Phone (Area 202) 544-6000 LO Li 12 13 WARD & PAUL 14 15 16 1? 18 19 20 21 22 25 24 410 First Street, S.E.. Washington, D.C. 20003 25 bo “Ihereupon, L. FLETCHER POURTY called for interview by Counsel for the President's Commission on CIA Activities, having been first duly sworn by the Notary 4 ¥ cay oa 17) Public, was examined and testified as follow EMAMINATION BY COUNSEL FOR THE COMMISSTON BY MR. GRAY: iD Sir, would you state your full name for the record? A, iy name is L. Fletcher Pourty. mat And you are a retired Air Force Colonel, who for a 1950's and early 1960's served as a CIA appointed liaison with the Air Force with certain support of a paramilitary nature is that correct? A, But it should be the other way around, I serves as an Rir Foree officer in sunmvort of CIA, I was in the Air Force. : ie . O And your office was in the Air Force? A, Yes, my office was in the Pentagon, in the Air Force. 0, Before the reporter arrived you told me that in December 1959 or January 1960 or possibly as Late as February 1260, you were approacned by the Air Division of the Covert Action Staff of the CIA, who saic they haG a special jon requiring Air Force support, and they wanted an L-2s, is that correct? HW 53244 DocId:32105600 Page 4
Phone (Area 202) 544-6000 410 First Street, $.£., Washington, D.C. 20003 HW 53244 WARD & PAUL serene) Gl 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 “pa eo ie Yes. 9. And I don't think I can repeat what you explained to me about the L-22, so maybe you hag better repeat that. A. The L-2€ was a special single engine plane that haa ourier. The Air — eo) peen purched by the CIA called the Helio Force owned a number of these air craft. So we provided cover for CIA by giving them Air Force insignia and Air Force designation, the L-28, and Air Force serial numbers. And these aircraft, or at least some of them, were based at Eglin Air orce Base in Florida. They were at Eglin Air Force Base because that is where the CIA kept most of its aircraft in the country. Q And how was this mission originally described to you? A. Originally it was one of a number of nissions that we were operating over a period of time. But it was one of the few that we operated with L-2's. The people who came over from the Air Division stated that they had a place to land the plane in Cuba on a road, on a small road, and they had a photo- graph of it. And they were going to let two men out there and then Ely the plane back with a pilot and copilot to Eglin Air Force Base. And-the men that were being left off would be equipped with a high powered rifle and a telescopic sight. They were Cubans. We never saw them, of course. This is what we were told they were, because we didn 't interfere with who was on the plane, we Simply put the plane in the air. But this Photocopy SECRET ys Gerald R. Ford Library DoclId:32105600 Page 5
Phone (Area 202) 544-6000 * LO 11 12 13 WARD & PAUL 14 15 16 1” 18 19 20 el 22 24 410 First Street, S.E., Washington, 0.C. 20003 25 235° er weitit 4 was a ‘normal procedure. And the object of their mission in Cuba was to go to a building in Havana where one of the men knew his way around and was pretty sure that he could get into, and if possible, he would shoot Castro. a Did you recall who told you this? A. No, I don't, because we were working every day with these people. And I think if you had a listing of the Air Division staff at that date I probably could tell you it was one of four men, something like that, a Division of maybe 39 men, it would have been one of ‘three or four, or two of three’ or four} The thing was, we were doing these things every day, it was not an odd thing that came up, it was something that we were doing quite regularly. Q It surprises me that the CIA would describe the mission to you in this much detail, it doesn't seem consistent with compartmentation and need-to-know particularly in view of the sensitive nature of the mission. A. That is.an awfully good point you are making. In those days it did, because the.more urgent part of my job was to brief my boss, the Chief of Staff, Air.Force, and through him the Secretary, Air Force, or the Secretary of Defense, or whoever, as required. Q Let's go off the record for a minute. 4 “op _ : ge 4 oy Fay Py (Discussion off the record. OH PR MR. GRAY: Back on the record. ; % fl SECRET HW 53244 Docld:32105600 Page 6
