PAPER ON INTELLIGENCE RELATIONSHIP WITH JFK WHITE HOUSE
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
Document date: 01/01/0000
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

Date: 11/29/99

Page:

1

JEK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATION FORM

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY :

RECORD NUMBER

RECORD SERIES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER

CIA

: 104-10302-10009

JFK

: CIA-DI-FILES

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

Released under the John

F. Kennedy

Assassination Records

Collection Act of 1992

144 USC 2107 Note!.

Case#:NW 53217 Date:

06-22-2017

ORIGINATOR

FROM

CIA

TITLE PAPER ON INTELLIGENCE RELATIONSHIP WITH JFK WHITE

HOUSE

DATE : 00/00/

PAGES

: 25 28

SUBJECTS

SHELDON, HUNTING

DOCUMENT TYPE :

PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

CLASSIFICATION

TOP SECRET

RESTRICTIONS

: 1B

CURRENT STATUS

: RELEASED WITH DELETIONS

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 09/22/98

OPENING CRITERIA

COMMENTS: JFK-M-02:F2 JFK-M-02:F2 090120: ARRB REQUEST.

CIA-9.

CLASSIFIED

ATTACHMENT

[R]

- ITEM IS RESTRICTED

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The Days of JEK

Huntington D. Sheldon has provided an account of the

current intelligence relationship with the White House

during the first year and a half of the administration of

John F. Kennedy. Within two weeks of the inauguration in

1961, Allen Dulles invited the new President to come to the

Agency and listen to its officials explain how they thought

they could help him. All the members of the Director's

executive group were called upon to prepare brief statements

of their functions and the practical uses thereof from the

standpoint of the White House. Sheldon was present to out-

line the situation with respect to current intelligence.

He explained what the publications were and, in general,

what the strengths and weaknesses of substantive intelligence

were in various areas. He asked how the President wished

the Agency to serve him in this particular field.

Kennedy responded that he would like to have the publi-

cations available to him. He designated his military aide,

Brig. Gen. Chester V. Clifton, who was present at the meeting,

to be the contact for current intelligence, and said that

Clifton would let the Agency know in a few days just how he

ERET

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would like things handled on a daily basis. It developed

that the best method would be for sheldon to take the pub-

lications and other papers directly to the White House

every day and maintain close contact with the President's

aides.

Consequently, every day at 8:30 Sheldon would present

his pass at the White House and proceed to the office of

Bromley

Smith, who had succeeded Jimmy Lay as Executive

on the botton flon of the west win?

Secretary of the NSC. Smith's office, was'

the central point

to which intelligence from all sources was directed. Gen.

Clifton's office, as is

usually the case with military aides,

was in the East wing of the White House, but Clifton did not

keep highly classified material there. Instead he had a

safe in Bromley Smith's office, where Sheldon would meet him

whether smith was there or not.

Each day Sheldon and Clifton would go over the Central

Intelligence Bulletin, usually marking the most important

items with a red pencil, and Sheldon would deal with any

questions Clifton had. Clifton would usually hand back the

previous day's CIB with any comments he felt appropriate.

Sheldon also brought to Clifton sensitive cables and other

documents he thought the President might want to see, as

well as photographs, charts, and maps in some cases.

This

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turned out to be the sort of service lennedy wanted. Mormally,

it was Gen. Clifton who tock CIA's material to the President.

next to his office smith had established an International

Situation Roor, equipped with press services tickers.

Tt was

the responsibility of the ocI watch office, under a fenior

Intelligence Iuty officer, to call the chite louse situation

Room to make sure it vas aware of major news develooments:

and to alert the white licuse to important classified informa-

tion that might have to be passed to the Fresident.

The President's special Assistant for National fecurity

Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, also had his office next to Bromley

Smith's. Frecuently Cen. Maxwell Taylor, the President's

special advisor on rilitary affairs, would be in smith's or

Bundy's office. Sheldon used

to take at least four conies of

OCI's publications so that all those interested in intelligence

would be taken care of. Gen. Taylor was also a member of the

President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Pcard.

