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Date :

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• NUMBER

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RECORDS SERIES : HEARINGS

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DOCUMENT INFORMATION

ORIGINATOR : SSCSGO

FROM

BUNDY, MCGEORGE

TO

TITLE

DATE

PAGES

SUBJECTS

07/11/75

: 168

: BUNDY, MCGEORGE

ROSTOW, WALT

CASTRO, FIDEL

CIA

OPERATION MONGOOSE

DOCUMENT TYPE : TRANSCRIPT

CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED

RESTRICTIONS : 1B

CURRENT STATUS : RELEASED WITH DELETIONS

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 05/12/98

OPENING CRITERIA

COMMENTS : BOX 2

[R] - ITEM IS RESTRICIED

50955

DooId: 32423406

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ORIGINAD

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Vol.

1 051 3

NATIONAL

Uriautho

nto Criminal

Or Anitro Staten Sruate

ORMATION

subject

R496

Report of Proceedings

INVENTORIED:

ON 2/16/77

Hearing held before

Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental

Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities

0: 8 V.

0U.

Friday, July 11, 1975

Washington, D.C.

(Stenotype Tape and Waste turned over

to the Committee for destruction)

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CONTENTS

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• COMMITTEE MEETING

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Friday, July 11, 1975

United States Senate,

Select Committee to Study Governmental

Operationg with Respect to

Intelligence Activities,

Washington, D.C.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:40 a.m.,

in Room S-407, The Capitol, Senator Frank Church (Chairman)

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presiding.

Present: Senators Church (presiding), Hart of Michigan,

Mondale, Morgan, Hart of Colorado, Tower, Baker, Mathias and

Schweiker.

Also present:

Frederick A. 0. Schwarz, JI., Chief

Counsel; Curtis R. Smothers, Minority Counsel; Charles

Lombard, Patrick Shea, David Maron, Robert Kelley, Frederick

Baron and Michael Madigan, Professional Staff Members.

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The Chairman.

The hearing will please come to order.

MI. Bundy, would you please stand and take

the oath.

Do you swear that the testimony you will give in this

hearing will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but

the

truth, so help you God?

Mr. Bundy. I do.

The Chairman. Mr. Schwarz.

TESTIMONY OF MeGEORGE BUNDY

Mr. Schwarz. Would you state your full name and address

for the record, please?

Mr. Bundy. My name is McGeorge Bundy. I live in New

York. My home address is 1040 Fifth Avenue.

Mr. Schwarz. And you are currently the Chairman or the

President of the Ford Foundation?

MI. Bundy. The President of the Ford Foundation.

MI. Schwarz. In the Kennedy Administration what position

did

you hold?

MI. Bundy. I was Special Assistant for National Secur-

ity Affairs.

Mr. Schwarz. And you held that all the way through the

Kennedy Administration and for how many years in the johnson

Administration?

MI. Bundy. I held that office from the beginning of the

Kennedy Administration to the end of February 1966.

Mr. Schwarz.

Prior to commencing work with the Kennedy

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Administration, had you had anything to do with the Central

Intelligence Agency?

MI. Bundy. I had a brother who worked for many years in

the Central Intelligence Agency. I occasionally talked with

members of the Agency during the forties and the fifties, both

about substantive questions of what one thought about the

conditions in the soviet Union, and occasionally also about

efforts that they were then making to recruit talented

graduates of colleges.

Mr. Schwarz., You

mentioned your brother. To put some-

thing of a different kind in the record than we have gotten

recently, would you recount the position taken by Allan Dulles

in connection with the problem

that your brother had in the

1950's.

MI. Bundy. Well, my brother cane under attack from

Senator Joseph McCarthy.

And the ground was, as I recall

it, in general that he had been a friend and supporter of

Alger lliss and was

therefore not to be trusted in a place

as sensitive as the Central Intelligence Agency.

