,
referring to assassination*
pp. 2-3.)
Boggs was not, however, in a position to analyze Dulles'
I
remark in light of the actual planning for covert operations
that took place during this period because Boggs was not privy
to most such discussions (Boggs affidavit, 10/10/75, p. 2).
C. Douglas Dillon, who attended this NSC meeting as
Acting Secretary of State, said that he did not recall the dis-
cussion (Dillon, 9/2/75,
Dillon said that the minutes
p. 47).
"could mean that" assassination would have been one acceptable
means of "disposing of" Lumumba, although he felt that "getting
him out [of the Congo] or locking him up" would have been a
preferable disposition of Lumumba at that point since he was
* NSC Executive Secretary James Lay, who was also present
"I cannot 
recall
at the meeting of September 21, 1960, stated
:
whether there was any discussion of assassinating Lumumba at
(Lay affidavit
, 9/8/75, p. 1.)
any NSC meetings."
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 353
-109-
When reminded
of the fact that Lumumba's movement and communications were
not restricted by the UN force and that the Congolese army
continued to seek his arrest long after the NSC meeting, Dillon
acknowledged that during this period Lumumba continued to be
viewed by the United States as a potential threat and a volatile
force in the Congo:
already out of office (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 48).*
He had this tremendous ability to stir up
a crowd or a group.
And if he could have gotten.
out and started to talk to a battalion of the
Congolese Army, he probably would have had them
in the palm of his hand in five minutes
.
9/20/75, p. 49.).
(Dillon,.
John N. Irwin II, who attended the NSC meeting as Assistant
Secretary of Defense, stated that although he had no recollection
of the discussion, the language of the minutes was "broad enough
to cover a discussion of assassination". (Irwin affidavit,
9/22/75, p. 2).
Richard Bissell testified that, based upon his understanding
of the policy of the NSC toward Lumumba even after Lumumba was
in UN custody; he would read the minutes of September 21 to indi-
cate that assassination was contemplated "as one possible means"
* See Section 3, supra, for discussion of CIA cable traffic
indicating that Lumumba continued to be regarded 
as capable
of taking over the government after he was deposed 
and that
pressure to "eliminate" him did not 
cease until his death.
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 354
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of "disposing of" Lumumba.
Bissell
(Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 70.)
was not present at the NSC meeting (NSC Minutes, 9/21/60).
Bissell's opinion stands in opposition to that of Gordon'
Gray, the President's National Security Advisor, who likewise
testified that he could not remember the NSC discussion in which
When asked to interpret
he participated (Gray, 7/9/75, p. 57).
the reference to "disposing of" Lumumba, Gray said he "put it in
get rid of', 'eliminate'" (Gray, 7/9/75,
the same category as
p. 57). Early in his testimony, Gray stated that "assassination
could have been on the minds of some people when they used
11.1
these words 'eliminate' or 'get rid of'" (Gray, 7/9/75, p. 17).
Nonetheless, when asked to comment on the minutes of the NSC
meeting of September 21, he said: "It was not my impression
that we had in mind the assassination of Lumumba" (Gray, 7/9/75,
P: 57).*
*John Eisenhower, who attended the NSC meeting as Assistant
"direct
White House Staff Secretary, said that 
he had no
recollection" of the discussion 
but he found the 
minutes of
the meeting consonant with his "recollection 
of the 
atmosphere"
at the time: "the U.S. position 
was very much anti-Lumumba"
(Eisenhower, 7/18/75, p. 9). He 
said:
I would not conjecture that the words "disposed of"
meant an assassination, if for 
no other reason than
if I had something as nasty as this to 
plot, I 
wouldn't
ŉ the number present
do it in front of 21 people .
[at] the meeting. (Eisenhower, 7/18/75, p. 10.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 355
-111-
(b)
Testimony of Eisenhower White House Officials That
They Knew of No Presidential Consideration 
of
Assassination
The two members of President Eisenhower's staff who were
responsible for national security affairs--Gordon Gray and
Andrew Goodpaster--both made general disclaimers of any knowledge
of Presidential consideration of assassination during their
tenure.
Gordon Gray served as Special Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs, in which capacity he coordinated
the National Security Council and represented the President at
Special Group meetings. Gray testified that he did not recall
President Eisenhower "ever saying anything that contemplated
When asked to inter-
killing Lumumba" (Gray, 7/9/75, p. 28).*
pret phrases from the minutes of particular NSC and Special
Group meetings such as "getting rid of" or "disposing of"
Lumumba, Gray stated:
at
It is the intent of the user of the expression or
the phrase that is controlling and there may 
well
have been in the Central Intelligence Agency plans
and/or discussions of assassinations, 
but
the level of the Forty Committee [Special Group]
or a higher level than that, the National Security
Council, there was no active discussion 
in any 
way
planning assassination.
I agree that assassination could have
* At the outset of his testimony on the subject, Gordon Gray
acknowledged that he did not have a clear
, independent recollec-
tion of Lumumba's role in the Congo 
(Gray, 7/9/75, pp. 25-26).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 356
-112-
been on the minds of some people when they used
these words 'eliminate or 'get 
rid of'
I
am just trying to say that it was not seriously
considered as a program of action 
by the Presi-
dent or even the Forty 
[Special] Group.
7/9/75, p. 17.)
(Gray,
Andrew Goodpaster, the White House Staff Secretary to
President Eisenhower, said that he and Gray were the "principal
channels" between the President and the CIA, outside of NSC.
meetings (Goodpaster, 7/17/75, p. 4)..
Goodpaster was responsi-
ble for "handling with the President all matters of day-to-day
operations in the general fields of international affairs and
He regularly
security affairs" (Goodpaster, 7/17/75, p. 3).
attended NSC meetings and was listed among the participants at
the NSC meetings of August 18, 1960 and September 21, 1960.
When asked if he ever heard about any assassination effort
during the Eisenhower Administration, Goodpaster replied
unequivocally:
at no time and in no way did I ever know
of or hear about any proposal, any 
mention of
[I]t 
is my belief that
such an acitvity.
had such a thing been raised with the President
other than in my presence, I 
would have known
it 
would have been a matter
about it, and
of such significance and sensitivity that I am
confident that ... I would 
have recalled it 
had
such a thing happened. (Goodpaster
, 7/17/75,
P. 5.)
John Eisenhower, the President's son who served under Good-
paster as Assistant White House Staff Secretary, stated that
the use of assassination was contrary to the President's philos-
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 357
-113-
ophy that "no man is indispensable" (Eisenhower, 7/18/75, p. 14.)*
As a participant at NSC meetings who frequently attended dis-
cussions in the Oval Office relating to national security affairs,
John Eisenhower testified that nothing that came to his atten-
tion in his experience at the White House "can be construed in
my mind in the remotest way to mean any Presidential knowledge
of or concurrence in any assassination plots or plans" (Eisenhower,
7/18/75, p. 4).
* Douglas Dillon testified that the subject of assassination
never arose in his "direct dealings 
with either President
Eisenhower or President Kennedy (
Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 22). 
He was
asked by a member of the Committee, 
however, to speculate upon
the general philosophical approach 
that Presidents Eisenhower
and Kennedy would have taken to 
decisionmaking on the question
of using assassination as a tool of 
foreign policy:
Senator Hart (Colorado): I would invite your speculation at
this point as a sub-Cabinet 
officer under President Eisen-
hower, and as a Cabinet Officer 
under President Kennedy, I
think the Committee would be interested 
in your view as to
the attitude of each of them toward 
this subject, that is
to say, the elimination, violent 
elimination of foreign
leaders?
Dillon: Well, that is a difficult thing to speculate on
But I think probably
in a totally different atmosphere.
both of them would have approached it in a very pragmatic
way, most likely, simply weighed 
the process and con-
sequence rather than in a way 
that was primarily of a
moral principle. That is 
what would probably have 
been
Certainly the idea that
their attitude in a few cases
.
(Dillon,
this was going to be a policy of the U.S., generally
both of them were very much 
opposed to it.
9/2/75, pp. 22-23.)
Dillon served as Undersecretary of State in the Eisenhower
Administration and as Secretary 
of the Treasury under 
Kennedy.
NW 50955.
DocId: 32423539 Page 358
-114-
(c)
Other Eisenhower Administration officials who were active
in the Special Group in late 1960--Assistant Secretary of
Defense John N. Irwin II, Undersecretary of State for Political
Affairs Livingston Merchant, and Deputy Secretary of Defense
James Douglas--stated that they did not recall any discussion
about assassinating Lumumba (Irwin affidavit, 9/22/75, pp. 1-2;
Merchant affidavit, 9/8/75, p. 1; Douglas affidavit, 9/5/75).
Richard Bissell Testified That, Despite His Lack of
'Strongly 
Inferred"
a Specific Recollection, He
That the Assassination Effort Against Lumumba Was
Authorized by President 
Eisenhower and Allen Dulles
Richard Bissell's testimony on the question of high-level
authorization for the effort to assassinate Lumumba is prob-
lematic. Bissell insisted that he had no direct recollection
of receiving such authorization and that all of his testimony
on this subject "has to be described as inference" (Bissell,
9/10/75, p. 48). Bissell began his testimony on the subject
by asserting that it was on his own initiative that he instructed
Justin O'Donnell to plan the assassination of Lumumba (Bissell,
Nevertheless, Bissell's conclusion--based
6/11/75, pp. 54-55).
on his inferences from the totality of circumstances relating
to the entire assassination effort against Lumumba--was that an
assassination attempt had been authorized at the highest levels
of the government (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 32-33, 47-49, 60-62,
.65).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 359
-115-
con-
✓ As discussed above, Bissell testified that the minutes
of meetings of the Special Group on August 25, 1960 and the
NSC on September 21, 1960 indicate that assassination was
templated at the Presidential level as one acceptable means
of "getting rid of Lumumba" (see Sections 5(a) (ii) and 5(a)(iii),
supra).
a
There was "no question", according to Bissell, that the
cable from Allen Dulles to the Chief of Station in Leopoldville
on August 26, which called for Lumumba's removal and authorized
Hedgman to take action without consulting headquarters, was
direct outgrowth of the Special Group meeting Dulles had
attended the previous day (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 31-32). Bissell
was "almost certain" that he had been informed about the Dulles
cable shortly after its transmission (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 12).
Bissell testified that he assumed that assassination was one of
the means of removing Lumumba from the scene that is contemplated
within the language of Dulles' cable (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 32):
It is my belief on the basis of the cable drafted
by Allen Dulles that he regarded 
the action of
the Special Group as authorizing 
implementation
[ of an assassination] if favorable circumstances
presented themselves, if it 
could be done covertly
.
(Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 64-65
.)
Dulles' cable signalled to Bissell that there was Presi-
dential authorization for him to order action to assassinate
Lumumba (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 61-62):
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 360

-116-
9፡ Did Mr. Dulles tell you that President Eisenhower
wanted Lumumba killed
?
Mr. Bissell: I am sure he didn't.
Q: Did he ever tell you even circumlocutiously
through this kind of 
cable?
Mr. Bissell: Yes, I think his cable says it in effect.
(Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 33.)
As for discussions with Dulles about the source of autho-
rization for an assassination effort against Lumumba,
stated:
Bissell
I think it is probably unlikely that Allen Dulles
would have said 
either the President or President
I 
think he would have said
,
Eisenhower even to me.
this is authorized in the highest quarters, and I
(Bissell, 9/10/75
,
would have known what he 
meant.
p. 48.).
When asked if he had sufficient authority to move beyond the
consideration or planning of assassination to order implementa-
tion of a plan, Bissell said, "I probably did think I had [such]
authority" (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 61-62).
When informed about the Chief of Station's testimony
about the instructions he received from Gottlieb, Bissell said
that despite his absence of a specific recollection:
I would strongly infer in this case that such an
authorization did pass through 
me, as it were,
if Sid Gottlieb gave that 
firm instruction to 
the
(Bissell
, 9/10/75, p. 40.)
Station Chief.
Bissell said that the DCI would have been the source of this
authorization (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 40).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 361
-117-
*Bissell did not recall being informed by Gottlieb that
Gottlieb had represented to the Chief of Station that there
was Presidential authorization for the assassination of Lumumba
But Bissell said that assuming he
(Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 46).
had instructed Gottlieb to carry poison to the Congo, "there
was no possibility" that he would have issued such an instruc-
tion without authorization from Dulles (Bissell, 9/10/75,
p. 47).
Likewise Bissell said he "probably did" tell Gottlieb
that the mission had the approval of President Eisenhower
(Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 47). This led to Bissell's conclusion
that if, in fact, the testimony of the Chief of Station about
Gottlieb's actions is accurate, then Gottlieb's actions were
fully authorized:
Q: In light of the entire atmosphere at the Agency
and the policy at the Agency at the time, Mr.
Gottlieb's representation to the Chief of Station
that the President had instructed the DCI to
carry out this mission would not have been beyond.
the pale of Mr. Gottlieb's authority at that
point?
Bissell:
P. 65).
No, it would not.
Bissell further stated:
(Bissell, 9/10/75,
Knowing Mr. Gottlieb, it is literally inconceivable
to me that he would have acted beyond his instruc-
tions. (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 41.)
With respect to his assignment to Justin O'Donnell to "plan
and prepare for" the assassination of Lumumba (Bissell, 9/10/75,
p. 24) Bissell testified that "it was my own idea to give
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 362
-118-
O'Donnell this assignment" (Bissell, 9/10/75,
50).
P.
But he
said that this specific assignment was made in the context
that an assassination mission against Lumumba already had autho-
rization above the level of DDP (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 50%
; see
also pp. 32-33, 47-48, 60-62).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 363
(Diall--710113)
The "Executive Action" Capability
Along with the question of authorization for actual assas-
sination attempts, the Committee considered the extent and nature
of authorization for a CIA project which included, as one element,
the development of an assassination capability.
(a) Introduction
Sometime in early 1961, Richard Bissell (Deputy Director
of Plans) instructed William Harvey, who was at that time the
Chief of one of CIA's Foreign Intelligence staffs, to establish
an "executive action capability" which included research into a
capability to assassinate foreign leaders. (Bissell 6/9/75, p. 51;
Harvey 6/25/75, pp. 36-37.) At some time within the same period,
Bissell and McGeorge Bundy (Special Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs) had a conversation about the matter.
Bissell, Harvey and Helms all agreed that the "generalized"
capability was never used" (Bissell 6/9/75, p. 87; Harvey 6/25/75;
p. 45; Helms 6/13/75, p. 52).
поте сотрыв
"Executive action" is a CIA euphemism, defined by the
testimony before the Committee as a project for research into
developing means for overthrowing foreign political leaders, includ-
ing a "capability to perform assassinations". (Harvey 6/25/75,
P. 34.)
Bissell indicated that executive action covered a "wide
spectrum of actions" to "eliminate the effectiveness" of foreign
leaders, with assassination as the "most extreme" action on the
spectrum (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 32). The Inspector General's Report.
2
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 364
NW 50955
-2-
described executive action as a "general stand-by capability" to
carry out assassination when required (I.G., p. 37). The project
was given the code name ZR/RIFLE by the CIA.*
A single agent ("asset"), given the cryptonym QJ/WIN,
was placed under Harvey's supervision for the ZR/RIFLE project,
but never used in connection with any actual assassination efforts.
Richard Helms described QJ/WIN's "capability":
"If you needed somebody to carry out murder, I guess you
had a man who might be prepared to carry it out. (Helms,
6/13/75, p. 53).
Harvey did use agent QJ/WIN, however, to spot "individuals
with criminal and underworld connections in Europe for possible
multi-purpose use" (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 50). For example, QJ/WIN
reported that a potential asset in the Middle East was "the leader
of a gambling syndicate" with "an available pool of assassins"
(CIA file, ZR/RIFLE/Personality Sketches).
However, Harvey testified that:
"during the entire existence of the entire ZRRIFLE project
no agent was recruited for the purpose of assassina-
tion, and no even tentative targeting or target list was
ever drawn." (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 45.)
Project ZR/RIFLE involved, generally, assessing the
problems and requirements of assassination and developing a stand-
* ZR/RIFLE was a cryptonym relating to two programs. One was
the executive action assassination capability. The other was
another program which is not part of the subject matter of this
report. (William Harvey had been in charge of the CIA section
with general responsibility for such programs.) This second
program was genuine, but it was also to provide a cover for any
executive action operation. (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 49.).”
DocId: 32423539 Page 365
-3-
by assassination capability; more specifically, it involved
"spotting" potential agents and "researching" assassination
techniques that might be used (Bissell, 7/17/75, p. 11 and 6/9/75,
p. 73; Harvey, 6/25/75, pp. 37-A, 45). Bissell characterized
Project ZR/RIFLE as "internal and purely preparatory" (Bissell,
7/22/75, p. 32). The I.G. Report of 1967 found "no indication
in the file that the Executive Action Capability of ZR/RIFLE-
QJ/WIN was ever used", but said that "after Harvey took over the
Castro operation, he ran it as one aspect of ZR/RIFLE". (I.G.
pp. 40-41.)*
(b)
The Question of White House Iniţiation, Authorization,
or Knowledge of the Executive Action Project
There is general agreement on one fact: at some point in
early 1961 Bissell discussed the executive action capability with
Bundy. The timing of that conversation and whether "the White
House" urged that a capability be created were matters on which
the evidence varied widely.
Harvey testified that Bissell had told him that "the
White House" had twice urged the creation of such a capability'
and the Inspector General's Report quoted notes of Harvey's (no
longer in existence) to that effect. Bissell did not recall any
specific conversation with the "White House". However, his initial
testimony assumed the correctness of Harvey's notes, and stated
* A discussion of whether ZR/RIFLE was related to the actual
assassination efforts against Castro is found at Section (d),
infra.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 366
-4-
that, while he could have created the capability on his own, any
urgings would have come from Bundy or Walt Rostow. In a later
appearance, however, Bissell said he merely informed Bundy of
the capability and that the context was a briefing by him and
not urging by Bundy. Bundy said he received a briefing and
gave no urging, though he raised no objections. Rostow said he
never heard of the project.
William Harvey testified that he was "almost certain"
Namor
that on January 25 and 26, 1961, he met with CIA officials Sidney Accuracy
Gottlieb, the new Chief of CIA's Technical Services Division, and
Arnold Silver, a CIA recruiting officer, to discuss the feasibility
of creating a capability within the Agency for "executive action"
(Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 52). After reviewing his notes of those
meetings, Harvey testified that they took place after his initial
*As to the date of these notes, Harvey was asked whether his no-
tations "25/1-Sid G" and "26/1-AS" indicate that he spoke to Sidney
Gottlieb and Arnold Silver in 1961, as opposed to 1962. Harvey testi-
fied as follows:
Q: And is it your judgment that that is January 26, 1961 and
is about the subject of Executive Action?
Harvey: Yes, it is.
Q: And it followed your conversation with Mr. Bissell that
you have recounted?
Harvey:
[W]ell, when I first looked at this, I thought
this, well, this has got to be '62, but I am almost certain
now that it is not. If this is true, this might place the
first discussion that I had with Dick Bissell in early
January and this is difficult to pinpoint because there were.
several such discussions in varying degrees of detail during
the period in the spring, and very early in '61 to the fall
of '61 period, but I did find out fairly early on that Silver
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 367”
0
-5-
discussion of executive action with Bissell, which, he said,
might have transpired in "early January" (Harvey, 6/25/75, p.
52). When Bissell was shown these notes, he agreed with Harvey
about the timing of their initial discussion (Bissell, 7/17/75,
p. 10).
had or that Bissell had discussed the question of assassi-
nation with Arnold Silver, and this discussion, at the very
least, had to take place after I know Bissell already had
discussed the matter with Silver. (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 52).
Harvey had also testified that, after receiving Bissell's initial in-
structions to establish an executive action capability:
the first thing I did
was discuss in theoretical
terms with a few officers whom I trusted quite implicitly
the whole subject of assassination, our possible assets,
our posture, going back, if you will, even to the funda-
mental questions of A, is assassination a proper weapon
of an American intelligence service, and B, even if you
assume that it is, is it within our capability within
the framework of this government to do it effectively.
and properly, securely and discreetly. (Harvey, 6/25/75,
PP. 37-A, 38).
The Inspector General's Report connected Silver and Gottlieb to the
early stages of the executive action project as follows:
Harvey says that Bissell had already discussed certain
aspects of the problem with Arnold Silver and with Sidney
Gottlieb. Since Silver was already cut in, Harvey used
him in developing the Executive Action Capability……….
Harvey's mention of him [Gottlieb] in this connection
may explain a notation by Dr. Gunn that Harvey instructed
Gunn to discuss techniques with Gottlieb without associa-
ting the discussion with the Castro operation. (I.G.
Report, pp. 37-38).
It is evident from the testimony of Harvey and Bissell that the turn-
over to Harvey of the Roselli contact in November 1961 was discussed
as part of ZRRIFLE (see Section (d), infra). Thus, their initial
discussion of executive action can, at the least, be dated before
November 1961 and the "25/1" and "26/1" notations would have to
refer to January 1961.
NW 50955
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Harvey testified that the "executive action" capability.
was intended to include assassinations (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 35).
His cryptic handwritten notes of the January 25/26 meetings, pre-
served at the CIA, contain phrases which suggest a discussion of
assassination--and Harvey confirmed this interpretation: "last
resort beyond last resort and a confession of weakness", "the
magic button", and "never mention word assassination".
Ex. 1, 6/25/75).*
(Harvey,
The Inspector General's Report did not mention these
notes, or their dates.
However, in describing Richard Bissell's
initial assignment of the "executive action" project to Harvey,
it referred to another set of Harvey's notes, which were destroyed
after the preparation of the Report. The excerpt from these notes
quoted Bissell as saying to Harvey, "The White House had twice
urged me to create such a capability" (I.G., P. 37). Harvey also
testified that this "urging" was mentioned in his initial dis-
cussion of "executive action" with Bissell (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 37).
However, the testimony from Bissell and White House aides in the
Kennedy and Eisenhower Administrations is in conflict with Harvey's
testimony as to whether such "urging" had in fact been given to
Bissell.
*Harvey's notes also contained a phrase which suggests his con-
cern that any U.S. assassination attempts might breed retaliation
from other governments: "dangers of RIS (Russian Intelligence
Service) counter-action and monitor if they are blamed." (Harvey,
Ex. 1, 6/25/75; Bissell, Ex. 1, 7/17/75).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 369
-7-
The following testimony regarding the relationship
between "the White House" and the executive action capability
was obtained by the Committee:
Harvey: Harvey testified that his missing notes indica-
ted that Bissell mentioned White House urgings to develop an execu-
tive action capability (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 37). Harvey said that
he "particularly remember[ed]" that Bissell said that he received
"more than one" urging from the White House (larvey, 6/25/75,
pp. 36-37; 7/11/75, p. 59). However, he had no direct evidence
that Bissell actually had any such discussion with "the White House."
No specific individual in the White House was named to Harvey
(Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 31). Moreover, he said that it would have been
"improper" for him to have asked Bissell who he had talked to and
"grossly improper" for Bissell to have volunteered that name
(Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 37).
Bissell: Bissell specifically recalled assigning Harvey
to investigate the capability (Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 51). However,
Bissell did not recall "a specific conversation with anybody in
the White House as the origin" of his instruction to Harvey (Bissell,
6/9/75, p. 51).
During the course of several appearances before the
Committee, Bissell's testimony varied as to whether or not he had.
been urged by the White House to develop an executive action
capability.
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C
-8-
In his initial appearances before the Committee on June 9 and
11, 1975, Bissell made statements that tended to indicate that White
House authorization had been given. In response to the "twice urged"
quotation of Harvey's notes in the Inspector General's Report,.
Bissell said, "I have no reason to believe that Harvey's quote is
wrong."
Bissell accordingly said in his
initial testimony that as far as he knew, it was true that he was
asked by the White House to create a general stand-by assassination
capability.
(Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 51).
(Bissell, 6/9/75, p. 49).
Based again upon larvey's missing notes ("White House urging")
and his initial statement that he had no reason to challenge their
accuracy, Bissell initially gave the opinion that McGeorge Bundy
(Id., 6/9/75, p. 49), Special Assistant to President Kennedy for
National Security Affairs, and Walt Rostow (Id., p. 51), Deputy
Assistant to President Kennedy during 1961, were the two people from
whom such a request was most likely to have come (Id., p. 53) because
they were "the two members of the White House staff who were closest
to CIA operations."
:
(Id., p. 54).
At another point in his initial testimony, Bissell said that
(unsistons
the creation of the capability "may have been initiated within the In'ut
Agency" (Id., p. 81). And still later he said: "there is little
doubt in my mind that Project RIFLE was discussed with Rostow and
possibly Bundy" (Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 46).
When Bissell returned to the Committee on July 17 and 22, his
testimony, given in light of information gained since his earlier
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 371
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U
appearances, was that there was no White House urging. for the creation
of the executive action project, although tacit approval for the
"research" project was probably given by Bundy after it was established.
First, he was shown the llarvey notes which had been preserved
and which, without any mention of the White House, indicated larvey
had received his assignment prior to January 25/26, 1961. Those
dates just 5 days after the change of administration made
Bissell conclude that it was "very unlikely that that assignment
to [Harvey] was taken as a result of White House urging or consul-
tation" (Bissell, 7/17/75, p. 10). Bissell said that Bundy did
not have any influence on the performance of his Agency duties before
the Presidential inauguration (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 23). Bissell
added that he did not remember meeting with anyone in the new ad-
ministration on matters prior to the inauguration (Bissell, 7/22/75,
p. 23).
Second, when he returned in July, Bissell also said he was con.
vinced by telephone conversations with Kostow and Bundy that based
upon Rostow's duties
which, in 1961, had nothing to do with
covert action
www.ww
the "never discussed" executive action with Rostow
(Bissell, 7/17/75, p. 10; 7/27/75, p. 22).
As for Bundy, Bissell's final testimony (after telephone con-
tact with Bundy) was that he believed that he had informed Bundy
about the capability after it had been created (Bissell, 7/17/75,
pp. 10-11; 7/22/75, pp. 21-22). But Bissell confirmed his original
testimony (6/9/75, pp. ) that he did not brief Bundy on the
NW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 372
-10-
actual assassination plots against Castro already undertaken by the
CIA (Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 47; 7/22/75, p. 31). Bissell was "quite
certain" that he would not have expected Bundy to mention the
executive action capability to the President.
(Bissell, 7/22/75,
p. 35).
Bissell testified:
.?.
Would you think the development of a capability to
kill foreign leaders was a matter of sufficient impor-
tance to bring to the attention of the President?
Bissell: In that context and at that time and given the
limited scope of activities within that project, I would
not. (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 35).
"
Bissell said that he and Bundy spoke about an untargeted
"capability" rather than the plan or approval for an assassination
operation (Bissell, 7/17/75, p. 11). Bissell said that although
he does not have a specific recollection, he "might have" mentioned
Castro, Lumumba, and Trujillo in the course of a discussion of
executive action "because these were the sorts of individuals at
that moment in history against whom such a capability might possibly
have been employed." (Bissell, 6/11/75, pp. 50-51).
Bissell said his impression was that Bundy, in addition to ex-
pressing no unfavorable reaction to the project, might have actually
given a more affirmative reaction (Bissell, 7/22/75, pp. 25, 28).:
Bissell testified that he might have interpreted Bundy's reaction
as approval for the executive action concept (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 30).
Q:
I think the testimony of this witness is going
further in saying what you received from (Bundy) was,
in your view, tantamount to approval?
Bissell: I, at least, interpreted it as you can call
it approval, or you could say no objection. He (Bundy)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 373
-11-
was briefed on something that was being done, as I now
believe, on the initiative of the Agency. His (Bundy's)
comment is that he made no objection to it. I suspect:
that his reaction was somewhat more favorable than that,
but this is a matter that probably someone listening to
the conversation on which such a person could have had
differing interpretations. (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 33)
Bissell's testimony on any conversation with Bundy regarding
executive action was speculative reconstruction from first appearance
to last because he had no "clear recollection" of the events (Bissell,
7/22/75, pp. 29, 36). But Bissell maintained that more "formal and
specific and explicit approval would have been required" before any
"actual overt steps in use of the capability." (Bissell, 7/22/75,
p. 31).
Bissell said that Harvey's notation about White llouse urgings
to develop an executive action capability may have been a slightly
confused account of a conversation subsequent to the initiation of
the project in which Bissell relayed Bundy's reaction to Harvey
(Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 25).
Bissell testified that the development of an executive action
capability was "undoubtedly" initiated within the Agency (Bissell,
7/22/75, p. 22). He had acknowledged on his first day of testimony
that this would not have been unusual:
it was the normal practice in the Agency and an impor-
tant part of its mission to create various kinds of
capability long before there was any reason to be certain
whether those would be used or where or how or for what
purpose. The whole ongoing job of ... a secret intelli̇-
gence service of recruiting agents is of that character.
So it would not be particularly surprising to me. if the
NW 50955
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decision to create
this capability had been taken
without an outside request. (Bissell, 6/9/75, pp. 67-68).*
:
Bundy McGeorge Bundy also testified that he had a conversation
with Bissell, during which the executive action capability was
dis-
Bundy's testimony comports with
cussed (Bundy, pp. 4-5).
Bissell's
s on the fact that they spoke about an untargeted capability,
rather than an assassination operation (Bundy, pp. 4-5).
But Bundy
said that the capability included "killing the individual" (Bundy,
p. 5). Bundy's impression was that the CIA was "testing my reaction,"
not "seeking authority" (Bundy, p. 15). Bundy summarized his testi-
mony by saying:
I am sure I gave no instruction. But it is only fair to
add that I do not recall that I offered any impediment
either. (Bundy, p. 10)
Bundy said that he did not take steps to halt the development of
the executive action capability or "pursue the matter at all" (Bundy,
p. 19) because he was satisfied
that this was not an operational activity, and would not
become such without two conditions: first, that there
be a desire or a request or a guidance that there should
be planning against some specific individual; and second,
that there should be a decision to move against the indi-
vidual. (Bundy, p. 7):
For example, Bissell testified that on his own initiative, he
had requested a CIA officer to go to the Congo to "make plans and
develop the capability" for an assassination attempt against Lumumba,
if ordered (Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 55) ..
**Bundy also testified that he had a vague recollection of hearing
about poison in relation to Cuba, but he did not connect this to the
conversation about executive action. (See footnote, p. 6, Kennedy
Pre-Bay of Pigs section, supra.)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 375
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Bundy testified that he believed that neither of these conditions had
been fulfilled (Bundy, p. 7).
Bundy recalled the conversation as taking place "sometime in the
early months of 1961." (Bundy, p. 4). When questioned about the
dates in Harvey's notes, Bundy rated the chance that the conversation
about executive action took place before January 25 when: Harvey
was already discussing the project at the CIA pursuant to Bissell's
as "near zero" because the new Administration had been
directive
in office less than a week and he had been preoccupied with other
problems, including the Berlin crisis and reorganizing the National
Security staff (Bundy, p. 9).
Bundy testified that he did not brief the President on the
executive action project:
Chairman: And you have testified that you did not take
the matter to the President?
:
Bundy: As far as I can recall, Mr. Chairman.
(Bundy, p. 16)
Bundy explained that the division of responsibility for national
security affairs excluded Rostow from jurisdiction over covert opera-
tions, making it unlikely that Rostow would be briefed on a project
like ZRRIFLE (Bundy, p. 11; Rostow, p. 11).
Rostow: Rostow testified that he was "morally certain" that
during his entire tenure in government, he never heard a reference
to executive action or "such a capability or such an intention to
act by the U.S."
(Rostow, pp. 10, 13).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 376
-14-
0
Goodpaster and Gray: The responsibility for national security
affairs during the latter part of the Eisenhower Administration was
borne by Andrew Goodpaster and Gordon Gray. However, there was no
evidence which raised the name of either man in connection with the
development of an executive action capability. Both Goodpaster and
Gray testified to having no knowledge of it. (Goodpaster, p. 11;
Gray, p. 56.)
(c)
Authorization or Knowledge of Executive Action Project
by DCT
.
Richard Bissell said he was "quite certain" that Allen
Dulles had full knowledge of the executive action project for two
reasons: first, it "would have come to the DCI's attention" at the
time of the transfer of William Harvey between components of the
Agency to work on Cuban operations; * and second, Bissell "would
imagine" it was mentioned to Dulles at the initiation of the project
(Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 35). Bissell and larvey briefed Richard Helms
on Project ZRRIFLE when he became DDP (Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 53; Harvey,
7/11/75, p. 63). But Bissell did not recall briefing John McCone
about the project when McCone took over as DCI (Bissell, 7/17/75,
p. 11).
McCone testified that he had no knowledge of such a project
(McCone, p. 43).
William Harvey said it was assumed that the project was;
within the parameters permitted by the DCI. But Harvey testified
that officially advising the DCI of the existence of the project
* Harvey's transfer to Cuban operations was not completed until
late in 1961.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 377
-15-
was "a bridge we did not cross" and would not have crossed until
•
"there was either specific targeting or a specific operation or a
"
specific recruitment. (Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 59).
(d) The Question of Whether Project ZRRIFLE was Connected
to Any Actual Assassination Plots
The Committee has sought to determine whether the CIA de-
velopment of an executive action capability was related in any way to
the actual assassination efforts. One question raised by this
inquiry is whether the participants in the assassination operations
might have perceived the executive action capability as in some way
lending legitimacy to the actual assassination efforts.
(i)
Conversation Between Bissell and Bundy
In his early testimony, Bissell said he did not have
i
a recollection of whether he discussed the names of Castro, Lumumba,
and Trujillo with anyone in the White House in the course of discussing
the project to develop an executive action capability (Bissell, 6/11/75,
p. 51). However, Bissell testified that it was "perfectly plausible
that I would have used examples" (Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 51). He con-
tinued:
in such a discussion of a capability, I might well have
used the three names that I just gave, because these were
the sorts of individuals at that moment in history against
whom such a capability might possibly have been employed."
(Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 51).
Bissell and Bundy both testified, however, that
their discussion of the development of the capability for assassina-
tion did not involve any mention of actual assassination plans or
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 378
-16-
attempts (see detailed treatment at Section (b), supra).
There
ок
Bunny
is no testimony to the contrary. The account of this conversa-
tion raises a question as to whether Bissell acted properly in
withholding from Bundy the fact that assassination efforts
against Castro had already been mounted and were moving forward.
Bundy was responsible to a new President for national security
affairs and Bissell was his principal source of information about:
covert operations at the CIA.
(ii)
Bissell's Instruction to Take Over Responsibility
for Underworld Contact: November 1961
астко
proponce
in
not
myiving
xenition
Both Bissell and Harvey recall a meeting in November
1961 in which Harvey was instructed to take over the contact with
John Roselli (Bissell, 6/11/75, pp. 19, 47; Harvey, 6/25/75, p. 86;
and 6/11/75, p. 19)--which had been used for the initial poison pill
plot as part of Project ZR/RIFLE. Harvey's notes placed the meeting
on November 15, 1961 (I.G., p. 39), during the period in which Harvey.
was freed from his duties on another Agency staff to take over
direction of Task Force W, the locus of CIA activity against the
Castro regime.