Eccause lennedy did not place as much ernhasis on the

NSC machinery as Eisenhower had, Allen Dulles had fel onvor-

tunities to cresent

intelligence briefings to the council..

However, when he felt that there

were itons of narticular

significance that the President should see, Dulles would

prepare memoranda and take them

personally to the President.

He would overate in this way also when he wanted to bring

certain estimates to the President's attention..

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Then came the Bay of Pigs in April. Two or three days

after the fiasco, Sheldon was at the White House delivering

the publications when Gen. Clifton suggested that they go

back to his office in the East wing and have a private dis-

cussion. He advised

Sheldon of the President's reluctance

to carry on receiving intelligence in the normal way.

Clifton hinted that there was deep-seated resentment, not

necessarily against the Agency as a whole, but against cer-

tain elements in the Agency as a result of the Bay of Pigs.

Clifton said in effect that it would be necessary to

come up with some entirely different ways of operating if

he and CIA were to rekindle the President's interest and re-

main useful in bringing intelligence to him every day. He

suggested that there would have to be a publication with a

completely new format for the President only. It could be

more broadly based than the groundrules had permitted in the

past. The implication was that the publication could carry

not only intelligence, strictly defined, but things the

President might like to be reminded of and wish to take

action on.

Clifton stressed that whatever OCI came up with would

have to be short and punchy, and written in a sophisticated

way. Sheldon said he would

go back to the office, mull this

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over, and see what could be done. Clifton added he wanted

this

matter kept on a confidential basis.

There

was no

point at this stage in the DCI's getting into any discussions

with the President; that would be counterproductive.

Sheldon

said he would continue to bring down the regular publications

for the benefit of those, other than the President, who had

been seeing them; Gen. Clifton assented.

Sheldon was obviously in a peculiar position vis a vis

the Director and other senior officers in the Agency. He

asked

for, and obtained, a private session with Dulles and

told him how things stood. Dulles reacted in a calm and

helpful manner.

"I think he appreciated that at least some

lifeline to the White House was highly desirable from the

point of view of the Agency. " Dulles did not say that he

wanted to review whatever Sheldon might take to the White

House. In effect, he gave Sheldon a free hand to do what he

could to be helpful. Sheldon expressed appreciation for the

Director's confidence in him and said that he would report.

any problems the Director should be aware of.

With Dulles's blessing, Sheldon set out to develop a

mechanism that would put the Agency back in the graces of

the White House. He and a few senior officers in OCI put

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their heads together and began to plan a paper which would

be marked "For The President Only."

Although formally

labelled Top Secret, it would have no restriction as to

classification. They worked out a format for a publication

that could be read in a few minutes and they hit upon a

title--the president's

Intelligence Check List, or PICL.

They wanted to include attention-getting material, such as

summaries of cables on which it was incumbent for some

executive department to take action. This was to some ex-

tent a return to the practice under Truman of reporting

operations, the US Government was involved.im As Sheldon

remarks: "Unless one's reader is aware of these kinds of

cables, he will never properly understand the intelligence

that we would be presenting him."

Richard Lehman worked up a dry run issue of the PICL,

and when Sheldon thought he had a resonable facsimile of

what Clifton had outlined, Sheldon took him a copy just for

his personal perusal. Clifton's reaction to the title was

favorable, and, although he made a

few

suggestions, he liked

the format because the items were short and snappy and the

English was not ponderous.

Moreover,

while the publication

carried material of a higher classification than any previous

OCI periodical, it was not littered with classification labels.

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Before Gen. Clifton sought the President's approval,

Sheldon set up a special operation to be sure OCI wouldn't

stub its toe if it got the green light. Although knowledge

of the new daily had to be kept to as few people as possible,

the production could not be carried out by just two or three

because of the work-load and the range of expertise required.

Therefore, Sheldon set up a roster of particularly qualified

persons who would be charged on a rotating basis with coming

to the office at 3 or 4 in the morning to go over the intel-

ligence take. They would draft items which Sheldon would

review when he came in about 5:30. He would edit some,

scrub others as not meeting the criteria, and sometimes ask

for additional items. In getting the completed book out on

time, he had to have "a very rapid and understanding typist."

