Classification: Secret (This form is to be used for material extracted from ClA-——controlled documents.) -88a- *Tn response to Langosch's sworn statements, this Committee has received from the CIA an affidavit executed by Kent L. Pollock (CIA pseudonym) who "served as Executive Officer for Desmond FitzGerald during the entire period in which he was Chief of the Special Affairs Staff...and discussed with him the AMLASH operation as it progressed." (CIA Doc., Affidavit of Kent L. Pollock, - executed Oct. 5, 1978, p. 1)¥ Mr. Pollock specifically contested Langosch's assertion that the AMLASH operation was characterized by the Special Affairs Staff, Desmond FitzGerald, and other senior level CIA officials as an assassination operation. In pertinent part, Pollock drew the following conclusions: To the best of my knowledge, Mr. FitzGerald considered the AMLASH operation to be a political action activity with the objective of organizing a group within Cuba to overthrow Castro and the Castro regime by means of a coup d'etat. I heard Mr. FitzGerald discuss the AMLASH operation frequently, and never heard him characterize it as an "“assassi ion operation." Mr. FitzGerald stated within my hearing on several occasions his awareness that coup d'etat often involves loss of life. (Ibid., par. 3, p. 2) He also stated: Desmond FitzGerald did not characterize the AMLASH operation as an "“assassi ion operation"; the case officer did not; I, as Executive Officer, never discussed any aspect of the AMLASH’ operation with Joseph H. Langosch; the Deputy Chief, the. other branch chiefs and the special assistants could not have so characterized it since they did not know about the pen (the pen was specially fitted with a hypodermic, syringe in response to urgings by AMLASH for a means to start the coup by killing Castro. The case officer offered the pen to AMLASH on the day of President Kennedy's death. AMLASH rejected the pen with disdain. /Ibid., par. 4, p. 2/), (Ibid., par. 6, p. 3) ~ Classification: __sé¢ret O0Gi15 | Classified by derivation: C. Berk
not simply whether the AMLASH operation was an assassination plot prior to President Kennedy's death. The broader and more significant issue, as the 1977 IGR has identified it, is whether the AMLASH operation was of sufficient relevancy to have been reported to the Warren Commission. In the case of the AMLASH operation this. determination is a most difficult matter to resolve. Reasonable men may differ in, their characterization of the Agency's operational objectives. ‘Based upon the presently available evidence it is the Committee's position that such informa- tion, if made available to the Warren Commission, might have stimulated the Commission's investiga- tive concern for vossible Cuban involvement or complicity in the assassination. As J. Lee Rankin commented before this Committee: ...when I read...the Church Committee's report~--it was an ideal situation for them to just pick out any way they wanted to tell the story and fit it in with the facts that had to be met and then either blame the rest of it on somebody else or not tell any more or polish it off. I don’t think that. 000114 ead
could have happened back in 1964. I think there would have been a much better chance of getting to the heart of it. It might have only revealed that we are involved in it and who approved it and all that. But I think that would have at least come out. (HSCA Class. Depo. of J. Lee Rankin, 8/17/78, p.91) The Committee is in agreement with Mr. Rankin that had the AMLASH operation been disclosed to the Warren Commission, the Commission might have been able to foreclose the speculation and conjecture that has s urrounded the AMLASH operation during the past decade. As history now records, the AMLASH operation remains a footnote to the turbulent relations between Castro's Cuba and the United States. pondis bg ORS