According to Bissell and Harvey, the November meeting
involved only the planning and research of a capability rather than
a targeted operation against Castro (Bissell, 7/17/75, p. 13;
Harvey, 7/11/75, p. 60). But Bissell acknowledged that the purpose
of the Roselli contact had been to assassinate Castro, and that "it
is a fair inference that there would have been no reason to maintain
NW 50955
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-17-
it [the contact] unless there was some possibility of reactivating
that operation" (Bissell, 6/11/75, p. 19). Bissell stated that
because the assassination plot against Castro involving the syndicate
had been stood down after the Bay of Pigs
was no authorization to pursue it actively
and there
the re
sponsibility that was given to him [Harvey] was that of
taking over an inactive contact.". (Bissell, 7/17/75, p. 14)
Bissell said that he had, in effect, asked Harvey to stand watch over
the contact in case any action should be required and further testi-
fied that it was never required.
The Inspector General's Report stated:
"After
Harvey took over the Castro operation, he ran it as one aspect
of ZRRIFLE."
(I.G., p. 40). Harvey recalled that during a dis-
cussion with Bissell of the creation of an executive action capability,
Bissell advised him of "a then going operation" involving the names
of Maheu and possibly Roselli and Giancana, "which was a part of the
Agency's effort to develop
a capability for executive action.
(Harvey, 7/11/75, pp. 55, 61). Harvey said that at the time of
this discussion, the operation had been "in train" for "approxi-
mately two years or perhaps 18 months." (Harvey, 7/11/75, p. 54).
Although his "net impression" was that both the
"exploratory project" and the "specific operation" were "fully
authorized and approved", Harvey said he could not testify that
"specific White House authority for this given operation was implied
or stated" (Harvey, 7/11/75, p. 54.) Bissell does not recall
telling anyone in the White House that something had been done to
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 380

-18-
bring a CIA officer together with the criminal syndicate (Bissell,
6/11/75, pp. 19-20). Harvey did not recall any mention of the
White House or any higher authority than the DDP in his November
meeting with Bissell (Harvey, 7/11/75, pp. 60-61).
Although Richard Helms was briefed and given
administrative responsibility (as DDP) for Project ZR/RIFLE three
months later, he did not recall that ZR/RIFLE was ever contemplated
as a capability to assassinate Castro (Helms, 6/13/75, p. 55).
Asked whether the actual assassination efforts against Castro were
related to ZR/RIFLE (executive action), "Helms testified:
"In my
mind those lines never crossed" (Helms, 6/13/75, p. 52). However,
Bissell's testimony leaves more ambiguity: "the contact with the
syndicate which had Castro as its target . folded into the
ZR/RIFLE project
and they became one" (Bissell, 6/11/75,
P. 47).
When asked by Senator Baker whether the executive action
"capability ... for assassination" was "used against Castro",
Bissell replied that it was "in the later phase". (Bissell, 6/11/75,
p. 47).
The instruction from Bissell to Harvey on November 15,
1961, however, preceded the reactivation of the CIA-syndicate assas-
ination operation against Castro by approximately five months.
(iii) Use of Agent QJ/WIN in Africa
QJ/WIN was a foreign citizen with a criminal back-
ground who had been recruited by the CIA for certain sensitive
programs involving surreptitious entries which pre-dated Project
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 381
--19-
ZR/RIFLE. Harvey testified that QJ/WIN's function after the advent
of Project ZR/RIFLE in 1961 was restricted to the "spotting" of.
potential assets for "multi-purpose" covert use.
However, in the Fall of 1960--before Harvey was
assigned to create Project ZR/RIFLE by Richard Bissell--agent
QJ/WIN had been dispatched to the Congo by Arnold Silver, his
supervising CIA case officer in Europe. William Harvey, as the
Chief of the CIA Foreign Intelligence staff on which Silver worked,
had ordered QJ/WIN's mission to the Congo (CIA Dispatch AUDW-147,
11/2/60) and arranged the financial accounting for the mission
afterward (Memorandum to Finance Division from William K. Harvey,
1/11/61). [QJ/WIN's activities in the Congo are treated in detail
in the discussion of the Lumumba case;
see Section
supra.]
There are two factors which may raise a question as
to whether QJ/WIN was being used in an ad hoc capacity to develop
an assassination capability before ZR/RIFLE was formally initiated.
First, there is a similarity in the cast of characters: Harvey,
QJ/WIN, Silver, and Gottlieb were connected with the Lumumba matter
and reappear in connection with the subsequent development of
ZR/RIFLE. Second, Bissell informed Harvey that the development of
an assassination capability had already been discussed with Silver
and Gottlieb before Harvey's assignment to ZR/RIFLE (Harvey, 6/25/75,
p. 52; I.G. Report, pp. 37-38).
. Nevertheless, there does not appear to be any firm
evidence of a connection between QJ/WIN and the plot to assassinate
Lumumba.
NW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 382
NW 50955
FINAL
DRAFT
TOP
Summary
21%
TRUJILLO
R948
Agreed to by drafting
subcommittee on
August 28, 1975*
Rafael Trujillo was assassinated by a group of Dominican dissidents on
May 30, 1961.
Trujillo was a brutal dictator, and both the Eisenhower and
dissidents.
Kennedy Administrations encouraged the overthrow of his regime by Dominican
Toward that end the highest policy levels of both Administrations
approved or condoned supplying arms to the dissidents. Although there is no
evidence that the United States instigated any assassination activity, certain
evidence tends to link United States officials to the assassination
plans.
Material support, consisting of three pistols and three carbines, was
supplied to various dissidents. While United States' officials knew that the
dissidents intended to overthrow Trujillo, probably by assassination, there
is no direct evidence that the weapons which were passed were used in the
The evidence is inconclusive as to how high in the two
Administrations information about the dissidents' assassination plots
had been passed prior to the spring of 1961.
assassination.
Beginning in March of 1961, the dissidents began asking United States
officials for machine guns. By the time four M-3 machine guns were shipped to
the CIA Station Chief in the Dominican capitol in April, it was well known
that the dissidents wanted them for use in connection with the assassination.
Thereafter, however, permission to deliver the machine guns to the dissidents
was denied, and the guns were never passed. Two days before the assassination,
President Kennedy personally authorized a cable to the U.S. Consul General
* The second paragraph under V.A.3.c. and the paragraph under VII.C. were
drafted pursuant to the directions of the Subcommittee but have not been
reviewed by the Subcommittee.
DocId: 32423539 Page 383
-2-
in the Dominican Republic stating that the United States government, as a
matter of general principle, could not condone political assassinations, but
at the same time indicating the United States continued to support the dissi-
dents and stood ready to recognize them in the event they were successful
in their endeavor to overthrow Trujillo.
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539
Page 384
I.
Background
JL.
21
Rafael Trujillo came to power in the Dominican Republic
in 1930. For most of his tenure, the United States government
supported him and he was regarded throughout much of the
Caribbean and Latin America as a protege of the United States.
Trujillo's rule, always harsh and dictatorial, became more
arbitrary during the 1950's. As a result, the United States
States' image was increasingly tarnished in the eyes of many
Latin Americans.
Increasing American awareness of Trujillo's brutality
and fear that it would lead to a Castro-type revolution caused
U.S. officials to consider various plans to hasten his abdi-
cation or downfall.
As early as February 1960 the Eisenhower administration
gave high level consideration to a program of covert aid to
Dominican dissidents. (Special Group minutes, 2/10/60).
In April 1960 President Eisenhower approved a contingency plan
for the Dominican Republic which provided, in part, that if the
situation deteriorated still further:
"
. the United States would immediately take political action to
remove Trujillo from the Dominican Republic as soon
as a suitable successor regime can be induced to take over
with the assurance of U.S. political, economic, and
if necessary military support." (Memo from
Secretary of State Herter to the President, 4/14/60;
Presidential approval indicated in Herter letter to
Secretary of Defense Gates, 4/21/60.)
Simultaneously, the United States was trying to organize
hemispheric opposition to the Castro regime in Cuba. Latin
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 385
American leaders, such as President Betancourt of Venezuela,
20
pressed the United States to take affirmative action against
Trujillo to dispel criticism that the U.S. opposed dictator-
ships of the left only. A belief that Castro's road to power
was paved by the excesses of Batista led to concern that the
Dominican Republic might also eventually fall victim to a
Castro-style Communist regime. (Rusk, pp. 8,9)
II.
Initial Contact with Dissidents and Request for Arms
During the spring of 1960, the U.S. ambassador to the
Dominican Republic, Joseph Farland, made initial contact with
dissidents who sought to free their country from Trujillo's
grasp. They asked for sniper rifles. Although documentary
evidence indicates that a recommendation to provide these
rifles was approved both within the State Department and the
CIA, the rifles were never provided.
A..
Dissident Contacts
Ambassador Farland established contact with a group of
dissidents regarded as moderate, pro-U.S. and desirous of
establishing a democratic form of government.* (Farland
affidavit) Prior to his final departure from the Dominican
Republic in May 1960, the Ambassador introduced his Deputy-Chief-
of-Mission, Henry Dearborn, to the dissident leaders, indicating that
* This loosely-organized group, with which contact was es-
tablished, was referred to in cables, correspondence, and
memoranda as "the dissidents" and is so referenced herein.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 386
+
-3-
Dearborn could be trusted.
Then on June 16, 1960, CIA
Headquarters* cabled a request that Dearborn become the "communi-
cations link" between the dissidents and CIA. The cable stated/
that Dearborn's role had the "unofficial approval of ✓ Assistant
Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Roy R./ Rubottom"
(Emphasis in original.) (HQS to Station cable 6/16/60).
11
Dearborn agreed. He requested, however, that the CIA
confirm the arrangement with the dissidents as being that the
U.S. would "clandestinely" assist the opposition to "develop
effective force to accomplish Trujillo overthrow,' but would
not "undertake any overt action itself against Trujillo
government while it is in full control of Dominican Republic"
(Station to HQS cable 6/17/60). CIA Headqaurters confirmed
Dearborn's understanding of the arrangement
cable 6/19/60).
B.
The Sniper Rifles
(HQS to Station
During the course of a cocktail party in the Dominican
Republic, a leading dissident made a specific request to Ambas-
sador Farland for a limited number of rifles with telescopic
sights. The Ambassador promised to pass on the request (Farland
affidavit) He apparently did so after returning to Washington
in May 1960 (CIA memorandum for the record, 6/7/61).
"Department" indicates the
* As used herein "Headquarters" refers to Headquarters of the
Central Intelligency Agency;
Department of State.
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Documents indicate that consideration was given within
the CIA to airdropping rifles into the Dominican Republic.
At a June 21, 1960, meeting with Ned Holman of the CIA
Western Hemisphere Division, Ambassador Farland reportedly
suggested possible sites for the drops.
(CIA memo, 6/21/60)
Documents also indicate that a meeting was held
around the end of June 1960 between Assistant Secretary
of State for Inter-American Affairs Roy R. Rubottom and
Col. J. C. King, Chief of CIA's Western Hemisphere Division.
Apparently King sought to learn the Assistant Secretary's view
regarding "To what extent will the U.S. government participate
in the overthrow of Trujillo."
raised by King, among them:
A number of questions were
"C. Would it provide a small number of sniper rifles
or other devices for the removal of key Trujillo people
from the scene?"
King's handwritten notes indicate that Rubottom's response to
*/
that question was "yes" (CIA memo of 6/28/60; King affidavit)
On July 1, 1960, a memorandum directed to General Cabell, the Acting
Director of Central Intelligence, was prepared for Colonel King's
signature and, in his absence, signed by his principal deputy,
Rudy Gomez (I.G. Report, p. 26). The memorandum stated that
a principal leader of the anti-Trujillo opposition had asked
Ambassador Farland for a limited number of arms to precipitate
Trujillo's overthrow, and recognized that such arms
* Neither King nor Rubottom recalls such a meeting, nor does
either recall any proposal for supplying sniper rifles.
(Rubottom affidavit, King affidavit.):
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"presumably would be used against key members of the Trujillo
regime." The memorandum recommended that the arms be provided,
since the fall of the Trujillo regime appeared inevitable,
and therefore U.S. relations with the opposition should be as
close as possible. "Providing the arms as requested would
contribute significantly toward this end."
(CIA memo, 7/1/60)
Specifically, the recommendation was to deliver to dissidents
in the Dominican Republic 12 sterile* rifles with teles-
copic sights, together with 500 rounds of ammunition.
Paragraph 4 of the memorandum stated:
"4.
Approval for delivery of these arms has
been given by Assistant Secretary of State
Roy Rubottom, who requests that the arms be
placed in hands of the opposition at the earliest
possible moment." (Id.)
Gomez's recommendation was concurred in by Richard
Helms, as Acting DDP, and approved by General Cabell,
(I.G. Report, p. 26).
The kind of arms approved, sterile rifles with
telescopic sights, together with the statement that they would
be presumably used against key members of the Trujillo regime
clearly indicated the "targeted use" for which the weapons were
intended. (Bissell, 7/22/75, p. 77).
On July 1, 1960, a cable was sent to Dearborn by CIA
Headquarters informing him of the plan to airdrop 12
telescopically-sighted rifles into the Dominican Republic.
*"Sterile" rifles are
The
untraceable" rifles. (Bissell, 7/22/75,F.69)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 389
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cable inquired whether the dissidents had the capability to
realign the sights if thrown off by the drop. On July 14,
1960, Dearborn replied that the dissident leaders were against
any further action in the Dominican Republic until after re-
solution by the OAS of a Venezuelan complaint then pending
against Trujillo. The dissidents reportedly believed that
sufficiently strong action by the OAS could bring Trujillo's
downfall without further effort on their part. (Station to
HQS cable, 7/14/60) The 12 sniper rifles were never furnished
to the dissidents.
On August 26, 1960, Dearborn cabled Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State Lester Mallory reporting on a meeting between
a dissident leader and John Barfield, the Consulate's political
officer. The dissident leader was reported to have lost
enthusiasm for an assassination attempt and was then speaking
of an invasion from Venezuela.
dissidents were again speaking about the possible provision to
them of arms. This time the request was for 200 rifles.
However, by September 1, 1960,
For
the next several months, consideration centered on providing
200 to 300 guns.
II. Summer and Fall of 1960
In August 1960, the United States severed diplomatic
relations with the Dominican Republic and recalled most of its
personnel. Dearborn was left as Consul General and de facto
Consideration was given both to providing
CIA Chief of Station.
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arms and explosive devices and to the use of high level
emissaries to persuade Trujillo to abdicate. By the end of
the year, a broad plan of general support to anti-Trujillo
forces, both within and without the country, was approved.
A.
Diplomatic Development
Withdrawal of U.S. Personnel
Events occurring during the summer of 1960 further in-
tensified hemispheric opposition to the Trujillo regime. In
June agents of Trujillo tried to assassinate Venezuelan Presi-
dent Betancourt. As a result, the OAS censured the Trujillo
government. At the same time, in August 1960, the United
States broke interupted diplomatic relations with the Dominican
Republic and imposed economic sanctions.
With the severance of diplomatic relations, the United
States closed its Embassy. Most American personnel, including
the CIA Chief of Station, left the Dominican Republic. With
the departure of the CIA Chief of Station, Dearborn became
de facto CIA Chief of Station and was recognized as such by
both CIA and the State Department. Although on January 20,
1961, a new CIA Chief of Station came to the Dominican Republic,
Dearborn continued to serve as a link to the dissidents.
B.
Dearborn Reports Assassination May be Only
Way to Overthrow Trujillo Regime
Dearborn came to believe that no effort to overthrow the
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Trujillo government could be successful unless it involved
Trujillo's assassination.
He communicated this opinion to both the State Department and
the CIA. In July 1960, he advised Assistant Secretary Rubottom
that the dissidents were
"... in no way ready to carry on any type of revolutionary
activity in the foreseeable future except the
assassination of their principal enemy.'
(Dearborn to Rubottam letter, 7/14/60)
"
It is uncertain what portion of the information provided
by Dearborn to State was passed above the Assistant Secretary
level. Through August of 1960, only Assistant Secretary Rubottom,
his Deputy, Lester Mallory, and Staff Assistant Frank Devine,
were, within the Latin American Division of the Department,
aware of Dearborn's
letter, 8/15/60)
*
"
'current projects."
(Devine to Dearborn
By September 1960, Thomas Mann had replaced Roy Rubottom
as Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, and Frank
Devine had become a Special Assistant to Mr. Mann. While
serving as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary, Devine
reportedly spent ninety percent of his time coordinating State
activities in Latin America. It was in this capacity that
Devine maintained almost daily communication with Ned Holman
and other officials of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division
(Devine, p.7)
*Dearborn's candid reporting to State during the summer of 1960
raised concern with the Department and he was advised that certain
specific information should more appropriately come through "the .
other channel" (presumably, CIA communications). Dearborn was
advised that his cables to State were distributed to at least 19
different recipient offices. (Id.)
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W
Mann solicited Dearborn's comments concerning plans -
under discussion for forcing Trujillo from power.
replied in a detailed letter which concluded:
Dearborn
"One further point which I should probably not even
make. From a purely practical standpoint, it will
be best for us, for the OAS, and for the Dominican
Republic if the Dominicans put an end to Trujillo
before he leaves this island. If he has his millions
and is a free agent, he will devote his life from
exile to preventing stable government in the D.R., to
overturning democratic governments and establishing
dictatorships in the Caribbean, and to assassinating
his enemies. If I were a Dominican, which thank
heaven I am not, I would favor destroying Trujillo as
being the first necessary step in the salvation of
my country and I would regard this, in fact, as my
Christian duty. If you recall Dracula, you will
remember it was necessary to drive a stake through
his heart to prevent a continuation of his crimes.
I believe sudden death would be more humane than
the solution of the Nuncio who once told me he thought
he should pray that Trujillo would have a long and
lingering illness."
(Dearborn to Mann letter, 10/27/60)
C. Efforts to Convince Trujillo to Abdicate
Republic.
Throughout the fall of 1960, efforts were made on both the
diplomatic and economic fronts aimed at pressuring Trujillo
into relinquishing control, and ideally, leaving the Dominican
The use of high level emissaries, both from within
and without the ranks of government, was considered. (Special
Group Minutes, 9/8/60; Mann to Dearborn corres., 10/10/60)
None of the efforts proved successful, and at the end of 1960
Trujillo was still in absolute control.
D. CIA Plans of October 1960
A CIA internal memorandum dated October 3, 1960 entitled
TOT
الطاف فات مات
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10
"Plans of the Dominican Internal Opposition and Dominican
Desk for Overthrow of the Trujillo Government" set forth plans
which "have been developed on a tentative basis which appear
feasible and which might be carried out..covertly by CIA with
a minimal risk of exposure." These plans provided, in part,
for the following:
"a. Delivery of approximately 300 rifles and pistols,
together with ammunition and a supply of grenades, to
secure cache on the South shore of the island, about
14 miles East of Ciudad Trujillo.
"b. Delivery to the same cache described above, of an
electronic detonating device with remote control.
features, which could be planted by the dissidents in
such manner as to eliminate certain key Trujillo
henchmen. This might necessitate training and intro-
ducing into the country by illegal entry, a trained
technician to set the bomb and detonator. (Emphasis
added) (CIA Memorandum, 10/3/60)
"
E. December 1960 Special Group Plan of Covert Action
On December 29, 1960, the Special Group considered and
approved a broad plan of covert support to anti-Trujillo forces.
The plan, presented by Bissell, envisioned support to both
Dominican exile groups and internal dissidents. The
exile groups were to be furnished money to organize and under-
take anti-Trujillo propaganda efforts and to refurbish a yacht
for use in paramilitary activities. Bissell emphasized
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The bu
to the Special Group that "the proposed actions would not,
of themselves, bring about the desired result in the near
future, lacking some decisive stroke against Trujillo himself."
(Special Group Minutes, 12/29/60)
IV.
January 12, 1961 Special Group Approval of "Limited
Supplies of Small Arms and Other Material"
*
On January 12, 1961, with all members present, the
Special Group met and, according to its Minutes, took the
following action with respect to the Dominican Republic:
"Mr. Merchant explained the feeling of the Department
of State that limited supplies of small arms and other
material should be made available for dissidents in-
side the Dominican Republic. Mr. Parrott said that we
believe this can be managed securely by CIA, and that
the plan would call for final transportation into the
country being provided by the dissidents themselves.
The Group approved the project." (Special Group Minutes, 1/12/61)
Memoranda Underlying the Special Group Action
A.
On January 12, 1961, Thomas Mann sent a memorandum to
Under Secretary Livingston Merchant. The memorandum, sent
through Joseph Scott, Merchant's Special Assistant, reported
on the disillusionment of Dominican dissidents with the United
States for its failure to furnish them with any tangible or
concrete assistance. Further, it reported:
*
Opposition elements have consistently asked us to supply
them with hardware of various types. This has included
quantities of conventional arms and also, rather persis-
tently, they have asked for some of the more exotic items
and devices which they associate with revolutationary
effort. (Mann to Merchant memo of 1/12/61)
The members of the Special Group were at the time: Livingston
Merchant, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; Gordon
Gray, Advisor to the President for National Security Affairs;
John N. Irwin, Deputy Secretary of Defense; and Allen Dulles,
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Mann suggested for Merchant's consideration and, if he
approved, for discussion by the Special Group, the provision
of token quantities of selected items desired by the dissidents.
Mann specifically mentioned small explosive devices which would
place some "sabotage potential" in the hands of dissident
elements, but stated that there "would be no thought of
toppling the GODR (Government of Dominican Republic)
by any such minor measure." (Mann to Merchant memo, 1/12/61)
This memorandum was drafted on January 11 by Mann's Special
Assistant for CIA liaison, Frank Devine.
A covering memorandum from Scott to Merchant, forwarding
Mann's memo, was apparently taken by Merchant to the Special
Group meeting. Merchant's handwritten notations indicate that
the Special Group "agreed in terms of Tom Mann's memo"
and that the Secretary of State was informed of that
decision by late afternoon on January 12, 1961. (Scott
to Merchant memo,
1/12/61)
*
There is no evidence that any member of the Special Group,
other than Allen Dulles, knew that the dissidents had clearly
and repeatedly expressed a desire for arms and explosives to
be used by them in assassination efforts. While it is, of
course, possible that such information was passed orally to
some or all of the members of the Special Group, and perhaps
even discussed by them on January 12, 1961, there is no
*Various CIA cables, including those dealing with the sniper
rifles, indicate that copies were sent to the DCI, Allen Dulles.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 396
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JOE
D-
TOP SEGLACR
documentary evidence of which the Committee is aware which
would establish this to be the case.
On January 19, 1961, the last day of the Eisenhower
administration, Consul General Dearborn was advised that
approval had been given for supplying arms and other material
to the Dominican dissidents (HQS to Station cable, 1/19/61).
Shortly thereafter, Dearborn informed Devine that the
dissidents were "delighted" about the decision to deliver
"exotic equipment." (Dearborn to Devine cable,
1/31/61)
V.
January 20, 1961 April 17, 1961
(the Kennedy Administration Through the Bay of Pigs)
On January 20, 1961, the Kennedy administration took
Three of the four members of the Special Group (all
office.
except Allen Dulles) retired.
Prior to the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion on April
17, 1961, a number of significant events occurred. These
events included meetings with Dominican dissidents in
which specific assassination plans were discussed, re-
quests by dissidents for explosive devices, the passage by
U.S. officials of pistols and carbines to dissidents inside
the Dominican Republic, and the pouching to the Dominican
Republic of machine guns which had been requested by the
dissidents for use in connection with an assassination attempt. *
*As indicated in the post-Bay of Pigs section, infra, permission
to pass those machine guns was denied and the guns were never
passed.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 397
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These events are discussed below under subheading A.
Evidence reflecting the degree of knowledge of those events
possessed by senior American officials is treated thereafter.
As used herein, "senior American officials" means individuals
in the White House or serving as members of the Special Group.
Specific Events Indirectly Linking U.S.
A.
to Dissidents' Assassination Plans
1. Assassination Discussions and Requests for Explosives
At meetings held with dissident leaders in New York City
on February 10 and 15, 1961, CIA officials were told repeatedly
by dissident leaders that "the key to the success of the plot
[to overthrow the Trujillo regime] would be the assassination of
Trujillo." (CIA memo for the record, 2/13/61) Among the requests
made of the CIA by dissident leaders were the following:
(a) Ex-FBI agents who would plan and execute
the death of Trujillo.
(b) Cameras and other items that could be used
to fire projectiles.
(c) A slow-working chemical that could be rubbed on the palm
of one's hand and transferred to Trujillo in
a handshake, causing delayed lethal results.
(d) Silencers for rifles that could kill from a
distance of several miles. (Id.)
Other methods of assassinating Trujillo proposed by dissidents
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 398
TOP SECRET
15
at the February 10 or February 15 meetings included poisoning
Trujillo's food or medicines, ambushing his automobile, and
attacking him with firearms and grenades. (CIA memo for the
record, 2/13/61; 2/16/61)*
The dissidents' "latest plot", as described in the February
CIA memoranda, was said to involve the planting of a powerful
bomb, which could be detonated from a nearby electric device,
along the route of Trujillo's evening walk. (Id.)
On March 13, 1961, a dissident in the Dominican Republic
asked for fragmentation grenades "for use during the next week
or so." This request was communicated to CIA Headquarters
on March 14, 1961, and was followed the next day by an additional
request for 50 fragmentation grenades, 5 rapid-fire weapons,
and 10 64 mm anti-tank rockets. This further request was also
passed on to CIA Headquarters. (Station to HQS cable, 3/15/61)
There is no evidence that any of these arms were supplied to
the dissidents.
The documentary record makes clear that Frank Devine at
the State Department was also advised of related developments
in a March 16, 1961, "picnic" letter from Dearborn who complained
that his spirits were in the doldrums because:
if
the members of our club are now prepared
in their minds to have a picnic but do not have
the ingredients for the salad. Lately they have
developed a plan for the picnic, which just might
work if they could find the proper food. They
* There is no record that the CIA responded affirmatively to
any of these requests and the CIA officer who drafted the
February 13 memorandum stated the view that some of the ques-
tions raised by the dissidents did not require an answer.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 399
have asked us for a few sandwiches, hardly
more, and we are not prepared to make them
available. Last week we were asked to furnish
three or four pineapples for a party in the
near future, but I could remember nothing in my in-
structions that would have allowed me to contri-
bute this ingredient. Don't think I wasn't
tempted. I have rather specific guidelines
to the effect that salad ingredients will be
delivered outside the picnic grounds and will
be brought to the area by another club.
(Dearborn letter to Devine, 3/16/61)
After reviewing his "picnic" letter, together with the requests
in the March 14 and 15 cables discussed above, Dearborn con-
cluded during his testimony before the Committee that the
"pineapples" were probably the requested fragmentation
grenades and the restriction on delivering salad ingredients
outside of the picnic grounds was, almost certainly, meant to
refer to the requirements of the January 12 Special Group
order that arms be delivered outside the Dominican Republic.
(Dearborn 7/29, pp. 25-27)
2. The Passage of Pistols
a. Pouching to the Dominican Republic
In a March 15, 1961 cable, Chief of Station Owen reported
that Dearborn had asked for three .38 caliber pistols for issue
to several dissidents. In reply, Headquarters cabled: "Regret
no authorization exists to suspend pouch regulations against
shipment of arms" and indicated that their reply had been coor-
dinated with State. (HQS to Station cable, 3/17/61) The
Station Chief then asked Headquarters to seek the necessary
authorization and noted that at his last two posts, he had
received pistols via the pouch for "worthy purposes" and,
What
wene
they
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-17-11
therefore, he knew it could be done. (Station to Hqs cable,
3/21/61) Two days later, Headquarters cabled that the pistols
and ammunition were being pouched. However, the Station
Chief was instructed not to advise Dearborn.
cable, 3/24/61)*
(Hqs. to Station
b.
Reason for the CIA Instruction
Not to Tell Dearborn
Owen testified that he believed the "don't tell Dear-
born the pistol is being pouched" language simply meant that
the sending of firearms through the diplomatic pouch was not
something to be unnecessarily discussed. (Owen, pp. 78,79)
Dearborn said he never doubted the pouch was used, since he knew
Owen had no other means of receiving weapons. (Dearborn,
7/29, p. 33)
C. Were the Pistols Related to Assassination?
Dearborn testified that he had asked for a single pistol
for purposes completely unrelated to any assassination con-
sideration. (Dearborn, 7/29, pp. 29-31) He said he had been
approached by a Dominican contact who lived in a remote area
and was concerned for the safety of his family in the event
of political reprisals. Dearborn testified that he had believed
* The Inspector General's Report, issued in connection with
a review of these events, concludes that:
"There is no indication in the EMDEED operational files
that the pistols were actually pouched. The request
for pistols appears to have been overtaken by a sub-
sequent request for submachine guns." (I.G. Report, p. 60)
This conclusion is difficult to understand in light of the March
24, 1961, Headquarters to Station cable, which provides:
"C.
Pouching revolvers and ammo requested TRUJ 0462
(in 20040) on 28 March. Do not advise (name Dearborn deleted)
DocId: 3242 rata being pouched. Explanation follows."
18
the man's fears were well-founded and had promised to seek a
pistol.
*
Although there is no direct evidence linking any of these
pistols to the assassination of Trujillo, a June 7, 1961, CIA
memorandum, unsigned and with no attribution as to source,
states that two of the three pistols were passed by Owen to
Lorenzo "Wimpy" Berry, a United States citizen who was in direct
contact with the action element of the dissident group. It
should also be noted that the assassination was apparently con-
ducted with almost complete reliance upon hand weapons. Whether
one or more of these .38 caliber Smith & Wesson pistols
eventually came into the hands of the assassins
and, if so,
whether they were used in connection with the
assassination, remain open questions.
Both Dearborn and Owen testified that they regarded the pistols
as weapons for self-defense purposes and they never
1
considered them in any way connected with the then-current
assassination plans.
(Dearborn 7/29, p.70; Owen,
Pp.38,73)
However, none of the Headquarters cables inquired as to the
purpose for which the handguns were sought and Owen's cable
stated only that Dearborn wanted them for passage to dissidents.
(Station to HOS cable, 3/15/61) Indeed, the March 24, 1961,
*Dearborn is clear in his recollection that he asked Owen to
request only one pistol. (Dearborn, 7/29, pp.30,31) Owen,
on the other hand, testified that if his cables requested three
pistols for Dearborn then Dearborn must have asked for three
pistols. (Owen, p.72)
The pistols were, however, apparently sent in one package
(HQS to Station cables, 3/27/61 and 3/24/61) and Dearborn testi-
fied that, what he believed to be the one gun, came "wrapped
up" and that he passed it. (Dearborn, -7/29,p.30)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 402
cable advising that the pistols were being pouched is the
very cable which was sent in response to a request by the
dissidents for machine guns to be used in an assassination
effort which had been previously described to Headquarters.
As with the carbines discussed below, it appears that little,
if any, concern was expressed within the Agency over passing these
weapons to would-be assassins.
3. Passing of the Carbines
65
Outs105
CIA?
a. Request by Owen and Dearborn and Approval by CIA
In a March 26, 1961 cable to CIA Headquarters, Owen asked
for permission to pass to the dissidents three 30 caliber Ml
carbines. The guns had been left behind in the Consulate by
Navy personnel after the U.S. broke formal diplomatic relations
in August 1960. Dearborn testified that he knew of and concurred
in the proposal to supply the carbines to the dissidents.
(Dearborn 7/29, pp. 42,43) On March 31, 1961 CIA Headquarters
cabled approval of the request to pass the carbines. (Hqs to
Station cable, 3/31/61)
1961.
b. Were the Carbines Related to Assassination?
The carbines were passed to the action group contact, Wimpy Berry, on April 7,
(Station to HQS cable, 4/8/61) Eventually, they found
their way into the hands of one of the assassins, Antonio
de la Maza.
(Station to HQS cable, 4/26/61; I.G. Report
pp. 46, 49) Both Dearborn and Owen testified that the
carbines were at all times viewed as strictly a token show
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 403
of support, indicating U.S. support of the dissidents' efforts
to overthrow Trujillo. (Dearborn 7/29, pp. 46-48; Owen p. 39)
C.
Failure to Disclose to State Department
Officials in Washington
in
There is no indication that the request or the passage
of the carbines was disclosed to State Department officials i
Washington until several weeks after the passage. In fact, on
April 5, leadquarters requested its Station to ask Dearborn
not to comment in correspondence with State that the carbines
and ammunition were being passed to the dissidents. This cable
was sent while Owen was in Washington, and it indicated that
upon his return to the Dominican Republic, he would explain
the request. The Station replied that Dearborn had not com-
mented on the carbines and ammunition in his correspondence
with State and he realized the necessity not to do so. (Station
to HQS cable, 4/6/61)
Dearborn testified, however, that he believed, at the
time of his April 6 cable, that someone in the State De-
partment had been consulted in advance and had approved the
passage of the carbines (Dearborn 7/29, p. 44)
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3.
Requests For and Pouching of the Machine Guns
a.
Owen Requests Machine Guns for Use
in Assassination
The Station Chief suggested that Headquarters consider
pouching an M3 machine gun on February 10, 1961 (Owen, pp. 63,64;
Station to HQS cable, 3/15/61). The request was raised again
in March but no action was taken. On March 20, 1961, Owen cabled
a dissident request for five M3 or comparable machine guns
specifying their wish that the arms be sent via the diplomatic
pouch or similar means. The dissidents were said to feel that
delivery by air drop or transfer at sea would overly-tax their
(Station to HQS cable, 3/20/61)
resources.
The machine guns sought by the dissidents were clearly
identified, in Owen's cable, as being sought for use in connec-
tion with an attempt to assassinate Trujillo. This plan was to
kill Trujillo in the apartment of his mistress and, according
to Owen's cable:
"14. To do they need five M3 or comparable machine-
guns. and 1500 rounds ammo for personal defense in
event fire fight. Will use quiet weapons for basic
job." (Id.)
In essence, CIA's response was that the timing for an
assassination was wrong. Owen was told that precipitious or
uncoordinated action could lead to the emergence of a leftist,
Castro-type regime and the "mere disposal of Trujillo may create
more problems than solutions." It was Headquarters' position
that:
.we should attempt to avoid precipitous action
by the internal dissidents until opposition group
and HQS are better prepared to support assassination/*,
effect a change in the regime, and cope with the after-
math."
(HQS to Station cable, 3/24/61)
ऋ Word supplied by CIA in previously sanitized cable.
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The cable also stated that Headquarters was prepared
to deliver machine guns and ammunition to the dissidents when
they developed a capability to received them, but that security
considerations precluded use of U.S. facilities as a carrier.*
Soon, thereafter, on April 6, 1961, while Owen was in Washington
for consultation with Headquarters, he reported on events in
the Dominican Republic and
"especially on the insistence of the EMOTH [dissident]
leaders that they be provided with a limited number
of small arms for their own protection (specifi-
cally, five M3 caliber .45 SMG's)." (CIA memo
for the record, 4/11/61)
b.
Pouching the Machine Guns is Approved
by Bissell
Accordingly, on April 7, 1961, a Pouch Restriction Waiver
Request and Certification was submitted seeking permission to
pouch "four M3 machine guns and 240 rounds of ammunition on a
priority basis for issuance to a small action group to be used
for self protection."