As with the writers, there had to be several typists on a

rotating basis because the hours were difficult.

When Sheldon felt he had a workable production technique,

he had an issue turned out that could be passed to the

President.

It was Saturday, 17 June 1961, when Sheldon and

Richard Lehman checked with Allen Dulles, then delivered the

first issue of the PICL to Gen. Clifton at 1130, later than

would ordinarily be the case in the future. President

Kennedy was spending the week-end at his Glen Ora country

house near Middleburg, Va., and Clifton took the PICL to

him there.

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inches.

first

The PIC was a small book of seven pages, size 8 1/2 x 8

It contained 14 items of about two sentences each,

six notes, and two maps. At the end it was attributed to

"The Director of Central Intelligence." The gist of the

items was :

1. We believe a special meeting of the soviet

Party Central Committee opened today.

2. After a meeting of Laotian princes in Zurich,

Phoumi announced agreement to form a "govern-

ment of national unity." But the Communists

renewed pressure on government forces. (Map)

3. Dominican President Balaguer has

eased OAS

investigators out of the country.

4. The Philippine Foreign Minister is worried

over what he feels is a softening of Us policy

on Laos.

• Sito

5. A Soviet ship arrived in Cuba with 18 crates

of a kind usually used for shipping MIG-15s

and 17s.

6. The French found the Algerians uncompromising

at the Evian talks.

7. A Soviet ICBM test at Tyura Tam was aborted.

8. We expect the soviets to show new types. of

aircraft and missiles at the Moscow air show

next month.

9.

Leftist students will try to block Ikeda's de-

parture from Tokyo for the US.

10. The Soviets will deliver two TU-16s to Indonesia.

11.

The Egyptian Ambassador reported home that Sen.

Fulbright would help to supply Egypt with grain

and tobacco.

co"!"!

catara:a

- Te

61

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9

12.

The Brazilians reported home on Congressman

Cooley's complaints about US wheat policy.

13.

Because of concern from Commonwealth countries,

the British bid for Common Market membership

may be delayed.

14.

In the Congo, Gizenga is lowering his price

for coming to a parliament meeting in Leopold-

ville.

He is having trouble with tribes in

the provinces. (Map)

The first FiD had been isnivered.

/As sheldon remarks, "A good deal hung on what the re-

sponse was going to be." When Sheldon and Lehman delivered

the second issue to the White House on the following Monday

morning, Clifton said, "Go ahead--so far, so good."

Sheldon then advised Dulles of the developments. The

DCI understood that in view of the PICL's production schedule,

he could not play a substantive role, but Sheldon asked him

to pass on any ideas he had. And, in fact, Dulles did from

time to time call to inquire whether certain subjects or

incoming reports had been covered. "His whole attitude on

this was very helpful."

In a fairly short time, McGeorge Bundy, Bromley Smith"

and Gen. Taylor, in addition to Gen. Clifton, began to read

the PICL. Sheldon took an extra

copy for them to read and

pass around while he was at the White House.

Sheldon would give the President's copy to Clifton, who

would return the previous issue, or sometimes several, if

they had backlogged.

62.

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There was

immediately great interest in the publication.

The President read it, and frequently, as a result, issued

instructions to various officials.

He also asked

for

source materials, estimates bearing on items that attracted

his attention, texts of speeches, and OCI memoranda giving

fuller details and explanations.

Sheldon recalls, "It became apparent from occasional

hints that Ted (Gen. Clifton) would let drop that the

President had actually used some of our action data to

tickle the Secretary of State and the Secratry of Defense."

Inevitably, then, these secretaries asked the White House

for copies of what the President was reading. By December

Gen. Clifton passed the word to OCI to put the secretaries

on the subscriber list.

For the Secretaries of State and Defense, OCI adopted

the scheme of having two puches, which were hand carried

every morning to the designated senior assistant of each

secretary. Each day the pouch containing the previous day's

PICL was exchanged for the pouch containing the new

issue.