Allan Dulles -- and my impression is that this was

quite characteristic of him -- took an extremely firm stand

on this matter, and

stood by his estimate

that my brother was

in

fact in no sense a security risk, rather, to the con-

trary. And the defense was successful, and my brother

continued in the Central Intelligence Agency until the Kennedy

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Administration came in, at which time he moved over to the

Defense Department.

Mr. Schwarz. We have indicated to you that we are going

to discuss the countrles of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and

Vietnam, although not much on Vietnam.

And the majority and

minority staff have shown you some documents of that period,

some 15 years ago. Before I get to those three countries,

I would like to ask you some questions about a subject

called Executive Action. Have you ever heard of the subject

called Executive Action?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, I have.

Mr. Schwarz. When did you first hear of it?

MI. Bundy. Well, as I have told your staff, that

is a reall

difficulty for me, because I cannot pinpoint the time at

which I heard of it.

My impression was that it was some time

in

the carly months of 1961.

Mr. Schwarz. And do you have a recollection as to the

context in which you heard about it, the person from whom you

heard about it, and will you provide to the Committee your

full recol'ection of the subject of Executive Action in the

carly 1961?

MI. Bundy. Would it help if I try to describe in a

general way what I now understand of this matter, the

part which is recollection and the part which is clarified

by discussions with the staff and what I now think about it?

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MI. Schwarz. Would you distinguish, though, the part

that is recollection and the part that is based upon other

matters?

Mr. Bundy. That is exactly what I would like to do.

The part that is recollection is very vague. And I

would say that I have no recollection of more than one conver-

sation on this subject. And the impression that sticks in

my mind is that I was told about it in a general way. And

it was described to me as an effort to study through the

possibilities by which one might act against

an individual

in a context other than that of espionage and counter-espionage,

a context more political.

MI. Schwarz. When you say "act against an individual",

act

in what fashion?

Mr. Bundy. Act in a variety of fashions, as I recollect

it, but up to and including killing the individual.

The two things that I think are clear in my recollection

about that - three -- one, that it was a concept presented

or described to me - I was

in effect being briefed on it.

was

Two, that it was entirely an untargetted - that it

in no sense a plan to do anything to anyone.

And third, and I thin: quite important, that it was

not anoperation which had any specific target.

MI. Schwarz. You said you were in effect briefed on it.

By whom?

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MI. Bundy.

That is what I don't know. I cannot

recollect who it was.

And I think it inapproprate to guess

when I have no recollection.

MI. Schwarz. What time?

I don't mean what time of day,

but what time?

MI. Bundy. As I say, sometime I think in the early

months of 1961. And

searching memory is an uncertain busi-

ness, but it sticks

in my mind that I heard about it in the

rooms of the Executive Office Building.

And that

would place it in time, because I moved from the Executive

Office Building to the West Basement of the white lousc sometime

after the Bay of Pigs, perhaps

in May.

MI. Schwar?.

So based on that fact you place it in

time sometime prior to the Bay of pigs and sometime after--

MI. Bundy.

After my arrival in Washington.

Mr. Schwarz. And when did you arrive in Washington?

MI. Bundy. About the 10th of January. I would place

it more closely, because I

think it was after I was in

Office of the Special Assistant, which, of course, was occupica

until the 20th of January by others.

MI. Schwarz. So you place it after the 20th of January,

but before the Bay of pigs, which was April 14 or 17?

MI. Bundy. That is right.

Mr. Schwarz. Did it come up in a context where you

urged that such a capacity be created?

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Mr. Bundy. No.

MI. Schwarz. What context did it come up in?

MI. Bundy. It came up in a context in which it was being

described to me by someone else. And that is really about

as far as I can take it with precision.

Mr. Schwarz. WAs it described to you by someone else

as a capacity. in being?

Mr. Bundy.