(Pouch Restriction Waiver Request 4/7/61)
The request,
submitted on behalf of the Chief, Western
Hemisphere Division, further provided:
"B.
A determination has been made that the issuance
of this equipment to the action group is desirable
if for no other reason than to assure this important
group's continued cooperation with and confidence in
this Agency's determination to live up to its earlier
commitments to the group. These commitments took
*This same cable of March 24, 1961, is the one which advised
that the revolvers and ammunition were being pouched.
DocId: 32423539 Page 406
TOP SECRET
the form of advising the group in January
1961 that we would provide limited arms
and assistance to them provided they develop.
the capability to receive it. Operational
circumstances have prevented this group from
developing the assets capable of receiving
the above equipment through normal clandestine
channels such as air drops or sea infiltra-
tion."
The Waiver Request was approved by Richard Bissell, as Deputy
Director (Plans), on April 10, 1961.
(Id.)
The machine guns were pouched to the Dominican Republic and
were received by the station on April 19, 1961. (I.G. Report,
p. 42; Station to Headquarters cable, 4/19/61).
On April 10, Walter Elder, Assistant to the Director, had issued
a memorandum which stated:
"Mr. Dulles wants no action on drops of leaflets
or arms in the Dominican Republic taken without
his approval." (Elder memorandum of 4/10/61).
**
The Elder memorandum suggests that Dulles did not know that an
air drop of arms was regarded as unfeasible and that pouching
had been approved.
B.
Knowledge of Senior American Officials (pre-Bay of Pigs)
On February 14, 1961, prior to the passage of weapons,
but a month after the generalized approval of the passage
of arms by the prior administration, a meeting of
the Special Group was held with Messrs. McNamara, Gilpatric,
Bowles, Bundy, Dulles, Bissell, and General Cabell in attendance.
Permission to pass the machine guns was never obtained and the guns
never passed into the hands of the dissidents. The matter is discussed
in detail beginning at page ;
**Elder testified that this note, sent the weekend before the Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba, was intended to make sure that there were no unusual
planes shot down or any unnecessary noise in the Dominican Republic"
prior to the Cuba invasion. (Elder, p. 51)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 407
TOP RECLIET
The minutes state that:
"Mr. Dulles, assisted by Mr. Bissell, then summarized
for the benefit of the new members of the Special
Group the specific actions taken by the predecessor
group during the past year, and also a list of signi-
ficant projects which antedate the beginning of 1960
and which it is planned to continue." (Special Group Minutes
of 2/14/61)
In the course of the discussion, the following point, among
others, was made:
"(a) Dominican Republic
--
Mr. Bundy asked that a suggETTI
memorandum be prepared for higher authority on the that Keen
subject of what plans can be made for a successor
government to Trujillo." (Id.)
OF Mons
of disposar
The request attributed to Bundy suggests that the Domini-
can Republic had been one of the matters on which Dulles and
Bissell briefed the new members.
What is unclear from the February 14 minutes (just as
it is unclear from the January 12 minutes) is the degree to
which the Special Group was informed concerning the means by
which the dissidents planned to accomplish the overthrow of
the Trujillo regime. Specifically, it is not known if
the new members of the Special Group were told that the
dissident group had expressed the desire to assassinate
Trujillo. Nor is it known if the Special Group was
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 408
why
don's
The
जट
:-25--.
advised that the State Department representative in the
Dominican Republic had made the assessment that the Dominican
government could not be overthrown without the assassination
of Trujillo.
Bissell testified that he had no clear recollection
of the details of the February 14 briefing and he was unable
to say whether or not the method of overthrow to be attempted
by the dissidents was discussed. (Bissell, 7/22, pp. 101, 102)
Robert McNamara, one of the new members of the Special Group
in attendance for the briefing, has no recollection as to the
specificity in which the Dominican Republic was discussed at the
February 14 meeting. He does not recall any mention by either
Dulles or Bissell of dissident plans to assassinate Trujillo.
(McNamara affidavit).
February Memoranda
-
The Secretary of State sent the President a memorandum
on February 15, 1961, in response to a request concerning pro-
gress to assure an orderly takeover "should Trujillo fall."
The memorandum advised that:
"Our representatives in the Dominican Republic
have, at considerable risk to those involved,
established contacts with numerous leaders of the
underground opposition . . /and 7. . . the CIA
has recently been authorized to arrange for delivery
to them outside the Dominican Republic of small arms
and sabotage equipment."
This reference to recent authorization for delivery of
*
arms indicates that Secretary Rusk had received some briefing
concerning events in the Dominican Republic and the January 1961
Hen
ритном
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 409
ther
obvinet
клей
-26-
Special Group decision to provide arms to anti-Trujillo
elements. Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs,
Thomas Mann; Deputy Assistant Secretary William Coerr; and
Special Assistant Frank Devine continued in their respective
positions throughout the transition period. The Committee has
been furnished no documents indicating that Secretary Rusk or
Under Secretary.Bowles were specifically advised as to the
intentions of the Dominican dissidents to kill Trujillo; intentions
of which the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs certainly
had knowledge.
How
explanon?
Indeed, Secretary Rusk testified that he was not
personally so advised. (Rusk, 7/10, pp. 41,42)
On February 17, 1961, Richard Bissell sent a briefing paper
on the Dominican Republic to McGeorge Bundy, President Kennedy's
National Security Advisor. The paper made note of the out-
standing Special Group approval for the provision of arms and
equipment to Dominican dissidents and stated that the dissidents
had been informed that the U.S. was prepared to provide such
arms and equipment as soon as they developed the capability to
receive them.
no
A
somoont
NOT rally ASK
hat
their
The briefing paper also indicated that dissident leaders
had informed CIA of "their plan of action/which they felt could
be implemented if they were provided with arms for 300 men,
explosives, and remote control detonation devices." Various
witnesses have testified, however, that supplying arms for 300
men would, standing alone, indicate a non-targeted" use for the
11
plan
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 410

-27-
arms (i.e., a paramilitary or revolutionary implementation as
opposed to a specifically targeted assassination use). (Bissell,
7/29, p.80),
Concerning the briefing paper, Bissell testified that:
"... it is perfectly clear that I was aware at the
time of the memorandum to Mr. Bundy that these
dissident groups were, and had for a long time,
been hoping they could accomplish the assassination
of Trujillo. As a matter of fact, the requests since
some seven or eight months earlier was a perfectly
clear indication of that, so that fact was not new
knowledge." (Bissell 7/22, p.102)
When asked why the memorandum did not include the fact that
the dissidents intended the assassination of Trujillo, Bissell
replied:
why,
dóni
Bundy
"I cannot tell you, Mr. Chairman. I do not
remember what considerations moved me. I don't.
know whether it was because this was common
knowledge and it seemed to me unnecessary to
include it, or as you are implying, there was
an element of concealment here. I would be very
surprised if it were the latter, in this case.
(Bissell, 7/22, p.101)
BE
ask
In response to questions concerning the lack of information
in the February 17, 1961 briefing paper concerning the uses to
which the requested arms might likely be put by the dissidents,
Bissell stated:
I would say that the Agency's failure,
if there be a failure here was [not) (sic) to state
in writing that the plans of the dissidents
would include assassination attempts."
(Bissell, 7/22, p.99)
Bissell's briefing paper for Bundy concluded with the
assessment that a violent clash might soon occur between Trujillo
This coord
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 411
-28-PLAN
and the internal opposition, "which will end either with the
liquidation of Trujillo and his cohorts or with a complete
roll up of the internal opposition." In this regard, the fear
was expressed that existing schedules for the delivery of
weapons to the internal opposition might not be sufficientlv
timely, and it was therefore recommended that consideration be
given to caching the requested arms and other materials.
(Bissell to Bundy memo, 2/17/61)
Kne of
quidation
LI
Thus, by the middle of February 1961, the senior
members of the new administration, and in view of the "for
higher authority" nature of Bundy's request, presumably
President Kennedy himself, were aware of the outstanding Special
Group approval for the passage of arms and other materials to
opposition elements within the Dominican Republic. There was
no modification or recision of the "inherited" Special Group
approval and it would seem fair, therefore, to regard the
approval as having been at least acquiesced in by the new
administration.
During March and early April 1961, operational levels
within both the CIA and the State Department learned of in-
creasingly detailed plans by the dissidents to assassinate
Trujillo. There is no evidence that this information was
passed to the White House or to any member of the Special Group,
"
this
true
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 412
**
except Allen Dulles.'
P-SECRET
Similarly, there is no evidence that
the passage of the pistols or the carbines or the pouching
of the machine guns to the Dominican Republic was disclosed
to anyone outside of the CIA during this period.
VI.
April 17, 1961 May 31, 1961
(Bay of Pigs Through Trujillo Assassination)
**
Following the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, attempts
were made by State and CIA representatives in the Dominican
Republic to dissuade the dissidents from a precipitous assassina-
tion attempt. These efforts to halt the assassination of Trujillo
were the result of instructions from CIA Headquarters and were
prompted by concern over filling the power vacuum which would
result from Trujillo's death.
The machine guns arrived in the Dominican Republic but
permission to pass them to the dissidents was never given and
the guns never left the Consulate.
Dearborn returned to Washington for consultation and a
contingency plan for the Dominican Republic was drafted.
Two days before Trujillo's assassination, Dearborn received
How
a cable of instructions and guidance from President Kennedy.
The cable advised that the U.S. must not run the risk of associ- does
ation with political assassination, since the U.S., as a matter
of general policy, could not condone assassination. The cable
* Copies of CIA cables, including the March 20, 1961 cable
describing the plan to assassinate Trujillo in the apartment
of his mistress were apparently sent to the office
of the Director of Central Intelligence.
** Although a copy of the CIA cable advising that the pistols
were being pouched was sent to the Director's office, Dulles
apparently did not receive copies of the cables approving
passage of the carbines or pouching of the machine guns.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 413
this
Square
Muralia
Disclorur
30
KERET
further advised Dearborn to continue to hold open offers of
material assistance to the dissidents and to advise them of
U.S. support for them if they were successful in overthrowing
the Trujillo government.
The cable also reconfirmed the
decision not to pass the machine guns.
A.
Decision Not to Pass the Machine Guns and Unsuccess-
ful U.S. Attempt to Stop Assassination Effort
By April 17, 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion had
ōperation was a failed. As a result, there developed a general
realization that precipitous action should be avoided in the
Dominican Republic until Washington was able to give further
consideration to the consequences of a Trujillo overthrow and
the power vacuum which would be created. (Bissell, 6/11,
p.113) A cable from Headquarters to the Station, on April 17,
1961, advised that it was most important that the machine guns
not be passed without additional Headquarters approval.
The machine guns arrived in the Dominican Republic on April
19, 1961, and Headquarters was so advised. The earlier ad-
monition that the machine guns should be held in Station custody
until further notice was repeated in a second cable from lead-
quarters, sent April 20, 1961. This decision was said to have
been "based on judgment that filling a vacuum created by assas-
sination now bigger question than ever view unsettled conditions
in Caribbean area." (HQs. to Station cable, 4/20/61)
The dissidents continued to press for the release of the
machine guns and their requests were passed on to Headquarters
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 414
#31
in cables from Dearborn and Owen.
(Station to HQS cables
4/25/61) On April 25, 1961, Owen advised Headquarters that
Wimpy Berry had informed him that Antonio de la Maza was
going to attempt the assassination between April 29 and May 2.
Owen also reported that this attempt would use the three
carbines passed from the American Consulate, together with
whatever else was available. (Id.)
In response to the April 26 cable, Headquarters restated
that there was no approval to pass any additional arms to the
dissidents and requested Owen to advise the dissidents that the
United States was simply not prepared at that time to cope with
the aftermath of the assassination. (See C/S comments,
Station to HQS cable, 4/27/61) The following day, April 27,
1961, Owen replied that, based upon further discussions with
the dissidents, "We doubt statement U.S. government not now
prepared to cope with aftermath will dissuade them from
attempt." (Station to HQS cable, 4/27/61)
Dearborn recalls receiving instructions that
an effort be made to turn off the assassination attempt and
testified that
unsuccessful.
efforts to carry out the instructions were
In effect, the dissidents informed him that
this was their affair and it could not be turned off to suit
the convenience of the U.S. government.
(Dearborn, 7/29, p.52)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 415
الخدامات
On April 30, 1961, Dearborn advised Headquarters that
the dissidents had reported to him the assassination attempt
The
was going to take place during the first week of May.
action group was reported to have in its possession three carbines,
four to six 12-gauge shotguns and other small arms. Although
they reportedly still wanted the machine guns, Dearborn advised
Headquarters that the group was going to go ahead with what they
had, whether the U.S. wanted them to or not. (Station to HQS
cable, 4/30/61)
Dearborn's cable set forth the argument of the action
group that, since the U.S. had already assisted the group to
some extent and was therefore implicated, the additional assistance
of releasing the machine guns would not change the basic re-
lationship. The cable concluded:
B.
"Owing to far-reaching political implications
involved in release or non release of re-
quested items, Headquarters may wish discuss fore-
going with State Department.' (Id.)
"
Further Consideration of Passing Machine Guns
In reponse,
a cable was drafted at CIA Headquarters authori-
zing passage of the machine guns. The cable which was sent
to Allen Dulles, with Bissell's recommendation for its dispatch,
provided:
"Since it appears that opposition group has
committed itself to action with or without
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 416
33-
additional support, coupled with fact ref.
Citems [the carbines] already made available
to them for personal defense; station authori-
zed pass ref. A items [the machine guns] to
opposition member for their additional pro-
tection on their proposed endeavor." (Draft of HQS
to Station cable, 5/2/61).
The cable was never sent.
In his testimony before the Committee, Bissell characteri-
zed his reasoning for recommending release of the machine guns
as:
"1
having made already a considerable
investment in this dissident group and its
plans that we might as well make the addi-
tional investment." (Bissell, 7/22, p.127)
NAME
The following day, May 3, 1961, Ray Herbert) Deputy Chief
of the Western Hemisphere Division of CIA, who frequently acted
as liaison with the State Department in matters concerning
covert operations in the Dominican Republic, met with Adolph
Berle, Chairman of the State Department's Interagency Task Force
on Latin America.
A Berle memorandum of the meeting states that Herbert
informed Berle that a local group in the Dominican Republic
wished to overthrow Trujillo and sought arms for that purpose.
The memorandum continued:
"On cross examination it developed that the
real plan was to assassinate Trujillo and they
wanted guns for that purpose. Herbert wanted
to know what the policy should be.
"I told him I could not care less for Trujillo
and that this was the general sentiment. But
we did not wish to have any thing to do with any
assassination plots anywhere, any time. Herbert
said he felt the same way." (Berle, Meno of
Conversation, 5/3/61)
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539
Page 417
34
Copies of Berle's memorandum were sent to Wymberly Coerr;
the Acting Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs,
and to Special Assistant Frank Devine.
Both Herbert and Devine, who had been in almost daily.
contact with each other since August of 1960, had been advised
of the assassination plans of the dissident group. In fact,
Herbert, along with Bissell, had signed off on the proposed
cable of May 2, releasing the machine guns for passage.
Special Group Meetings of May 4 and May 18, 1961
On the day following the Berle-Herbert meeting, the
Special Group met and, according to the minutes:
C.
"The DCI referred to recent reports of a new
anti-Trujillo plot. He said we never know if
one of these is going to work or not, and asked
why.
didn't
they
tell
Berle
and what's
thes
the plot come off. Mr. Bundy said that this point
is covered in the Cuba paper which will be discussed
ať a high level in the very near future." (Special
Group Minutes, 5/4/61)
Once again, the cryptic reporting of Special Group Minutes
makes subsequent analysis as to the scope of matters discussed
speculative. It is not known to what extent and in what detail
Allen Dulles referred to "recent reports" of a new anti-Trujillo
plot. Certainly, the most recent report of such a plot was
Dearborn's April 30 cable
--
disclosing an imminent assassination
attempt potentially utilizing U.S.-supplied weapons.
On May 18, 1961, the Special Group again considered the
situation in the Dominican Republic and, according to the
☐
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 418
NW 50955
minutes:
-35
D.
Cabell [Deputy DCI] noted that the
internal dissidents were pressing for the
release to them of certain small arms now in
U.S. hands in the Dominican Republic. He
inquired whether the feeling of the
*
Group remained that these arms should not be
passed.
The members showed no inclination to
take a contrary position at this time.
(Emphasis supplied) (Special Group Minutes,
5/18/61)
Final Requests by Dissidents for Machine Guns
On May 16, 1961, Dearborn cabled the State Department,
attention Acting Assistant Secretary Coerr, with an urgent
were
request from the dissidents for the machine guns. The cable
advised that the assassination attempt was scheduled for the
night of May 16 and that, while the chances of success
80 percent, provision of the machine guns would reduce the
possibility of failure. The dissidents reportedly stressed
to Dearborn that if the effort failed, due to U.S. refusal to
supply the machine guns, the U.S. would be held responsible
and would never be forgiven. Dearborn reported that he had
informed the dissidents that, based on his recent conversations
in Washington, he was reasonably certain that authorization
could not be obtained for handing over machine guns. (Dearborn
to State cable, 5/16/61)
A return cable from the State Department to Dearborn, sent
the same day, confirmed Dearborn's judgment. It instructed him
* There was no meeting of the Special Group at which the Domini-
can Republic was discussed between May 4 and May 18. The language
attributed to General Cabell as to whether the feeling of the
Group remained not to pass the arms, tends to suggest that the
question of passing these arms must have been raised prior to
the May 18 Group meeting, perhaps at the May 4, 1961 meeting.
DocId: 32423539 Page 419
36...
to continue to take the same line until he received contrary
instructions which clearly indicated they had been cleared in
advance by the State Department itself. This cable from State was
approved by Under Secretary Bowles. (Department to Dearborn, 5/16/61)
Ray Herbert referred to Dearborn's May 16 request in a
memorandum he sent to Devine on the same date and asked to be
advised as to the Department's policy concerning passage of
the machine guns. Herbert noted that when this request was
last taken to the Department, Berle made the decision that the
weapons not be passed. (Memo to ARA from CIA, 5/16/61)
*
Devine responded to Herbert's memorandum on the same day,
advising Herbert that the Department's policy continued to be
negative on the matter of passing the machine guns. Herbert's
attention was directed to the January 12, 1961 Special Group
limitation concerning the passage of arms outside of the
Dominican Republic. A copy of Devine's memorandum to Herbert
was forwarded to the Office of the Under Secretary of State,
to the attention of his personal assistant, Joseph Scott.
(Devine to Herbert memo, 5/16/61)
E.
Dearborn in Washington for Consultation
Drafting of Contingency Plans
At a meeting of the National Security Council on May 5, 1961,
the question of U.S. policy toward the Dominican Republic was
considered and it was:
*
the
"Agreed that the Task Force on Cuba would
prepare promptly both emergency and long-
range plans for anti-communist intervention
in the event of crises in Haiti or the
By May 27, 1961 Dearborn was advising the State Department that
roup was no longer requesting the arms and had accepted the
fact that it must make do with what it had. (Dearborn to State
NW 50955 DocDb4232) 420

- 37
Dominican Republic. Noted the President's
view that the United States should not
initiate the overthrow of Trujillo before
we knew what government would succeed him,
and that any action against Trujillo should
be multilateral." (Record of Actions bv
National Security Council, 5/5/61)
(Approved by the President, 5/16/61)
Although the precise dates are uncertain, Dearborn was
recalled to Washington to participate in drafting of these
contingency plans and recommendations. Dearborn was in Washing-
ton at least from May 10 through May 13, 1961.
While in Washington, Dearborn met with State
Department personnel and with Richard Goodwin and Arthur
Schlesinger of the White House staff. When testifying before
the Committee, he was unable to recall the substance of
his discussions with Goodwin and Schlesinger, aside from his
general assumption that the current situation in the Dominican
Republic was discussed. He did not recall any discussion with
Goodwin or Schlesinger concerning arms, either those which had
been passed to the dissidents or those which were being sought.
(Dearborn, 7/29, pp. 58-61) Dearborn left the meeting at the
White House, however, with the firm impression that Goodwin had been
reviewing cable traffic between Washington and the Dominican
Republic and was very familiar with events as they then stood.
(Dearborn, 7/29, p.62)
TOP
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 421
TOP-CRET
38
On May 11, 1961, Dearborn prepared a two-page draft-
The draft noted
document which set forth ways in which the U.S. could overtly
aid and encourage the opposition to Trujillo.
that means of stepping up the covert program were considered
in separate papers. (Dearborn draft document of May 11, 1961)
This Dearborn draft of May 11, 1961, was apparently used as a
basis for portions of the "Dominican Republic
Paper" discussed below.
Contingency
Two documents entitled, "Program of Covert Action for the
Dominican Republic" were provided to the Committee staff from
State Department files. Each appears to be a draft of the
covert activities paper described in Dearborn's May 11, 1961
memorandum. One draft recommended an expanded U.S. offer to
deliver small explosive devices and arms. (Document indicating
it was attached to "Dominican Republic
5/12/61 and bearing Nos. 306-308). The other draft is very
similar except that it concludes that delivery of arms within
the Dominican Republic to members of the underground is not
recommended. (Document from State Dept. files bearing No. 310).
Attached to the second draft was a one-page document which
It listed eight numbered
Frank Devine believes he wrote.
points including the following:
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
"1. The USG
"2.
Contingency,” dated
should not lend itself to direct
political assassination.
US moral posture can ill afford further
tarnishing in the eyes of the world.
Page 422
TOP SECRET
who can
this
"3.
"4.
"7.
TOT
39
who spur this
We would be encouraging the action, supplying
the weapons, effecting the delivery, and then
turning over only the final execution to
(unskilled) local triggermen.
So far we have seen no real evidence of action
Should we entrust ourselves and
capability.
our reputation to this extent in the absence
thereof?
Can we afford a precedent which may convince
the world that our diplomatic pouches are used
to deliver assassination weapons?"
(Document
from State Department files bearing No. 313)
The other points raised in document No. 313 related to the
likelihood that any such involvement by the U.S. would ultimately
be revealed.
On May 15, 1961, Acting Assistant Secretary Coerr sent to
Under Secretary Bowles a document entitled "Covert Action Pro-
grams Authorized With Respect to the Dominican Republic". That
document outlined the existing Special Group approvals for covert
assistance to Dominican dissidents and, while making no recommen-
dation as to further policy, suggested that the Special Group
review the outstanding approvals and communicate
to interested
agencies the status of such authorizations. (State Dept. document
from Coerr to Bowles, 5/15/61)
During this period a document dated May 13, 1961, was
TOLS
الخدامات
NW 50955'
DocId: 32423539 Page 423
40
prepared at the request of Richard Goodwin and was thereafter
circulated within the State Department. This document,
*
entitled "Program of Covert Action for the Dominican Republic".
reported:
"CIA has had in the direct custody of its Station
in Ciudad Trujillo, a very limited supply of
weapons and grenades. In response to the urgent
requests from the internal opposition leaders for
personal defense weapons attendant to their
projected efforts to neutralize TRUJILLO, three.
(3) 38 Cal revolvers and three (3) carbines with
accompanying ammunition have been passed by secure
means to the opposition. The recipients have
repeatedly requested additional armed support."
This memorandum is the first direct evidence of disclosure to
anyone on the White House staff of the fact that arms had been
passed to dissidents in the Dominican Republic.
The original ribbon copy of the memorandum has the above
quoted material circled in pencil and the word "neutralize"
is underscored. Goodwin testified before the Conumittee that
he circled the above paragraph when first reading the memorandum
because the information concerning passage of the arms was new
to him and struck him as significant. (Goodwin 7/18, pp. 48,49)
Under the heading of "Possible Covert Actions Which Require
Additional Authorization," the memorandum to Goodwin indicated
that the CIA had a supply of four 45 caliber machine guns and
a small number of grenades currently in the direct custody of
the Station in Ciudad Trujillo and that a secure means of passing
these weapons to the internal opposition "for their use in
* See Scott to Bowles memorandum of May 19, 1961, enclosing copy
of Goodwin memorandum.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 424
)
NW 50955
personal defense attendant to their projected efforts to re-
move Trujillo" could be developed by the Station. The memo-
randum made no recommendation to approve or disapprove passage
of these weapons. (Id.)
On May 15, 1961, Bundy forwarded to Goodwin another
entitled "The Current Situation in and
memorandum.
This one,
Contingency Plans for the Dominican Republic," had been received
by Bundy from the State Department.
lying document which began:"
Attached was an under-
"Recent reports indicate that the internal
Dominican dissidents are becoming increasingly
determined to oust Trunillo by any means, and
their plans in this regard are well advanced."
The May 15 memorandum stressed that it was highly desirable
for the U.S. to be identified with and to support the elements
seeking to overthrow Trujillo. The
attachment
recommended that Consul General Dearborn inform the dissidents
that if they succeed "at their own initiative and on their own
responsibility in forming an acceptable provisional government
they can be assured that any reasonable request for assistance
from the U.S. will be promptly and favorably answered." (Documents
from State Dept. files bearing Nos. 279-286).
F. Drafts Leading to and Final Cable of May 29, 1961
A copy of Dearborn's cable of May 16, 1961, requesting
urgent State Department guidance, was forwarded to Richard
Goodwin. At the specific request of Goodwin,
the State Department replied to Dearborn on May 17,
DocId: 32423539
Page 12 TOP SECRET
425
-42-
and advised him to keep in mind the President's view, as
expressed at the May 5 National Security Council Meeting, that
the United States should not initiate the overthrow of Trujillo
before knowing what government would succeed him.
(Depart-
ment to Dearborn, 5/17/61)
Dearborn responded on May 21, 1961, pointing out that
for over a year State Department representatives in the
Dominican Republic had been nurturing the effort
Noy
Mural
Фроста
to overthrow Trujillo and had assisted the dissidents in
numerous ways, all of which were known to the Department.
Dearborn stated, "too late to consider whether United
States will initiate overthrow of Trujillo."
was,
further guidance from State.
It
Dearborn invited
In response to Dearborn's request for guidance, the State
Department drafted a reply on May 24. The draft discussed a
conflict between two objectives:
"(1) To be so associated with removal Trujillo
" (2)
regime as to derive credit among DR dissidents
and liberal elements throughout Latin America;
To disassociate US from any obvious inter-
vention in Dominican Republic and even more so
from any political assassination which might
occur.
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 426
43.
It was said to be the Department's considered opinion that
"former objective cannot, repeat not, easily override latter."
(State Dept. to Dearborn cable, 5/24/61 not sent)
This State Department draft was forwarded to Under Secretary
Bowles with the comment that Goodwin considered it "too negative"
and that he would try his hand on a draft "for Bundy to present
tomorrow morning." (Memo from Achilles to Bowles, 5/24/61)
A May 26, 1961, memorandum from Bowles to Bundy begins:
"Following up on our discussion of the Dominican
Republic at yesterday's meeting of the Special
Group, I am forwarding you a draft telegram which
we would like to send to Henry Dearborn, our Consul
General in Ciudad Trujillo, supplementing the
guidance he will be receiving on the recently
approved contingency plans."
Minutes of the Special Group meeting on May 25, 1961 do not,
however, reflect any discussion of the Dominican Republic.
If, as Bowles' memorandum suggests, a discussion concerning
the Dominican Republic did occur at the May 25 meeting, it is
not known what the discussion involved or what decisions,
if any, were made.
Richard Goodwin personally prepared alternate drafts to
the proposed State Department cable to Dearborn. Goodwin testi-
fied that it was his intent in revising the cable to communicate
to Dearborn, President Kennedy's personal belief that the United
States:
11
from derived
didn't want to do anything that would
involve us further, the United States further,
in any effort to assassinate Trujillo."
(Goodwin, 7/10, p.32)
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 427
[:
44
At the same time, Goodwin's draft raised the issue of
further covert action and transfer of arms to the dissidents
and advised Dearborn to hold out the arms as being available
to the dissidents pending their ability to receive them.
According to whom?
It was the twofold intent of the cable as revised by
Goodwin, (1) to express the desire to remain in the good graces
of the dissidents who, it was believed, would constitute the
new government following Trujillo's assassination, and (2)
to avoid any action which might further involve the United
States in the anticipated assassination.
This dual purpose
is clearly evident in the cable which advised:
"
we must not run risk of U.S. association
with political assassination, since U.S. as matter
of general policy cannot condone assassination.
This last principal is overriding and must prevail
in doubtful situation. (Emphasis added)
* * * *
"
don betul, in
"Continue to inform dissident elements of U.S.
support for their position.
"
what
ways
According to Goodwin, the underscored material was inserted in
the cable at the specific direction of President Kennedy.
(Goodwin, 7/10, pp. 22, 23).
\more
on
this
-
gon on
✓
SPECIFIC
With respect to the four machine guns which were in the
Consulate and which had been repeatedly requested by the
dissidents, the cable advised Dearborn that the U.S. was unable
to transfer these arms to the dissidents.
instructed to:
Dearborn was
"Tell them that this is because of our suspicion
that method of transfer may be unsafe. In actual
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 428
-45-
fact, we feel that the transfer of arms would
serve very little purpose and expose the United
States to great danger of association with
assassination attempt."
The cable, as revised by Goodwin and approved by President
Kennedy, was sent to Dearborn on May 29, 1961. (State Dept.
to Dearborn cable, 5/29/61)
VII. May 30, 1961 and Immediately Thereafter:
A. Trujillo Assassinated
The
Late in the evening of May 30, 1961, Trujillo was ambushed
and assassinated near San Cristobal, Dominican Republic.
assassination closely paralleled the plan disclosed by the
action group to American representatives in the Dominican Republic
and passed on to officials in Washington at both the CIA and
the State Department. (Dearborn cable to State, 5/30/61) The
assassination was conducted by members of the action group, to
whom the American carbines had been passed, and such sketchy
information as is available indicates that one or more of the
carbines were in the possession of the assassination group when
Trujillo was killed. (I. G. Report, pp. 60-61).
however, that the actual assassination was accomplished by
handguns and shotguns.
(I.G. Report, p.61)
B. Cables to Washington
This evidence indicate
After receiving the May 29 cable from Washington, both Consul
General Dearborn and Station Chief Owen sent replies.
According
to Dearborn's testimony, he did not regard the May 29 cable
as a change in U.S. policy concerning support for assassinations.
(Dearborn 7/29/75, p. 74).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 429
[
-46
He interpreted the May 29 cable as saying:
11 ...we don't care if the Dominicans assassinate
Trujillo, that is all right. But we don't want
anything to pin this on us, because we aren't
doing it, it is the Dominicans who are doing
it." (Dearborn, 7/29, p. 104)
Dearborn testified that this accorded with what he said had
always been his personal belief; that the U.S. should not be
involved in an assassination and that if an assassination
occurred it would be strictly a Dominican affair. (Dearborn
7/29, pp. 100, 101)
In contrast the CIA Station Chief, Owen, did regard the
cable as manifesting a change in U.S. policy, particularly on
the question of supplying arms. (Owen' p. 120) He believed the
May 29 cable was the final word in U.S. policy on this matter
and consequently felt that the government had retreated from
its prior position, of offering material support to the dissi-
dents, and had adopted a new position of withholding such support.
Owen's responsive cable to Headquarters stated:
"HQS aware extent to which U.S. government already
associated with assassination. If we are to at least
cover up tracks, CIA personnel directly involved in
assassination preparation must be withdrawn.
(Station to HQS cable, 5/30/61)
"
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539
Page 430

-47-
Immediately following the assassination, all CIA
personnel in the Dominican Republic were removed from the
country and within a few days Consul General Dearborn was
back in Washington. The State Department cabled the CIA station
in the Dominican Republic to destroy all records concerning
contacts with dissidents and any related matters, except not to
destroy the contingency plans or the May 29, 1961 cable to Dear-
born. (HQS to Station cable, 5/31/61.
C.
Immediate Post-Assassination Period
The U.S. Consulate in the Dominican Republic was quick
to dispatch its early reports that Trujillo had been assassinated,
and the U.S. communications network transmitted the report to
President Kennedy in Paris. The President's Press Secretary,
Pierre Salinger, made the first public announcement of the
assassination, preceeding by several hours release of the news
in the Dominican Republic. Secretary of State Rusk testified
that when he learned of Salinger's announcement he was most con-
cerned. Rusk said that Trujillo's son Ramfis was also in Paris
and he was afraid that Ramfis, upon first learning of his
father's death from the press secretary to the President of the
U.S., might try to retaliate against President Kennedy.
32, 33.)
(Rusk,
what
WAS
It's reaction
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539
Page 431
Man
TOP OF
SCHNEIDER REPORT
Page
Ι
I.
Summary
1
II.
The President's Initial General Instruction
and Background
6
A.
September 15 White House Meeting
6
B.
Background: Tracks I and II
8
C.
CIA Views of Difficulty of Project
15
III. CIA's Implementation of Track II
17
A.
Evolution of CIA Strategy
17
1. The "Constitutional Coup" Approach
17
2. Military Solution
18
B.
The Chile Task Force
19
C.
The Use of the Army Attache and Interagency
Relations
20
D.
The False Flag Base
E. Chief of Station
IV.
CIA Efforts to Promote a Coup
A. The Chilean Conspirators
26
27
29
29
B. Contacts Prior to October 15
30
C. October 15 Decision
34
D. Coup Planning and Attempts After October 15
36
E.
The Killing of General Schneider
39
F. Post October 22 Events
41
V.
CIA/White House Communication During Track II
43
45
A.
September
B. October
C. December
46
54
D.
Did Track II End?
54
22222
NW 503
DooTd: 32423559
☐
I.
Summary
SCHNEIDER REPORT
On September 4, 1970, Dr. Salvador Allende Gossens won a plurality
in Chile's Presidential election.*
Since no candidate had received a
majority of the popular vote, the Chilean constitution required that
a joint session of its Congress decide between the first and second place
finishers. This constitutional requirement had, in the past, been pro-
forma. The Congress had always selected the candidate who received
highest popular vote. The date set for the Congressional joint session
was October 24, 1970.
On September 15, 1970, President Richard Nixon informed CIA Director
Richard Helms that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable to
the United States. The CIA was instructed by President Nixon to play a
direct role in organizing a military coup d'etat in Chile to prevent
According to Pres.
Allende's accession to the presidency. The Agency was to take this action
n
7
without coordination with the Departments of State or Defense and without
informing the U.S. Ambassador in Chile. While coup possibilities in
general and other means of seeking to prevent Allende's accession to
power were explored by the 40 Committee throughout this period, the 40
Committee was never informed of this direct CIA role. Nor did it ever
approve that role. The only institution to which the Agency was to re-
port, both for informational and approval purposes, was the White House.
☐
1
Clank
check
*Dr. Allende, a long-time Senator and founder of the Socialist Party in
Chile, was a candidate of Popular Unity Coalition. The Coalition was made
up of Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Radicals, and dissident
Christian Democrats. Allende was a self-proclaimed Marxist and was making
his fourth try for the presidency. His opponents were Radomire Tomic Romero,
candidate of the ruling Christian Democratic Party, and Jorge Alessandri
Rodriquez, candidate of the right-wing National Party. Dr. Allende won
36.3% of the popular vote; Alessandri was second with 35.3% of the vote.