Sheldon's feeling is that OCI's performance with the PICL

was accepted by the White House with approbation.

I don't remember any criticisms at any time,

nor do I recall anybody saying

"My word, I didn't

!.?

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know you could get this kind of information,"

because the individuals were quite sophisticated

in terms of intelligence capabilities.

They had

a pretty good knowledge of what could be obtained

by intercept, they knew, of course, the quality

of photography from overhead vehicles, they knew

how difficult it was to get important information

by clandestine means, so they were pretty well on

the ball in

terms of

what they might expect to

get, and what they actually got matched up pretty

I don't think we ever bowled them over by

producing something about which they would say,

the heavens ta you really a come ent where

Occasionally OCI put a little humor into the PICL, a

difficult thing to do.

The PICL was supposed to inform and stimulate, and

it served those purposes well. In Sheldon's view, the

PICL has been the

best channel OCI ever had to the President.

In the early months of the PICy enterprise, Sheldon him-

self went to the

White House for the meeting with the

President's aides, usually at 8:30.

He was accompanied by

the analyst who had come in very early in the morning to

write the PICL. Eventually the analyst went alone. From .

the beginning he would put a brief account of the morning's

transactions into the log kept by the staff. A typical

entry is the following under the date of 20 July 1961:

Sheldon and Lehman .to WH at 0830 (seven

minutes late because of Bizerte iter! and

general confusion). Clifton. and Taylor read

book.

Much interest in Brown cable.

De-

livered also Djakarta 1l1 (Fope case).

JFK

greatly concerned over ECM note, charged

1- in

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Taylor with looking into it.

Taylor

called Sheidon, who arranged for Taylor

to get

same USAF briefing as Watch Com-

mittee.

39/

Perusal of the l0g turns up points of particular interest.

The 27 June issue was "fully read, generated nuch policy

action." For the Fourth of July holiday, the President was

at his home in Hyannis Port. On the 3rd, Lehman went there

to bring Gen. Clifton the PICL as well as a couple of

memoranda, including a Joint Chiefs of Staff report on Kuwait.

A follow up cable arrived from Washington. The President

read the material and had no further requests.

Thereafter,

when the President went tò Hyannis Port the PICL was transmitted

by cable from the White House Situation Poom.

The move of the Agency in September 1961 from its down-

town temporary buildings to the new building in Langley, Va.,

naturally made operations difficult and gave rise to various

improvisations. OCI used the Agency's offices at 1717 H St.

to turn out the PICh during this period of confusion. For

the most part the usual deadlines

were met.

OCI soon discovered

that it had to be flexible in pro-

ducing the PICL. At one point it harned that President

Kennedy had not had an intelligence briefing for four days, .

So it put together a combined edition of the PICL, winnowing

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T'OP

RET

out the iteme that had faded a bit. In fact, it became the

practice for the FICh to repeat important iters when it was

known that the President had missed an issue.

Before 1961 was out, Cen. Clifton said that the President

enjoved rearing the PICL, even when it was lorger than ustial.

Early the next year, clifton said the President had asked

when and how the FICh was produced. Clifton had been in-

structed to turn up in COI early one morning to observe the

production process. le did this, and

was satisfied and

impressed.

On 9

January 1962, when W. Osborne webb was at the

White House for OCI, Clifton said the Fresident had registered

a mild protest that the PICh writers were the purveyors of

gloom, implying that they should make an effort to mix in a

little more good news. Mr. Kennedy also thought that the

DCI should find a way to provide an occasional summary of

operational successes. Hovever, John ?. lecone, who had

succeeded Allen Dulles as Director in Moverber 1961,

apparentl! never chose to use the PICL for operational

reporting.

In January 1962, the Laotian struggle was temporarily

halted by the agreement of the three princes on a coalition

government. It was not long, however, befrie the truce was.

broken and washington was

again worried over the situation.

66

TOP

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President Kennedy held a series of conferences on laos in

the white licuse, some of them efficialli nec meetings.