As a capacity -- and this is not something

I want to be too certain about, Mi. Schwarz, but my recollec-

tion would be that it was

a capacity coming into being.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, receiving that information, did you

take any

steps to discourage or

dissuade the person, whoever

it was, who was describing to you

the capacity coming

into being?

Mr. Bundy. What I recollect

is that I was satisfied with

the description I received on two points.

First, that this was not an operational activity, and

would not become such without

two conditions: first, that

there be a desire or a request

or a guidance that there

should be planning against some specific individual; and

second, that there should be a decision to move against an

individual.

Being satisfied that these two things were not happen-

ing -- and I am now giving you a reconstruction rather than

a precise recollection - I am confident that what I did was

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to place this notion in the category of hypotheticals, of

things with no current urgency to them, and in that sense

not a question that cried for attention in the sense that

so many others did. If I may make a straightforward compari-

son, we were, I think, even before the inauguration, but

certainly very quickly thereafter, very heavily engaged in

a real question of choice, which was the question of choices

around what would you do with the Cuban brigade which led

eventually to the Bay of Pigs. And that occupied a very

large amount of tine and attention, as did the crisis in Berlin

and the crisis in Laos.

In

the same period there were briefings on contingency

plans for the uses of nuclear weapons, other weapons, and a

whole

swarm of, sort of, and here were reports that came

naturally to the Special Assistant's office, which was also

being

reorganized.

So, I think that what I did was simply to put this one

aside.

I cannot claim to have thought about it seriously,

because it was in the flow of business that would come to the

Special Assistant's office.

Mr. Schwarz. I want to see

if we can be more precise

on dates to check on what other evidence we have. We have

other evidence that discussions of this matter were going

on in the Central Intelligence Agency on the 25th and 26th

of January 1961.

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Now, are you able to testify with respect to the likeli-

hood of the conversation you have recounted taking place

prior to the 25th or the 26th of January 1961.

Mr. Bundy. I would rate it very, very unlikely.

This is a matter I have thought about since you did mention

those dates to me.

And I would

say that the chance

that

within the first four days after being sworn in I would have

been drawn

to consider this question is, from my side, as

near zero as I can put it. I had been teaching international

relations over a period of ten years. • I was deeply Interested

in many of the immediate problems, most notably the problem of

the crisis in Berlin and

the concomitant question of relations

with the Soviet Union. And I was preoccupied with all of

the things that happened when you moved to Washington from

helping the secretary to buy

a house, and working out a

staff, and I was under instruction from the President

to

reorganize the White House National Security staff.

This

subject was

far out of my mind, and

I would not have brought

it up.

I doubt that anyone wouldhave brought it to

me

in those early days.

The Chairman.

May I interrupt for a moment.

As I understand your testimony, Mr. Bundy, you were

briefed on the concept of Executive capability sometime early

in

1961, and

you can't remember now who it was who briefed you.

Do you recall whether of not you instructed anyone at

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the CIA to develop such a capability?

Mr. Bundy. I am sure I gave no instruction. But it is

only fair to add that I do not recall that I offered any

impediment after I was briefed.

The Chairman. But your best recollection is that some-

body toldyou that such a capability was being developed?

Mr. Bundy, I don't want to be too firm on that, but that

would be my best recollection.

The Chairman.

We received testimony from Mr. Bissell..

Are you acquainted with Mr. Bissell?

MI. Bundy. Yes, sir.

I have known him a long time, and

he

has been a great friend of mine.

The Chairman. Mr. Schwarz,-since you are very familiar

with the record, are you going to take Mr. Bundy through the

record of MI. Bissell's testimony?

Mr. Schwarz.

Mr. Bissell testified --

The Chairman. And we have the transcript. If it would

libe

helpful for Mr. Bundy to lo0k directly at the transcript.

I think he

should have it.