Dr. Allende's margin of victory was 39,000 votes out of a total of 3 mil-
lion votes cast in the election. The incumbent President, Eduardo Frei
Montalvo, a Christian Democrat, was ineligible for re-election. Chilean
law prohibits Presidents from succeeding themselves.
700
much
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 433
-2-
|
....
In practice, this meant that the CIA was to keep the President's Assis-
tant for National Security Affairs, Henry Kissinger, informed of its
activities.
Between October 5 and October 20, 1970, the CIA made 21 contacts
with key military and Carabinero (police) officials in Chile. Those
Chileans who were inclined to stage a coup were given assurances of
strong support at the highest levels of the U.S. Government, both be-
fore and after a coup.
One of the major obstacles faced by all the military conspirators
in Chile was the strong opposition to a coup by the Commander-in-Chief
of the Army, General Rene Schneider, who insisted the constitutional
process be followed. As a result of his strong constitutional stand,
the removal of General Schneider became a necessary ingredient in the
coup plans of all the Chilean conspirators. Unable to have General
Schneider retired or reassigned, the conspirators decided to kidnap
him. An unsuccessful abduction attempt was made on October 19, 1970,
by a group of Chilean military officers whom the CIA was actively sup-
porting. A second kidnap attempt was made the following day, again un-
successfully. In the early morning hours of October 22, 1970, machine
guns and ammunition were passed by the CIA to the group that had failed
on October 19. That same day General Schneider was mortally
wounded in an attempted kidnap on his way to work. The attempted
kidnap and the shooting was apparently conducted by conspira-
tors other than those to whom the CIA had provided weapons earlier
in the day.
DID
they
Knan-
NW
-3-
A Chilean military court found that high-ranking military officers,
both active and retired, conspired to bring about a military coup and
to kidnap General Schneider. Several of the officers whom the CIA had
contacted and encouraged in their coup conspiracy were convicted of con-
spiring to kidnap General Schneider. Those convicted of carrying out
the actual kidnap attempt and the killing of General Schneider were assoc-
iates of retired General Roberto Viaux, who had initially been thought by
the CIA to be the best hope. However, later the CIA discouraged General
Viaux because the Agency felt other officers, such as General Camilo
Valenzuela, were not sufficiently involved. General Viaux was convicted by the
military court and received a twenty-year prison sentence for being
the "intellectal author" of the Schneider kidnap attempt. General
Valenzuela was sentenced by the military court to three years in exile
for taking part in the conspiracy to prevent Allende's assumption of
office. The military court found that the two Generals had been in
contact throughout the coup plotting.
The principal facts leading up to the death of General Schneider (all
of which are discussed in more detail below) are as follows:
1. By the end of September 1970, it appeared that the only feasible
way for the CIA to implement the Presidential order to prevent Allende from
coming to power was to foment a coup d'etat.
2. All of the known coup plots developed within the Chilean mili-
tary entailed the removal of General Schneider by one means or another.
3. United States officials continued to encourage and support Chilean
plans for a coup after it became known that the first step would be to
kidnap General Schneider.
NW 5035 Bocid: 324. 39 Page 435
NW
-4-
☐
4.
Two unsuccessful kidnap attempts were made, one on October 19,
the other on October 20. Following these attempts, and with knowledge
of their failure, the CIA passed three submachine guns and ammunition
to Chilean officers who still planned to kidnap General Schneider.
General
5. In a third kidnap attempt on October 22, apparently conducted
by Chileans other than those to whom weapons had been supplied,
Schneider was shot and subsequently died. The guns used in the abor-
tive kidnapping of General Schneider were, in all probability, not those
supplied by the CIA to the conspirators. The Chilean military court
which investigated the Schneider killing determined that Schneider had
been murdered by handguns, although one machine gun was at the scene of
the killing.*
6.
While there is no question that the CIA received a direct
instruction from the President on September 15th to attempt to foment
a coup, the Committee received sharply conflicting testimony about
whether the White House was kept informed of, and authorized, the
coup efforts in Chile after October 15. On one side of the conflict
is the testimony of Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig; on the
other, that of CIA officials. Kissinger testified that the White House
stood down CIA efforts to promote a military coup d'etat in Chile on
October 15, 1970. After that date, Kissinger testified--and Haig agreed--
that the White House neither knew of, nor specifically approved, CIA
coup activities in Chile. CIA officials, on the other hand, have testi-
fied that their activities in Chile after October 15 were known to and
って The Committee has not been able to determine whether or not
the machine gun at the scene of the Schneider killing was one of the
three supplied by the CIA.
thus authorized by the White House.
*
This conflict in testimony, which the Committee has been unable
to resolve through its hearings or the documentary record, leaves, un-
answered the most serious question of whether the CIA was acting
pursuant to higher authority (the CIA's view) or was pursuing coup
activities in Chile without sufficient communication (the Kissinger/
Haig view).
*
The basic issue is whether or not the CIA informed the White House of
its activities. In context, informing was tantamount to being authorized.
No one who testified believed that the CIA was required to seek step-by-
step authorization for its activities; rather the burden was on the White
House to object if a line of activity being pursued by the CIA seemed
unwise. Both Kissinger and Haig agreed that if the CIA had proposed a persua-
The CIA
sive plan to them, it almost certainly would have been approved.
did not believe it needed specific White House authorization to transfer wea-
pons to the Chileans%3B in fact, CIA. Deputy Director (Plans) Thomas
Karamessines testified that he did not formally approve the transfer,
but rather that in the context of the project it was clear that the
Agency had the authority to transfer weapons and that it was clear to
Karamessines' subordinates that he would approve their decision to do
so. He believed he probably was informed before the weapons actually
were sent.
NW
32423539 Page 437 .
A
400 OTPRET
*
-6-
The President's Initial General Instruction and Background
A. September 15 White House Meeting
On September 15, 1970, President Nixon met with his Assistant for
National Security Affairs, Henry Kissinger, CIA Director Richard Helms,
and Attorney General John Mitchell at the White House. The topic was
Chile. Handwritten notes taken by Director Helms at that meeting re-
flect both its tenor and the President's instructions:
1 in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile!
worth spending
not concerned risks involved
no involvement of Embassy
$10,000,000 available, more if necessary
full-time job--best men we have
game plan
make the economy scream
48 hours for plan of action
In his testimony before the Select Committee, Director Helms recalled
coming away from the meeting on September 15 with:
...
(the) impression... that the President came down
very hard that he wanted something done, and he
didn't much care how and that he was prepared to
make money available.. . This was a pretty all-
inclusive order.... If I ever carried a marshall's
baton in my knapsack out of the Oval Office, it
*
was that day. (Helms testimony, July 15, pp. 6,10,11)
Director Helms also testified that the September 15th meeting with
President Nixon may have been triggered by the presence of Augustin
Edwards, the publisher of the Santiago daily El Mercurio, in Washing-
ton. That morning, at the request of Donald Kendall, President of
Pepsi Cola, Henry Kissinger and John Mitchell had met for breakfast
with Kendall and Edwards. (Mitchell calendar) The topic of conversa-
tion was the political situation in Chile and the plight of El Mercurio
and other anti-Allende forces. According to Mr. Helms:
-
I recall that prior to this meeting (with the President)
the editor of El Mercurio had come to Washington and
I had been asked to go and talk to him at one of the
hotels here, this having been arranged through Don
Kendall, the head of the Pepsi Cola Company....I have
this impression that the President called this meeting
where I have my handwritten notes because of Edwards'
presence in Washington and what he heard from Kendall
about what Edwards was saying about conditions in
Chile and what was happening there.
(Helms testimony, July 15, pp. 4-5)
NW
2128539 Page 438,
7
NW
-/-
However, none of the CIA officers believed that assassination was within
the guidelines Helms had been given.
Senator Hart of Colorado. ...did the kind of carte
blanche mandate you carried, the marshall's baton
that you carried out in a knapsack, to stop Allende
from assuming office, include physical elimination?
Mr. Helms. Well, not in my mind, because when I be-
came Director, I had already made up my mind that we
weren't going to have any of that business when I was
Director, and I had made that clear to my fellows, and
I think they will tell you this.
The following day, September 16, Director Helms called a meeting
at the CIA to discuss the Chilean situation. At this meeting, he re-
lated to his colleagues his understanding of the President's instruc-
tions:
2.
The Director told the group that President
Nixon had decided that an Allende regime in Chile
was unacceptable to the United States. The Presi-
dent asked the Agency to prevent Allende from com-
ing to power or to unseat him. The President
authorized $10,000,000 for this purpose, if needed.
Further, the Agency is to carry out this mission
without coordination with the Departments of State
cr Defense.
(Memorandum/Genesis of the Project, 16 Sept. 1970)
Henry Kissinger's recollection of the September 15 meeting with
President Nixon is in accord with that of Richard Helms.* Although
Dr. Kissinger did not recall the President's instructions to be as
precise as those related by Director Helms, he did testify that:
the primary thrust of the September 15th meeting
was to urge Helms to do whatever he could to prevent
Allende from being seated. (Kissinger testimony, p. 13)
***
*
The documents, and the officials from whom the Committee has heard
testimony, are in substantial agreement about what President Nixon
authorized on September 15, namely CIA involvement in promoting a
military coup d'etat in Chile. There is not, however, agreement
about what was communicated between the CIA and the White House--
and hence what was authorized by the latter--in the week between
October 15 and the death of General Schneider, October 22. This
matter will be discussed in Part V of this report on the Schneider
killing.
agp
*
-8-
It is clear that President Nixon wanted him (Helms)
to encourage the Chilean military to cooperate or
to take the initiative in preventing Allende from
taking office. (Kissinger testimony, p. 12)
Operationally, the CIA set the President's instructions into motion
on September 21. On that day two cables were sent from CIA Headquarters
to Santiago informing the CIA Chief of Station (COS) of his new directive:
B.
3. Purpose of exercise is to prevent Allende as-
sumption of power. Parliamentary legerdemain has
been discarded. Military solution is objective.
(Hqs. to Stn. 236, 21 September 1970)
***
B. (Track Two)--This is authority granted to CIA
only, to work toward a military solution to problem.
As part of authority we were explicitly told that
40 Committee, State, Ambassador and Embassy were.
not to be told of this Track Two nor involved in any
matter. (Hqs. to Stn. 240, 21 September 1970)
Background: Tracks I and II
United States Government concern over an Allende regime in Chile
did not begin with President Nixon's September 15 instruction to the
*
CIA. For more than a year, Chile had been on the 40 Committee's agenda.
At an April 15, 1969, meeting of the 303 Committee (the predecessor of
the 40 Committee) the question arose as to whether anything should be
done with regard to the September 1970 Presidential election in Chile.
At that time, Director Helms pointed out that "an election operation will
Covert U.S. Government involvement in large-scale political action
programs in Chile began with the 1964 Presidential election.
1970, this was in response to the perceived threat of Salvadore
Allende. Over $3 million was spent by the CIA in the 1964 effort.
(Colby testimony, July 14, 1975, p. 5)
As in
NW 50913 DOO¥#: 2123039°
197
| ☑

NW
-9-
1
*
On
not be effective unless an early enough start is made. On March 25,
1970, the 40 Committee approved a joint Embassy/CIA proposal recom-
mending that "spoiling" operations--propaganda and other activities--
be undertaken by the CIA in an effort to prevent an election victory
by Allende's Popular Unity (UP) Coalition. A total of $135,000 was
authorized by the 40 Committee for this anti-Allende activity.
June 18, 1970, the U.S. Ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry, submitted a
two-phase proposal to the Department of State and the CIA for review.
The first phase involved an increase in support to the anti-Allende
campaign. The second was a contingency plan to make "a $500,000 effort
in Congress to persuade certain shifts in voting on 24 October 1970."
Phase II was, stated simply, a proposal to bribe Chilean Congressmen to
vote against Allende should he win a plurality in the September 4 elec-
tion. On June 27, 1970, the 40 Committee increased funding for the
anti-Allende "spoiling" operation to $390,000. A decision on Ambassador
Korry's bribe proposal was deferred pending the results of the September 4
election.
The 40 Committee met twice between the time Allende received a plural-
ity of the popular vote on September 4 and President Nixon issued his
instruction to Director Helms on September 15** At both these meetings the
question of U.S. involvement in a military coup against Allende was raised.
Kissinger stressed the importance of these meetings when he testified be-
fore the Select Committee:
*This and other references to 40 Committee discussions and actions regard-
ing Chile are contained in a memorandum provided to the Committee by the
CIA entitled "Policy Decisions Related to Our Covert Action Involvement
in the September 1970 Chilean Presidential Election," dated October 9, 1970.
On August 25, 1975, we subpoenaed all White House/National Security Council
documents and records relating to the effort by the United States Govern-
ment to prevent Salvadore Allende from assuming office. On September 4, the
Committee received 46 documents from the White House relating to Chile cover-
ing the period September 5 to October 14, 1970.
**See Page 9a.
mi
what
t, we hav
"them
ربيه
TOP SEGRET
9a
-
**Following the September 4 election, the CIA's Directorate of Intelli-
gence circulated an intelligence community assessment of the impact of
an Allende government on U.S. national interests.
That assessment,
dated September 7, 1970, stated:
Regarding threats to U.S. interests, we conclude that:
1. The U.S. has no vital national interests within Chile.
There would, however, be tangible economic losses.
2.
3.
The world military balance of power would not be sig-
nificantly altered by an Allende government.
An Allende victory would, however, create consider-
able political and psychological costs:
a.
b.
Hemispheric cohesion would be threatened by
the challenge that an Allende government
would pose to the OAS, and by the reactions
that it would create in other countries.
We do not see, however, any likely threat
to the peace of the region.
An Allende victory would represent a defin-
ite psychological set-back to the U.S. and
a definite psychological advance for the
Marxist idea. (Intelligence Memorandum/
"Situation Following the Chilean Presidential
Election," CIA's Directorate of Intelligence,
7. September 1970)
NW
TOP SECRET
1
NW 509
-10-
I think the meeting of September 15th has to be
seen in the context of two previous meetings of
the 40 Committee on September 8th and September
14th in which the 40 Committee was asked to look
at the pros and cons and the problems and pros-
pects of a Chilean military coup to be organized
with United States assistance.
(Kissinger testimony, p. 5)
According to the summary of the 40 Committee meeting on September
8, the following was discussed:
..all concerned realized that previous plans for
a Phase II would have to be drastically redrawn....
The DCI made the point, however, that congressional
action against Allende was not likely to succeed
and that once Allende was in office the Chilean
opposition to him would disintegrate and collapse
rapidly. While not advocating a specific course
of action, the Director further observed that a
military golpe against Allende would have very
little chance of success unless undertaken soon.
Both the Chairman and the Attorney General supported
this view....At the close of the... meeting the
Chairman directed the Embassy to prepare a "cold-
blooded assessment" of:
1) the pros and cons and problems and pros-
pects involved should a Chilean military
coup. be organized now with U.S. assistance,
and
2) the pros and cons and problems and pros-
pects involved in organizing an effective
future Chilean opposition to Allende.
(CIA Memorandum/Policy Decision Related to Our
Covert Action Involvement in the September 1970
Chilean Presidential Election, 9 October 1970)
Ambassador Korry responded to the 40 Committee's request for a
"cold-blooded assessment" on September 12. He stated that "We the
Embassy/ believe it now clear that Chilean military will not, repeat
not, move to prevent Allende's accession, barring unlikely situation
of national chaos and widespread violence." The Ambassador went on to
say that "Our own military people are unanimous in rejecting possi-
P
TOP SECRET
༡།
NW
10a
TOD CFC
bility of meaningful military intervention in political situation.'
He concluded by stating:
assessment' is that opportunities for further significant USG action
"What we are saying in this 'cold-blooded
with the Chilean military are nonexistent." (Memorandum/Ambassador's
Response to Request for Analysis of Military Option in Present Chilean
Situation, 12 September 1970)
The CIA's response was in the same vein. Viron Vaky, Kissinger's
assistant for Latin American affairs on the NSC staff, summarized the
CIA'S "cold-blooded assessment" in a memo to his boss: "Military ac-
tion is impossible; the military is incapable and unwilling to seize
power. We have no capability to motivate or instigate a coup." (Memo-
randum for Dr. Kissinger/Chile--40 Committee Meeting, Monday--September 14,
September 14, Viron P. Vaky)
On September 14, the 40 Committee met to discuss these reports and
what action was to be taken:
Particular attention was devoted to a CIA prepared
review of political and military options in the
Chilean electoral situation based on the Embassy
and Station's "cold-blooded assessment." The Com-
mittee focused on the so-called "Rube Goldberg"
gambit which would see Alessandri elected by the
Congress on October 24th, resigning thereafter to
leave Frei constitutionally free to run in a second
election for the presidency.
TOP SECRET
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1
Ambassador Korry was asked to go directly to President
Frei to see if he would be willing to commit himself to
this line of action. A contingency of $250,000 was
approved for "covert support of projects which Frei or
his trusted team deem important." It was further agreed
that a propaganda campaign be undertaken by. the Agency
to focus on the damage of an Allende takeover..
(CIA Memorandum/Policy Decision Related to Our
Covert Action Involvement in the September 1970
Chilean Presidential Election, 9 October 1970)
to the CIA, U.S. Government efforts
**
Track
Following the September 14 Forty Committee meeting and President
Nixon's September 15 instruction
to prevent Allende from assuming office proceeded on two tracks.
I comprised all covert activities approved by the 40 Committee,
cluding the $250,000 contingency fund to bribe Chilean congressmen as
well as propaganda and economic activities.
These activities were
designed to induce the opponents to Allende in Chile to prevent his
either through political or military means.
assumption of
power,
in-
Track
*
The terms Track I and Track II were known only to CIA and White House
officials who were knowledgeable about the President's September 15 order
to the CIA. The Committee sent letters to various senior officials in-
quiring if they were, in fact, not knowledgeable of the Track II activities.
Those letters were sent to Secretary of State William Rogers, Secretary of
Defense Melvin Laird, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard, Under-
secretary of State for Political Affairs U. Alexis Johnson, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer, NSC Staff Member for
Latin America Viron P. Vaky, Director of the State Department's Bureau
of Intelligence and Research Ray S. Cline, and the Deputy Chief of Mission
in Santiago Harry W. Shlaudeman. Thus far the Committee. has received
written responses from Messrs. Moorer, Johnson, Vaky, Shlaudeman and Cline.
All except Cline have indicated that they had no knowledge of the Track II
activity at the time%3B Cline indicated he heard of the activities in a
general way, from his subordinate who handled 40 Committee work and from
Committee
former associates at the CIA. In oral communications with
staff members, Secretaries Rogers and Laird have indicated they were unaware
of Track II.
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II activities in Chile were undertaken in response to President Nixon's
3"
September 15 order and were directed towards actively promoting and
encouraging the Chilean military to move against Allende. In his testimony
before the Committee, Kissinger stressed the links between Tracks
I and II:
... There was work by all of the agencies to try to
prevent Allende from being seated, and there was
work by all of the agencies on the so-called Track
I to encourage the military to move against Allende
...the difference between the September 15th meet-
ing and what was being done in general within the
government was that President Nixon was encouraging
a more direct role for the CIA in actually organiz-
ing such a coup. (Kissinger testimony, p. 13)
Tracks I and II did, in fact, move together in the month after
September 15. The authorization to Ambassador Korry, who was formally
excluded from Track II, to encourage a military coup became broader and
broader. In the 40 Committee meeting on September 14, he and other
"appropriate members of the Embassy Mission" were authorized to inten-
sify their contacts with Chilean military officers to assess their
willingness to support the "Frei gambit"--a voluntary turn-over of
power to the military by Frei, who would then have been eligible to
run for President in new elections.
(Memorandum/Policy Decisions Related
to Our Covert Action Involvement in the September 1970 Chilean Presiden-
tial Election, 9 October 1970)
In a situation report to Dr. Kissinger and Assistant Secretary
Charles Meyer on September 21, Ambassador Korry indicated that in order
to make the Frei gambit work, "if necessary, General Schneider would
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have to be neutralized, by displacement if necessary.
11*
(Korry to
*
Meyer and Kissinger/Situation Report, 21 September 1970)
"
In testifying,
Kissinger felt the Korry report indicated 'the degree to which Track
I and Track II were merging, that is to say, that individuals on Track
I were working on exactly the same problem as the CIA was working on
Track II."
(Kissinger testimony, p. 21)
Ambassador Korry's activites in Chile between September 4 and
October 24 support Kissinger's view that the line separating Track I
and Track II often became blurred. For example, the Ambassador was
authorized to make his contacts in the Chilean military aware that if
Allende were seated, the military could expect no further military
assistance (MAP) from the United States. Later, in response to his own
recommendation, Korry was authorized to inform the Chilean military that.
all MAP and military sales were being held in abeyance pending the outcome
of the Congressional election on October 24.
On October 7, Ambassador
Korry received the following cable from Kissinger and Under Secretary
In this same situation report, Ambassador Korry related a message that
he had sent to President Frei through his Defense Minister indicating
the economic pressures that would be brought to bear on Chile should
Allende assume office.
Frei should know that not a nut or bolt will be
allowed to reach Chile under Allende. Once
Allende comes to power we shall do all within
our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to
utmost deprivation and poverty, a policy designed
for a long time to come to accelerate the hard
Hence,
features of a Communist society in Chile.
for Frei to believe that there will be much of
an alternative to utter misery, such as seeing
Chile muddle through, would be strictly illusory.
The use of economic instruments as levers on Frei and the Chilean
military was a persistent subject of White House/CIA discussions
and of instructions to the field. Helms' notes from the September
15 meeting with the President and Kissinger included the notation
"make the economy scream. Economic leverage was the primary
topic of a September 18 White House meeting involving Kissinger,
Helms and Karamessines.
"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 447
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of State U. Alexis Johnson:
2. ..you are now authorized to inform discreetly
the Chilean military through the channels available
to you that if a successful effort is made to block
Allende from taking office, we would reconsider the
cuts we have thus far been forced to make in Chilean
MAP and otherwise increase our presently programmed
MAP for the Chilean Armed Forces.... If any steps
the military should take should result in civil dis-
order, we would also be prepared promptly to deliver
support and material that might be immediately re-
quired.
(Hqs. to Stn. 075517, 7 October 1970)
The essential difference between Tracks I and II, as evidenced by
instructions to Ambassador Korry during this period, was not that Track
II was coup-oriented and Track I was not. Both had this objective in
mind. The difference between the two tracks was, simply, that the CIA'S
direct contacts with the Chilean military, and its active promotion and
support for a coup, were to be known only to a small group of individuals
in the White House and the CIA. Kissinger testified that Track II
matters were to be reported directly to the White House "for reasons
(Kissinger testimony, p. 14) Thomas Karamessines, the
of security."
CIA's Deputy Director for Plans at the time and the principal CIA
contact with the White House on Track II matters, testified on his
understanding of why State, Defense, the 40 Committee and Ambassador
Korry were excluded from Track II:
That was not a decision that we made. But the
best I can do is suggest that there was concern
about two things. Number one, that there might
be serious objections lodged, for example, by
the State Department particularly if Track 2
were to be laid out at a Forty Committee meeting.
And the only other thing I can contribute to that
is that it was felt that the security of the
activity would be better protected if knowledge
of it were limited. (Karamessines testimony, p. 122)
TOP SEC
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CIA Views of Difficulty of Project
On one point the testimony of CIA officials who were involved in
Track II is unanimous:
they all said they thought Track II was unlikely
to succeed. That view ran from the working levels of the Agency to the
top. They all said they felt they were being asked to do the impossible,
that the risks and potential costs of the project were too great. At
the same time, they felt they had been given an explicit Presidential
order, and they tried to execute that order.
A few excerpts from the testimony follow:
Richard Helms, CIA Director
-
...my heart sank over this meeting, because...the
possibility of bringing off something like this
· seemed to me at that time to be just as remote as
anything could be. In practical terms, the Army
was constitutionalist.... And when you look here at
the time frame in which the man was suddenly asking
you to accomplish something, it seemed really almost
inconceivable....
What I came away from the meeting with
the distinct impression that we were being
asked to do almost the impossible and trying
to indicate this was going to be pretty tough……….
(Helms testimony, July 15, 1975, pp. 6-7)
David Phillips, Chief, Chile Task Force
-
...it is my feeling that the odds are unaccept-
able, it is something that is not going to work,
and we are going to be burned if we get into it
...what are the chances of pulling off a coup
successfully, or in any way stopping Allende from
assuming the presidency?...we never even got to
two chances out of 20. (Phillips testimony, p. 16)
...I assure you that those people that I
was in touch with at the Agency just about univers-
ally said, my God, why are we given this assignment?.
(Phillips testimony, p. 53)
James Flannery, Deputy Chief, Western Hemisphere Division
There was just no question that we had to make
this effort, no matter what the odds were. And
I think that most people felt that the odds were
just pretty long. (Flannery testimony, p. 20)
1
-16-
Further, CIA officials believed their judgment of the endeavor's
difficulty was known to the White House. Helms commented on the Septem-
ber 15th meeting: "So realizing all of these things, I'm relatively
certain that day that I pointed out this is going to be awfully tough."
(Helms testimony, July 15, 1975, p. 16) Karamessines recalled pointing
out to the President that "the Chilean military seemed to be disorganized
and unwilling to do anything. And without their wanting to do something,
there did not seem to be much hope.' (Karamessines testimony, p. 10)
"
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III. CIA's Implementation of Track II
A. Evolution of CIA Strategy
The President's instruction to the CIA on September 15 to prevent
Allende's assumption of power was given in the context of a broad U.S.
Government effort to achieve that end. The September 15 instruction
to the CIA involved from the beginning the promotion of a military coup
d'etat in Chile. Although there was talk of a coup in Chilean military
circles, there was little indication that it would actually take place
without active U.S. encouragement and support.
There was much talk among Chilean officers about
the possibility of some kind of coup...but this
was not the kind of talk that was being backed by,
you know, serious organizational planning.
(Karamessines testimony, Aug. 6, 1963, p. 32)
1. The "Constitutional Coup" Approach
Although efforts to achieve a political solution to the Allende
victory continued simultaneous with Track II, the Agency premised its
activities on the assumption that the political avenue was a dead end.
On September 21, CIA Headquarters cabled its Station in Santiago:
Purpose of exercise is to prevent Allende assump-
tion of power. Paramilitary legerdemain has been
discarded. Military solution is objective.
(Hqs. 236, Sept. 21, 1970, para. 3)
The initial strategy attempted to enlist President Frei in promoting
a coup to perpetuate his presidency for six more years. The Agency
decided to promise "help in any election which was an outgrowth of a
successful military takeover." (Nov. 18, 1970 Helms memo to Kissinger)
Under this plan Frei would invite the military to take over, dissolve the
Congress, and proclaim a new election. A private U.S. citizen who had
been a conduit for CIA funds to Frei's 1964 campaign was sent to see him
1
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 451
1
.-18-
with this message on September 24. (Task Force Log, September 23)
1
Thomas Karamessines, the Deputy Director for Plans, testified:
So this was in a sense not Track II, but in a
sense another aspect of a quiet and hopefully
non-violent military coup....This was abandoned
when the military were reluctant to push Frei
publicly...and, number two, Frei was reluctant
to leave on his own in the absence of pressure
from the military.... There was left as the only
chance of success a straight military coup.
(Karamessines testimony, Aug. 6, 1975, p. 6)
At the same time, the Station in Santiago reported:
2.
Strong reasons for thinking neither Frei nor
Schneider will act. For that reason any scenario
in which either has to play an active role now
appears utterly unrealistic. Overtures to lower
echelon officers (e.g., Valenzuela) can of course
be made. This involves promoting Army split.
(Stn. to Hqs. 424, September 23, 1970)
Military Solution
President Frei's failure even to attempt to persuade his own party
convention on October 3-4 from reaching a compromise with Allende ended
all hope of using him to prevent an Allende presidency.
(November 18
memo, Helms to Kissinger, page 16) Thus, by the beginning of October,
it was clear that a vehicle for a military solution would have to be
found in the second echelon of Chilean officers, and that the top leader-
ship of the Armed Services, particularly General Rene Schneider, consti-
tuted a stumbling block. (Santiago 424, September 23, 1970; Santiago 439,
September 30, 1970) The Agency's task was to cause a coup in a highly
unpromising situation and to overcome the formidable obstacles represented
by Frei's inaction, Schneider's strong constitutionalism, and the absence
of organization and enthusiasm among those officers who were interested
in a coup.
A three-fold program was set into motion:
G
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Page
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b
Collect intelligence on coup-minded officers;
Create a coup climate by propaganda, disinformation,
and terrorist activities intended to provoke the left to
give a pretext for a coup; *(Hqs. 611, October 7, 1970)
C.
Inform those coup-minded officers that the U.S. Govern-
ment would give them full support in a coup short of direct
U.S. military intervention.
(Hqs. 762, October 14, 1970)
FN
DOESN's
انا
Say
support
07
terrorist
B.
The Chile Task Force
gic
Because of the highly sensitive nature of the operation, a special
task force was created in the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division to manage it.
The task force was placed under the daily direction of the Deputy Direc-
tor for Plans, Thomas Karamessines, and a group of the Agency's most
experienced and skilled operators were detailed to the task force.
*A cable sent from CIA Headquarters to Santiago on October 19 focused
on creating an appropriate justification for a coup. The cable stated:
1. It still appears that Ref A coup has no pretext or justification
that it can offer to make it acceptable in Chile or Latin America. It
therefore would seem necessary to create one to bolster what will prob-
ably be their claim to a coup to save Chile from communism...You may.
wish include variety of themes in justification of coup to military for
their use. These could include but are not limited to: A) Firm intel.
that Cubans planned to reorganize all intelligence services along
Soviet/Cuban mold thus creating structure for police state....B) Economic
situation collapsing....C) By quick recognition of Cuba and Communist
countries Allende assumed U.S. would cut off material assistance to
Armed Forces thus weakening them as constitutional barriers. Would then
empty armories to Communist Peoples Militia with task to run campaign of
terror based on alleged labor and economic sabotage (Use some quotes
from Allende on this.)
2. Station has written some excellent prop guidances. Using themes
at hand and which best known to you we are now asking you to prepare
intel report based on some well known facts and some fiction to justify
coup, split opposition, and gain adherents for military group. With
appropriate military contact can determine how to "discover" intel report
which could even be planted during raids planned by Carabineros.
3. We urge you to get this idea and some concrete suggestions to plot
ters as soon as you can. Coup should have a justification to prosper.
(Headquarters 882, 19 October 1970)
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David A. Phillips, Chief of Station in Rio de Janeiro, was summoned
back to Washington to head the operation.
With the exception of the
Division Chief, William Broe, his deputy James Flannery and the head
200
of the Chile Branch, no other officers in the Division were aware of the
task force's activities, not even those officers who normally had respon-
sibility for Chile. The task force had a special communications channel to
Santiago and Buenos Aires to compartment cable traffic about Track II.
(November 18, 1970, Helms to Kissinger memo, page 3) Most of the
significant operational decisions were made by Phillips, Broe and
Karamessines, who met on a daily basis.
It should be noted that all those involved with the task force des-
(Kara-
cribed the pressure from the White House as intense. Indeed, Karamessines
has said that Kissinger "left no doubt in my mind that he was under the
heaviest of pressure to get this accomplished, and he in turn was plac-
ing us under the heaviest of pressures to get it accomplished."
messines testimony, August 6, 1975, page 7) The Deputy Chief of the
Western Hemisphere Division, James Flannery, testified that pressure was
"as tough as I ever saw it in my time there, extreme. (Flannery testi-
"
mony, July 15, 1975, page 20) Broe testified that "I have never gone
through a period as we did on the Chilean thing. I mean it was just
constant, constant.... Just continual pressure....It was coming from the
White House. (Broe testimony, August 4, 1975, page 55)
C.
11
The Use of the Army Attache and Interagency Relations
The CIA Station in Santiago had inadequate contacts within the
Chilean military to carry out its task. However, the U.S. Army At- &
tache in Santiago, Colonel Paul Wimert, knew the Chilean military
NW 5095. DocId:
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☐☐
very well s
due to his five years of service there and his broad personal
Following a proposal by the Chief
contacts among the Chilean officers.
of Station, the CIA decided to enlist Colonel Wimert in collecting in-
telligence concerning the possibility of a coup and to use him as a
channel to let the interested Chilean military know of U. S.
for a coup.
support
Karamessines described this procedure for the Committee:
We also needed contact with a wider segment of the military,
the senior military which we had not maintained and did not
have, but which we felt confident that our military represen-
tative in Chile had....And we got the approval of the DIA to
enlist the cooperation of Colonel Wimert in our effort to pro-
cure intelligence.
(Karamessines testimony, August 6, 1975, p. 6)
To obtain Wimert's services, CIA officials prepared a suggested mes-
sage for the Director of DIA to send to the Army Attache in Santiago
through CIA communications channels. Because the DIA Director, General
Donald V. Bennett, was in Europe on official business, the Deputy
Director of Central Intelligence, General Cushman, invited DIA Deputy
Director Lt. General Jammie M. Philpott to his office on September 28,
1970.* During that meeting, General Cushman requested the assistance of
the Army Attache, and General Philpott signed a letter which authorized
transmission of a message directing the Army Attache:
...to work closely with the CAS chief, or in his absence,
his deputy, in contacting and advising the principal mili-
tary figures who might play a decisive role in any move which
might, eventually, deny the presidency to Allende.
Do not, repeat not, advise the Ambassador or the Defense At-
tache of this message, or give them any indication of its
portent. In the course of your routine activities, act in
accordance with the Ambassador's instructions. Simultaneously,
I wish--and now authorize you--to act in a concerted fashion
with the CAS chief.
*
General Bennett returned to the United States on the evening of October
10, 1970. General Philpott was Acting Director in Bennett's absence.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 455
1
*
very well due to his five years of service there and his broad personal
Following a proposal by the Chief
contacts among the Chilean officers.
of Station, the CIA decided to enlist Colonel Wimert in collecting in-
telligence concerning the possibility of a coup and to use him as a
channel to let the interested Chilean military know of U. S. support
for a coup.
Karamessines described this procedure for the Committee:
We also needed contact with a wider segment of the military,
the senior military which we had not maintained and did not
have, but which we felt confident that our military represen-
tative in Chile had....And we got the approval of the DIA to
enlist the cooperation of Colonel Wimert in our effort to pro-
cure intelligence.
(Karamessines testimony, August 6, 1975, p. 6)
To obtain Wimert's services, CIA officials prepared a suggested mes-
sage for the Director of DIA to send to the Army Attache in Santiago
through CIA communications channels. Because the DIA Director, General
Donald V. Bennett, was in Europe on official business, the Deputy
Director of Central Intelligence, General Cushman, invited DIA Deputy
Director Lt. General Jammie M. Philpott to his office on September 28,
1970.* During that meeting, General Cushman requested the assistance of
the Army Attache, and General Philpott signed a letter which authorized
transmission of a message directing the Army Attache:
to work closely with the CAS chief, or in his absence,
his deputy, in contacting and advising the principal mili-
tary figures who might play a decisive role in any move which
might, eventually, deny the presidency to Allende.
Do not, repeat not, advise the Ambassador or the Defense At-
tache of this message, or give them any indication of its
portent. In the course of your routine activities, act in
accordance with the Ambassador's instructions. Simultaneously,
I wish--and now authorize you--to act in a concerted fashion
with the CAS chief.