Edward A. lauch, chief of oct's southeast Asia franch,

wrote one of the usc briefings and attended the meeting

itself.

In the absence of MI. MCCone, the briefing was

delivered by It. Cen. Marshall Carter, who had just becore

DDCI.

This was one of the rare occasions on which an

OCI analyst was present at an isc meeting. 42/

Cen. Clifton cave nCt advice and quidance whenever he

was aware of anything that would make the PCI, more pleasing

to the President, and also zeported on the President's workloar

and activities to indicate how nuch intelligence he might want

or have time for. Early in April 1962, Clifton reported that

662

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things were "scrambled" in the White House and that the

President's

preoccupation with the steel crisis made it al-

most impossible to get his attention, even "with a full-scale

nuclear war. "

Nonetheless, Mr. Fennedy had taken nolicy

actions on the basis of some PICL pieces.

For one thing,

he had moved to head off a visit to Cuha by Algerian leader

Ben Bella.

Some weeks later Clifton made several suggestions to

OCI. The PICI had been using "talking captions," i.e.,

extremely brief headlines under the country name for each

item. Clifton asked that these captions be dropped in favor

of simply making the roint of the piece in the opening sentence.

On another occasion ocI was asked to put a summary of the

Watch Committee report in the FICh each week.

In June Clifton "reminded" James Featherstone of OCT.

that actions taken by US Government departments in foreign

situations should be reflected in FICh items. This ohilosoohy

harked back to President Truman's desire to have the whole

picture.

The vioL Established

In reviewing support for the white House after the PICL

had been in operation for a year; Richard Lehman, Assistant

for Special Frojects in OCI, noted that though the publication

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was a more satisfactory vehicle for serving the President

than anything previously attempted, it still had

shortcomings.

One of them was that OCI received later than the white House,

sone material

of did not receive at all,!of which the president assabe

aware.

It was therefore

necessary for the president's staff to

supplement the PICI, with intelligence from other sources.

33/

Gen. Clifton said that if he found that the CIB's coverage

of a

story had useful details not in the PICL, he would ada

them into the President's report. Clifton, Fromley smith,

and McGeorge Bundy also made use of OCI's Current Intelligence

Weel:ly Feview, as well as state's Diplomatic Summary and Staff

Summary. Bromley smith said that he regularly looked over

the weekly for good reading for the President.

Occasionally,

he and other staff members highly commended pieces in the CIE

and the weekly.

Notwithstanding these various sources of intelligence,

Clifton remarked toward the end of August 1962 that the

President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense

were coming to rely more heavily on the FICI as the sum

of

available intelligence.

(In October 1963 Secretary Rusk

told Gen. Clifton that he found

„the Checklist -a "damned useful"

document.)

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September

Ecllowing a suggestion by Clifton, the PICu in 1962 made

an innovation by running a review of events over the past

month.. In this case it was

a summary of what had been hap-

gening in Berlin, which was still under the cloud of

Khrushchev's threats to sign a peace treaty with last Germany

that would allegedly nullify Allied rights. Clifton liked

the way this feature came out.

One issue of the PICL, that of 14 September 1962, Dee

just right with Gen. Clifton. It had half a dozen items

plus some notes and a map. It also recorded at the end that

OCI, as

had been its habit, had taken to the White House

several Documents of Interest, material that CCI thought

Clifton and the President would want to read in its pristine

state. Clifton said this issue (copy will be attached) was

full of "good poop" and was in exactly the stule he likes

best (obviously reflecting JFk's preferences).

Clifton took a great interest in the kind of lanquage

OCI used and frequently nudged the PICI writers towards the

style that would be most agreeable to the president. On one

occasion he chided James Featherstone on the slangy way a

Soviet item was written. It said

that the Rustov area, where

there was rioting recently, "has been giving Moscow fits."

1.99

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Another time, he said the President was "delighted with the

racy language" of. 24 September book and had remarked, "They

must have got some new men on."

What gave this

issue

its

flavor were these passages:

.....?nigd!

"Souvanna laid it on the line to souphannouvong

last

week...