Mr. Schwarz. Mr. Bissell's testimony was, first, that

in the first instance he said he did not recall any specific

conversation. Then, however, he said, after having reviewed

certain notes by Mr. Harvey, he concluded that if Mr. Harvey's

note

indicated, as they did, that he, Bissell, told Harvey

in 1961 that he had been twice urged by the White House to set

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up an Executive Action capability, then he had no reason to

doubt that testimony. And then he went on through a series

of comments to end up saying that he would have been given

that urging by either Rostow or Bundy, more likely Rostow.

First, let's focus on Rostow.

Was Rostow involved in

the briefing?

Mr. Bundy. No - now, that I can't tell you out of my

recollection, but only out of my knowledge of the way the

office was organized.

The first things we did, Walt Rostow

and I, was to work out an informal but nevertheless reasonably

clear-cut division of labur. And the whole business of

what I thought of as special group business, namely, matters

that related to covert action, and would, if they came for

division, come through the special group, fell on my side

of that division. I don't recall that. Mr. Rostow was ever

involved in any matter of this sort.

The Chairman. It is fair to say that this was Mr. Rostow's

testimony.

Mr. Schwarz.

Mr. Bissel is,. as you say, a friend of

yours of long standing, and still is a friend of yours?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, he is.

MI. Schwarz. Wehave his testimony which, while it did

have gradations within it, ended up saying that

he believed either you or MI. Rostow urged him to set up the

Executive Action capability. And you have testified that the

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fact is that you were given a briefing, and you didn't urge it,

but on the other hand you didn't say it should stop.

How can you explain, if you can, the testimony of your

friend Mr. Bissell, and the contrast between that and

your testimony?

Mr. Bundy. Well, as I understand Mr. Bissell's testi-

mony - and I should add, so that there will be no misunder-

standing, that I have not only the advantage of discussions with

you, but I have talked with him about it -- as I understand

that téstimony. from that conversation, he was trying to ex-

plain a situation in which he had no reason to question an Agenci

history to the effect that he first gave instructions on this

matter in February 1961.

And

in that context -- and he had

no reason

to question the report that he had received

White House encouragement - it is in that context that his

speculations about Mr. Rostow and about me seem to fall.

I would be surprised, if his memory were refreshed

with respect to the dates of January which you have des-

cribed to me, if he were to believe that any initiative in

this enterprise would come in the first instance from the

Kennedy Administration.

The Chairman.

Mr. Bundy, our transcript of the

Bisscil testimony makes it clear that Mi. Bissell himself

does not dispute the documented record. He said in effect,

if Harvey says that I told him that I had been twice instructed

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by the White House to develop an Executive capability, I

have no basis on which to dispute that record.

Then when we asked him, very well, who in the white

House told you, and when were you told, he replied, it

must have been

early in 1960, and I don't recall who told me,

but it must have been

either

Rostow or Bundy.

lle then recounts that he had numerous conversations

with both of you during the period, and concludes that the

instruction must have come either from you or from MI. Rostow.

Now, MI. Rostow tells us he never gave such

an instruc-

tion, and in fact has

no memory of every having discussed

such an instruction.

Mr. Bundy. He would have in

fact have had no authority

to give such an instruction.

The Chairman. That is right.

And he pointed that out.

Mr. Bundy. And in fact I wouldn't have the authority

to give any such

instruction, and I would have been only

the channel to give such

instruction.

Senator Baker.

Who would have had the authority?

Mr. Bundy. If the authority were required outride the

AGency it would have to have been the President hingelf.

The Chairman. What I would like to ask you

Mr. Bundy. Could I continue with Senator Baker's

question for one second.

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My own impression as to this matter - and I have already

testified to the fact that I am relying on a recollection of

a meeting of which there

is no record -- is that had I been

briefed on this essentially hypothetical internal, undirected

character, it did not appear to me to be a matter that required

further authority outside the CIA. That may or may not have

been right, but that is the quick judgment I appear to have

reached. Because I certainly did not raise the question with

others.

Senator Baker. Do you recall that, Mr. Bundy, or is that

your

surmise?