General Bennett returned to the United States on the evening of October
10, 1970. General Philpott was Acting Director in Bennett's absence.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 456
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TOP:
This message is for your eyes only, and should not be dis-
cussed with any person other than those CAS officers who will
be knowledgeable. CAS will identify them. (Headquarters 380
to Santiago)
For this and all subsequent messages intended for the Army Attache,
the secret CIA communications channel was used.
Both General Philpott and Thomas Karamessines testified that ini-
tially the Army Attache would be used only to "obtain or procure" in-
telligence on Chilean military officers.* (Philpott, p. 11%; Karamessines,
p. 6)
The September 28, 1970 message to the Army Attache, however, did
in fact trigger his deep involvement in the coup attempt. According to
the Attache's testimony, he received day-to-day instructions from the
Chief of Station, and on occasion, the COS would show him messages
ostensibly from Generals Bennett and/or Philpott, directing him to
take certain actions. The COS also transmitted messages from the Army
Attache to these Generals.
which
General Bennett testified that he never had knowledge of Track II
were
SIGNED.
and that he never received any communication relating thereto, nor did
he ever authorize the transmission of any messages to the Army Attache.
General Philpott also testified that he had no recollection of anything
connected with Track II after his initial meeting with General Cushman
on September 28. (Philpott, p. 16)
U. S. Army Colonel Robert C. Roth, who in September and October 1970
was the Chief of the Human Resources Division, Director of Collection, DIA,
>
*
In this connection it should be noted that when questioned about
this letter, General Philpott testified that he recalled signing
an authorization such as that contained in the first paragraph of
Headquarters 380 but that he did not recall the authorizations and
instructions in paragraphs two and three.
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testified that he recalled working for Generals Bennett and Philpott on
"a priority requirement to identify Chilean personalities who might be
helpful in preventing the election of Allende as President of Chile."
(Roth, Vol. I, p. 6) Though Roth recalls no mention of Track II as such,
the goal of this mission is identical to that described in the message
of September 28 bearing Philpott's signature.
Beginning on October 15, Roth kept a chronology of his activities
connected with Chile. This chronology reflects that there was a meeting
on October 21 regarding the preparation of biographic material on Chilean
generals which focused on their willingness to participate in a military
coup.. Generals Bennett, Philpott, and a CIA representative attended.
The chronology also shows that on October 21, Roth delivered a message to
Mr. Broe to be sent by CIA channels.* A message was sent to Col. Wimert
that same day, ostensibly from General Bennett, which authorized:
FYI:
Suspension temporarily imposed on MAP and FMS has
been rescinded. This action does not repeat not imply
change in our estimate of situation. On the contrary,
it is intended to place us in a posture in which we can
formally cut off assistance if Allende elected and situa-
tion develops as we anticipate. Request up date on situa-
tion. (Santiago 446; Ref: Headquarters 762) (Headquarters
934, 21 October 1970)
Roth testified that this DIA project ended on October 23 when he
followed Philpott's instructions to deliver biographic information on
Chilean figures to Mr. Broe at CIA. Philpott also instructed him that
* Roth believes that General Philpott directed him to deliver this
message and also pressed him on several occasions to seek a re-
sponse from Broe to an earlier message to Colonel Wimert.
(Roth,
Vol. II, P. >
TOP SEGRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 458
23a
"any further action on the subject would henceforth be the responsibility
of the CIA and that DIA would perform normal support functions."
p. 8)*
(Roth,
Both Bennett and Philpott testified that the activities described
by Roth were routine DIA activities. However, Colonel Roth testified:
I believe my impression at the time, or my recollection, is
that I was informed that there was concern at the highest
U.S. Governmental level over the possible election of Allende,
that DIA then had a priority responsibility of coming up with
the identities of key Chilean personalities that would be help-
ful, and so forth. I have nothing specific as to the nature of
the instructions or the channels through which they came.
Q. It was your sense at the time that you were working on a
project that if it had not been initiated by, at least had
the attention of or concern of, the highest level?
1
*.
Roth's chronology also indicates that Philpott had asked that Broe
be queried on two or three occasions regarding a report from Wimert
and that Philpott instructed that only he (Philpott) would communi-
cate with Cushman if the need arose. (Roth, p. 11) Roth also testi-
fied that Philpott advised him that communications with Wimert would
be by CIA channels.
(Roth, p. 41)
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 459
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Colonel Roth. That was my impression at the time.
Q.
You understand from your work in the Defense Department
that the highest level of government usually indicated the
President of the United States?
Colonel Roth. I would assume that.
The CIA produced copies of several messages which identify
Generals Bennett and Philpott as either the sender or recipient. Among
these documents is a message relating to Track II which bears Philpott's
(Undated message. ca. 14 October 1970) General
purported signature.
Philpott admitted that the signature appears to be his but doubted that
it was and he could not recall signing it, or having seen it. (Philpott,
p. > CIA also produced messages of October 14 (Headquarters 762)
and October 21 (Headquarters 934) conveying instructions from General
Bennett to the Army Attache. General Bennett testified he did not
authorize these messages:
It is beyond the responsibilities which I had in the military
assistance area. It goes beyond the responsibility which I
had in terms that I would have to get the authority or the
approval of the Secretary through the Chairman for covert
action of this magnitude. This message would not have been
signed by me. (Bennett testimony, p. 21)
According to Karamessines, only the White House had the authority to
issue the directives contained in those messages (Karamessines testi-
mony, p. 84)
The Department of Defense was unable to provide any documents bear-
ing on the issue of Wimert's Track II instructions or responses. A
DOD file search under the direction of General Daniel O. Graham, the
present Director of DIA, produced no copies of communication documents
for the September-October 1970 period. (Graham, p. 6) However, Roth
testified that detailed memoranda for the record which he prepared on
his activities are missing from the files:
(Roth, Vol. II, P.
)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 460

CIA officials maintain that they acted faithfully in transmitting
messages to Generals Bennett and/or Philpott and in never sending a
Mr. Karamessines was particularly
message without proper authorization.
forceful in this regard:
.I can recall no instance in my experience at the Central
Intelligence Agency in which a message was received for an
individual, an officer of the government anywhere, in what-
ever department, which was not faithfully, directly, promptly
and fully and accurately delivered to that officer, or to his
duly authorized representative.
(Karamessines testimony, p. 79).
We may have played tricks overseas, but it stopped at the
water's edge, and we didn't play tricks among ourselves or
among our colleagues within the Agency or in other agencies.
(Karamessines testimony, p. 79)
We could not remain in business for a day...if this had been
the practice of the Agency. It would have been no time at
all before we would have been found out, a single instance
of the kind of thing you are suggesting might have taken
place would have put us out of business.
(Karamessines testimony, p. 80)
Dr. Kissinger denied he was ever informed of the Army Attache's
role or that he authorized any messages to be sent to the Army Attache.
(Kissinger testimony, p. 22)
The investigation to date has not resolved the conflict between the
statements of the senior CIA, DIA and White House officials.
There are
four possibilities that could explain the conflict. First, Generals
Bennett and Philpott were cognizant of Track II and communicated their
general instructions to the Army Attache. This possibility would be
contrary to their sworn testimony.
Second, General Bennett was not aware
of Track II but General Philpott was and communicated general instructions to
the Army Attache. This possibility is supported by Roth's testimony.
but would be contrary to Philpott's sworn testimony and his duty to
keep General Bennett informed. Third, the CIA acted on its own,
and,
i
after receiving initial authority from General Philpott, co-opted and ordered
N
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 461
-23-
the Army Attache without further informing any member of the Department
of Defense of the White House. This possibility would be contrary to
the sworn testimony of David Phillips, William Broe, Thomas Karamessines,
Supported by Roth in PART
and William Colby. Fourth, members of the White House staff authorized
the CIA to convey orders to the Army Attache on the basis of high or
highest government authority. Further, that the White House staff
directed that the Army Attache's superiors in the Pentagon not be in-
formed. This possibility would contradict the sworn testimony of Dr.
Kissinger and General Alexander Haig.
D.
The False Flag Base
In order to minimize the risks of making contact with the dissident
Chilean officers, the task force decided in late September to set up a
"False Flag Base," i.e., to send four staff officers to Chile posing as
nationals of other countries to supplement Colonel Wimert's contacts
with Chilean military officers. Given the limitations of the Station's
resources and Colonel Wimert's visibility, Headquarters felt the use of
"False Flag Officers" was necessary because "We don't want to miss a
chance." One of these officers posed as a Brazilian intelligence officer
*
so that "any flap would be a Brazilian one." (Headquarters 363,
September 27, 1970)
*The use of "False Flag Officers" is not, according to David Phillips,
"an unusual practice," either by the CIA or foreign intelligence
services.
(Phillips testimony, pp. 47-48)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 462
сои
disas
7
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The False Flaggers were compartmented from each other and reported
separately on their contacts to a "deep cover" CIA officer in Santiago
who in turn reported to the Station. According to the testimony of the
Chief of Station, they received their instructions from Washington and
not from him. (Chief of Station testimony (Felix), August 1, 1975, p. 27)
E. Chief of Station
Although most of the Station officers in Santiago did not know of
Track II, the Chief and Deputy Chief of Station were knowledgeable and
the Chief of Station initiated contacts on his own with Chilean officers.
The COS has testified that he regarded Track II as unrealistic:
I had left no doubt in the minds of my colleagues
and superiors that I did not consider any kind of
intervention in those constitutional processes
desirable.... And one of the reasons certainly for my
last recall (to Washington) was to be read the riot
act--which was done in a very pleasant, but very
intelligible manner. Specifically, I was told at
that time that the Agency was not too interested in
continuously being told by me that certain proposals
which had been made could not be executed, or would
be counterproductive. (Chief of Station (Felix)
testimony, August 1, 1975, p. 10)
The Chief of Station's objection to Track II did not go unnoticed.
The following instruction to the COS was sent on October 7: "Report
should not contain analysis and argumentation but simply report on
action taken." (Headquarters 612, 7 October) Very simply, Headquarters
wanted the Station to take orders quietly as was the Agency itself.
TOP
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 463
1
-28-
Three examples of the Chief of Station's reporting bear out his
claim to have dissented:
Bear in mind that parameter of action is exceed-
ingly narrow and available options are quite
limited and relatively simple.
(Santiago 424, September 23, 1970)
Feel necessary to caution against any false optimism.
It is essential that we not become victims of our
own propaganda. (Santiago 441, October 1, 1970)
Urge you do not convey impression that Station has
sure-fire method of halting, let alone triggering
coup attempts. (Santiago 477, October 7, 1970, p.2)
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།
TOP ARGUICH
-29-
CIA Efforts to Promote a Coup
A.
The Chilean Conspirators
Anti-Allende coup plotting in Chile centered around several key
individuals.
*
One of these was retired General Roberto Viaux, the General
who had led the "Tacnazo" insurrection a year before. Following the
"Tacnazo" revolt, and his dismissal from the Army, Viaux retained the
support of many non-commissioned and junior officers as well as being
the recognized leader of several right-wing civilian groups. (CIA
Briefing Paper, "Special Mandate from the President on Chile," July
15, 1975)
Another individual around which plotting centered was General Camilo
Valenzuela, Commander of the Santiago Garrison. General Valenzuela was
in league with several other active duty officers, including Admiral
Hugo Tirado, Navy Commander in Chief%3B General Vicente Huerta, Director
General of the Carabinero (police) Corps; General Canales, Director of
the Military Academy; and General Joaquin Garcia, second in command,
Air Force. (CIA Report on Chilean Task Force Activities, November 18,
1970) All of these officers, with the possible exception of Canales,
were in contact with Viaux as well.
**
*This revolt was engineered by Viaux ostensibly for the purposes of drama-
tizing the military's demand for higher pay, but was widely interpreted as
an abortive coup.
**The record of meetings between Viaux and the active duty military officers
is incomplete. The record does show, however, that Viaux met with General
Huerta around October 7. (Chile Task Force Log, October 7). On October 12
Viaux met with General Valenzuela (Chile Task Force Log, 14 October). One
cable from Santiago indicates that Admiral Tirado may have been a member
of Viaux's inner circle of conspirators. (Station 545, 16 October 1970).
At the very least, Tirado was in contact with Viaux.
Although a distinction can be made between the Viaux and Valenzuela groups,
as CIA witnesses did throughout their testimony before the Committee, the
principal distinction between the two was that the latter was led by active duty
military officers. The two groups were in contact with each other. The
record also indicates that they worked together in at least two of the three
Schneider kidnap attempts.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 465
| 97
:
1
There was considerable communication among the various plotting
elements.
As Thomas Karamessines testified:
... I might add here that it seemed that a good
dozen or more, maybe 20 Chilean senior officers
were privy to what was going on in addition to
President Frei and they were all talking to one
another exchanging views and trying to see how
best to mount the kind of coup that they wanted
to see take place. (Karamessines testimony, p. 10)
B. Contacts Prior to October 15
The CIA's initial task in Chile was to assess the potential within
the Chilean military to stage a coup. It recognized quickly that anti-
Allende currents did exist in the military and the Carabineros (police),
but were immobilized by "the tradition of military respect for the
Constitution" and "the public and private stance of General Schneider,
Commander in Chief of the Army, who advocated strict adherence to the
Constitution."
(CIA Report on Chilean Task Force Activities, 18 Novem-
ber 1970, P. 17) The Agency's task, then, was to overcome "the apolitical,
constitutional-oriented inertia of the Chilean military." (Ibid, p. 2)
Since the very top of the Chilean military, embodied by General
Schneider and his second-in-command, General Prat, were hostile to the
idea of a coup against Allende, discreet approaches were made to the
second level of general officers. They were to be informed that the U.S.
Government would support a coup both before and after it took place.'
(Headquarters to Station 611, 7 October 1970) This effort began in
earnest on October 5 when Colonel Wimert informed both an Army General
("Station's priority contact") an an Air Force General of the pro-coup
*
*
"The military officers were told, for example, that should Allende be
prevented from taking office, "The Chilean military will not be ostra-
cized, but rather can continue to count on us for MAP support and main-
tenance of our close relationship." (Hqs. 075517, 7 October 1970)
NW 50955
DocId: 32423539 Page 466
U.S. policy.
*
(Santiago 469, October 5%; Santiago 473, October 6)^
Three days later the Chief of Station told General Huerta, Commander
of the Carabineros that "the U.S. Government favors a military solu-
tion and is willing to support it in any manner short of outright
military intervention." (Task Force Log, 9 October)
General Huerta
informed the COS that there was no chance of a coup by the Chilean
Army high command. (Task Force Log, 10 October)
This was
On October 7, Colonel Wimert approached members of the War Academy
in Santiago who in turn asked him to provide light weapons.
Colonel Wimert's first contact with the Army Lt. Colonel to whom he
**
would ultimately pass three submachine guns on October 22. At this
meeting, the Lt. Colonel told Colonel Wimert that he and his colleagues
were
trying to exert force on Frei to eliminate
Gen. Schneider to either replace him, send
him out of the country.
ied plans to kidnap him.
They had even stud-
Schneider is the
main barrier to all plans for the military
to take over the government to prevent an
Allende presidency. (Santiago 483, 8 October)
L
*
According to the CIA's wrap-up report on Track II, between October 5
and October 20, the CIA Station and the Army Attache--for the most part
the latter--made 21 contacts with key military and Carabinero officials.
(CIA Report on Chilean Task Force Activities, 8 November 1970)
**
In his testimony, Colonel Wimert indicated that the Lt. Colonel was
affiliated with General Canales. (Wimert testimony, p. 52) In a cable
sent to Headquarters on October 18, in which the Lt. Colonel's request
for three submachine guns was made, the Station indicated that Wimert
believed the Army officer, and his companion, a Navy Captain, were in
league with Admiral Tirado. (Station 562, October 18) At another point
in his testimony, Wimert stated, "There was Valenzuela here and the Navy
Captain and the Army Lt. Colonel and the Air Force General over here."
(Wimert testimony, P. 107) The Committee has been unable to determine
the exact affiliation of the Army Lt. Colonel. However, as previously
stated, both General Canales and Admiral Tirado were affiliated with
General Valenzuela and Admiral Tirado was in contact with General Viaux.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 467
1
+
The next day, October 8, Headquarters cabled the Station in response
to the Wimert-Lt. Colonel meeting.
resistance to coup plans and stated:
Headquarters took note of Schneider's
We
... This would make it more important than
ever to remove him and to bring this new
state of events...anything we or Station
can do to effect removal of Schneider?
know this rhetorical question, but wish
inspire thought on both ends on this matter.
(Hqs. 628, 8 October)
During the first week of intensive efforts chances of success
looked unusually bleak. The Chile Task Force Log commented:
President Frei and the highest levels of the
armed forces unable to pull themselves together
to block Allende. The Chilean military's tradi-
tion of non-intervention, Frei's reluctance to
tarnish his historical image, General Schneider's
firm constitutional stand, and most importantly,
the lack of leadership within the government and
military are working against a military takeover.
(Task Force Log, 8 October)
"
The following day the Station made reference to the "rapid (ly) waning
chances for success. (Santiago 487, 9 October). This pessimism was not
dispelled by their simultaneous judgment: "Station has arrived at Viaux
solution by process of elimination." (Santiago 504, 10 October) Three
days later the Task Force agreed: "We continue to focus our attention
on General Viaux who now appears to be the only military leader willing
to block Allende." (Task Force Log, 13 October)
If Viaux was the CIA's only hope of staging a coup, things were bleak
indeed. His own colleagues, Generals Huerta and Valenzuela described him
as "a General without an army. (Santiago 495, 9 October) Yet in the
first two weeks of October he came to be regarded as the best hope for
carrying out the CIA's Track II mandate.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 468
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Although Colonel Wimert was instructed not to involve himself with
Viaux because of the high risk involved (Santiago 461, 5 October), he
served initially as a contact to Viaux through an Argentine military
Attache. The Argentine reported on October 5 that Viaux wanted several
hundred paralyzing gas grenades to launch a coup on October 9. (Santiago
476, 6 October) Headquarters turned down the request, concluding that
a "mini-coup at this juncture would be counterproductive" and Viaux
should postpone his plans, "while encouraging him in a suitable manner
to maintain his posture so that he may join larger movement later if
it materializes." (Headquarters 585, 6 October)
for arms;
,
The primary purpose of the "False Flag Base" was to contact Viaux,
and it very rapidly relieved Wimert and the Argentine Attache of that
task. Viaux reiterated his demand for an air drop of weapons to the
"False Flagger," and again the response was the same: reject the demand
but encourage him to keep planning. In essence the Agency
was buying time with Viaux: "We wish to encourage Viaux to expand and
refine his coup planning. Gain some influence over his actions."
(Headquarters 689, 10 October) To achieve this latter purpose, Head-
quarters authorized passing $20,000 in cash and a promise of $250,000
in life insurance to Viaux and his associates, as a demonstration of
U.S. support. (Headquarters 729, 13 October)
On October 13, Headquarters again indicated its concern over Schneider
by asking: "What is to keep Schneider from making statement in early
hours which will freeze those military leaders who might otherwise join
(Headquarters 729, 13 October) The Station's response later that
same day was "Viaux intends to kidnap Generals Schneider and Prats within
the next 48 hours in order to precipitate a coup. (Santiago 527,
Viaux?"
NW 50955
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☐
Th
13 October) This Viaux kidnapping of Schneider was reported by the Sta-
tion "as part of a coup that included Valenzuela."
(Station 529, 13 October)
At about this time the Station began to receive encouragement from its
other contacts. On October 14, ten days before the Chilean Congress was
to vote, the Task Force Log concluded:
C.
Now we are beginning to see signs of increasing
coup activity from other military quarters,
specifically, an Army General (name deleted),
Admiral Tirado, the forces in Concepcion and
Valdivis and perhaps even Frei and Ossa.
(Task Force Log, 14 October)
October 15 Decision
To summarize, by October 15, General Viaux had advertised to his con-
tact a desire to proceed with a coup, had indicated he would deal with
the Schneider obstacle by kidnapping him, had met at least once with Gen-
erals Huerta and Valenzuela and had once postponed his coup plans.*
On October 15 Thomas Karamessines met Henry Kissinger and Alexander
Haig at the White House to discuss the situation in Chile.
According
to the Agency's record of this meeting, Karamessines "provided a run-
down on Viaux, the Canales meeting with Tirado, and, in some detail,
the general situation in Chile from the coup-possibility viewpoint."
(Memorandum of Conversation/Kissinger, Karamessines, and Haig, 15 October
1970) A decision was made at the meeting "to de-fuse the Viaux coup plot,
at least temporarily:"
* The reason for Viaux postponing his coup plans was the subject of a cable
from Santiago to Headquarters:
We discount Viaux's statement that he had called off his coup at-
tempt because of False Flag Officer's impending visit. Other re-
porting indicated Viaux probably not able or intending move this
weekend. (Santiago 499, 10 October)
There is also reason to believe that General Valenzuela was instrumental
in persuading Viaux to postpone. According to the Chile Task Force Log:
Station reported that on 12 October General Valenzuela met
with General Viaux and attempted to persuade him not to at-
tempt a coup. (Chile Task Force Log, 14 October)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 470

should state:
-35-
It was decided by those present that the Agency
must get a message to Viaux warning him against
any precipitate action. In essence the message
"We have reviewed your plans and
based on your information and ours, we come to
the conclusion that your plans for a coup at
this time cannot succeed. Failing, they may re-
duce your capabilities in the future. Preserve
your assets. We will stay in touch. The time
will come when you with all your other friends
can do something. You will continue to have
our support." (15 October Memorandum of Conver-
sation, Kissinger, Karamessines, Haig)
The meeting concluded, according to the Agency's record, "on Dr.
Kissinger's note that the Agency should continue keeping the pressure
on every Allende weak spot in sight--now, after the 24th of October,
after 5 November, and into the future until such time as new marching
orders are given. Mr. Karamessines stated that the Agency would comply."*
The following day CIA Headquarters cabled the results of the White
House meeting to the Station in Santiago:
2. It is firm and continuing policy that Allende
be overthrown by a coup....We are to continue to
generate maximum pressure toward this end utiliz-
ing every appropriate resource.
3.
After the most careful consideration it was
determined that a Viaux coup attempt carried out
by him alone with the forces now at his disposal
would fail. Thus it would be counterproductive
to our Track Two objectives. It was decided that
CIA get a message to Viaux warning him against
precipitate action. (Headquarters 802, 16 Octo-
ber)
The message was supplemented by orders to "continue to encourage him
(Viaux) to amplify his planning; encourage him to join forces with other
coup planners." (Headquarters 802, 16 October) The message concluded:
"There is great and continuing interest in the activities of Tirado,.
Canales, Valenzuela et al and we wish them optimum good fortune." (Ibid.)
*
Secretary Kissinger's recollection of the October 15 meeting is not
in accord with that of Mr. Karamessines or the cable (Headquarters 802)
that was sent the following day to the Station in Santiago. This mat-
ter will be discussed in Part V of this report.
NW 50955
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1301
D.
Coup Planning and Attempts After October 15
☐
1
The decision to "de-fuse" General Viaux was passed to Viaux's
father-in-law on October 17. The in-law responded that it did not
matter because they had decided to proceed with the coup in any case.
(Santiago 533, 17 October) At the final meeting of the CIA "False
Flagger" and Viaux's father-in-law on October 18, the Agency was in-
formed that the coup would proceed on October 22, "and that the abduc-
tion of General Schneider is first link in chain of events to come.' "
(Santiago 568, 19 October) An 'emergency channel" of communication
with Viaux was maintained.
18 November 1970, page 21)
"
(Report on CIA Chilean Task Force Activities,
As previously stated, by mid-October things suddenly looked brighter
for a coup being mounted by the high-level Chilean military contacts.
As a CIA overview statement in Track II stated:
Coup possibilities afforded by the active
duty military group led by General Valenzuela
and Admiral Tirado had always seemed more
promising than the capabilities of the Viaux
group. These military officers had the abil-
ity and resources to act providing they de-
cided to move and organized themselves ac-
cordingly.
(CIA Briefing Paper, "Special Mandate from
the President on Chile," July 15, 1975,
P. 5)
By mid-October those military officers appeared to be moving in
this direction.
*
On the evening of October 17, Colonel Wimert met with the Army Lt.
Colonel and the Navy Captain. They requested 8 to 10 tear gas grenades,
*Two coup plotters, Generals Canales and Garin, made one last attempt to
persuade General Schneider to change his anti-coup position on October 15.
The Station reported that the meeting turned out to be a "complete fiasco.
Schneider refused to listen to General Canales' eloquent presentation of
Communist action in Chile...and adament in maintaining his non-involvement
stance." (Santiago 548, 16 October)
NW 50955
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three 45-caliber machine guns and 500 rounds of ammunition.
The Navy
Captain said he had three machine guns himself "but can be identified
by serial numbers as having been issued to him. Therefore unable to
use them." (Santiago 562, 18 October) Colonel Wimert and the Chief
of Station have testified that the officers wanted the machine guns
The question, of course, is whether the arms were
intended for use, or were used, in the kidnapping of General Schneider.
The fact that the weapons were provided the Lt. Colonel and the Navy
Captain and that Viaux associates were convicted of the Schneider killing
suggests that the guns were not involved.
for self-protection.
The machine guns and ammunition were sent from Washington by diplo-
matic pouch on the morning of October 19, although Headquarters was
puzzled about their purpose: "Will continue make effort provide them
but find our credulity stretched by Navy Captain leading his troops
with sterile guns. What is special purpose for these guns? We will
try send them whether you can provide explanation or not."
854, 18 October) The first installment was delivered to the Army Lt.
Colonel and the Navy Captain late in the evening of October 18 and con-
sisted of the six tear gas grenades intended originally for Viaux.*
(Headquarters
* As previously stated, after October 15 CIA efforts to promote a coup in
Chile focussed on the active duty military officers--Valenzuela, et. al..
rather than Viaux. An example of this shift in focus was the decision to
provide the Army Lt. Colonel and the Army Captain the tear gas grenades
originally intended for Viaux. A cable from Santiago explained the purpose of
this action:
Station plans give six tear gas grenades to
Colonel Wimert for delivery to Armed Forces
officers (deletion) instead of having False
Flag Officer deliver them to Viaux group.
Our reasoning is that Wimert dealing with
active duty officers. Also False Flagger
leaving evening 18 October, and will not be
replaced but Wimert will stay here. Hence
important that Wimert credibility with Armed
Forces officers be strengthened.
(Santiago 562, 18 October)
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1
That same day, General Valenzuela informed Colonel Wimert that he,
General Huerta, Admiral Tirado and an Air Force General were prepared
to sponsor a coup. (CIA Report on Chilean Task Force Activities, 18
November 1970) Their plan was to begin with the kidnapping of General
Schneider on the following evening, October 19, at a military
dinner being given for Schneider, * after which Schneider would be flown
to Argentina, Frei would resign and leave Chile, Admiral Tirado would
head the military junta, and dissolve Congress. With respect to the
kidnapping of Schneider, the cable reports:
General Viaux knowledgeable of above operation
He has been sent to
but not directly involved.
Will be
Vina to stay with prominent physician.
seen in public places during 19 and 20 October
to demonstrate fact that above operation not his
doing. Will be allowed to return to Santiago at
end of week. Military will not admit involve-
ment in Schneider's abduction which is to be
blamed on leftists.
(Santiago 566, 19 October)
F
The kidnapping of the evening of October 19 failed because General Schneider
left in a private vehicle, rather than in his official car, and his police guard
failed to be withdrawn, but the Army Lt.Colonel assured Colonel Wimert that an-
other attempt would be made on October 20. (Santiago 582, 20 October)
Colonel Wimert was authorized to pay Valenzuela $50,000 "which was the price
agreed upon between the plotters and the unidentified team of abductors,"
* The "False Flag Officer" who was in contact with Viaux at the time
the Valenzuela plan was given to Colonel Wimert apparently understood
He stated:
that Viaux was involved in the October 19 attempt.
Q. Were you told any of the details of how
the (Viaux) kidnapping would be carried out?
Mr. Sarno. They indicated it was going to be
at some sort of a banquet which the General
(Schneider) would be attending.
(Sarno testimony, p. 37)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 474
-392
but Wimert insisted that the kidnapping be completed before he paid the
money. (Task Force Log, 20 October) At the same time General Valenzuela
assured Colonel Wimert that the military was now prepared to move. (Task
Force Log, 20 October) The second abduction attempt on the 20th also
failed and the Task Force concluded
E.
Since Valenzuela's group is apparently having
considerable difficulty executing even the first
step of its coup plan, the prospects for a coup
succeeding or even occurring before 24 October
now appears remote. (Task Force Log, 22 October)
The Killing of General Schneider
In the early morning hours of October 22 (2 am), Colonel Wimert
delivered the three submachine guns with ammunition to the Army Lt.
Colonel in an isolated section of Santiago. *
*Although Colonel Wimert's testimony and the cable traffic do not
clearly establish the identity of the group to which the Lt. Colonel
was affiliated (see page 31) two CIA statements on Track II tie the
weapons, and therefore the Lt. Colonel, to the Valenzuela group:
The only assistance requested by Valenzuela
to set the plan of October 197 into motion
through Schneider's abduction was several sub-
machine guns, ammunition, a few tear gas grenades
and gas masks (all of which were provided) plus
$50,000 for expenses (which was to be passed upon
demand.
(CIA Report on Chilean Task Force Activities,
18 November 1970, p. 22)
Three sub-machine guns, together with six gas
cannisters and masks, were passed to the Valen-
zuela group at 2 am on 22 October. The reason
why they still wanted the weapons was because
there were two days remaining before the Congress
decided the Presidential election and the Valen-
zuela group maintained some hope they could still
carry out their plans.
(CIA Briefing Paper, "Special Mandate from the
President on Chile," p. 7, July 15, 1975)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 475
1
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At about 7 am that day the group that intended to kidnap General
Schneider met to discuss last-minute instructions. According to the
findings of the Chilean Military Court which investigated the Schneider
killing, neither the Army Lt. Colonel nor the Navy Captain were there.
Shortly after 8 am, General Schneider's car was intercepted, on his
way to work, by the abductors and he was mortally wounded when he drew
his handgun in self-defense. The Military Court determined that hand
gurs had been used to kill General Schneider, although it also found
that one unloaded machine gun was at the scene of the killing.
guns.
"
*
The first Station reports following the Schneider shooting said
"Military Mission sources claim General Schneider machine gunned on
way to work" (Santiago 587, 22 October) and "Assailants used grease
(Santiago 589, 22 October). The submachine guns had previously
been described as "grease guns." Thus the initial reaction of the Station
was that Schneider had been shot with the same kind of weapons delivered
several hours earlier to the Army Lt. Colonel. Santiago then informed
Headquarters "Station has instructed Col. Wimert to hand over $50,000
"
if Gen. Valenzuela requests (Santiago 592, 22 October), thus indicating
that the Station thought the kidnapping had been accomplished by Valen-
zuela's paid abductors. Later that day, the Station cabled Headquarters:
* The Military Court determined that those who participated in the
shooting of General Schneider on October 22 were part of the Viaux-led
conspiracy. The Court also found that this same group had participated
in the October 19 and 20 kidnap attempts.
In June 1972 General Viaux was convicted for complicity in the plot
culminating in the death of General Schneider. He received a 20-year
prison sentence for being "author of the crime of kidnapping which re- -
sulted in serious injury to the victim," and a five-year exile for con-
spiring to cause a military coup. Also convicted on the latter charge
were Generals Valenzuela and Tirado. They received sentences of three
years in exile.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 476
:
-41-
Station unaware if assassination was pre-
meditated or whether it constituted bungled
abduction attempt. In any case, it important
to bear in mind that move against Schneider
was conceived by and executed at behest of
senior Armed Forces officers. We know that
General Valenzuela was involved. We also
near certain that Admiral Tirado, Army Lt.
Colonel and Navy Captain witting and involved.
We have reason for believeing that General
Viaux and numerous associates fully clued in,
but cannot prove or disprove that execution
or attempt against Schneider was entrusted to
elements linked with Viaux. Important factor
to bear in mind is that Armed Forces, and not
retired officers or extreme rightests, set
Schneider up for execution or abduction....
All we can say is that attempt against Schneid
is affording Armed Forces one last opportunity
to prevent Allende's election if they are will
to follow Valenzuela's scenario..
(Santiago 598, 22 October)
Although it
prediction of (
an abduction at
constitutional:
Dr. Allende wa:
died the next.
F.
Post October 22 Events
The shooting of General Schneider resulted immediatel
tion of martial law, the appointment of General Prats to:
as Commander in Chief, and the appointment of General Vaļ
of Santiago province. These measures, and others taken,
Task Force to make the following initial judgment:
With only 24 hours remaining before the Congre
runoff, a coup climate exists in Chile.... The
on General Schneider has produced developments.
closely follow Valenzuela's plan....Consequent
plotters' positions have been enhanced.
(Chile Task Force Log, 22 Octob
On October 23, Director Helms reviewed and discussed
It was agreed... that a maximum effort has beer
and that now only the Chileans themselves can
successful coup. The Chileans have been guide
point where a military solution is at least of
them.
(Task Force Log, 24 Octob
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Although it was not immediately clear to CIA observers, the Station's
prediction of October 9 that the shooting of Schneider (as a result of
an abduction attempt) would "rally the Army firmly behind the flag of
(Santiago 495, 9 October) On October 24
constitutionalism" was correct.
Dr. Allende was confirmed by the Chilean Congress.
died the next day.
General Schneider
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V. CIA/White House Communication During Track II
The testimony given to the Committee by Henry Kissinger and General
Haig conflicts with that given by CIA officials.
Kissinger and Haig testified that on October 15, 1970, the White
House stood down CIA efforts to promote a military coup d'etat in Chile.
Both testified that after that date they were neither informed of, nor
authorized, CIA Track II activities, including the kidnap plans of
General Schneider and the passage of weapons to the military plotters.
By contrast, CIA officials testified that they operated before and
after October 15 with the knowledge and approval of the White House.
The conflict pertains directly to the period after October 15, but
it bears on the degree of communication between the White House and the
CIA in the earlier period as well. For instance, Henry Kissinger testi-
fied that he was informed of no coup plan which began with the abduction
of General Schneider. He was aware of General Viaux's plan--which he
and Karamesṣines decided on October 15 to try to forestall--but did not
know that it was to begin with Schneider's abduction.
CIA officials, especially Thomas Karamessines, stated that there was
close consultation throughout Track II between the Agency and the White
House. Karamessines testified that he met with Kissinger some six to
ten times during the five weeks of Track II (Karamessines testimony,
page 66); and that he kept Kissinger generally informed of developments.
(Ibid., page 56) The Committee has records of two meetings between
Karamessines and Kissinger and of one telephone conversation between
Karamessines and Kissinger's deputy, General Alexander Haig.
daily calendar indicates that three other meetings with General Haig
took place--but does not establish with certainty that the topic was
16
Karamessines'
63817
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 479
A. September
September 18
HAD SECRET
Helms and Karamessines met with Kissinger at the White House. As
Helms notes of the September 15 meeting indicate, Kissinger wanted a
plan within 48 hours. In the meeting on the 18th, according to CIA
records, there was little discussion of a military coup. Rather the
conversation focused on "what economic leverage could be exercised in
the Chilean situation...." (Memorandum/Meeting with DDP, 18 September)
The efficacy of economic pressure continued to be a subject of con-
cern during the last days of September. Apparently that pressure was
viewed as another inducement to Frei to opt for the "Frei gambit."