Phoumi, rumored to be planning a coup, "may put the

chestnuts in the fire."

In Argentina, Guido "will have to balance things

carefully, and any scissors and paste arrangement he

comes up

with in the next few weeks can easily come

unstuch. "

In Nepal, King Mahendra said he had replaced his

foreign minister to give the council of ministers more

uniformity

and

solidarity.

Correct, said the PICL:

"The council will now be uniformly incompetent and

solidly anti-Indian."

In Ecuador, "Arosmena, breathing 100-proof fire from

his stronghold in Guayaquil," may have rallied some

popular support with a public harangue.

Regarding Brezhnev's trip to Belgrade: "The Chinese,

with Albanian accompaniment, are playing it fortissimo."

Gen. Clifton told Phil Kennedy that he hoped this kind

of thing would continue. Kennedy assured him that it would

but added that OCI tried hard to avoid appearing flip. Clifton

recalled that he had once admonished OCI for flinpancy,

whereupon he had noticed immediately that the writing had

started flattening out. He didn't mean for OCI to roll

things too flat.

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For a month: in 1962 the PICI varefully followed the

buildup of soviet personnel and military equipment in Cuba.

However, it did not carry clandestine and refugee reports of

the presence of offensive missiles in Cuba because

these

reports lacked confirmation from photo intelligence.

On 15 October, the National Photo Interpretation Center

(NPIC) analyzed the pictures taken by Major Heyser on his

mission over Cuba the day before. It found deployment of

offensive missiles. After that, the facts about the missiles

did not have to be conveyed in the PICL because the photograpy

was interpreted every night at NPIC, which sent reports to

USIB and the Executive Committee of the NSC (EXCOMM) • The Com ittee

was briefed each ray during the crisis by not McGone.

The CIE, the Cuban Daily Summary and other OCI publica-

tions except the PICL were barred from 6 September from re-

porting anything concerning offensive missiles in Cuba. They

maintained intensive reporting on all other aspects of the .

Cuban situation, however.

Gen. Clifton and Bromley smith commentor to OCI's

Philip Kennedy that the 22 October PICL was a "really hairy"

book. It lad off with a run-down of the Cuban situation, con-

firming the presence of the most effective radar for SAM

guidance and putting the number d confirmed SAM sites at 24.

"(Nothing was said about offensive missiles, however.) It

>1

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also reported the arrival in Havana of a soviet transoort

plane with 14f passengers, some of them probably important.

This development elicited

great interest and concern.

That night, using mays prepared by CCI, President

Kennedy made a It address, announcing the discovery of of-

fensive missiles and the establishment of a quarantine on

shipping to Cuba. OCI set up a 24-hour task force to cover

the ensuing international crisis. Besides maintaining the

regular publications, the task force turned out special

menoranda for the white House every few hours.

On 23 October, William Colligan took the PICh and four

memos to the Phite House. While Cen. Clifton was reading,

McGeorge Bundy came into the room asking if the PICL was

there.

Clifton said yes, and commented that it had a lot of

good material, whereupon he and Bundy headed for the president's

office. President kennedy called down asking for them and

the PICh while they were on their way.

In a memorandum of 5 November to R. Jack Smith, who had

succeeded Huntington Sheldon as AD/CI in April, DCI McCone

commended OCI for the "outstanding work" it had been per-

forming.

Three days before that, the President commented that the

day's PICI was the first "cheerful" one he had read "in months."

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The cheer is not difficult to identify. The issue reported

that photogranhy showed that the offensive missile sites were

being closed down

and the equipment removed, that Castin

was rervous and hesitant in his public speech on the crisis,

and that Soviet and Cuban prestige were continuing their

decline among Latin American

and pro-Castro grouns as a re-

sult of the recent events.

Aerial hijacking had not begun during the Kennedy admin-

istration but in February 1963 Communists hijacked the

Venezuelan freighter Anzoategui and presumably headed for

Cuba. The US Navy was asked to help in the search for the

ship, but the PICL on 15 February had to report "There is no

current fix." OCI's Thomas Patton took the book to the White

House and recorded that there was "much amusement over the

Navy's discomfiture at not finding the Venezuelan ship."