a ea 2° . 3° e . . 8 1 THE WITNESS: And since that was a real serious respon- ¢ . e 2 sibility, we wouldn't fly the mission unless we knew that it Q 3 Pd 3 nad the approval of the Security Council, or that at least a - 5 E 4 the overall program had approval of- the Security Council. And 5 || this was understood for years. We had no problem with that at 6 all. I don't think that I ever sent out a mission that we y didn't know what they were going to do and where they were going. And this seems, at least in certain applications, to 2 SJ Br 8 9 have ceased in this day and age. But I think that is due to 10 || other things. But in 1959-69 we would know where it was going ->f 11 |} even to the ooint that I would vant to know when they came back, 12 I would really want to know if they went where they told me. a Z : 13 “Me were pretty sure about how we did it. t < BY MR. GRAY: z 14 ° 15 0. Do you recall briefing the Chief of Staff or any of vou 16 other superiors on this mission? 19 A, Yes. My usual arrangement was to brief the Directer 18 of Plans, the Major General who was my immediate boss. es Did you remember who that was at that time? 4 , & 20 A. In 1953 I would say that was General Cary, or possibly rs) fe) ; . -. . ¢ General Martin. . Again, it-is a question of who was where at Z 21 Fy 20 that time. But I think if we put those two names down we will = ul . a pe awfully close to 1t. = te) 8 a 24 2 Yas this mission concerned at all as to the proprietary = 25 or morality or whatever? Did thoughts cf that nature concern + you when you neard it? HW 53244 DoclId:32105600 Page 7
2 tw Phone (Area 202) 544-6000 10 ll 12 13 WARD & PAUL 14 16 16 1? 18 19 20 21 22 25 410 First Street, S.E., Washington, 0.C. 20003 25 24 A, The concern that we would have was that the military would not be involved. we just wouldn't barticipate in it. And actually the CIA had the same icea at that time. What we we doing was helping Cubans. And if the Cubans, with their own Little command structure, wanted to operate and coulc, you mignt say, convince CIA that this was something that was import~ ant to them, or that they thought they could achieve, cn their own, L£ we would just give them so much as a little nelp, the N missions would be sent. As a result, we didn't concern ourselve with too many of them, for the simple reason, we weren't asked or. It was almost like mechanics, you Know. There were rh missions that we turned down, but mostiy because we thought they wouldn't sucee@d or that we would not be able ~- the favorate phrase -~ to disclain plausibly that the military or th Government of the U.S. was involved. And we vere serious about that business in those days. a Did you recall anyone else that you briefed on this raising any questions about this particular mission? A No, with no, what you might say barriers to the operation, with everything cleared and laid on in a verfectly normal manner, we got on with other business. We knew right away that it didn't succeed -- I say right away, within 10 dayS -- and there were so many other things going on, it was on with the rest of it. OQ Did you ever hear what happened to interrupt the ; from Gerald R. Ford Library HW 53244 DocId:32105600 Page &
iva Phone (Area 202) 544-6000 — 10 Li 12 ‘13 WARD & PAUL 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 el 22 295 24 410 First Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003 25 plans? A, I don't think I have a clear memory about it. Put all of us in that business kind of felt that most of those Cubans were not able to do what they thought they could do. < : ad af Castro was operating tne bloc system, and I think it was a lot more effective than we gave him credit for. 0. How are you able to place a time as to December 195° or January 1960 or February 1960? Why are you sure it is in that two- or three-month period. A. I will tell you why that is pretty easy to figure. The Agency wasn't running what I would call hard missions until late in 1959. You know Castro came in at the beginning of 1959. And things didn't really jell until later in the year. And a good reason for that, the training of Cuban exiles hadn't produced really professionals in terms of pilots or drop teams or saboteurs or what have until after they had had quite.a bit Eisenhow th of training. At the other end of the calendar, General a nad made it very clear to all of us who were operating over- _ flights that nothing was to be done. A little later in 1969 when he was supposed to meet at the summit with Khruschchev and other world leaders, we haulted every overflight. And to went out. But all the this Gay I can't understand why the U-2 flights that I had anything to do with, the Tibetan flight, the Laotian flights, the Cuban flights, all of that overflight program we haulted on direct orders. And since the meeting in Photocopy from Geraid R. Ford Liorary HW 53244 DocId:32105600 Page 9