September 21
The 40 Committee met. The Select Committee has no confirmation
that Chile was on the agenda at this meeting.
Karamessines' calendar
confirms that he attended; presumably Kissinger, the 40 Committee chair-
man,
also attended, although the Committee has not been able to review
his calendar. All that can be said about this meeting--and the meetings
of the Senior Review Group, which Kissinger also chaired--is that the
meetings afforded Karamessines and Kissinger an opportunity to meet
privately and discuss Track II if they desired. In all these instances
save the 40 Committee meeting on September 22, the Committee has no
evidence to confirm that such a private Kissinger/Karamessines meeting
actually took place. That the CIA prepared a memorandum of
conversa-
tion for the private meeting on the 22nd but has been able to find none
for other meetings may provide some support for the argument that no
other such private meetings occurred.
September 22
Kissinger asked Karamessines to stay behind after a 40 Commit
meeting called to discuss Track I. The two men discussed Track II actions,
especially the contacts with then-Chilean-President Frei. According to
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TOP SECKEJ
Kissinger told Karamessines that "our
handling of the problem during the earlier meeting had been perfect
and he added we were doing fine and keep it up.'
(Memorandum for
the Record/Chile, 22 September 1970, by Thomas Karamessines)
B. October
October 5
A cable sent to Santiago, released by Karamessines, requested a
report on how the Station planned to contact the three Chilean Generals
--Prats, Valenzuela and Huerta--named in a cable of September 30.
(Headquarters 449) The October 5 cable indicated that the report was
needed for a discussion with Kissinger on October 6. (Santiago 556,
5 October 1970) Karamessines presumed such a meeting had taken place,
although he had no specific memory of it. (Karamessines testimony,
His calendar for October 6 indicates that he attended a 40
pp. 69-70)
Committee meeting on Chile.
chaired the 40 Committee.
October 6
(Karamessines calendar)
Kissinger
The Station reported that General Viaux was "ready to launch golpe
evening 9 October, or morning 10 October." (Santiago 472, 6 October
1970) In response, CIA Headquarters labeled the prospective coup one
"with scant chance of success which will vitiate any further more seri-
ous action.". The Station was directed to try to "stop ill-considered
action at this time."
(Headquarters 585, 6 October 1970)
Kissinger testified he had not been informed of the Viaux plan,
supporting his recollection with the fact that the CIA memorandum of
an October 10 conversation between Karamessines and Haig (see below)
makes no mention of any previous plots. (Kissinger testimony, p. 24):
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 481
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1
1
-41-
Similarly, Kissinger did not remember having been informed that the
CIA had called off a coup it regarded as premature.
He stated:
My perception at that period was that if they
had a coup they would come...back to us before
triggering it...at no time during the period
did they, in fact, tell us...that they had a
coup that might be ready to go. And, indeed,
they generally told us the opposite.
(Kissinger testimony, pp. 25-26)
As Karamessines' calendar indicated, there was a 40 Committee meet-
ing on October 6. He attended this meeting, along with Richard Helms
and William Broe of the CIA. According to the minutes of that meeting,
CIA efforts to promote a military coup in Chile were not discussed.'
However, in an exchange with Charles Meyer, who was then the State De-
partment's Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs, Dr. Kissinger
stressed the desire of "higher authority" (President Nixon) to prevent
Allende's assumption of office. According to the minutes:
October 8
Mr.
Mr. Meyer pointed to the need to determine a post-Allende
position such as proposed in NSSM 97. It was agreed that
an early NSC meeting was desirable on that subject.
Kissinger said this presumed total acceptance of a fait
accompli and higher authority had no intention of conced-
ing before the 24th%3B on the contrary, he wanted no stone
left unturned. (Memorandum for the Record/Minutes of the.
Meeting of the 40 Committee, 6 October 1970, 7 October
1970)
Karamessines met for lunch with General Haig.
(Karamessines calendar)
In his testimony, Haig recalled being aware that the CIA was in touch
with two differenct groups of military plotters. He believed there must
have been another meeting in which the CIA informed him of its on-going
contacts.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 482
TOP SECRET
-
47a
TOP SECRET
October 10
It seems to me, although the records don't re-
flect it, that there was a meeting in September,
a very brief one, in which I must have been
told that there was a specific program going
underway. That probably would have been by
Henry (Kissinger) and perhaps with Karamessines
there. I am not sure. (Haig testimony, p. 12)
Karamessines discussed the Chilean situation by telephone with General
Haig. He indicated that the Station had "made direct contact with a number
of the senior military officers, especially those who had been reportedly
very activist-minded and had received pessimistic reactions from all."
(Memorandum/FUBELT, by William Broe, 10 October 1970)
Haig recalled the telephone conversation with Karamessines on the 10th.
His recollection accords with the CIA memorandum of conversation.
I do know, and I know that from looking at the
record this morning, that Karamessines made a
telephone call to me in which he gave a progress
report. I recall that. It was in effect a nega-
tive progress report, that they were just not com-
ing up with it. (Haig testimony, p. 12)
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 483
:
-49-
meeting on the 15th (see below) to have discussed the results of the
October 14th message. But the CIA record makes no mention of any
such discussion.
October 14
(Kissinger testimony, p. 53)
The 40 Committee met to discuss, among other topics, Chile. In ad-
dition to the 40 Committee principals (Kissinger, John Mitchell, David
Packard, Alexis Johnson, Admiral Moorer), the meeting was attended by.
Karamessines, William Broe and General Robert Cushman of the CIA, Charles
Meyer from State, Viron Vaky, and Ambassador Korry, who had returned to
Washington from Santiago for a short period of consultation.
According to the minutes of that meeting, Kissinger asked Karamessines
to give a rundown on the latest developments and present situation in Chile.
Karamessines pointed out that "a coup climate does not presently exist."
He noted that "the unpredictable General Viaux is the only individual seem-
ingly ready to attempt a coup and...his chances of mounting a successful
one were slight." Ambassador Korry agreed with Karamessines' assessment
and stated that "as of now it seemed almost certain that Allende would
be voted into office on October 24th." Kissinger then observed that
"there presently appeared to be little the U.S. can do to influence the
Chilean situation one way or another." Other participants at the meet-
ing concurred.
(Memorandum for the Record/Minutes of the Meeting of the
40 Committee, 14 October 1970, 16 October 1970)
TOP SECRET
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 484
F
།
49a
October 15
Karamessines met with Kissinger and Haig at the White House to dis-
cuss Track II. According to the CIA memorandum of conversation, Karamessines
gave a run-down on Viaux, Canales and Tirado and "the general situation in
Chile from the coup-possibility viewpoint."
It was concluded that Viaux
did not have more than one chance in twenty--perhaps less--to launch a
successful coup.
Kissinger ticked off the list of negative repercussions
from an unsuccessful coup. The CIA record of the meeting continues:
5. It was decided by those present that the
Agency must get a message to Viaux warning him
against any precipitate action. In essence our
message was to state: "We have reviewed your
plans, and based on your information and ours,
we come to the conclusion that your plans for a
coup at this time cannot succeed. Failing,
they may reduce your capabilities for the future.
Preserve your assets. We will stay in touch.
The time will come when you with all your other
friends can do something. You will continue to
have our support."
6. After the decision to de-fuse the Viaux coup
plot, at least temporarily, Dr. Kissinger. instruc-
ted Mr. Karamessines to preserve Agency assets in
Chile, working clandestinely and securely to main-
tain the capability for Agency operations against
Allende in the future.
8. The meeting concluded on. Dr. Kissinger's note
that the Agency should continue keeping the pres-
sure on every Allende weak spot in sight--now,
after the 24th of October, after 5 November, and
into the future until such time as new marching
orders are given. Mr. Karamessines stated that
the Agency would comply.
(Memorandum of Conversation/Dr. Kissinger, Mr.
Karamessines, Gen. Haig at the White House, 15
October 1970)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 485
TOP SECRICI
Kissinger, in his testimony before the Committee, regarded the CIA
memorandum of conversation as substantially correct, although somewhat
more detailed than he would have remembered. (Kissinger testimony, p. 52)
He believed the Agency had been told to "stand down and preserve your
assets.
"
1
Kissinger believed that the gist of the October 15th meeting as
recorded in the CIA memorandum was incompatible with the order the CIA
issued to its Station the next day, an order ostensibly based on the
October 15th meeting. And, he noted, in writing its memorandum of the
meeting of the 15th, the CIA had a "high incentive to preserve the maxi-
mum degree of authority." (Ibid., pp. 55-56) The October 16th order
indicated that Track II had been reviewed at "high USG level" the previous
day, and stated:
2. It is firm and continuing policy that Allende
be overthrown by a coup. It would be much prefer-
able to have this transpire prior to 24 October
but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously
beyond this date....
4. There is great and continuing interest in the
activities of Tirado, Canales, Valenzuela et al
and we wish them optimum good fortune.
(Headquarters 802, 16 October 1970)
Kissinger recalled the October 15th conversation as "turning off
the coup plans rather than giving a new order to do them." (Kissinger
testimony, p. 56) Haig agreed in his testimony.
The conclusions of that meeting were that we had
better not do anything rather than something that
was not going to succeed.... My general feeling
was, I left that meeting with the impression that
there was nothing authorized."
(Haig testimony, p. 13)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 486
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October 10-October 22 (approximate)
Karamessines and one or two others went with Kissinger to speak with
the President, after a larger meeting.
Karamessines believed this meeting
☐
(Karamessines testimony, p. 89)
took place between October 10 and 24.
According to Karamessines, the "President went out of his way to impress
all of those there with his conviction that it was absolutely essential
"
*
that the election of Mr. Allende to the presidency be thwarted. As
they were leaving the Oval Office, the President took Karamessines aside
to reiterate the message.
October 19
(Karamessines testimony, p. 8)
Station cabled Headquarters early in the morning, advising that
the tear gas had been passed and outlining the Valenzuela coup plan,
beginning with the kidnap of Schneider. In testimony before the Com-
mittee, Karamessines indicated he certainly would have reported the
Valenzuela plan to Kissinger "very promptly, if for no other reason
than that we didn't have all that much promising news to report to
the White House...." (Karamessines testimony, p. 72)
And as I say, if for no other reason we would have
wanted to get this kind of hopeful report to the
White House as soon as possible, and it would be my
best estimate now that that is precisely what we
did. (p. 72)
In the afternoon of the 19th, Karamessines met with General Haig
for an hour at the White House.
(Karamessines calendar) By then,
Karamessines would have had in hand the cable outlining the Valenzuela
*
"If the meeting with the President occurred after October 15, that
would lend credence to the testimony of CIA officials that they were
not directed to end their coup efforts in the October 15th meeting.
Unfortunately, the Committee has not had access to the daily calendars
of President Nixon or Secretary Kissinger, which might pinpoint the
date of the President's conversation with Karamessines. Those calen-
dars, along with other White House documents bearing on Track II, have
been subpoenaed.
OFADEYo
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plan, since the cable had arrived that morning.
However, General Haig
had no recollection of the meeting with Karamessines on the 19th. Nor
did he believe he had been informed of the Valenzuela plan. "This
is all very new to me. I hadn't seen any of this, and I was not familiar
with this particular plan...or $50,000, or any of the characters that
are described in here." (Haig testimony, pp. 38-39)
Similarly, Kissinger testified that he had not been informed of
the Valenzuela plan. He said he "was informed of nothing after October
"
15th.... (Kissinger testimony, p. 65) He indicated that, according
to his daily calendar, he had no conversation with either Karamessines
or Helms between the 15th and the 19th.
(Ibid., p. 53) He indicated
that he never knew that the CIA was in the process of passing guns and
tear gas to Chilean military conspirators.
He said " there was no
further meeting on that subject. In anybody's record, mine or theirs
(the CIA's), none of the information from the 16th on was familiar to me.
(Ibid., p. 62)
Kissinger further testified he did not know that the United States
was dealing with Chilean officers who plotted a coup which involved
the abduction of General Schneider:
Senator Hart of Colorado. I am not sure that
the record clearly shows you answer to the direct
question of whether you knew or did not know that
we were negotiating with military officers with
regard to a plot that did involve the abduction
of General Schneider.
Secretary Kissinger. I said I did not know.
(Kissinger testimony, p. 86)
Nor did General Haig believe he had been informed of any abduction
plans before the fact.
"
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 488
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TOP
October 20
Were you aware during that period of time
of the plans to kidnap General Schneider?
General Haig. I was aware after the fact....
Q.
But you were never informed prior to his
attempted abduction?
General Haig. I don't believe I was at all.
A cable to the Station indicated that "while awaiting word on whatever
events may have occurred 19 October, please let us know what you can on
interim basis....Headquarters must respond during morning 20 October to
queries from high levels." (Headquarters 883, 20 October 1970)
Karamessines
testified that the references to "high levels" in the cable of the 20th
meant White House officials, probably Kissinger. He felt quite certain
that Kissinger would have been briefed in advance about Valenzuela's plan
for the 19th and so would have been expected to ask what happened on the
morning of the 20th. (Karamessines testimony, p. 73) In contrast, Kissinger
interpreted that cable in precisely the opposite light. He felt it indicated
that he had not been informed of the Valenzuela plan in advance. When
news of the Schneider kidnap reached the White House, Kissinger believed
he would have had "somebody pick up a telephone and say, 'What is this
11
all about? (Kissinger transcript, p. 68)
October 22
Karamessines met with Haig at the White House.
(Karamessines calendar)
General Haig remembered that word of the shooting of Schneider came as
"a great shock" to him, and he believed that Karamessines had told him
about it in their meeting on the 22nd. He thought that Kissinger either
was present at the meeting or that he, Haig, had gone immediately in to
Kissinger's office to relate what Karamessines had told him. (Haig testi-
mony, p. 36)
N
I
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1341
C. December
December 2
A memorandum, dated December 2, 1970, from Helms to Kissinger stated
that Helms had given a recapitulation on Track II to Attorney General
Mitchell, who would deliver it personally to Kissinger. A handwritten
note on the memorandum reads: "sent to Kissinger via DCI (Helms)."
(Helms memorandum for Kissinger, 2 December 1970)
The report, which
was dated November 18, 1970, contained a full account of CIA activities
during Track II, including the several plans to kidnap Schneider and
the passage of weapons to the Chilean conspirators.
Chilean Task Force Activities, 15 September to 3 November 1970, 18
November 1970)
(Report on CIA
In his testimony to the Committee, Kissinger did not recall receiv-
ing the report, although he doubted that he would have read such an
"after action" report in any case. He testified that he could not find
it in his files, in contrast to his finding a CIA report on Track I,
Kissinger was puzzled by a number of aspects of
the memorandum and report: why there were two reports, why the report
of the 18th apparently was only called to his attention on the 2nd of
December, and why it was to be delivered through Mitchell.
dated November 19, 1970.
testimony, pp. 71, 74)
n. Did Track II End?
(Kissinger
The Committee also received conflicting testimony about whether or
i
not Track II ever ended, formally or in fact. As noted above, Kissinger indi-
cated that Track II was supposed to have ended, as far as he was concerned, on
October 15. It was formally terminated, according to Kissinger, by a new Presi-
dential marching order issued prior to the October 24 vote of the Chilean Congress.'
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The Committee does not have this new "marching order" in its possession.
However, CIA officials from whom the Committee took testimony believed
that there had been no such definitive end to Track II. It merely
tapered off, to be replaced by a longer-term effort to effect a change
of government in Chile... Karamessines' testimony was most explicit:
Mr. Karamessines. I am sure that the seeds that
were laid in that effort in 1970 had their impact
in 1973. I do not have any question about that
in my mind either. (Karamessines testimony, p. 26.)
***
Q. Was Track II ever formally ended? Was there
a specific order ending it?
Mr. Karamessines. As far as I was concerned,
Track II was really never ended. What we were
told to do in effect was, well, Allende is now
President. So Track II, which sought to prevent
him from becoming President, was technically out,
it was done. But what we were told to do was to
continue our efforts. Stay alert, and to do what
we could to contribute to the eventual achieve-
ment of the objectives and purposes of Track II.
That being the case, I don't think it is proper
to say that Track II was ended.
(Ibid., pp. 128-129)
When informed of Karamessines' testimony that Track II was never
ended, Kissinger testified:
The Chairman. Would you take issue with that,
with the (Karamessines) testimony?
Secretary Kissinger. Totally....It is clear
that...after October 15th that there was no
separate channel by the CIA to the White House
and that all actions with respect to Chile were
taken in the 40 Committee framework. There was
no 40 Committee that authorized an approach to
or contact with military people, no plots which
I am familiar with, and all the covert operations
in Chile after Allende's election by the Congress
were directed towards maintaining the democratic
opposition for the 1976 election. And that was
the exclusive thrust, and if there was any further
contact with military plotting, it was totally
unauthorized and this is the first that I have
heard of it. (Kissinger testimony, pp. 75-77)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 491
1
A.
Summary
Phould put
рит
In that
(Draft--9/8/75)
Три скрить ок з паче
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother,
Ngo Dinh Nhu, were assassinated during a coup by Vietnamese
generals on November 2, 1963. Evidence before the Committee
indicates that the United States Government offered encourage-
ment for the coup, but neither desired nor was involved in the
assassinations. Rather, Diem's assassination appears to have
been a spontaneous act by Vietnamese generals, engendered by
anger at Diem for refusing to resign or put himself in the
custody of the leaders of the coup.
On one occasion, General Duong Van Minh ("Big Minh") out-
lined to a CIA officer the possible assassination of Nhu and
another brother, Ngo Dinh Can, as one of three methods being
considered for changing the government in the near future.
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and Deputy Chief of Mission William
Trueheart were informed of this possibility by the Saigon Chief
of Station, who recommended that "we do not set ourselves
irrevocably against the assassination plot, since the other two
alternatives mean either a bloodbath in Saigon or a protracted
struggle which would rip the Army- and the country asunder" (CIA
cable SAIG 1447, Saigon Station to DCI, 10/5/63). Upon being
informed, Director McCone sent two cables. The first stated
"[w]e cannot be in the position of stimulating, approving, or
supporting assassination", and the second directed that the
recommendation be withdrawn because "we cannot be in position
actively condoning such course of action and thereby engaging
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 492
-2-
our responsibility therefor" (CIA cable, DCI to Saigon 10/5/63);
CIA cable DIR 73661, DCI to Saigon, 10/6/63).
B.
The Abortive Coup of August 1963
On May 8, 1963, South Vietnamese troops in the City of Hue
fired on Buddhists protesting against the Diem Government, killing
nine and wounding fourteen. This incident triggered a nationwide
Buddhist protest and a sharp loss of popular confidence in the
Diem regime.
*
On May 18, United States Ambassador Frederick E. Holting
met with Diem and outlined steps which the United States desired
him to take to redress the Buddhist grievances and recapture
public confidence. These steps included admitting responsibility
for the Hue incident, compensating the victims, and reaffirming
religious equality in the country. (Pentagon Papers, p.208) On
June 3, Madame Nhu, the wife of Diem's brother, Nhu, publicly
accused the Buddhists of being infiltrated with Communist agents;
Truehart protested her remarks to Diem and threatened to dis-
associate the United States from any repressive measures against
the Buddhists in the future (Pentagon Papers, p.308). Shortly
thereafter, Madame Nhu commented on the self-immolation of Quang
* Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon Papers, The Defense Depart-
ment History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, pp. 207-
208, Volume II, Beacon Press, Boston (hereinafter cited as Pentagon
Papers). Former Public Affairs Officer of the U.S. Embassy in
Saigon, John Mecklin), in his book, Mission in Torment, An Intimate
Account of the U.S. Role in Vietnam, Doubleday and Company, 1965,
(hereinafter cited as Mecklin, at pages 158-60 described the vul-
nerability of the Buddhists to Communist infiltration during this
period noting that it "offered a classic opportunity for a Communist
sleeper ploy.".
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 493
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Duc and other Buddhist monks by stating that she would like to
-3
furnish mustard for the monks' barbecue. On June 12, Trueheart
told Diem that Quang Duc's suicide had shocked the world and
again warned that the United States would break with his govern-
ment if he did not solve the Buddhist problem. (Pentagon Papers,
P. 208.)
Lucien Conein, a CIA officer in Saigon, * testified that the
Buddhist uprisings were the catalyst that ultimately brought
down the Diem regime (Conein, pp. 42-44). These events led the
United States to apply "direct, relentless, and tablehammering
pressure on Diem such as the United States has seldom before
attempted with a sovereign friendly government."
(Mecklin, p. 169)
By July 4, 1963, Generals Minh, Don, Kim, and Khiem had
agreed on the necessity for a coup. **
In his final meeting on August 14 with Ambassador Nolting,
Diem agreed to make a public statement offering concessions to
the Buddhists. This statement took the form of an interview
* Conein testified that he had known the Generals involved
in the coup
"for many years.
Some of them I had known back even in
World War II. Some of them were in powerful positions,
and I was able to talk to them on a person to person basis,
not as a government official." (Conein, p. 17.)
** Conein's After-Action Report stated that:
"The majority of the officers, including General Minh,
desired President Diem to have honorable retirement from
the political scene in South Vietnam and exile. As to.
Ngo Dinh Nhu and .Ngo Dinh Can, there was never dissention.
The attitude was that their deaths, along with Madame Ngo
Dinh Nhu, would be welcomed." (Conein After-Action Report,
p. 10.)
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with the columnist, Margurite Higgins, in which Diem asserted
that his policy toward the Buddhists had always been conciliatory
and asked for harmony and support of the government.
Shortly after midnight on August 21, 1963, Nhu ordered forces
loyal to him to attack pagodas throughout Vietnam, arresting monks.
and sacking the sacred buildings. Over thirty monks were injured
and 1,400 arrested. The American Embassy was taken by surprise
and viewed the attacks as a shattering repudiation of Diem's
promises to Nolting. (Pentagon Papers, p.210).
*
On August 24, 1963, the State Department sent a cable
(Deptel 243) to the new ambassador in Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge.
The telegram was prepared by Roger Hilsman, Assistant Secretary
of State for Far Eastern Affairs, and Under Secretary of State
Averell Harriman, and was approved by President Kennedy. (Pentagon
Papers, p.235) Deptel 243 told Lodge to press Diem to take
"prompt dramatic actions" to redress the grievances of the
Buddhists.
*
"We must at same time also tell key military leaders
that US would find it impossible to continue support
GVN (Vietnamese Government) militarily and economically
unless above steps are taken immediately which we
recognize requires removal of the Nhu's from the scene.
We wish give Diem reasonable opportunity to remove Nhu's
but if he remains obdurate, then we are prepared to accept
the obvious implication that we can no longer support
Diem. You may also tell appropriate military commanders
we will give them direct support in any interim period
of breakdown central government mechanism
currently with above, Ambassador and country teams should
urgently examine all possible alternative leadership and
make detailed plans as to how we might bring Diem's
replacement if this should become necessary
Con-
Conein testified that the raids might have been timed to occur
when no American Ambassador was in Vietnam (Nolting had left a few
days before and his replacement, Lodge, had not yet arrived) (Conein,
p.21).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 495
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In a cable on August 25, CIA Chief of Station John Richardson
reported the result of a conference among himself, Lodge, True-
heart, General Harkins (Commander, Military Assistance Command,
Vietnam (MACV) and General Weede (Chief of Staff, MACV). They
accepted Deptel 243 "as a basic decision from Washington and
would proceed to do their best to carry out instructions", (I.G.,
C, pp. 7-8) but believed that Diem would refuse to remove his
brother from his position in the government.
Early in the morning of August 26, 1963, the Voice of America
in South Vietnam placed the blame on Nhu for the August 21 raids
and absolved the army. The broadcast also reported speculation
that the United States contemplated suspending aid to the South
Vietnamese Government (Pentagon Papers, p. 212).* Later on that
same day, Lodge presented his credentials to Diem. CIA officers
Conein and Spera were told to see Generals Khiem and Khanh,
respectively, and to convey to them the substance of Deptel 243,
but to remind them that "we cannot be of any help during initial
action of assuming power of state.
win or lose" (SAIG 0304, 8/26/63).
Entirely their own action,
A message from the White House on August 29 authorized
Harkins to confirm to the Vietnamese Generals that the United
States would support a coup if it had a good chance of succeeding,
but did not involve United States armed forces. Lodge was autho-
rized to suspend United States aid at his discretion. (Deptel 272,
18/29/63.) A cable from the President to Lodge on the same day stated:
*In a cable to Harriman, Lodge complained that the VOA broadcast
had "complicated our already difficult problem" by eliminating
"the possibility of the generals' effort achieving surprise."
Lodge further warned that "the US must not appear publicly in
the matter, thus giving the 'kiss of death' to its friends"
(Cable, Lodge to Marriman, 8/26/63).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 496
-6-
"I have approved all the messages you are receiving from
others today, and I emphasize that everything in these
messages has my full support. We will do all that we can
to help you conclude this operations successfully. .
Until the very moment of the go signal for the operation
by the Generals, I must reserve a contingent right to
change course and reverse previous instructions. While
fully aware of your assessment of the consequences of
such a reversal, I know from experience that failure is
more destructive than an appearance of indecision.
would, of course, accept full responsibility for any such
change as I must also bear the full responsibility for this
operation and its consequences." (Cable, 8/29/63).
In a reply cable, Lodge stated:
"1. I fully understand that you have the right and
responsibility to change course at any time. Of course
I will always respect that right.
2. To be successful, this operation must be essentially
a Vietnamese affair with a momentum of its own. Should
this happen you may not be able to control it, i.e., the
"go signal" may be given by the generals." (Cable, Lodge
to President, 8/30/63)
A cable from Saigon dated August 31, 1963, stated:
Generals did
"This particular coup is finished
not feel ready and did not have sufficient balance of
forces .
There is little doubt that GNV (South
Vietnamese Government) aware US role and may have con-
siderable detail
(SAIG 0499, 8/31/63)
Deptel 243 and the VOA broadcast set the tone for later
relations between the United States representatives and the
generals. Big Minh, who had initial doubts about the strength
of American support, grew in confidence.
C. The November 1963 Coup
American dissatisfaction with the Diem regime became
increasingly apparent. On September 8, AID Director David Bell,
in a television interview, stated that Congress might cut aid
to South Vietnam if the Diem government did not change its course
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 497
-7-
(Pentagon Papers, p. 214). Lodge suggested a study to deter-
mine the most effective methods of cutting aid to topple the
regime (Pentagon Papers, p. 214). On September 12, with White
House approval, Senator Church introduced a resolution in the
Senate condemning the South Vietnamese Government for its
repressive handling of the Buddhist problem and calling for an
end to United States aid unless the oppressive measures were
curtailed (Pentagon Papers, pp. 214-215).
In mid-September 1963, two proposals for dealing with Diem
were considered by the Administration. The first contemplated
increasingly severe pressure to bring Diem in line with American
policy; the second involved acquiescing in Diem's actions,
recognizing that Diem and Nhu were inseparable, and attempting
to salvage as much as possible. It was decided to adopt the
first proposal, and to send Secretary of Defense McNamara and
General Taylor on a fact-finding mission to Vietnam. (Pentagon
Papers, p. 215.)
On October 2, McNamara and Taylor returned to Washington
and presented their findings to the National Security Council.
Their report confirmed that the military effort was progressing
favorably, but warned of the dangers inherent in the political
turmoil and recommended bringing pressure against Diem. This
pressure would include announcing the withdrawal of 1,000
American troops by the end of the year, ending support for the
forces responsible for the pagoda raids, and continuing Lodge's
policy of remaining aloof from the regime. The report recommended
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 498
--8-
against a coup, but suggested that alternative leadership should be
identified and cultivated.
24
approved by the President.
The recommendations were promptly
(Pentagon Papers, pp.215-716)
On October 3 Conein contacted Minh. Minh explained that a
coup was being planned, and requested assurances of American
support if it were successful. Minh outlined three courses of
action, one of which was the assassination of Dien's brothers,
Nhu and Can (Conein, p.25; cable, Saigon to Director, 10/5/63).
The Acting Chief of the CIA Station, David R. Smith, cabled on
October 5 that he had recommended to Lodge that "we do not set
ourselves irrevocably against the assassination plot, since the
other two alternatives mean either a blood bath in Saigon or a
protracted struggle" (Cable, Saigon to Director, 10/5/63).
*
A cable from the Director, CIA to Saigon responded that:
"(w)e certainly cannot be in the position of stimulating,
approving, or supporting assassination, but on the other
hand, we are in no way responsible for stopping every
such threat of which we might receive even partial know-
ledge. We certainly would not favor assassination of Diem.
We believe engaging ourselves by taking position on this
matter opens door too easily for probes of our position
re others, re support of regime, et cetera. Consequently
believe best approach is hands off. However, we naturally
interested in intelligence on any such plan.
**
ASIASS...
* The other courses of action were the encirclement of Saigon
by various military units and direct confrontation between military
units involved in the coup and loyalist units.
**Colby, who was then Chief, Far Eastern Division, drafted
this cable for McCone. Colby testified:
"Q: So you were on notice as of that date that the Director
personally opposed any involvement by the CIA in an assas-
sination?
"Colby: I certainly was." (Colby, p. 57)
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 499
-9-
McCone testified that he met privately with the President and
the Attorney General, taking the position that "our role was
to assemble all information on intelligence as to what was
going on and to report it to the appropriate authorities, but
to not attempt to direct it" (McCone, p. 62). He believed the
United States should maintain a "hands off attitude" (McCone,
p. 62). McCone testified:
"I felt that the President agreed with my position, des-
pite the fact that he had great reservations concerning
Diem and his conduct. I urged him to try to bring all
the pressure we could on Diem to change his ways, to
encourage more support throughout the country. My precise
words to the President, and I remember them very clearly,
was that Mr. President, if I was manager of a baseball
team, I had one pitcher, I'd keep him in the box whether
he was a good pitcher or not. By that I was saying that,
if Diem was removed we would have not one coup but we
would have a succession of coups and political disorder
in Vietnam and it might last several years and indeed
it did." (McCone, pp. 62-63.)
McCone stated that he did not discuss assassination with
the President, but rather "whether we should let the coup go
or use our influences not to". He left the meeting believing
that the President agreed with his "hands off" recommendation
(McCone, pp. 62-63). McCone cabled Smith on October 6:
"McCone directs that you withdraw recommendation to
ambassador (concerning assassination plan) under McCone
instructions, as we cannot be in position actively con-
doning such course of action and thereby engaging our
responsibility therefore" (CIA to Saigon, DIR 73661, 10/6/63).
In response, the CIA Station in Saigon cabled headquarters:
"Action taken as directed. In addition, since DCM
Trueheart was also present when original recommendation
was made, specific withdrawal of recommendation at McCone's
Instruction was also conveyed to Trueheart. Ambassador
Lodge commented that he shares McCone's opinion." (Saigon
to CIA, SAIG 1463, 10/7/63)
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-10-
Conein, the CIA official who dealt directly with the Generals,*
testified that he was first told of McCone's response to the
assassination alternative by Ambassador Lodge around October 20
(Conein, p. 35). Conein testified (but did not so indicate in
his detailed After-Action Report) that he then told General Don.
that the United States opposed assassination, and that the
General responded, "alright, you don't like it, we won't talk
about it anymore" (Conein, p. 36).
The United States increased pressure on Diem to mend his
ways. On October 17, General Richard Stillwell (MACV J-3)
informed Secretary Thuan that the United States was suspending
aid to the special forces units responsible for the pagoda
raids until they were transferred to the field and placed under
Joint General Staff (JGS) command (Pentagon Papers, p. 217).
On October 27, Lodge traveled to Dalat with Diem, but did
not receive any commitment from Diem to comply with American
requests (Pentagon Papers, p. 219).
On October 28, Conein met with General Don, who had
received assurance from Lodge that Conein spoke for the United
States. Don said that he would make the plans for the coup
*Conein described his role as follows:
"My job was to convey the orders from my Ambassador and
the instructions from my Ambassador to the people who
were planning the coup, to monitor those individuals who
were planning the coup, to get as much information so
that our government would not be caught with their pants
down" (Conein, pp. 38-39).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 501
-11-
available to the Ambassador four hours before it took place,
and suggested that Lodge not change his plans to go to the
United States on October 31. (I.G., C, p. 37; Pentagon Papers,
p. 219.)
On October 30, Lodge reported to Washington that he was
powerless to stop the coup, and that the matter was entirely
in Vietnamese hands. General Harkins disagreed and cabled his
opposition to the coup to General Taylor (Pentagon Papers,
p. 220).
A cable from Bundy to Lodge dated October 30 expressed
White House concern and stated that "[w]e cannot accept conclu-
sion that we have no power to delay or discourage a coup"
(Cable, Bundy to Lodge, 10/30/63). A subsequent cable on that
same day from Washington instructed Lodge to intercede with
the Generals to call off the coup if he did not believe it
would succeed. The instructions prescribed "strict noninvolve-
ment and somewhat less strict neutrality".
p. 220.)
(Pentagon Papers,
Late in the morning of November 1, the first units involved
in the coup began to deploy around Saigon. The Embassy was
given only four minutes' warning before the coup began (MACV
cable to Joint Chiefs of Staff 8512, 11/1/63).. An aide to
Don told Conein to bring all available money to the Joint
General Staff headquarters.
Conein brought 3 million piasters
(Approximately $42,000) to the headquarters, which was given
to Don to procure food for his troops and to pay death benefits
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 502
-12-
to those killed in the coup (Conein, 6/20, p. 72).*
Conein was at the Joint General Staff Headquarters during
most of the coup (I.G., C, pp. 41-42). At 1:40 p.m., the
Generals proposed that Diem resign immediately, and guaranteed
him and Nhu safe departure (Conein After-Action Report, p. 15).
The palace was surrounded shortly afterwards, and at 4:30 p.m.
the Generals announced the coup on the radio and demanded the
resignation of Diem and Nhu. Diem called Lodge and inquired
about the United States" position. Lodge responded that the
United States did not yet have a view, and expressed concern
for Diem's safety (Pentagon Papers, p. 221).
According to Conein's report, Minh told Nhu that if he and
Diem did not resign within five minutes, the palace would be
bombed. Minh then phoned Diem. Diem refused to talk with him
and Minh ordered the bombing of the palace. Troops moved in
on the palace, but Diem still refused to capitulate. Minh
offered Diem a second chance to surrender half an hour later,
telling him that if he refused he would be "blasted off of the
earth". Shortly before nightfall an air assault was launched
on the Presidential Guard barracks. (Conein After-Action Report,
pp. 17-18.)
At 6:20 on the morning of November 2, Diem called General
* CIA had apparently considered passing money to the coup
leaders in early October (Colby, 6/20, p. 21). On October 29,
Lodge calbed that a request for funds should be anticipated
(Lodge to State, No. 2040, 10/29/63; and 2063, 10/30/63).
Conein received the money on October 24, and kept it in a safe
in his house.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 503
-13-
Don at the Joint General Staff headquarters and offered to
•
surrender if he and Nhu were given safe conduct to an airport.