Mr. Bundy. That is my reconstruction more than my --

I know I did not raise it, I did not press the question, and

I did not feel, therefore, that it was a question that needed

further analysis, and it did not, so far as I know, get

further consideration inthe White House. My own recollection

is that I didn'thear the words again in any serious con

text that I can recall until this year.

The Chairman. And you cannot recall who it was

who

wriefed you?

Mr.. Bundy. I really cannot.

Mr. Schwarz. Can you narrow the field?

MI. Bundy. I can narrow the field. It would have to have

been a senior officer at the

Agency, or someone with previous

understanding in the White House. I have no reason to suppose

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that it was the latter, but I cannot exclude that.

The Chairman. Might it have been Bissell himself?

Mr. Bundy. It surely might have been.

The Chairman. Based upon your best recollection of that

briefing, you have already testified that you interpose no

objection?

Mr. Bundy. I am pretty sure I satisfied myself as to

the character of the enterprise. But I did not interpose

an

objection.

The Chairman. Do you recall, then, having reported the

briefing to the President?

MI. Bundy. No, I don!t.

The Chairman. Did it strike you -- before I ask that

question, based upon your best recollection of the briefing.

were you told that this was a new capability that was being

developed, of were you told simply that the Agency possessed

such a capability?

Mr. Bundy. I would put it that the Agency

was working

such a capability, but without any great sense of precision.

The Chairman.

were you given the impression at

that briefing that the Agency was

seeking your authority or

the authority of the white louse?

Mr. Bundy. I think they were testing my reaction, as

I now look back on it. But I do not recall that they were

seeking

authority. If it

had come to me as a matter of White

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House authority, I know

from the context - my own concept

of my job what I would have done.

The Chairman.

What would you have done?

MI. Bundy. I would have had to take the matter to the

President, because I had no independent authority.

The Chairman. And you have testified that you did not

take the matter to the President?

Mr. Bundy. As far as I can recall, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Well, this is a subject dealing, as

it

does, with the development of a capability to kill that would

have been of the character that if you had been asked for

authority you would

have discussed with the President?

Mr. Bundy.

That is right.

The Chairman.

And furthermore, is it not a subject of

character that you would be very likely to recall?

Mr. Bundy.

If I had been asked for authority I would

recall it. If I were the

initiating of deciding agent, I

would

recall that I had had that role.

You speak of the

seriousness of it.

It deals with a

capability to kill. One of the sobering facts about coming

into the government from outside into a sensitive position

like that one is the number of things on which you are briefed

which deal with the capability to kill. Contingency plans

for protecting west Berlin, contingency plans

for the use of

nuclear weapons -- shelf plans, a shade more remote, perhaps,

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for the use of different kinds of gases - an operational plan

for the invasion of Cuba -- these were uncertainties as to

whether there would have to be military landings in Laos.

In

the context of 1961 -- and I am not in any sense trying to un-

derstate the seriousness of the context of 1975-- this was a

hypothetical kind of a thing with two strong locks between

and any decision. And I simply didn't pay it the attention

then that we are paying to it now. We are right to pay

that attention now.

The Chairman. I understand that very well. And this

Committee is endeavoring in every way it can to place this

whole issue

within the context of the time.

Nevertheless, we

are

faced with a very real dilemma. We know that at the very

time you were being briefed the Agency was not only interested

in developing a capability, but was in fact engaged in a

series of attempts to assassinate Castro, and had been

in-

volved in other murder plots and murder attempts against the

leaders of certain foreign governments.

The question we are endeavoring to answer is whether

the ndency had been authorized by the policy makers of the

government to engage

in this activity, or whether it was

operating

fast and loose on a wild gambit of its own in an

area of extreme sensitivity

that could have the most serious

repercussions upon the government of the U.s. and its

reputation in the world.

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We are told by MI. Bissell, who apparently was not only

a very good friend of yours, but also a very good friend of Mr.