Arthur Schlesinger writes that "The President was vastly, if

somewhat amusedly, annoyed by the incapacity of his government

to help Caracas cope with the situation. "40/ (Ine ship was captured

in 3rzil an returned to Venezuela.)

Clifton steadily tried to keep OCI off the reefs not

only regarding the style of the PICL but also its

substance.

He did not want to worry Mr. Kennedy unnecessarily or provoke:

strong reactions by treading on some sensitivities

, which

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might be unknown to the PICk staff. On Saturday, i Jure 1963,

after the Checklist had been delivered to the thite louse, the

Deputy DCI, Cen. Warshall Carter, called OCT's Waldo Dubberstein

to report that Gen. Clifton felt that the lead iter on cuba

in that day's FICI was too alarming and that the President

would be inneciately disturbed by it. Therefore Clifton was

not calling it to his attention. Carter asked that a better

rundown on Cuba be done.

The alarming item expressed the

"Feeling" of "our people in Miami" that soviet activity in

Cuba had

increased. Some of this feeling could have come from

exaggerated accounts of military equiprent off-loaded from a

soviet ship and

from descriptions of a cruise missile site.

At the same time, an exile leader was reported to be planning

military operations against Cuba within the next six weeks.

A memorandum dealing with these reports in perspective was

sent to the white llouse after the weekend.

Sone months earlier, the PICL reported that an Italian

freighter, the Cannaregio, ther in Havana under charter to

the USSR, would leave with a cargo of arms for venezuela..

Clifton said this item "would stand the Fresident's hair on

end." The situation was not helpee by the fact that the

ship eluded tracking at the beginning of its voyage.

How-

ever, in a few days the PICL said it doubted that the ship

was carrying arms, and soon it arrived in Venezuela, where

- it was boarded by marines. Another "hot" episode was over.

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PICk reports could set the policy machinery in motion

immediately.

Some Cuban exiles, determined to make new raids

on their homeland, were in Costa Rica with a B-26 bomber at

a time when a meeting was coming up in San Jose of the presi-

dents of the Us, Mexico, and Central America. The PICL said

on 11 March 1963 that President Orlich of Costa Rica had ruled

that the bomber be held on the ground until after the meeting.

However, the plane was operable and could casily he flown

away because of poor security at the airport. Bromley smith

called DDP Richard Helms and received assurances that every

possible precaution was being taken to make sure the B-26

didn't get off the ground.

The President was "sent aloft" by an item ir February

1963 reporting that Haitian President Duvalier was losing

his grip.

A source in touch with a US gambling syndicate

claimed that Duvalier was planning to flee the country with

as much money as he could lay his hands on. Such an action

presumably would have made Haiti easier prey to invaders.

Somewhat puzzling is the case of a report on Greece in

the Checklist of 5 April 1963. It said that there was a grow

ing anti-monarchical trend in the country, that

and other leftists

the pro-communists, might unite in opposition to the monarchy,

and that the king might counter such a development by backing

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the establishment of a military dictatership. Bromley Smith

told James o. Young, who had the white House run that day,

that he-thought the iter was pretty strong and was the kind

that night "hit the circuit-breaker" when the President read

it. Smith did not explain his reaction, nor is there any

follow-up record of how the president took the report.

when the President was on tour abroad, the PICL was

cabled to him daily, but his interests were then somewhat

different than they were in washington. In the late spring

of 1963, Fresident lennedy made a European tour. Gen. Clifton,

who was with the Presidential party, kept in touch with the

White House by phone. One night, talking to Bromley smith,

he said that the longer the president and his party were avay,

the more they were inclined to let those back in washington

worry about Brazilian politics and whether Kong Le went "from

Mung Ba to Mung Bu." 35/

OCI's relationship with the white House was close, in-

formal and many-sided during the Kennedy administration.

Although the meeting

each morning was the main point of contact,

more was accomplished there than the transmission of the PICL

and an exchange of questions and

answers about it. It will

already be obvious that very frequently the OCI representatives

picked up the President's own reactions, they learned of

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decisions he had made in response to intelligence, and they

received requests for further information on certain questions.