Shortly afterwards, Diem offered to surrender unconditionally
and ordered the Presidential Guard to cease firing.
According
to Conein, an escort for Diem appeared in front of the palace
at 8:00 a.m., but Diem and Nhu were not present (Conein After-
Action Report, p. 24).
Conein declined
At 10:30 a.m. the bodies of Diem and Nhu were reported to
be at the Joint General Chiefs' headquarters.
to view the bodies because he feared that doing so might damage
United States interests (Conein, p. 57).
The details of Diem's and Nhu's deaths are not known. *
* Conein specualted that Diem and Nhu escaped through a tunnel
from the palace and fled to a Catholic Church in Chalon. He
opined that an informant must have identified them and called the
General Staff Headquarters (Conein After-Action Report, p. 23).
Another CIA source states that Diem and Nhu had left the palace
the previous evening with a Chinese businessman and arrived at
the church at 8:00 on the morning of November 2. Ten minutes
later they were picked up by soldiers and forced into an army
vehicle (Cable, Saigon to State, No. 888). Minh originally told
Conein that Diem and Nhu had committed suicide, but Conein
doubted that Catholics would have taken their own lives in a
church (Conein, p. 56). The Inspector General's Report states
that on November 16, 1963, a field-grade officer of unknown
reliability gave the CIA two photographs of the bodies of Diem
and Nhu in which it appeared their hands were tied behind their
backs (I.G., C, pp. 43-44). The source reported that Diem and
Nhu had been shot and stabbed while being conveyed to the Joint
General Staff headquarters.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 504
-14-
None of the informed sources give any indication of direct or
indirect involvement of the United States.*
* It must be noted that on October 30, 1963, Ambassador Lodge
notified Washington that there might be a request by ked leaders
for evacuation, and suggested Saipan as a point for evacuation
(Saigon Station Cable No. 2036, 10/30/63). Conein was charged
with obraining the airplane. Between 6:00 and 7:00 on the
morning of November 2, Minh and Don asked Conein to procure an
aircraft. Conein relayed the request to David Smith, Acting
Chief of Station at the Embassy, who replied that it would not
be possible to get an aircraft for the next twenty-four hours,
since it would have to be flown from Guam. Conein testified
that Smith told him that Diem could be flown only to a country
that offered him asylum and that the plane could not land in
any other country. There were no aircraft immediately avail-
able that had sufficient range to reach a potential country
of asylum (Conein, p. 54).
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 505
IV.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
R1440
Page
Findings and Conclusions
1
A.
Findings Concerning the Plots Themselves
2
1.
Officials of the United States
Government Initiated Plots to
Assassinate Fidel Castro and
Patrice Lumumba
2
2.
No Foreign Leaders Were Killed As
A Result of Assassination Plots
Initiated by Officials of the
United States
3
3.
American Officials Encouraged or
Were Privy to Coup Plots Which
Resulted in the Death of Trujillo,
Diem, and Schneider
3
4.
The Plots Occurred in a Cold War
Atmosphere Perceived to be of
Crisis Proportions
3A
5.
American Officials Had Exaggerated
Notions About Their Ability to
Control the Actions of Coup Leaders
4
6.
CIA Officials Made Use of Known Under-
world Figures in Assassination
Efforts
5
B.
Conclusions Concerning the Plots Themselves. .
5
1.
The United States Should Not Engage
in Assassination
5
+
a.
Distinction Between Targeted
Assassinations Instigated by
the United States and Support
for Dissidents Seeking to
Overthrow Local Governments.
6
b. The Setting In Which the Assas-
sination Plots Occurred Explains,
But Does Not Justify Them
8
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Page 506
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C.
2. The United States Should Not Make
Use of Underworld Figures for
Their Criminal Talents
Findings and Conclusions Relating to
the Issues of Authorization and
Control
1. The Command and Control System for
Assassinations Was Such That the
Plots Could Have Been Undertaken
Without Express Authorization
2.
Findings Relating to the Level at
Which the Plots Were Authorized
a. Diem
b.
Schneider
C.
Trujillo
d.
Lumumba
e.
Castro
3.
Page
4.
CIA Officials Involved in the Assassina-
tion Operations Perceived Assassination
To Have Been A Permissible Course of
Action
The Failure In Communication Between
Agency Officials In Charge Of The
Assassination Operations And Their
Superiors In The Agency And In The
Administration Was Due To:
(a) The Failure of Subordinates To
Disclose The Operations to
Their Superiors; and
(b)
The Failure of Superiors To
Give Precise Orders Regarding The
Nature of Permissible Operations
and to Make Clear That Assassina-
tion Was Precluded in the Climate
of Violence Engendered by the
Aggressive Covert Actions
Sanctioned by the Administrations
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 507
10
11
13.
14
15
15
16
16
17
18
20
20
26
26
26
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6.
Page
(a)
Agency Officials Failed On
Several Occasions to Reveal
The Plots To Their Superiors
Or To Do So With Sufficient
Detail and Clarity
Castro
Trujillo
27
27
34
Schneider
36
(b)
On Occasion, Administration Officials
Gave Vague Instructions to Sub-
ordinates and Failed to Make Sufficiently
Clear That Assassination Should Be
Excluded From Consideration.
Schneider
Lumumba
Castro
Practices Current at the Time in which
the Assassination Plots Occurred Were
Revealed by the Record to Create the
Risk of Confusion, Rashness, and
37
38
38
39
Irresponsibility in the Very Areas Where
Clarity and Sober Judgment Was Most
Necessary
46
(a) The Danger Inherent in Overextending
the Doctrine of Plausible Denial
47
(b)
The Dangers of Using "Circumlocution"
and "Euphemism'
48
(c) The Danger of Generalized Instructions.
(d) The Danger of "Floating Authorization".
(e) The Problems Connected With Creating
New Covert Capabilities
49
50
50
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iii
7
TOP SERE
IV.
Approved, Drafting Subcommittee,
10/8/75 (Lumumba sections open
to possible reconsideration)
Findings and Conclusions
In evaluating the evidence and arriving at findings and
conclusions, the Committee has been guided by the following
standards. We believe these standards to be appropriate to
the constitutional duty of a Congressional committée.
1. The Committee is not a court. Its primary role is
not to determine individual guilt or innocence, but rather
to draw upon the experiences of the past to better propose
guidance for the future.
2. It is necessary to be cautious in reaching conclusions
because of the amount of time that has passed since the events
reviewed in this report, the inability of three Presidents and
many other key figures to speak for themselves, the conflicting
and ambiguous nature of much of the evidence, and the problems
in assessing the weight to be given to particular documents
and testimony.
3. The Committee has tried to be fair to the persons
involved in the events under examination while at the same
time responding to a need to understand the facts in sufficient
detail to lay a basis for informed recommendations.
With these standards in mind, the Committee has arrived at
the following findings and conclusions.
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A.
- 2 -
Findings Concerning the Plots Themselves
1.
Officials of the United States Government Initiated
Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro and Patrice Lumumba
The Committee finds that officials of the United States
Government initiated and participated in plots to assassinate
Patrice Lumumba and Fidel Castro.
The plot to kill Lumumba was conceived in the latter half
of 1960 by officials of the United States Government, and quick-
ly advanced to the point of sending poisons to the Congo to be
used for the assassination.
The effort to assassinate Castro began in 1960 and continued
until 1965. The plans to assassinate Castro using poison cigars,
exploding seashells, and a contaminated diving suit did not
advance beyond the laboratory phase. The plot involving under-
world figures reached the stage of producing poison pills,
establishing the contacts necessary to send them into Cuba,
procuring potential assassins within Cuba, and, according to one
witness, delivering the pills to the island itself. In the
1960 plot involving a Cuban pilot and in the AM/LASH episode
from 1963-1965, the CIA gave active support and encouragement
to Cubans whose intent to assassinate Castro was known, and
provided the means for carrying out the assassination.
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-3-
2.
No Foreign Leaders Were Killed As a Result of Assas-
sination Plots Initiated by Officials of the United
States
The poisons intended for use against Patrice Lumumba
were never administered to him, and there is no evidence that
the United States was in any way involved in Lumumba's death
at the hands of his Congolese enemies. The effort to assas-
sinate Castro failed. Do we know how far they
3.
American Officials Encouraged or Were Privy to
Coup Plots Which Resulted in the Death of Trujillo,
Diem, and Schneider
American officials clearly desired the overthrow of
Trujillo, offered both encouragement and guns to local dissi-
dents attempting his overthrow, and supplied them with pistols
and rifles.
When APLASS was defired
American officials offered encouragement to the Vietnamese
generals who plotted Diem's overthrow, and a CIA official in
Vietnam gave the generals money after the coup had begun.
However, Diem's assassination was neither desired nor suggested
by officials of the United States.
The record reveals that the United States officials
offered encouragement to the Chilean dissidents who plotted
the kidnapping of General Rene Schneider, but did not desire
or encourage his death. Certain high officials did know that
the dissidents planned to kidnap General Schneider.
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чик
Link 
processing
As
As Director Colby testified before the Committee, the death of
In
a foreign leader is a risk forseeable in any coup attempt.
the cases we have considered, the risk of death was known in
varying degrees. It was widely known that the dissidents in
the Dominican Republic intended to assassinate Trujillo; the
contemplation of coup leaders to assassinate Nhu, President
Diem's brother, was communicated to the upper levels of the
United States Government; while the CIA and perhaps the White
House knew that the coup leaders in Chile planned to kidnap
General Schneider, it was not anticipated that he would be killed,
although the possibility of his death should have been recognized
a.forseeable risk of his kidnapping.
as
4.
The Plots Occurred in a Cold War Atmosphere Perceived
to be of Crisis Proportions
The Committee fully appreciates the importance of
evaluating the assassination plots in the historical context
within which they occurred. In the preface to this report, we
described the perception, generally shared within the United
States during the depths of the Cold War, that the country
faced a monolithic enemy in Communism. That attitude helps
explain the assassination plots which we have reviewed,
although it does not justify them. Those involved neverthe-
less appeared to believe they were advancing the best inter-
ests of their country.
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:
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· 4 -
5. American Officials Had Exaggerated Notions About
Their Ability to Control the Actions of Coup Leaders
Running throughout the cases considered in this report
was the expectation of American officials that they could
control the actions of dissident groups which they were support-
ing in foreign countries. Events demonstrated that the United
States had no such power. This point is graphically demonstrated
by cables exchanged shortly before the coup in Vietnam.
Ambassador Lodge cabled Washington on October 30, 1963, that he
was unable to halt a coup; a cable from Bundy in response stated
that "We cannot accept conclusion that we have no power to delay
or discourage a coup.' The coup took place three days later.
Shortly after the experience of the Bay of Pigs, CIA
headquarters requested operatives in the Dominican Republic
to tell the dissidents to "turn off" the assassination attempt,
because the United States was not prepared to "cope with the
aftermath." The dissidents replied that the assassination
was their affair and that it could not be turned off to suit
the convenience of the United States Government.
"
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.6.
- 5 -
CIA Officials Made Use of Known Underworld Figures
in Assassination Efforts
Officials of the CIA made use of persons associated
with the criminal underworld in attempting to achieve the
assassination of Fidel Castro. These underworld figures were
relied upon because it was believed that they had expertise and
contacts that were not available to law-abiding citizens.
Foreign citizens with criminal backgrounds were also used
by the CIA in two other cases that we have reviewed. In the
development of the Executive Action capability, one foreign
national with a criminal background was used to "spot" other
members of the European underworld who might be used by the CIA.
for a variety of purposes, including assassination if the need
should arise. In the Lumumba case, two men with criminal back-
grounds were used as field operatives by CIA officers in a
volatile political situation in the Congo.
B.
Conclusions Concerning the Plots Themselves
1. The United States Should Not Engage in Assassination
We cannot condone the use of assassination as
a tool
of foreign policy. Aside from pragmatic arguments against the
use of assassination supplied to the Committee by witnesses with
extensive experience in covert operations, we find that assas-
sination violates moral precepts fundamental to our way of life.
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- 6 -
In addition to considerations, there were several
practical reasons advanced for not assassinating foreign
leaders. These reasons are discussed in the section of
this report recommending a statute making assassination
a crime:
a. Distinction Between Targeted Assassinations
Instigated by the United States and Support
for Dissidents Seeking to Overthrow Local
Governments
Two of the five principal cases investigated
by the Committee involved plots to kill foreign leaders
(Lumumba and Castro) that were instigated by American
officials. Three of the cases (Trujillo, Diem, Schneider)
involved killings in the course of coup attempts by local
dissidents. These latter cases differed in the degree to
which assassination was contemplated by the leaders of the
coups and the degree to which United States officials
motivated the coups.
The Committee concludes that targeted assassinations
instigated by the United States must be prohibited.
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Coups involve varying degrees of risk of assassination.
The possibility of assassination in coup attempts raises
questions concerning the propriety of United States involve-
ment in coups, particularly in those where the assassination
of a foreign leader is a likely prospect.
This country was created by violent revolt against a
regime believed to be tyrannous, and our founding fathers
(the local dissidents of that era) received aid from foreign
countries. Given that history, we should not today rule
out support for dissident groups seeking to overthrow tyrants.
But passing beyond that principle, there remain serious
questions: for example, whether the national interest of
the United States is genuinely involved; whether any such
support should be overt rather than covert; what tactics
should be used; and how such actions should be authorized
and controlled by the coordinate branches of government.
The Committee believes that its recommendation on the question
of covert actions in support of coups must await the Committee's
final report which will be issued after a full review of
covert action in general.
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b. The Setting In Which the Assassination Plots
Occurred Explains, But Does Not Justify Them
The Cold War setting in which the assassination
plots took place does not change our view that assassination
is unacceptable in our society. In addition to the moral and
practical problems discussed elsewhere, we find two principal
defects in any contention that the tenor of the period justifi-
ed the assassination plots:
First, the assassination plots were not necessitated by
imminent danger to the United States. Among the cases studied,
Castro alone posed a threat to the United States, but then
only during the period of the Cuban missile crisis. Castro's
had begua
PLOTS AgRmit
assassination had been planned by the CIA long before that
crisis, and was not advanced by policymakers as a possible
course of action during the crisis.
Second, we reject absolutely any notion that the United
States should justify its actions by the standards of totali-
tarians. Our standards must be higher, and this difference is
what the struggle is all about. Of course, we must defend our
But in defending it, we must resist undermining
democracy.
the very virtues we are defending.
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9
Two documents which have been supplied to the Committee
graphically demonstrate attitudes which can lead to
tactics that erode and could ultimately destroy the very
ideals we must defend.
The first was written in 1954 by a special committee form-
ed to advise the President on covert activities. The United
States may, it said, have to adopt tactics "more ruthless than
[those] employed by the enemy" in order to meet the threat from
hostile nations. The report concluded that "long standing
American concepts of American fair play must be reconsidered."*
Although those proposals did not involve assassinations,
the attitudes underlying them were, as Director Colby testified,
indicative of the setting within which the assassination plots
were conceived. (Colby, 6/4/75, p. 117)
* The full text of the passage is as follows:
another important requirement is an aggressive
covert psychological, political, and paramilitary
organization far more effective, more unique, and,
if necessary, more ruthless than that employed by the
enemy. No one should be permitted to stand in the
way of the prompt, efficient, and secure accomplish-
ment of this mission.
The second consideration, it is now clear that we
are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective
is world domination by whatever means at whatever
cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto
acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If
the U. S. is to survive, long standing American con-
cepts of American fair play must be reconsidered.
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1- 10
We do not think that traditional American notions of
fair play need be abandoned when dealing with our adversaries.
It may well be ourselves that we injure most if we adopt
tactics "more ruthless than the enemy".
The
A second document which represents an attitude which we
find improper was sent to the Congo in the fall of 1960 when
the assassination of Patrice Lumumba was being considered.
chief of CIA's Africa Division recommended a particular agent
WIROGUE
because
He is indeed aware of the precepts of right
and wrong, but if he is given an assignment
which may be morally wrong in the eyes of the
world, but necessary because his case officer
ordered him to carry it out, then it is right,
and he will dutifully undertake appropriate
action for its execution without pangs of con-
science. In a word, he can rationalize all
actions. (Memo dated / /60; Bissell
Tr.,
6/11/75, p. >
The Committee finds this philosophy is not in keeping with the
ideals of our nation.
2. The United States Should Not Make Use of Underworld
Figures for Their Criminal Talents
We conclude that agencies of the United States must not
use underworld figures for their criminal talents* in carrying
out their operations. In addition to the corrosive effect
*Pending our investigation of the use of informants by the FBI and
other agencies, we reserve judgment on the use of known criminals
as informants. We are concerned here only with the use of persons
known to be actively engaged in criminal pursuits for their
expertise in carrying out criminal acts.
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11 -
upon our government,* the use of underworld figures involves
the following dangers:
a. The use of underworld figures for "dirty business"
gives them the power to blackmail the government and to avoid
prosecution, for past or future crimes. For example, the
figures involved in the Castro assassination operation used
their involvement with the CIA to avoid prosecution. The CIA
also contemplated attempting to quash criminal charges against
QJWIN in a foreign tribunal.
b. The use of persons experienced in criminal tech-
niques and prone to criminal behavior increases the likelihood
that criminal acts will occur. Agents in the field are neces-
sarily given broad discretion. But the risk of improper
ростране
isamy
activities is increased when persons of criminal background
are used, particularly when they are selected precisely to take
advantage of their criminal skills or contacts.
*The corrosive effect of dealing with underworld figures is
graphically demonstrated by the fact that Attorney General Robert
Kennedy, who had devoted much of his professional life to fight-
ing organized crime, did not issue an order against cooperating
with such persons when he learned in May 1961 that the CIA had
made use of Sam Giancana in a sensitive operation in Cuba.
In May 1962, when the Attorney General learned that the
operation had involved assassination, he did, according to
a CIA witness, inform those briefing him that underworld
figures should not be used before checking with him first,
but failed to direct that they must never be so used.
Anonyt
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12
C. There is the danger that the United States Govern-
ment will become an unwitting accomplice to criminal acts and
that criminal figures will take advantage of their associa-
tion with the government to advance their own projects and
interests.
d. There is a fundamental impropriety in selecting
persons because they are skilled at performing deeds which the
laws of our society forbid.
The use of underworld figures by the United States Govern-
ment for their criminal skills raises moral problems comparable
to those recognized by Justice Brandeis in a different context
five decades ago:
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent
teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the
whole people by its example. Crime is con-
tagious. If the Government becomes a law-
breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it in-
vites every man to become a law unto himself.
To declare that in the administration of the
criminal law the end justifies the means
to declare that the Government may commit
crimes in order to secure the conviction of
the private criminal would bring terrible
retribution. Against this pernicious doctrine
this Court should resolutely set its face.
Olmstead v. U. S., 277 U.S. 439, 485 (1927)
-455
کی
thy
PropEnvy
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C.
Findings and Conclusions Relating to the Issues of Authori-
zation and Control
In the introduction to this report, we set forth in
summary form our major conclusions concerning whether the
assassination plots were authorized. The ensuing
elaborates and explains those conclusions.
discussion
The Committee analyzed the question of authorization for
the assassination activities from two perspectives. First,
the Committee examined whether officials in policymaking
positions authorized or were aware of the assassination
activities. Second, the Committee inquired whether the
officials responsible for the operational details of the
plots perceived that assassination had the approval of
their superiors, or at least was the type of activity that
their superiors would not disapprove.
No doubt, the CIA's general efforts against the regimes
discussed in this report were authorized at the highest
levels of the government. But the record leaves serious
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doubt concerning whether assassination was authorized by
the Administrations. Even if the plots were not expressly
authorized, it does not follow that the Agency personnel
believed they were acting improperly.
1. The Command and Control System for Assassina-
ld Have
tions Was Such That the Plots Could Have
Been Undertaken Without Express Authorization
As emphasized throughout this report, we are
unable to draw firm conclusions concerning responsibility
for the assassination plots. Even after our long invesṭiga-
tion, it is unclear whether the conflicting and inconclusive
state of the evidence is due to the system of plausible
denial and its attendant doctrines, or whether there were
in fact serious shortcomings in the system of authorization
which made it possible for assassination efforts to have
been undertaken by agencies of the United States Government
without express authority from officials outside of those
agencies.
Our preeminent finding is that assassination could have
been undertaken by an agency of the United States Government
without it having been uncontrovertibly clear that there was
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-15-
m
explicit authorization from the highest level. The command
ight have
and control system revealed by the record made it possible for
the CIA to have engaged in assassination activities without
express authorization by officials outside the Agency.
The ambiguity and imprecision in the record illustrates
the dangers of a "plausible denial" system in which the precise
level of authorization may be difficult to ascertain. While
there is no evidence that the "plausible denial" system has
succeeded in shielding decision makers in the cases considered
in this report, the possibility that a system exists which
might permit those responsible for authorizing major operations
to escape responsibility is disturbing. Responsible government
requires that public officials be held accountable for their
decisions.
2. Findings Relating to the Level at Which the Plots Were
Authorized
a.
Diem
We find that neither the President nor any other
official in the United States Government authorized the assas-
sination of Diem and his brother Nhu. Both the DCI and top
State Department officials did know, however, that the death
of Nhu at least at one point had been contemplated by the coup
leaders. To the contrary, when the possibility that the coup
leaders were considering assassination was brought to the
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-16-
attention of the DCI, he directed that the United States
would have no part in such activity, and this information
was relayed to the coup leaders.
b.
Schneider
We find that neither the President nor any other
official in the United States Government authorized the assas-
sination of General Rene Schneider.
The CIA, and perhaps the
White House, did know that coup leaders contemplated kidnap-
ping, which, as it turned out, resulted in Schneider's death.
Trujillo
but was the nobility
death میں
nailon
The Presidents and other senior officials in
the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations sought the overthrow
of Trujillo and approved general actions to obtain that end.
The DCI and the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs knew that the Dominican dissidents intended
to assassinate Trujillo, but the date at which the dissidents'
intent to assassinate was communicated to higher levels of
the government responsible for formulating policy is less
clear. The record does establish that in the Spring of 1961
senior American officials, including the President, learned
that the dissidents intended to assassinate Trujillo and that
they desired machine guns for that purpose. The Special Group
disapproved passage of those weapons and the President himself,
in a telegram, reaffirmed that decision, indicating that the
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-17
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United States "as [a] matter of general policy cannot condone //
assassination", although he did state that if the coup succeeded,
the United States would support the plotters.
d.
Lumumba
needunde
STATomor
The chain of events revealed by the documents and
testimony is strong enough to permit a reasonable inference
that the assassination plot was authorized by the President.
It is absolutely clear that Allen Dulles authorized the plot.
The juxtaposition of discussions concerning "disposing of".
Lumumba and taking "straightforward action" against him at NSC
and Special Group meetings with Dulles' cable to the Congo,
Bissell's s representation to Gottlieb about "highest authority",.
and the delivery of poison to the Congo can be read to support
an inference that the President and the Special Group urged
the assassination of Lumumba.
Robert Johnson's testimony that he understood the President
to have ordered Lumumba's assassination at an NSC meeting does,
as he said, offer a "clue" about Presidential authorization
which, however, should be read in light of the uncertain record
of the meetings Johnson attended and the contrary testimony of
others in attendance at the meetings, including the President's
national security advisors. The fact that both the Chief of
Station and Gottlieb were under the impression that there was
Presidential authorization for the assassination of Lumumba
is not in itself direct evidence of such authorization because
ابنه
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this impression was derived solely from Gottlieb's meetings
with Bissell and Tweedy. Neither Gottlieb nor the Chief of
Station had first-hand knowledge of Allen Dulles' statements
about Presidential authorization. Richard Bissell assumed
that such authorization had been conveyed to him by Dulles,
but Bissell had no specific recollection of any event when
this occurred.
The evidence leads us to conclude that DDP Bissell and
DCI Dulles knew about and authorized the plot to assassinate
Lumumba. However, we are unable to make a finding that
President Eisenhower intentionally authorized an assassination
effort against Lumumba because of the lack of absolute certainty
in the evidence.
STD?
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-18-
e.
Castro
T
Sufri ccont
There was no evidence from which the Committee
could conclude that Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Johnson,
their close advisors, or the Special Group authorized the
assassination of Castro.
We find that the effort against Castro was clearly autho-
rized through the level of DDP. It is not certain whether
Allen Dulles knew about the plots, although Bissell and
Edwards were of the opinion that he did, and the credibility
of their beliefs is buttressed by the fact that Dulles knew
about the Lumumba assassination plot, which was planned and
attempted at the time of the early Castro plots. We can find
no evidence that McCone was aware of the plots which occurred
during his tenure. His DDP, Richard Helms, testified that
he never discussed the subject with McCone and was never
expressly authorized by anyone to assassinate Castro.
•
The only suggestion of express Presidential authorization
for the plots against Castro was Richard Bissell's opinion
that Dulles would have circumlocutiously informed Presidents
Eisenhower and Kennedy after the assassination had been plan-
ned and was underway. The assumptions underlying this opinion
are too attenuated for the Committee to adopt it as a finding.
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First, it assumes that Dulles himself knew of the plots, a
matter which is not certain.
Second, it assumes that Dulles
went privately to the two Presidents--a course of action
which Helms, who had far more covert action experience than
Bissell, testified was precisely what the doctrine of
is that
plausible denial forbade CIA officials from doing. Third,
it necessarily assumes that the Presidents would understand
from a "circumlocutious" description that assassination was
being discussed.
The chain of assumptions is far too speculative for the
Committee to make findings inplicating Presidents who are not
able to speak for themselves. Moreover, it is inconsistent
with Bissell's other testimony that "formal and explicit"
approval would be required for assassination,* and contrary
to the testimony of all the Presidential advisors, the men
closest to both Eisenhower and Kennedy.
right
* If the evidence concerning President Eisenhower's order
to assassinate Lumumba is correct, it should be weighed against.
Bissell's testimony concerning circumlocutious briefings of the
Presidents in the Castro case. First, the Lumumba case would
imply that President Eisenhower and Dulles did discuss such
matters bluntly and not circumlocutiously. Second, the Lumumba
example indicates that the President would discuss such matters
openly in an appropriate forum, and would not need to be
approached privately. Third, it can be inferred from Bissell's
testimony in the Castro case that if President Eisenhower had
told Dulles that he approved of the plot, Dulles would not have
told anyone else of that fact. Yet Gottlieb's testimony in the
Lumumba case states that he had been told of Presidential autho-
rization for assassination by Bissell, who in turn assumed he
was told by Dulles.
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U
Helms and McCone testified that the Presidents under
which they served never asked them to consider assassination.
There was no evidence whatsoever that President Johnson.
knew about or authorized any assassination activity during his
Presidency.
3.
CIA Officials Involved in the Assassination Opera-
tions Perceived Assassination To Have Been A Permis-
sible Course of Action
The CIA officials involved in the targeted assassination
attempts testified that they had believed that their activities
had been fully authorized.*
In the case of the Lumumba assassination operation,
Richard Bissell testified that he had no direct recollection
of authorization, but after having reviewed the cables and
Special Group minutes, testified that authority must have
flowed from Dulles through him to the subordinate levels in
the Agency.
In the case of the assassination effort against Castro,
Bissell and Sheffield Edwards testified they believed the
operation involving underworld figures had been authorized
by Dulles when they briefed him shortly after the plot had been
initiated. William Harvey testified he believed that the
* The lower level operatives, such as O'Connell and the
AM/LASH case officers, are not discussed in this section, since
they had clear orders from their immediate superiors.
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plots "were completely authorized at every appropriate level
within and beyond the Agency", although he had "no personal
knowledge whatever of the individuals' identities, times,
exact words, or channels through which such authority may
have passed". Harvey stated that he had been told by Richard
Bissell that the effort against Castro had been authorized
"from the highest level", and that Harvey had discussed the
plots with Richard Helms, his immediate superior.. Helms
testified that although he had never discussed assassination
with his superiors, he believed:
"
In
that in these actions we were taking against
Cuba and against Fidel Castro's government in Cuba,
that they were what we had been asked to do.
other words we had been asked to get rid of Castro
and
there were no limitations put on the means
and we felt we were acting well within the guidelines
that we understood to be in play at this particular
time.
The evidence points to a disturbing situation. Agency
officials perceived the effort to assassinate Castro to have
been within the parameters of permissible action, but Adminis-
tration officials (including McCone) responsible for formulat-
TESTIFIon that they Anasta
ing policy were not aware of the effort and did not authorize
it. The explanation may lie in the fact that orders concerning
overthrowing the Castro regime were stated in broad terms that
were subject to differing interpretations by those responsible
for carrying out those orders.
n
The various Presidents and their senior advisors
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strongly opposed the regimes of Castro and Trujillo, the
accession to power of Allende, and the potential influence
of Patrice Lumumba. Orders concerning action against those
foreign leaders were given in vigorous language. For example,
President Nixon's orders to prevent Allende from assuming
power left Helms feeling that "if I ever carried a marshall's
baton in my knapsack out of the oval office, it was that day."
Similarly, General Lansdale described the Mongoose effort
against Cuba as "a combat situation", and Attorney General
Kennedy emphasized that "a solution to the Cuban problem
today carries top priority". Helms testified that the
pressure to "get rid of [Castro and the Castro regime]" was
intense, and Bissell testified that he had been ordered to
"get off your ass about Cuba".
It is possible that there was a failure of communica-
tion between policymakers and the agency personnel who were
experienced in secret, and often violent, action. Although
policymakers testified that assassination was not intended
by such words as "get rid of Castro", some of their sub-
ordinates in the Agency testified that they perceived that
assassination was desired and that they should proceed with-
out troubling their superiors.
The 1967 Inspector General's Report on assassinations
appropriately observed:
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"
The point is that of frequent resort to. synechdoche
the mention of a part when the whole is to be under-
stood, or vice versa. Thus, we encounter repeated
references to phrases such as 'disposing of Castro",
which may be read in the narrow, literal sense of assas-
sinating him, when it is intended that it be read in
the broader, figurative sense of dislodging the Castro
regime. Reversing the coin, we find people speaking
vaguely of "doing something about Castro" when it is
clear that what they have specifically in mind is
killing him. In a situation wherein those speaking
may not have actually meant what they seemed to say or
may not have said what they actually meant, they should
not be surprised if their oral shorthand is interpreted
differently than was intended.
Differing perceptions between superiors and their sub-
ordinates were graphically illustrated in the Castro context.*
McCone, in a memorandum dated April 14, 1967, reflected as
follows:
Through the years the Cuban problem was discussed in
terms such as "dispose of Castro", "remove Castro",
"knock off Castro", etc., and this meant the overthrow
of the Communist government in Cuba and the replacing
of it with a democratic regime. Terms such as the
above appear in many working papers, memoranda for the
record, etc., and, as stated, all refer to a change in
the Cuban government.
* "Senator Mathias: Let me draw an example from history.
When Thomas A'Beckett was proving to be an annoyance, as
Castro, the King said, 'who will rid me of this turbulent
priest?'. He didn't say, 'go out and murder him'. He said,
'who will rid me of this man', and let it go at that.
'
1
"Mr. Helms : That is a warming reference to the problem.
"Senator Mathias: You feel that spans the generations
and the centuries?
"Mr. Helms : I think it does, sir.
"Senator Mathias: And that is typical of the kind of
thing which might be said, which might be taken by the
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Helms, who had considerable experience as a covert operator,
gave precisely the opposite meaning to the same words, interpret-
ing them as conveying authority for assassination.
Helms repeatedly testified that he felt that explicit
authorization was unnecessary for the assassination of
Castro in the early 1960's, but he said he did not construe
the intense pressure from President Nixon in 1970 as pro-
viding authority to assassinate anyone. As Helms testified,
the difference was not that the pressure to prevent Allende
from assuming office was any less than the pressure to remove
the Castro regime, but rather that "I had already made up my
mind that we weren't going to have any of that business when
I was Director."
Certain CIA contemporaries of Helms who were subjected
to similar pressures in the Castro case rejected the thesis
that implicit authority to assassinate Castro derived from
the strong language of the policymakers. Bissell testified
that he had believed that "formal and explicit approval"
would be required for assassination, and McManus testified
director or by anybody else as presidential authorization to
go forward?
"Mr. Helms : That is right. But in answer to that, I
realize that one sort of grows up in tradition of the time
and I think that any of us would have found it very difficult
to discuss assassinations with a President of the U.S. I
just think we all had the feeling that we were hired out to
keep those things out of the oval office."
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that "it never occurred to me" that the vigorous words of
the Attorney General could be taken as authorizing
assassination.
The differing perceptions may have resulted
from their different backgrounds and training. Neither
Bissell (an academician whose Agency career for the six years
before he became DDP had been in the field of technology) nor
McManus (who had concentrated on intelligence and staff work)
were experienced in covert operations.*
The perception of certain Agency officials that assas-
sination was within the range of permissible activity was
reinforced by the continuing approval of violent covert actions
against Cuba that were sanctioned at the Presidential level
and by the failure of the successive administrations to make
clear that assassination was not permissible. This point is
one of the subjects considered in the next section.
* Of course, this analysis cannot be carried too far. In
the Lumumba case, for example, Johnson and Dillon, who were
Administration officials with no covert operation experience,
construed remarks as urging or permitting assassination, while
other persons who were not in the Agency did not so interpret
them.
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4.
The Failure In Communication Between Agency Officials
In Charge Of The Assassination Operations And Their Superiors
In The Agency And In The Administration Was Due To:
(a) The Failure of Subordinates To Disclose The
Operations To Their Superiors; and
(b) The Failure of Superiors to Give Precise Orders
Regarding the Nature of Permissable Operations and to Make
Clear That Assassination Was Precluded in the Climate of
Violence Engendered by the Aggressive Covert Actions
Sanctioned by the Administrations.
This
While we cannot find that officials responsible for
making policy decisions knew about or authorized the assassina-
tion attempts (with the possible exception of the Lumumba case),
Agency operatives at least through the level of DDP neverthe-
less perceived assassination to have been permissible.
failure in communication was inexcusable in light of the gravity
of assassination.
Agency officials to inform their superiors was reprehensible,
and that the reasons that they offered for having neglected
to inform their superiors are unacceptable. The Committee
further finds that Administration officials failed to be
sufficiently precise in their directions to the Agency and
that their attitude toward the possibility of assassination
was ambiguous in the context of the violence of other activities
that they did authorize.
The Committee finds that the failure of
3) DIDN'T FULCon
FICIENTLY
suffic
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(a) Agency Officials Failed On Several Occasions To Reveal
The Plots To Their Superiors, Or To Do So With Sufficient
Detail and Clarity
Several of the cases considered in this report raise
questions concerning whether officials of the CIA sufficiently
informed their superiors in the Agency or officials outside the
Agency about their activities.
Castro
The failure of Agency officials to inform their superiors
of the assassination efforts against Castro is particularly
troubling.
Richard Bissell testified that he and Sheffield Edwards
told Allen Dulles only "circumlocutiously" and only after
the project had begun about the operation which used members
of the underworld. Both Bissell and his successor as DDP,
Richard Helms, testified that they never discussed the opera-
tion with John McCone or any officials outside the CIA. The
two officials directly responsible for the operation--Edwards
and William Harvey--testified that they never discussed the
operation with McCone or any Government official above the
level of DDP. McCone testified that he was never consulted about
the operation, and that Dulles never briefed him on its
existence. On the basis of the testimony and documentary
evidence before the Committee, it is uncertain whether Dulles.