Rostow's --

MI. Bundy. That is right.

The Chairman. - a man whose credibility as a witness

would seem to have to be respected . that he was at least

engaged in developing such a capability on direct instructions

from the White House.

But when we pressed him for specifics, his testimony

becomes very vague. He can't remember just who it was who

told him, he can't dispute the record, which

says that in effect,

he so advised MI. Harvey when he engaged Mr. Harvey to develop

the capability.

And everyone

else of high authority in

the Administration that we have questioned so far testifies

that it was not the policy of the Administration to engage in

assassination, and no such

attempts were ever authorized,

and indeed, with the exception of one occasion in the Special

Group, the subject never even surfaced

for discussion.

And when it did, if

it did, it was quickly shot down.

Nevertheless, the CIA was in fact embarked upon such

attempts during

the period under review.

Now, we are led to conclude either that we are not

being

told the truth concerning the policy of the Administration,

which is very hard for me to accept, given the reputation of

the witnesses that have come before us, for integrity and

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truthfulness, or that the CIA was running wild, and acting on

its own initiative, engaging in murder plots, murder attempts.

and not informing, let alone securing the authority from,

those in government who held the responsibility, which in a way

is even more frightening.

Now, you tell us that you remember being briefed. You

don't remember advising the President.

It didn't seem

t00

important at the time. Did you ever follow up on whether such

capability had in fact been perfected by the agency?

Mr. Bundy. I don't recall pursuing the matter at

Mr. Chairman, any more than I would have pursued any other

all,

shelf capability on which no question was being pushed

10

me,

either from below or above.

If I may go back and comment on one aspect of your,

I think, important and impressive description of

the difficulty the Committee faces, I am sure that if in the

early months of 1961 I had known what I now know, in part from

the newspapers and in part from discussions with your staff,

about what was really in train, T would have had a very

different approach.

Senator Mondale. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman.

Senator Mondale.

Senator Mondale. Yesterday

Secretary Rusk testified be-

fore us. And some of the minutes or notes made following one

of themeetings of the Special Group Augmented

at least suggest

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that the question of assassination occurred. And, Mr. Rusk

said, did you think anyone would bring that up at a town

meeting? And by that I gather he meant that these

meetings

had large attendance from all different groups and prinicples

and staff assistants and so on, and as a result, if there

were matters of exceeding delicacy, that was not the forum

at which such matters would be discussed.

Would you comment on that?

Mr. Bundy. Yes. My impression would be that the

Secretary was probably referring to the much discussed meeting

of August 10, 1962.

Senator Mondale. Right.

Mr. Bundy.

That was

large meeting, 16 or 18 people.

And the comment

seems to be pertinent to that meeting. The

Special Group as such, the one which I would have had in

mind, for example, in early 1961, was set up under a national

security regulation of some sort whose number was 54/12.

Senator. Mondale. That was the Special Group.

Mr. Bundy. That was the Special Group. And the Special

Group in and of itself was quite a small group.

Senator Mondale.

But people would volunteer to attend --

Mr. Bundy. No.

Senator Mondale. They would not?

Mr. Bundy. No. The meeting of August 10 is a very

special meeting in a variety of respects.

That included --

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The Chairman: You were present at that meeting?

MI. Bundy. I was present. My memory is entirely

a refreshed memory on this, I had no recollection of the

meeting until recent months. But I have found a scratch

pad that I apparently doodled on on that date, and it

shows who was there, and not much else.

MI. Schwarz. There were some beautiful drawings.

MI. Bundy. There were.

They were not very beautiful drawings.

The Special Group Augmented met in August - and this

does coincide with my general recollection of the matter --

in response to concerns wihch were first, I think, and

most

energetically pressed by MI. McCone with respect to, what the

hell

are the Russians doing in Cuba. And that was the center

of that meeting, and the center of later meetings, and the cen-

ter of a national security action memorandum of considerable

complexity which was put out toward the end of August, most

of which dealt with this question, how do we know what they

are going to do, what do we

do if they dn it, and so forth,

with respect to missiles in Cuba.

