INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES IN LATIN AMERICA
Originator: SSCIA
From: TREVERTON, GREGORY F.
To: THE RECORD
Document date: 1975-05-27 00:00:00
Document type: PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

# DOCID-32281892

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Date: 09/30/93

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JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATION FORM

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY : SSCIA

RECORD NUMBER : 157-10002-10052

RECORDS SERIES :

MEMORANDUM

AGENCY FILE NUMBER :

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

ORIGINATOR : SSCIA

FROM : TREVERTON, GREGORY F.

TO : THE RECORD

TITLE :

INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES IN LATIN AMERICA

DATE : 05/27/75

PAGES : 6

SUBJECTS :

CUBA

CASTRO

ASSASSINATION

STATE DEPARTMENT

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

CLASSIFICATION : U

RESTRICTIONS : REFERRED

CURRENT STATUS : P

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 09/30/93

OPENING CRITERIA :

COMMENTS :

Box 244

Folder 7

Exhibit 1

[R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED

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INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY

page 10f_6

INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD GOODWIN

SENSITIVE

FILE:

Date: May 27, 1975

Time: 10:00 a.m.

Place:

Goodwin's

residence, 815536552nd Sta Ww, (6X3)

Participants:

Sel. Com. - David Aaron, Rick Inderfurth, Greg Treverton

Subject:

Intelligence Activities in Latin America

Submitted by:

Gregory F. Ireverton

CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO

DECLASSIRICATION AND/OR

RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT

AS SANITIZED

I NOV 13%

During the 1960 Presidential campaign, Goodwin did foreign

policy work for John Kennedy, specializing in Latin America. After the

election he moved into the White House to handle Latin America. During

that period he spoke with the President about a Latin American matter

on the average once a day. Goodwin left the White House in the fall of

1962, becoming Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American

Affairs under, first, Robert Woodward

and then Edwin Martin. After

working for the Peace Corps, Goodwin was brought back to the White

CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO

DECLASSIFICATION ANDOR

RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT

- 98

House by President Johnson, in the spring of 1964, after the Panama

crisis. At that time, however, he did not specialize on Latin America,

instead writing speeches for Johnson. He left the Administration late

in 1965.

1. Assassinations:

In general, Goodwin had not heard much specific talk of as-

sassination, although it would not have surprised him if it had gone

on. He mentioned one specific instance in which he had heard talk of

assassinating Castro. After the Bay of Pigs, a Cuba Task Force was

established, first chaired by Paul Nitze and then by Goodwin in his

capacity as White House Staff Officer. At a meeting of the Task Force,

held at the State Department, McNamara suggested "getting rid of Castro,

someone from the CIA, perhaps Bissell, then asked if McNamara meant

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INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY

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FILE:

the President probably did not know of the gun transfer, but he said

that the assassination and the U.S. role with respect to it would have

come as no surprise to the President.

He doubted that the CIA even

would have had to clear the transfer, although a general policy of that

sort might have been passed by the Special Group.

Goodwin reported no other mention of assassinations. In fact,

he said he once heard a CIA man say that assassination was a bad idea

because once started, it never ended.

However, an agent in the field

might regard killings of one

sört or another as within his mission in

supporting one political faction over another. And of course someone

might have gotten carried away. It was clear from the Bay of Pigs that

the CIA sometimes acted without, or even against, instructions (e.g.

by bringing Batista followers into the Bay of Pigs invasion team). In

general, Latin American work seemed to attract the worst personnel in

all Washington agencies including the CIA.

2.

CIA Activities in Brazil:

*Goodwin knew little of CIA activities in Brazil. The United

States had

ad"strongly backed Quadros and never liked Goulart. In the

period before 1964,

the U.S. gave political support to anti-Goulart

factions: followers of Kubitschek and even to the Furtado in the

Brazilian northeast.

The U.S? had been involved in Brazilian elections

00x%

4 Nov

Nor tot many years and presunahy feit a od deal inithe 1963 coffee.

sional elections On the military side, Walters was brought from Rome

to keep a contact with the Brazilian military.

How much further

Walters' activities might. have extended Goodwin did not know.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Delete Sec, 2

Retain class'n D Change/classify to:

• With concurrence of

• Declassity @ In part and excise

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INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY

Delete See 3.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

I Retain class'n [ Change / classify to

• With concurrence of

7 Declassify D In part and excise

CIA Activities in Chile: JFK AC. E0 12550, Sec. ISaas shown

EPC/HDR bY JE

1216193

The Kennedy Administration decided that left wing democratic

forces in Latin America were the only means of combatting

communist

influence and

promoting development in

the region. That decision was

applied to Chile, and the U.S. switched its support from the conserva-

tive Alessandri.

Goodwin sat in on meetings of the Special Group only

rarely, only if Latin America were the subject of the meeting. As he

remembered it, the proposals that came to the Special Group were genera

statements, policy papers, not descriptions of recipients of support or

conduits. In line with the policy, support was given to left democratic

political elements. The U.S. certainly provided assistance to the

Christian Democrats lin the 1964 elections, but Goodwin did not know

how much. A The figure of $20 million, mentioned by Stern,

did not seem

inconceivab

esto. Goodwin. He contested, however, the assertion that.

the Chilean election was the most intensely watched election I Washing-

ton since the 1948 Italian campaign.

From his vantage point in the

White House it did not seem so.

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FILE:

(B

4 NOV 93

4. Changes during the Johnson Administration:

Johnson cared less about Latin America than had Kennedy--

Johnson was interested only in Mexico--and so knew less about covert

actions in the region. Thomas Mann was left

to run Latin 'American

policy, although the President did become active in the two crises--

Panama and then the Dominican Republic.

Goodwin saw a sharp change

in United States' policy under Mann. Mann supported the military and

conservative elements in Latin American societies, and American support

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INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY

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FILE:

For left democratic reform ended. Goodwin professed himself puzzled

by Johnson's" assertion that he had discovered a

"murder incorporated"

in the Caribbean.

"The only specific instance Johnson ever cited was

Trujillo, yet Johnson had known about the Trujillo assassination from

the very beginning and so could hardly have "discovered" it after he,

became President.

5. Covert Operations and Counterinsurgency:

When asked about the ethos surrounding covert actions during

the Kennedy Administration, Goodwin responded that the major emphasis

was counterinsurgency, not covert action. There was certainly no

reluctance to use covert action, but no one believed that American

objectives could be secured through it. Counterinsurgency was some-

thing different. A good deal of money was spent training police through

AID, much more was spent through the Pentagon equipping Latin American

militaries, and there was as well some CIA activity.

At that point,

the U.S. really believed that the communists could not get elected to

power and that the threat was subversion.

Paramilitary operations

were considered by the Special Group (counterinsurgency). Latin

American matters were considered there, and in some ways Latin

America

was considered a kind of training ground for Southeast Asia.

Goodwin believed that in sum U.S. counterinsurgency efforts made little

difference to the course

of events in Latin America.

Cuba could not

in any case provide support to guerilla movements in South America

without substantial support from the Soviet Union, and the guerilla

movements that began had little indigenous support.

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