Gt Phone (Area 202) 544-6000 ~ 10 11 12 13 WARD & PAUL 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 410 First Street, S.E., Washington, 0.C. 20003 As) en Soe ww Paris was scheduled for May 1, I doubt if we flew anything after March 15, or even maybe March 1, because there would be no interference with it. So I can put it between those dates without any trouble. Q. You said at times it.was a matter of concern to make sure that the operations you had requested to support, or at. least the type of operation, had been approved by the National Security Council, or whoever else was required. Did you recall when you made any such inquiries in this case? A ‘The way we would work that is, having briefed, you might sav, the Air Force chain of command, if I was not told to stop, it was gone. Again, it was a matter of working with people that I had been with for years. It wasn't one kind. They knew me, they knew the program. And if I briefed them and there was nothing to interfere within a day or two, we would go. Now, sometimes they would want additional briefings. But I don't remember one in this case. 0, I believe at some point one of the news coverages had the name of one of the Cubans involved. A I don't put much story in that. I looked up some notes that I thought might be pertinent, but I con't -~ we didn't work with the Cabans -- there were a few Cubans we Jot to know, like Artemo, but they were not involved in this kind of operation. 2 did you ever get a project name for this, or is there Photocopy _SECRET fom Gerald R. Ford Library HW 53244 DocId:32105600 Page 10
Phone (Area 202) 544-6000 10 11 12 13 WARD & PAUL 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 p4 410 First Street, $.£., Washington, D.C: 20003 25 anything that you can suggest, in other words, that we can oO to the Agency indecies to try to track down the paperwork behind j it if anv. A, Wo. You see our overall project was called TAB-6. That was the code, an international code, Agency and wilitary. And 1£ we called it TAEB-6, just like a TAB-7 or TAB-0 in a lot of documents, people all over the world knew that TAB-S was a certain type program. And imost of the time when.it was like this, pure mechanical program, we would just continue calling it TAB-6, maybe with a date and an airplane number, but nothing else. Now, sometimes a program would be broken off TAB-6, and we would have a separate code number. This was sust an ordinary flight. Q You say the use of the L-28 was fairly rare. Would there be any Air Force records which would enable us to pin down any flight this war or pin it down to one of a few, some- thing like that? A. Well, there were two things I think you would find. We usually went to élaborate detail to cover the flight. Por example, if a plane leaves and is not in the eir -- if it doesn' land it is presumed lost. Wow, we would put another plane in the air to cover it, one with the actual numbers of the one that was supposed to be in the air. ‘We would put that one in the air from some field where nobody knew it took off. And if the one would pick up the flight, come in and land, so that from Gerald R. Ford Lisrary HW 53244 DocId:32105600 Page 11
0 el ba Phone (Area 202} 544-6000 nH Loa] ra Gi nw HH “I 10 il 12 13 WARD & PAUL 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 410 First Street, S.E., Washington, 0.C. 20003 25 JESSE | ay control towers, air tarffic controllers could show a record of , a plane coming in. Now, this was normal procedure for the people at Eglin, whether the plane was going to Guatemala, ox Nicaragua, anything what we called black flight would be covered that way. Q. I would presume that you have got a record of those, or that it could be available? A. Now, sometimes when the crew would, say, be mercenaries like Air America, they would just take off. And they knew we had them covered in Air Defense Command. And there would be no record at all, nothing, they wouldn't tell anybocy where they were going. We would have to see what Eglin had on its record. But I would think, my personal view would be that they ran this very professionally, and you will find there was a flight. 0, Would that be preserved after 15 years, or be destroyed? A. I say there are two sides of this. The man in the towe mn at Egiin would just know plane number 1, 2 or 3 was left, and I think it would be dropped from the book with the others, and I think the law requires 90 days or something like that. The other thing is, the Air Defense command would have a record, because it is harder to tell the Air Defense Command not to go after a bogey in the sky than to have them go. But again, 15 years is a long record. - Photocopy Gerald R. Ford Library HW 53244 DocId:32105600 Page 12