It was therefore

in a sense much more than an. ordinary

MONGOOSE meeting, let alone a Special Group meeting. And

while I quite agree with the secretary that that meeting as

planning

session for anything as horrendous as assassina

tion is implausible in the extreme.

Quite serious covert

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actions were discussed in the Special Gröup. And as your

Committee pursues its studies of covert action it will find

that that group is the nodal point for policy decisions, good

or bad, well or badly handled.

And that was quite a small

group.

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Senator Mondale. The reason I ask that is that it seems

to me that the Chairman's question pursues the two alternatives,

either what we now know to have occurred was ordered at the

highest level, or at a very high level, such

as the Special

Group Augmented, or they operated on their own, in which case

they were out of control and

irresponsible, or there was some

extra communications system that went around the formal struc-

ture that we have been examining, and would

account for the son:

of

authority that these operators testified to when they

were with us.

Now, their testimony was not very specific. They said,

we thought we had authority, and we think we heard from

somebody, and so on.

what are the changes, based upon your experience, that

there was such extra official communicationg and order passin:

Senator Baker. Before Mr. Bundy answers, I might say

Senator Mondale that I am struck by the first paragraph

of the Inspector General's report, which we don't have

herc

now, I don't beliève, but as I remember it, it says, it is

difficult to reconstruct history of assassination plots, becau

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of the high sensitivity. of the subject matter, no written.

?

3

records were kept, and it was not discussed at open meetings.

That is generally what was said. And it seems to me that is

5

implying, then, that

as a matter of policy there was no

formalization of this sort of communication.

6

I am sorry to interrupt.

Senator Mondale. Yes.

8

And in that August 10 meeting two or three principals

9

testified that it did come up. And in fact it is not reflected

10

in the notes.

:!

Mr. Bundy. Perhaps the best way for me to begin at least

with an answer to your question is to describe my

own sense - my own understanding of the way in which covert

14

operations of all types were brought forward. And this was

15

perhaps the most important and the most constantly reiterated

16

17

fact of the process that I was exposed to when I began to

consider this whole range of subjects on coming to Washington.

18

And whether it was with MI. Gordon Gray, my predecessor, or

with Allen Dulles, or with incoming and outgoing friends in

the Department of State, or with MI. Bissell, or with

anyone

else

concerned with these matters, what I learned then and

22

what I applied throughout my time there

to the best of my

23

ability was that all covert operations, whether intelligence

24

operations, clandestine political activity, and clandestine

25

propaganda activity, and clandestine subversion, or sabotage,

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which did occur in'the case of Cuba, all of them took their

2

authority from and came for their authority to the 54/12

3

group.

4

And when there was a question in such a meeting as to

5

6

whether

the matter reguired further judgment, it was the

responsibility of the Chairman of that group to make sure that

7

that was checked

out.

8

The papers will usually say, higher authority, et cetera,

et cetera, and the President's name will often not appear --

10

11

any more than the precise character of the operation is likely

to appear in the minutes for the reasons that Senator Baker

12 | has spoken of.

10

But I never knew

of any operation of this kind of any

14

sort, with one exception, which is quite different, which did

15

not have that channel. The exception is the Bay of Pigs,

16, which was so big, so complicated, and overflowed in

so many

directions, and in which the President himself was involved in

18

19

so many ways, as he fully recognized and explained at the time,

that it did not go through this Committee process, it went

20

through a quite Presidential process, and everybody involved

21

knew that.'

27

But with that one exception, I would have told you up

23

until the beginning of this current public discussion, that

24

was the way it went, and that nothing went outside it, and

25

that the Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agencies, with

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their more sensitive'intelligence operations, were meticulous

in that respect.

Now, I clearly am wrong. But that is what I would have

told

yOu.

