220 | Tun KEnnepy ADMINISTRATION tons against them, They said they would be prepared to form with the oT Grates 2 & speciu grouping outside te OAS to deal with Castro, This oy the United States nor the larger nations of Latin America wanted, Viet yey STEUon, supported bv 2 call from President Kennedy to President “eras es Camargo of. Colombia » Vieided the dare two-thirds vote to oxciude - weed romviie OAS aius a rescit tion adopted unanimons! 'V (excepting Cuba) ing Cub nS the doctrine of incon patibility and exciuding Cuba from the nerican Defense Board. “Was On these two resolutions that Rusk and the foreion ministers con- 4.ild te! amidst the apparently shapeless swirl of a Aemispher! c EDlomatic ' “Meonw! ie, IN a committee room inhabited by lesser ofici als, further “oo Sons af same consequence were hammered out to Cea! more direct'y wee threat posed by Cuba. These included the creati on of a Snecial . i ‘ative Comnvttee of Experts on Security Matters to monitor and sug- oO combat Cuban subversion: to sy ispend arms ‘ra% Ic to Cuba; ay “eee pessidle extension of a trace emoargo against Cuba. This “¥ primary arena of activity, Fotowing upon the work 2 had done in u Sit Consenersorea'ser-of- propos itione: oe SoniG-sunpivegr Jeger emis MN bal * ao! age we negotiated with our colleagues in the basic security ton ine “ded the following: To urge the member states to take those steps that they may Cer appropriate for their idividua’ and eo! Nective self-defense, ‘© Cooperate, as may be necessary or Cesirabie, to strenethen their Topacity to counteract threat S OF acts af ageression, oversion, or “danger rs fO peace and security rec! ing fram the ce: utinued inter- in this herisph ere eof Sino _Souint rowers, in accardance with rations estahlis in treaties ang agreements such as the ot of the Crean: zation of Americ:n States and the Inter. kas can Treaty of Reeinroce! Assistance, Asda fran onuneiatin welt nera! hemisp! Aeric doctrine, that resolution ations cowd werk inc ' idually or in collective groups > cetend th vmselves against communist se SCTE rat they wanted; and OAS nations romeeiea'y committed to action Which Vor mes 1 nent. This resolution was later- ine Sis and was the bacKe: ron to the Amer AS. nmierventiqe Tay et TD Damininan 7 Cube nics The Bay of Pigs and Latin American Policy - 227 Everyone went home rea isonably wel! satisfied. What made the exercise work was the reauty, beneath the surface of many tensions and Cifferences, of an ultimate loyalty to the Inte: -Amcrican system. No one could dictate the outcome, which, indeed, had to be created en the spot. On the other han ress Gay there was also a sense that all the various attiiedes in dlay had to be recen-. cited, in one way or another, Rusk was the first American secretary of state who entered with denth, sensibility, and respect into the human emotions-and politics that sha rped Latin American dip! omacy. He treated his Latin Americ can colleagues pre- cisciv as he did his E suropean coileagues: as mature men, working out of dificult domestic settings, trying to make some order, trying to build islands of security and progress in a dangerous world. In his dealings with Latin Americans or those from other Cevelop: ng regions, he whoily lacked the impticit condescension of the Atlanticist view. He took them all as fellow members of the trade union of foreign : rinisters S; and this was a great strength at Punta del Este, , Kennedy was pleased with the result, which reconciled his objective of ’ J 1 getting effective collective action without either splitting the OAS or putting tae OC ited States at crosspurposes with the Latin Ameri ican countries which , found anti-Castro measures an additiona! Surcen on their domestic political hfe, a did ask, somewhat wistf ys Whv We had not generated .a better press: renorting of the conference had generally portrayed the effort as essen- raily an American arm-twist! ing exercise rather than as an effort to reconcile the interest s cf Caribbean and non-Caribbean states within the OAS. Kennedy was determined to avoid in his time “another Cuba” in the hemisphere. And he quietly set in motion contingency thought on how the United States mi ight move, if passible with Others, to prevent it. The.second Punta del Este meeting provided a political and | i¢ga! basis for such a course; although it did not determine what could and would be done in particular circumstances, ; Tt was the outcome of the Cuba missile crisis which lifted, for a time, the weight of communist pressure on Latin America: but that crisis arose not out ‘of the political ¢ ynamices afa deveioning region but from the other cimen- sion of the post-Sputnik offensive: nuclear blackn rail and the point at which Khrushchev had chosen to test ts eMeacv—Berlin. 32423469 Page 13. DoclId HW 55355