Ishanke
Stanvey
harve
told
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-28-
was ever made aware of the true nature of the underworld
operation, and virtually certain that it continued into
McCone's term without his or the Administration's knowledge
or approval.
On the occasions when Richard Bissell had the opportunity
to inform his superiors about the assassination effort against
explicitly
Castro, he either failed to inform them ✓ misled them.
Bissell testified that he and Edwards told Dulles and
Cabell about the assassination operation using underworld
figures, but that they did so "circumlocutiously", and then
only after contact had been made with the underworld and a
price had been offered for Castro's death.
Bissell further testified that he never raised the issue
of assassination with officials of either the Eisenhower or
His reason was that since he was under
Kennedy Administration.
Dulles in the chain of command, he would normally have had no
duty to discuss the matter with the Presidents or other Adminis-
tration officials, and that he assumed that Dulles would have
circumlocutiously spoken with Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy
about the operation. These reasons are insufficient. It was
inexcusable to withhold such information from those responsible
for formulating policy on the unverified assumption that they
might have been circumlocutiously informed by Dulles, who
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himself had not been straight-forwardly told about the operation.*
The failure to either inform those officials or to make
certain that they had been informed by Dulles was particularly
reprehensible in light of the fact that there were many occasions
on which Bissell should have informed them, and his failure to
do so was misleading. In the first weeks of the Kennedy Adminis-
tration, Bissell met with Bundy and discussed the development
of an assassination capability within CIA--executive action.
But Bissell did not mention that an actual assassination attempt
was underway. Bissell appeared before the Taylor-Kennedy Board
of Inquiry which was formed to report to the President on the
Bay of Pigs and the Cuban situation, but testified that he did
not inform the Commission of the assassination operation. As
chief of the CIA directorate concerned with clandestine operations
and the Bay of Pigs, Bissell frequently met with officials in
the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations to discuss Cuban
test Flon that
operations, and his advice was frequently sought. He did not
tell them that the CIA had undertaken an effort to assassinate
Castro, and did not ask if they favored proceeding with the
* Even assuming that Bissell correctly perceived that Dulles
understood the nature of the operation, it was inexcusable for
Bissell not to have briefed Dulles in plain language. Further,
even if one accepts Bissell's assumption that Dulles told the
Presidents, they would have been told too late, because Bissell
"guessed" they would have been told that the operation "had
been planned and was being attempted".
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-30-
effort. He was present at the meeting with Dulles and Presi-
dent Kennedy at which the new President was briefed on covert
action in Cuba, but neither Dulles nor Bissell mentioned the
assassination operation that was underway.
The failures to make forthright disclosures to policy-
makers continued during the time that Richard Helms was DDP.
Helms' failure to inform McCone about the underworld operation
when it was reactivated under Harvey and poison pills were
sent to Cuba was a grave error in judgment, and Helms' excuses
are unpersuasive. In May of 1962, the Attorney General was
told that the CIA's involvement in an assassination plot had
terminated with the Bay of Pigs. Not only did Edwards, who
had briefed the Attorney General, know that the operation had
not been terminated, but Helms did not inform the Attorney
General that the operation was still active when he learned
that the Attorney General had been misled. Helms did not
inform McCone of the plot until August 1962, and did so then
in a manner which indicated that the plot had been terminated
before McCone became Director. Helms' denial that AM/LASH
had been involved in an assassination attempt in response to
Secretary of State Rusk's inquiries was, as Helms testified,
"not truthful".
When Helms briefed President Johnson on the Castro plots,
he apparently described the activities that had occurred during
prior administrations but did not describe the AM/LASH opera-
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U
tion which had continued until 1965. Helms also failed to
inform the Warren Commission of the plots because the precise
question was not asked. FN
Helms told the Committee that he had never raised the
assassination operation with McCone or Kennedy Administration
officials because he had assumed that the project had been
previously authorized, and that the aggressive character of
the Kennedy Administration's program against the Castro regime
made assassination permissible even in the absence of an
express instruction. He added that he had never been convinced
that the operation would succeed, and that he would have told
McCone about it if he had ever believed that it would "go
anyplace".
Helms' reasons for not having told his superiors about
the assassination effort are unacceptable; indeed, many of them
were reasons why he should have sought express authority.
As Helms himself testified, assassination was of a high order
of sensitivity. Administration policymakers, supported by
intelligence estimates furnished by the Agency, had emphasized
on several occasions that successors to Castro might be worse
than Castro himself. In addition, the Special Group Augmented
required that plans for covert actions against Cuba be sub-
mitted in detail for its approval. Although the Administration
was exerting intense pressure on the CIA to do something about
Castro and the Castro regime, it was a serious error to have
мс
25
CONE DULCOs re ASAS
Cont
диссот
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undertaken so drastic an operation without obtaining full and
equivocal permission.
William Harvey, the officer in charge of the CIA's attempt
using underworld figures to assassinate Castro, testified that ..
he never discussed the plot with McCone or officials of the
Kennedy Administration because he believed that it had been
fully authorized by the previous Director, because he was
uncertain whether it had a chance of succeeding, and because
he believed that it was Helms', not his, duty to inform higher
authorities.
including
Nonetheless, the Committee believes there were occasions
on which it was incumbent on Harvey to have disclosed the
assassination operation. As head of Task Force W, the branch
of the CIA responsible for covert operations in Cuba, Harvey
reported directly to General Lansdale and the Special Group.
Augmented. The Special Group Augmented had made known that
covert operations in Cuba should be first approved by it, both
by explicit instruction and by its practice that particular
operations be submitted in "nauseating detail". Yet Harvey.
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 542
-33-
did not inform either General Lansdale or the Special Group
Augmented of the assassination operation, either when he was
explicitly requested to report to McCone, General Taylor,
and the Special Group on his activities in Miami in April
1962, or when the subject of assassination was raised in the
August 1962 meeting and McCone voiced his disapproval.
The Committee finds that the reasons advanced for not
having informed those responsible for formulating policy
about the assassination operation were inadequate, misleading,
and inconsistent. Some officials viewed assassination as
too important and sensitive to discuss with superiors, while
others considered it not sufficiently important. Harvey
testified that it was premature to tell McCone about the
underworld operation in April 1962, because it was not
sufficiently advanced, but too late to tell him about it in
August 1962, since by that time he had decided to terminate
it. On other occasions, officials thought disclosure was
someone else's responsibility; Bissell said he thought it was
up to Dulles, Harvey believed it was up to Helms, but Helms
remarked that Harvey "kept Phase II pretty much in his back
pocket".
relationship
wpoint
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-34-
The Committee concludes that the failure clearly to
inform policymakers of the assassination effort against
Castro was grossly improper. The Committee believes that
it should be incumbent upon the DDP to report such a
sensitive operation to his superior, the DCI, no matter how
grave his doubts might be about the possible outcome of the
operation. It follows that the DCI has the same duty to
accurately inform his superiors.
Trujillo.
In the Trujillo case there were several instances in
which it appears that policymakers were not given sufficient
information, or were not informed in a timely fashion.
At a meeting on December 29, 1960, Bissell presented a
plan to the Special Group for supporting Dominican exile groups
and local dissidents, and stated that the plan would not bring
down the regime without "some decisive stroke against Trujillo
himself". At a meeting on January 12, 1961, the Special Group
authorized the passage of "limited supplies of small arms and
other material" to Dominican dissidents under certain conditions.
At this time, the fact that the dissidents had been contemplating
the assassination of Trujillo had been known in the State Department
at the level of the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs, and by senior officials of the CIA, including the DCI.
Yet the memorandum supplied to Under Secretary Merchant, which
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SECRE
-35-
was said to have been the basis upon which the Special Group
agreed to the "limited supply" of small arms, did not mention
assassination.
To the contrary, it spoke of "sabotage potential"
and stated that there "would be no thought of toppling the
[government] by any such minor measure [as the supplying of
small arms]."
On February 17, 1961, Richard Bissell sent a memorandum
on the Dominican Republic to McGeorge Bundy. Bissell knew
that the dissidents planned to assassinate Trujillo, but his
memorandum did not mention assassination. It indicated that
the dissidents' "plan of action" included arms for 300 men.
Those involved agreed that support of this nature suggested a
non-targeted paramilitary plan, not an assassination.
The passage of the carbines was approved by CIA head-
quarters on March 31, 1961. The State Department was apparently
unaware of this passage for several weeks. The pouching of the
machine guns was not disclosed outside the CIA.
The State Department official from whom the CIA sought
permission to pass the machine guns stated that on "cross
examination" the CIA official conceded that the purpose was
assassination. The CIA official then agreed the United States
should have nothing to do with assassination plots "anywhere,
anytime", even though the previous day he and Bissell had signed
a draft cable permitting the passage of the machine guns for
use in connection with a planned assassination.
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Schneider
The issue here is not whether the objectives of the CIA were
contrary to those of the Administration. It is clear that Presi-
dent Nixon desired to prevent Allende from assuming office, even
if that required fomenting and supporting a coup in Chile.
Nor
did White House officials suggest that tactics employed (includ-
ing as a first step to kidnapping General Schneider) would have
been unacceptable as a matter principle. Rather, the issue posed
is whether White House officials were consulted, and thus given
an opportunity to weigh such matters as risk and likelihood of suc-
cess, and to apply policy-making judgments to particular tactics.
The record indicates that up to October 15 they were; after Octo-
ber 15 there is some doubt.
The documentary record with respect to the disputed post-
October 15 period gives rise to conflicting inferences. On the one
hand, Karamessines' calendar shows existence of at least one White
House contact in the critical period prior to the kidnapping of
General Schneider on October 22. However, the absence of any sub-
stantive memoranda in CIA files--when contrasted with several such
memoranda describing contacts with the White House between Septem-
ber 15 and October 15--may suggest a lack of significant communi-
cation on the part of the CIA as well as a lack of careful super-
vision on the part of the White House.
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-37-
The standards applied within the CIA itself suggest a
view that action which the Committee believes called for
top-level policy discussion and decision was thought of as
permissible, without any further consultation, on the basis
of the initial instruction to prevent Allende from assuming
power. Machine guns were sent to Chile and delivered to
military figures there on the authority of junior CIA officers
without consultation even with the CIA officer in charge of
the program.
We find no suggestion of bad faith in the action.
of the junior officers.
But it necessarily establishes that
there was no advance permission from outside the CIA for the
passage of machine guns. And it also suggests an attitude
within the CIA toward consultation which was unduly lax.
Further, this case demonstrated the problems inherent in giving
an agency a "blank check" to engage in covert operations
without specifying which actions are and are not permissible,
and without adequately supervising and monitoring these
activities once begun.
(b) On Occasion, Administration Officials Gave Vague
Instructions to Subordinates and Failed to Make Sufficiently
Clear That Assassination Should Be Excluded From Consideration.
While we cannot find that high Administration officials
expressly approved of the assassination attempts, we have
noted that certain agency officials nevertheless perceived
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Maybe
Vile
assassination to have been authorized. Although those officials
were remiss in not seeking express authorization for their
activities, their superiors were also at fault for giving
vague instructions and for not explicitly ruling out assassina-
tion. No written order prohibiting assassination was issued
until 1972, and that order was an internal CIA directive issued
by Director Helms.
Schneider
As explained above, there is no evidence that assassina-
tion was ever proposed as a method of carrying out the Presi-
dential order to prevent Allende from assuming office. The
Committee believes, however, that the granting of carte
blanche authority to the CIA by the Executive in this case
may have contributed to the tragic and unintended death of
General Schneider. This was also partially due to impositing
an impractical task to be accomplished within an unreasonably
short time. Apart from the question of whether any inter-
vention was justified under the circumstances of this case,
the committee believes that the Executive in any event should
have defined the limits of permissible action.
didać
on t
Lumumba
We are unable to make a finding that President
Eisenhower intentionally authorized an assassination
effort against Lumumba because of the lack of absolute
certainty in the evidence. However, it appears that the
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strong language used in discussions at the Special Group and
NSC, as reflected in minutes of relevant meetings,
led Dulles to believe that assassination was desired. The
minutes contain language concerning the need to "dispose of"
Lumumba, an "extremely strong feeling about the necessity
for straight forward action", and a refusal to rule out any
activity that might contribute to "getting rid of" Lumumba.
Castro
The effort to assassinate Fidel Castro took place in an
atmosphere of extreme pressure by Eisenhower and Kennedy
Administration officials to discredit and overthrow the Castro
regime. Richard Helms recalled that:
"I remember vividly [that the pressure] was very
intense. And therefore, when you go into the record,
you find a lot of nutty schemes there and those nutty
schemes were borne of the intensity of the pressure.
And we were quite frustrated."
Bissell recalled that:
"During that entire period, the administration was
extremely sensitive about the defeat that had been
afflicted, as they felt, on the U.S. at the Bay of
Pigs, and were pursuing every possible means of (
getting rid of Castro.
"
Another witness, Samuel Halpern, stated that sometime in
the Fall of 1961 Bissell was
"chewed out in the Cabinet Room in the White House by
both the President and the Attorney General for, as he
put it, sitting on his ass and not doing anything about
getting rid of Castro and the Castro Regime.
"
General Lansdale informed the agencies cooperating in Operation
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-40-
Mongoose that "you're in a combat situation where we have
been given full command".
Secretary of Defense McNamara
confirmed that "we were hysterical about Castro at the time
of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter".
Many of the plans that were discussed and often approved
contemplated violent action against Cuba. The operation
which resulted in the Bay of Pigs was a major paramilitary
onslaught that had the approval of the highest government
officials, including the two Presidents. Thereafter, Attorney
General Kennedy vehemently exhorted the Special Group Aug-
mented that "a solution to the Cuban problem today carried
top priority
no time, money, effort--or manpower is
to be spared. Subsequently, Operation Mongoose involved
propaganda and sabotage operations aimed toward spurring a
revolt of the Cuban people against Castro. Measures that
were considered by the top policymakers included incapacita-
ting sugar workers during harvest season by the use of
chemicals; blowing up bridges and production plants; sabotaging
merchandise in third countries--even those allied with
the United States--prior to its delivery to Cuba; and arming
insurgents on the island. Programs undertaken at the urging
* The Attorney General himself took a personal interest
in the recruitment and development of assets within Cuba,
on occasion recommending Cubans to the CIA as possible recruits
and meeting in Washington and Florida with Cuban exiles
active in the covert war against the Castro government.
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-41-
of the Administration included intensive efforts to recruit
and arm dissidents within Cuba and raids on plants, mines,
and harbors.
Discussions at the Special Group and NSC meetings might
well have contributed to the perception of some CIA officials
that assassination was a permissible tool in the effort to
overthrow the Castro regime. At a Special Group meeting in
November 1960, Under Secretary Merchant inquired whether
any planning had been undertaken for "direct, positive action"
against Che Guevarra, Raul and Fidel Castro. Cabell replied
that such a capability did not exist, but might well have
left the meeting with the impression that assassination was
not out of bounds. One phase of Lansdale's plans, which
was submitted to the Special Group in January 1962, aimed
at inducing "open revolt and overthrow of the Communist
regime", and included in the final phase an "attack on the
cadre of the regime, including key leaders". The proposal
stated that "this should be a 'Special Target" operation .
Gangster elements might provide the best recruitment potential
against police. . ." Several minutes from Special Group
meetings contain language such as "possible removal of
Castro from the Cuban scene". Although Lansdale's proposal
was shelved, the type of aggressive action contemplated was
not ruled out.
On several occasions, the subject of assassination was
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-42-
discussed in the presence of senior Administration officials.
While those officials never consented to actual assassina-
tion efforts, they also failed to indicate that assassination
was impermissible as a matter of principle.
did they believe
In early 1961, McGeorge Bundy was informed of a CIA
project described as the development of a capability to
assassinate.* Bundy raised no objection and, according to
Bissell, may have been more affirmative. Although Bissell
stated that he did not infer authorization from Bundy's
remarks for the underworld plot against Castro that was then
underway, the fact that he believed that the development
of an assassination capability had been approved by the White
House (which he subsequently told to Harvey) may well have
contributed to the general perception that assassination was
not prohibited.
Documents indicate that in May 1962, Attorney General
Kennedy was told that the CIA had sought to assassinate
Castro prior to the Bay of Pigs. According to the CIA
officials present at the briefing, the Attorney General
17
*Bundy, who was National Security Advisor to the President,
had an obligation to tell the President of such a grave
matter, even though it was only a discussion of a capability
to assassinate. His failure to do so was a serious error.
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-43-
indicated his displeasure about the lack of consultation
on the impropriety of the attempt itself.* There is no
evidence that the Attorney General told the CIA that it must
not engage in assassination plots.
At a meeting of the Special Group Augmented in August
1962, well after the assassination efforts were underway,
Robert McNamara is said to have raised the question of
whether the assassination of Cuban leaders should be explored,
and General Lansdale issued an action memorandum assigning
the CIA the task of preparing contingency plans for the
assassination of Cuban leaders. While McCone testified
that he had immediately made it clear that assassination
was not to be discussed or condoned, Harvey's testimony
and documents which he wrote after the event indicate that
Harvey may have been confused over whether McCone had
objected to the use of assassination, or whether he was only
concerned that the subject not be put in writing.
In any
* Documents show that the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy,
learned in May of 1961 that the CIA had used underworld'
figures in an operation against Cuba. The documentary record
further reflects that the Attorney General was not told that
the operation had involved assassination efforts until May
of 1962, and that the operation was then described to him
as having been terminated in May 1961. There is no evidence
that the Attorney General suspected the true nature of the
operation until that briefing, or that he learned that it
had not in fact been terminated. While it is curious that
the Attorney General would not have inquired further into
the nature of the operation when he discovered that Sam
Giancana had been involved in it, there is no evidence that
he did..
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 553
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event, McCone went no further. He issued no general order
banning consideration of assassination within the Agency.
One of the programs forwarded to General Lansdale by
the Defense Department in the Mongoose program was entitled
"Operation Bounty" and envisioned dropping leaflets in Cuba
offering rewards for the assassination of Government leaders.
Although the plan was vetoed by Lansdale, it indicates that
persons in agencies other than the CIA perceived that assas-
sination might be permissible.
While the ambivalence of Administration officials does
not excuse the misleading conduct by Agency officials or
justify their failure to seek explicit permission, it dis-
played an insufficient concern about assassination which
may have contributed to the perception that assassination
was an acceptable tactic in accomplishing the Government's
general objectives.
Proconcre
limitation
With the exception of the tight guidelines issued by
the Special Group Augmented concerning Operation Mongoose,
precise Timitations were never imposed on the CIA requiring
prior permission for the details of other proposed covert
operations against Cuba. No general policy banning assas-
sination was promulgated until Helms' intra-agency order
in 1972. In light of the number of times in which the
subject of assassination arose, Administration officials
were remiss in not explicitly forbidding such activity.
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*
-45-
The Committee notes that many of the occasions on
which CIA officials should have informed their superiors
of the assassination efforts but failed to do so, or did
so in a misleading manner, were also occasions on which
Administration officials paradoxically may have reinforced
the perception that assassination was permissible.
For example, when Bissell spoke with Bundy about an
executive action capability, Bissell failed to indicate that
an actual assassination operation was underway, but Bundy
failed to rule out assassination as a tactic.
In May of 1962 the Attorney General was misleadingly told
about the effort to assassinate Castro prior to the Bay of Pigs,
but not about the operation that was then going on. The Attorney
General, however, did not state that assassination was improper.
When a senior administration official raised the question
of whether assassination should be explored at a Special Group
meeting, the assassination operation should have been revealed,
but a firm written order against engaging in assassination should
also have been issued by McCone if, as he testified, he had ex-
hibited strong aversion to assassination.
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-46-
6. Practices Current at the Time in Which the Assas-
sination Plots Occurred Were Revealed by the Record to
Create the Risk of Confusion, Rashness, and Irresponsibility
in the Very Areas Where Clarity and Sober Judgment Was
Most Necessary.
Various witnesses described elements of the system
within which the assassination plots were conceived. The
Committee is disturbed by the custom that permitted the
most sensitive matters to be presented to the highest levels
of Government with the least clarity. We find this dis-
turbing, and view the following concepts as particularly
dangerous:
(1) The extension of the doctrine of "plausible denial"
beyond its intended purpose of hiding the involvement of
the United States from other countries to an effort to.
shield higher officials from knowledge, and hence, responsi-
bility for certain operations.
.. (2)
The use of circumlocution or euphemism to describe
serious matters--such as assassination--when precise meanings
ought to be made clear.
(3) The theory that general approval of broad covert
action programs is sufficient to justify specific actions
such as assassination or the passage of weapons.
Бит
Crucin,
concept
NW 50955 DocId: 32423539 Page 556
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-47-
(4) The theory that authority granted, or assumed to
be granted, by one director or one administration could be
presumed to continue without the necessity for reaffirming
the authority with successor officials.
(5) The creation of capabilities without careful
review and authorization by policymakers, and the risk that
such capabilities might be used without further authoriza-
tion.
(a)
The Danger Inherent in Overextending the Doctrine
of Plausible Denial
The original concept of plausible denial envisioned
implementing covert actions in a manner calculated to conceal
American involvement if the actions were exposed. The
doctrine was at times a delusion and at times a snare. It
was naive for policymakers to assume that sponsorship of
actions as big as the Bay of Pigs invasion could be concealed.
The Committee's inquiry into assassination and the public
disclosures which preceded it demonstrate that when the
United States resorted to cloak and dagger tactics, its hand
was ultimately exposed. In addition, the likelihood of
reckless action is substantially increased when policymakers
believe that their decisions will never be revealed.
Whatever can be said in defense of the original pur-
pose of plausible denial--a purpose which intends to conceal
U.S. involvement from the outside world--the extension of
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the doctrine to the internal decision-making process of
the Government is absurd. Any theory which, as a matter
of doctrine, places elected officials on the periphery of
the decision-making process is an invitation to error, an
abdication of responsibility, and a perversion of democratic
government.
(b) The Dangers of Using "Circumlocution" and
"Euphemism"
doesn't
местванц
According to Richard Bissell, the extension of plausible
denial to internal decisionmaking required the use of cir-
cumlocution and euphemism in speaking with Presidents and
other senior officials.
Explaining this concept only heightens its absurdity.
On the one hand, it assumes that senior officials should be
shielded from the truth to enable them to deny knowledge if
the truth comes out. On the other hand, the concept assumes
that senior officials must be told enough, by way of double
talk, to grasp the subject. As a consequence, the theory
fails to accomplish its objective and only increases the
risk of misunderstanding.
Subordinate officials should des-
cribe their proposals in clear, precise, and brutally frank
language; busy superiors are entitled to and should demand
no less.
Euphemism may actually have been preferred--not because
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of plausible denial--but because the persons involved
could not bring themselves to state in plain language what
they intended to do and may have, in some instances, assumed,
rightly or wrongly, that the listening superiors did not
want the issue squarely placed before them.
or hear.
Assassinate,
murder and kill are words many people do not want to speak
They describe acts which should not even be pro-
posed, let alone plotted. Failing to call dirty business
by its rightful name may have increased the risk of dirty
business being done.
(c). The Danger of Generalized Instructions.
Permitting specific acts to be taken on the basis of
general approvals of broad strategies (e.g., keep Allende
from assuming office, get rid of the Castro regime) blurs
responsibility and accountability. Worse still, it increases
the danger that subordinates may take steps which would
have been disapproved if the policymakers had been informed.
A further danger is that policymakers might intentionally
use loose general instructions to evade responsibility for
embarrassing activities.
In either event, we find that the gap between the
general policy objectives and the specific actions under-
taken to achieve them was far too wide.
It is important that policymakers review the manner in
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-50-
which their directives are implemented, particularly when
the activities are sensitive, secret, and immune from
public scrutiny.
(d) The Danger of "Floating Authorization"
One justification advanced by Richard Helms and William
Harvey for not informing John McCone about the use of under-
world figures to assassinate Fidel Castro was their assertion
that the project had already been approved by McCone's
predecessor, Allen Dulles, and that further authorization was
unnecessary, at least until the operation had reached a more
advanced stage.
Similarly, most of the actions taken in the Trujillo
case during the early months of the Kennedy Administration
were authorized by the Special Group on January 12, 1961,
at the end of the Eisenhower Administration..
The idea that authority might continue from one adminis-
tration or director to the next and that there is no duty
to reaffirm authority with successors inhibits responsible
decisionmaking. Circumstances may change or judgments differ.
New officials should be given the opportunity to review
significant programs.
(e) The Problems Connected with Creating New Covert
Capabilities
The development of a new capability raises numerous
problems. Having a capability to engage in certain covert
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activity increases the probability that it will occur,
since the capability represents a tool that is available
for use.
There is the further danger that authorizing a
capability may be misunderstood as authorizing its use
without need for obtaining explicit authorization.
Of course, an assassination capability should never
have been created in the first place.
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V.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Approved by
Drafting
Subcommittee
10/8/75
(with possible reservation
as to language of statute)
During our long investigation of assassination, a number of vital issues
came into sharp focus.
Above all, stood the question of assassination. Our recommendations on
other issues should await the completion of our continuing investigations and
our final report. But we need no more information to convince us that a flat
ban against assassination should be written into law.
:
We condemn assassination and reject it as an instrument of American
policy. Surprisingly, at present there is no statute making it a crime to assas-
sinate a foreign official outside the United States. Hence, for the reasons
set forth below, the Committee recommends the prompt enactment of a statute mak-
ing it a Federal crime to commit or attempt an assassination, or to conspire to
do so.
A. General agreement that the United States must not engage in assassina-
tion. Our view that assassination has no place in America's arsenal is shared by
the Administration.
President Ford, in the same statement in which he asked this Committee to
deal with the assassination issue, stated:
I am opposed to political assassination. This administration
has not and will not use such means as instruments of national
policy. Presidential Press Conference, June 9, 1975, Weekly
Compilation of Presidential Documents, Vol. II, No. 24, p. 611.
The witnesses we examined uniformly condemned assassination.
They denounced
it as immoral, described it as impractical, and reminded us that an open society,
most of all, runs the risk of the assassination of its own leaders. As President
Kennedy was reported to have said: "we can't get into that kind of thing, or we
would all be targets." (Goodwin
7/18/75, p. 4)
The current CIA Director and his two predecessors testified emphatically
that assassination should be banned.
Thus, Colby said:
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I
With respect to assassination, my position is clear.
just think it is wrong. And I have said so and made it
very clear to my subordinates.
(5/21/75, p. 89)
Colby's predecessor, Helms, although himself involved in an earlier plot,
said he had concluded assassination should be ruled out for both moral and
practical reasons:
As a result of my experiences through the years, when I be-
came Director I had made up my mind that this option...of
killing foreign leaders, was something that I did not want
to happen. on my watch. My reasons for this were these:
There are not only moral reasons but there are also
some other rather practical reasons.
It is almost impossible in a democracy to keep any-
thing like that secret.... Somebody would go to a Con-
gressman, his Senator, he might go to a newspaper man, what-
ever the case may be, but it just is not a practical alterna-
tive, it seems to me, in our society.
Then there is another consideration...if you are going
to try by this kind of means to remove a foreign leader,
then who is going to take his place running that country,
and are you essentially better off as a matter of practice
when it is over than you were before? And I can give you I
think a very solid example of this which happened in Vietnam
when President Diem was eliminated from the scene. We then
had a revolving door of prime ministers after that for quite
some period of tiem, during which the Vietnamese Government
at a time in its history when it should have been strong was
nothing but a caretaker government.... In other
words, that whole exercise turned out to the disadvantage of
the United States.
there is no sense in my sitting here with all the ex-
perience I have had and not sharing with the Committee my
feelings this day. It isn't because I have lost my cool,
or because I have lost my guts, it simply is because I don't
think it is a viable option in the United States of America these
days.
I:
Chairman Church. Doesn't it also follow, Mr. Helms
agree with
what you have said fully but doesn't it
also follow on the practical side, apart from the moral side,
that since these secrets are bound to come out, when they do,
they do very grave political damage to the United States in
the world at large? I don't know to what extent the Russians
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involved themselves in political assassinations, but under
their system they at least have a better prospect of keep-
ing it concealed. Since we do like a free society and
since these secrets are going to come out in due course, the
revelation will then do serious injury to the good name and
reputation of the United States.
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Helms. Yes, I would.
The Chairman. And finally, if we were to reserve to our
selves the prerogative to assassinate foreign leaders, we may in-.
vite reciprocal action from foreign governments who assume
that if it's our prerogative to do so, it is their prero-
gative as well, and that is another danger that we at least
invite with this kind of action, wouldn't you agree?
Mr. Helms. Yes, sir.
(6/13/75, pp. 76-78)
Similarly, John McCone said he was opposed to assassinations
because:
B.
I didn't think it was proper from the standpoint of the U.S.
Government and the Central Intelligence Agency. (6/6/75, p. 15)
CIA Directives Banning Assassination. In 1972 and 1973, Helms and
then Colby issued internal CIA orders banning assassination.
In his order, Helms
said:
It has recently again been alleged in the press that CIA
engages in assassination. As you are well aware, this is not
the case, and Agency policy has long been clear on this issue.
To underline it, however, I direct that no such activity or
operation be undertaken, assisted or suggested by any of our.
personnel.... (Memorandum, Helms to Deputy Directors, 3/6/72)
Colby, in one of a series of orders in August 1973 arising out of the Agency's
own review of prior "questionable activity," issued an order which stated:
CIA will not engage in assassination nor induce, assist or
suggest to others that assassination be employed. (Memorandum, Colby
to Deputy Directors, 8/29/73)
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c. The need for a statute.
Commendable and welcome as they are, these
Administrations change, CIA directors change,
CIA directives are not sufficient.
3
and someday in the future what was tried in the past may once again become a tempt-
ation.
:
Assassination plots did happen. It would be irresponsible for us not to do
all that we can do to prevent their happening again. Laws express our society's
values; they deter those who might be tempted and stiffen the will of those who
want to resist.
The statute we recommend, which is printed as an appendix to this report,
makes it a criminal offense for persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United
States 1) to conspire, within or outside the United States, to assassinate a
foreign official; 2) to attempt to assassinate a foreign official, or 3) to assas-
sinate a foreign official.
Present law makes it a crime to kill, or to conspire to kill, a foreign
official or foreign official guest while such a person is in the United States.
18 U.S.C. 1116; 18 U.S.C. 1117. However, there is no law which makes it a crime
to assassinate, or to conspire or attempt to assassinate, a foreign official
while such official is outside the United States. Our proposed statute is thus
designed to close this gap in the law.
Subsection (a) of the proposed statute would punish conspiracies formed
within the United States; subsection (b) punishes conspiracies outside of the
United States. Subsection (b) is necessary to eliminate the loophole which would
otherwise permit persons to simply leave the United States and conspire abroad.
Subsections (c) and (d), respectively, make it an offense to attempt to kill or
to kill a foreign official outside the United States.
Subsections (a) through (d) specifically apply to any "officer or employee
of the United States" to make clear that the statute punishes conduct by U.S.
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- 5-
government personnel, as well as conduct by private citizens having no relation
to the U.S. government. In addition, subsection (a), dealing with conspiracies
within the United States, applies to "any other person," whether or not a United
States citizen. Noncitizens who conspire within the United States to assassi-
nate a foreign official clearly come within the jurisdiction of U.S. law. Sub-
sections (b) through (d), which deal with conduct outside the United States, apply
to U.S. citizens, and to officers or employees of the United States, whether or
not they are citizens. Criminal liability for conduct outside the United States
of persons who are not U.S. citizens or who do not hold a position as a officer
or employee of the United States are matters for the law of the place where such
conduct takes place.
The term "foreign official" is defined in subjection (d) (2). The defini-
tion makes it clear that the offense may be committed even though the official
belongs to an insurgent force, an unrecognized government, or a non-governmental
political party. Our investigation as well as the reality of international
politics
H
has shown that officials in such organizations are potential targets
for assassination. */
Thus,
The offenses are limited to conduct aimed at such persons because of their
official duties or status, or their political views, actions, or statements.
for example, a conspiracy to kill or the killing of a foreign official, which is
not politically motivated would not be punishable under this statute.
The definition of official in section (d) (2) also provides that such per-
son must be an official of a foreign government or movement "with which the
United States is not at war or against which the United States Armed Forces have
*/For example, Lumumba was not an official of the Congolese government at the
time of the plots against his life, and Trujillo, though the dictator, held no
official governmental position in the latter period of his regime.
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not been introduced into hostilities or situations pursuant to the provisions of
the War Powers Resolution." This definition makes it clear that, absent a decla-
ration of war or the introduction of United States Armed Forces pursuant to the
War Powers Resolution, the killing of foreign officials is a criminal offense.
insert discussion of paramilitary aspect/
*****
In the course of our hearings, some witnesses, while strongly condemning
assassination, asked whether, as a matter of theory, assassination should absolutely
be ruled out in a time of truly unusual national emergency. Adolf Hitler was
cited as an example.
of that character. */
Of course, the cases with which we were concerned were not
In a grave emergency, the President has a limited power to
act, not in violation of the law, but in accord with his own responsibilities
under the Constitution to defend the Nation. As the Supreme Court has declared, the
Constitution "is not a suicide pact." Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144,
160 (1963).
Abraham Lincoln, in an unprecedented emergency, claimed unprecedented
power based on the need to preserve the nation:
.my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of
my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by
every indispensable means, that government that
nation. of which that Constitution was the organic law.
Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the
Constitution? By general law life and limb must be pro-
tected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life;
but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt
that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become
lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of
the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation
The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. X,
pp. 65-66 (Nicolay and Hay, Eds. 1894).
*/Indeed, in the only situation of true national crisis the Cuban missile
assassination was not even considered.
crisis
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Of course, whatever the extent of the President's own constitutional
powers, it is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system that these
powers are checked and limited by the Congress, including the Congress' power
of impeachment. As a necessary corollary, any action taken by a President pur-
suant to his limited inherent powers and in apparent conflict with the law
must be disclosed to the Congress. Only then may the Congress judge whether the ac-
tion truly represented, in Lincoln's phrase, an "indispensable necessity" to
the life of the Nation.
As Lincoln explained in submitting his extraordinary actions to the Congress
"In full view of his great responsibility he has, so far,
for ratification:
done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own judgment,
(Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4,
perform yours."
1861).
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EPILOGUE
Approved by Drafting
Subcommittee on 9/9/75
We do not believe that the acts which we have examined represent the
real American character. They do not reflect the ideals which have given.
the people of this country and of the world hope for a better, fuller,
fairer life. We regard the assassination plots as aberrations.
as ends.
We must not adopt the tactics of the enemy. Means are as important
Crisis makes it tempting to ignore the wise restraints that make
men free.
But each time we do so, each time the means we use are wrong,
our inner strength, the strength which makes us free, is lessened.
Despite our distaste for what we have seen, we have great faith in
The story is sad, but this country has the strength to hear
it and to learn from it. We must remain a people who confront our mistakes
and resolve not to repeat them. If we do not, we will decline; but, if we
do, our future will be worthy of the best of our past.
this country.
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