When Clifton, Smith, or Bundy mentioned that Mr. Kennedy was

interested in a topic, the PICL team would bring the Agency's

se a brand-new memorandu: would se witüen.

latest issuances on the subject,, All this interchange

useful in keeping OCI on the track of the President's needs.

The White House meetings in the latter half of 1963 were

punctuated by a few language problems, a touch of humor now

and then, and cases of strong reactions from the Chief Executive.

In August a group of guerillas led by a Dominican adventurer

named Cantave invaded the north coast of Haiti. The PICh re

ferred to Cantave's "caper," thereby provoking a reaction from

Bromley Smith.

He said the word raised for him a picture of

intoxicated persons jumping in fountains, but he was not deeply

disturbed.

In Cuba, regulations governing aircraft flights were

tightened. The PICI drew chuckles from the white House

aides

with one of the reasons it offered in explanation: the month

before, warning shots had been

fired at a plane carrying Castro

and the soviet ambassador.

The 12 September Checklist reported that Mme. Nhu was

coming to the US and had engagements booked for one week

wi.th

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....

the networks, and the woner's fress Club. With Sen. Clifton

absent, Bromley

smith called Paul Kattenburg, the Director

of the South Vietnan Special Group at State, to get further

information about Mime. Nhu's plans and was told that she

would be appearing at the

Mational Press Clun.

This

news

shook smith up. He was sure the President

would hit the

ceiling and he wished that Clifton were around to take the

Checklist to the President.

Another PICL item with a kick in it ran on ? notober and

reported that

tilling as everto try are stear

a march on the Angh-saxors, had suggested to Indonesia that

trade be developed, especially in rubber. Bromley Smith pre-

licted, "all hell will break loose" when the President reads

this.

Fortunately, the OCI representatives were never in the

direct line of fire when Mr. Kennedy exploded, if indeed he did.

On 19 November, Gen. Clifton gave Rilip I. Kennedy re-

quirements for the period of the President's trio to Texas.

He wanted a short cable for Friday, the 22ndl; the next day the

President would he at the LBJ ranch.

"We will want a cable on

Saturday if oly to impress Johnson with how closely the President

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keeps in touch," said clifton. That meeting ended with clifton

trying to picture the fresident "eyeball to eveball with one

of those steers."

on 21 November, James P. Fianrahan took the PICL to the

White House. Bromley smith read the publication; Gen. Clifton

was off making preparations for the President's trio. Smith

liked a Document of Interert on the Fabricting of Professor

Barghoor, who had been held for a while by the soviets. Then

he came upon a ticker item reporting that the banish premier had

given a rocking chair to Khrushchev so that the Kremlin and the

White House could rock in time. Smith rashed off saying he

had to show this to fundy.

Philip

On Friday, the fatal 22nd,

Bhakenneday saw Bromley smith

and left copies of a further

debriefing of marchdon

which would

be included in the President's reading package being sent to

Glen Ora Sunday morning. smith directed that the next day's

PICL, to be sent by wire to Texas, ke a hrief, "headline-type"

wrap-up, with a

maximum of two sentences per item.

It was to ve otherwise. The

PICI Of 23 November was a

husky number, of five unusually long items plus six notes.

It was written for the new President, Lyndon Johnson. AD/CI

R. J. Smith took this issue to DOI Mccone at the Agency's

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Fast Building. Microne asked smith to deliver the Checklist

in the usual way to the 'hite House. There r. J. smith ex-

plained that not had tried to provide, as unobtrusively as

possiblé, a hit of background for Mr. Johnson. Gromley smith '

thought the effort was fine and hored that not would make sure

that the pointer was not too much in evidence.

For part of

the time that the smiths were conferring, the PeI was with

President Johnson in Rundy's office, where McCone showed

Johnson the Checklist. The President expressed approval and

wanted

the publication continued

without change for the time

being.

Another era in suonort for the Presilent was about to

begin.

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