TO: FILES FROM: FREDERICK BARON RE: WALT ROSTOW/ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION--RE. ASSASSINATION ALLEGATIONS DATE : JULY 6, 1975 | WALT ROSTOW: TESTIMONY BEFORE ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION (Volume 16, Page 169, May 5, 1975) Biographical Background: 1942-1945, ROSTOW was in OSS, Research Analysis Branch. (169). 1946, State Department, German-Austrian Section \ 1947, Teaching at Oxford 1949-51, Special Assistant to the Executive Secretary, Economic Commission for Europe, Geneva 1951-61, MIT, Teaching faculty; consultant to Eisenhower Administration December 1961, State Department, Head of Policy Planning Council 1964, Appointed ‘by LBJ as U.S. member, Inter-American Committee for the Alliance for Progress : April 1, 1966 -~ January 20, 1969: Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (in this position ROSTOW chaired. the 303 Committee) “January, 1961: DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS ROSTOW testified that he was not involved in the 303 Committee and CIA operation in his position as Deputy Assistant to President Kennedy. (171) ROSTOW explained the division of labor between himself and BUNDY: BUNDY handled "intelligence matters, but also the crises in Berlin, the Congo, Cuba. . . . I was assigned Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, kind of oversight of new approaches to foreign aid and-planning."” (171) [Note: it is unclear from the testimony whether ROSTOW continued to handle the same responsibilities after he moved in December of 1961 to the State Department. ] WW 55355 With regard to allegations of CIA plans to assassinate foreign leaders including CASTRO, TRUJILLO, OR LUMUMBA, ROSTOW testified that he had no knowledge at the time or “subsequently of any such conduct nor did he ever hear a discussion of that kind of operation while he was in Government. (172) April 1961: After the failure of the Bay of Pigs, ROSTOW attended his first meeting on Cuba and aided in the "post Bay of Pigs cleanup matters." (173) Docld: 324273489 Page 14
AW 35355 . oo” ' January-February 1961: ROSTOW testifies that he had never heard the phrase "FPXECUTIVE ACTION CAPABILITY" until it was mentioned on the phone to him b David Belin. (17h) _ROSTOW recalls hearing President Johnson make vague references to assassina- tion type activities that the CIA may have been carrying on in Latin America. ROSTOW said that "two or three times in my hearing" LBJ mentioned that “without. hard evidence he had a feeling that the assassination of President Kennedy might have been carried out at the instigation of Castro” and that there might have been attempted assassinations "in which the United States might have been involved". (174-5) -ROSTOW said, "the statements included, as I recall it, on all occasions, perhaps three occasions when I heard him make it, a disclaimer of having any hard evidence and I didn't think it was my business to probe him on this matter." (175) ROSTOW said that the most complete statement to this effect. was made when LBJ was taping a CBS show. (175) ROSTOW testified that LBJ discussed the assassination of JFK,.he displayed a very clear impulse that he had which was to leave behind him a sense of reservation about the possible connection of Oswald to Cuba and possibly U.S. action." (176) ROSTOW explained that this referred to U.S. action against CUBA. (176) ROSTOW commented generally that "the only rule that I think livable with the international community is that . . . governments not engage in efforts to. assassinate the heads of other governments." (177). ROSTOW said that "one exception that I know of in modern history which I,regard as legitimate was the engagement of our people in the plan to assassinate Hitler." (177) ROSTOW said that if the "end product of our giving arms to certain men would be the assassination of Trujillo . . . I think we shouldn't have engaged in it." (177) TRUJILLO: ROSTOW said that "the generalized flow of intelligence at that time involved reports of plots to assassinate Trujillo . . . like once every _ week. And why we had to give guns to people who had access to guns in the Dominican military, I don't know. And I can't reconstruct the operation that has been described to you." (178) ROSTOW testified that "I don't believe the United States should engage in the business of political assassination." (178-9) "What we can do is to be scrupulous in not getting the United States involved in anything which measurably increases the possibility of killing a chief of state. Now, how you draw a line in implementing that policy depends on very detailed judgments at the time and in context." (179-180) “ROSTOW testified that when he took over as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (1966), which put him in control of the 303 Committee, he instituted "a procedure of reexamining the whole body of covert operations that were then in motion." (181) "Out of my experience I don't Docld:324273469 Page 15
HW 55355 _ ROSTOW said that President Kennedy in 1961 recall an occasion when we had to review an action which night ‘lead to an assassination." (182) » sent a special letter to all ambassadors making them the head of the CIA country team in their country. _ (183) ROSTOW said "I don't believe we ever cleared a CIA operation which. the ambassador did not approve." (184) . ROSTOW said that under the mandate that the President gave to ambassadors in 1961, an ambassador was "to be in effect the President's man on the spot, and he had the power to appeal to the Secretary of State and indeed, to the President, if he felt that any member of his country's team, from whatever agency .. . was operating in ways that were contrary to his judg- ment of what appropriate action was within the President's policy in that country." (184) -- Note: Does this cast new light on the actions of the ambassador in the Dominican Republic in requesting arms? DoclId: 32423489 ‘Page 16