Senator Mondale. Well, are you wrong?

In other words, what you testified to

MI. Bundy.

Excuse me, I misstate myself. I beg your

pardon for interrupting.

I am wrong in that things happened that didn't go through

that group.

Senator Mondale. Yes.

In other words, that is the big question, either they we

acting on authority, which apparently flowed around channels

The Chairman.

Covertly

Senator Mondale. Covertly - or they were

acting.on the::

own, and our attempts to find direct authority in these official

meetings led us nowhere.

And your testimony is that you find it very unlikely

that there was this covert way of communicating authority.

Mr. Bundy. My testimony was that I wouldn't

have believed it existed.

I have to consider the same al-.

ternative that the Chairman has so clearly pointed out. I

don't find it agreeable to conclude that the Agency was a

rogue elephant at a time when I strongly believe

it was

not.

Senator Mondale. We asked General Taylor that questiou,

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and he said he found it incredible to believe that they

would have gone around the Special Group Augmented with such.

MI. Bundy. General Taylor, of course - and this ig an

important point - was a-pointed to this responsibility after

the Bay of Pigs, after a review of the failures that led to

the Bay of Pigs, and after a conclusion had been reached that

it would strengthen the White House to have a man with a parti-

cular responsibility for the oversight of intelligence opera-

tions. He was called military representative to the President,

but in the announcement of his appointment - I happened to

look it up the other day - President Kennedy made it clear that

he would be his representative for intelligence matters.

And he did in fact take over the chairmanship during the time

that he was military representative of all of the Special

Groups, 54/12, the Special Group Counterinsurgency, and the

Special Group Augmented, MONGOOSE. And when he said --

if he has testified that his expectation would have been

that nothing was going to go around him, he is saying exactly

what I thought through the same period.

Senator Baker. Mr. Chairman, in that respect --

The Chairman. Before I forget the question, let

ask, since you were

at the August 10 meeting, and since

we have received testimony buttressed by certain documentary

evidence that the subject of assassination of Castro did

come up at that meeting, do you have any recollection of

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subject coming up or being discussed?

MI. Bundy. I don't recollect the meeting.

And I

don't recollect the subject ever coming up in a meeting of

that size, or indeed in any -- I don't have any recollection

of it coming up, although I do have a general recollection of

there being times at which this possibility was heard of. I

wouldn't want to testify that I never heard anyone say,

there is somebody thinking about this, because that would be

different from my vague recollection.

But I have no recollection of that meeting, and there-

fore none of any specific

statement made by anyone in it.

The Chairman. Senator Baker?

Senator Baker. In that connection, before I go to the

question I had in mind, is it fair to say, Mr. Bundy, that

all, or virtually all, of your testimony this morning, about

MONGOOSE, about the August 10 meeting, and about the general

situation, is from reconstructed memory rather than first

impression memory?

MI. Bundy. I didn't want to go that far, Senator Baker.

My knowledge, my sense of what 51/12 and Special Group

Augmented

wore, and where they stood in the line of authority,

is very clear, and is not reconstructed. I spent five

years - except for the time when General Taylor was there,

I was the chairman of these things.

Senator Baker. Let's take a piece at a time, then.

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On the question of the Executive Action capability, I

2

believe referred to as the ZRRIFLE project -

3

Mr. Bundy. Imust say that if I had known that was its

4

name I would have looked harder, Senator Baker.

5

Senator Baker. It is a fairly picturesque name - as

6

to Executive Action Capability, Or ZRRIFLE, do you have a

7

separate recollection?

8

9

10

Mr. Bundy. I have a recollection of what I think of

is one, I don't want to say there wasn't more, but of

one discussion of the matter.

And I know I was informed of

11

it in some fashion at the time.

12

Senator Baker. Do you remember by whom?

13

Mr. Bundy. That is my difficulty, as I said earlier,

14

I don't know.

15

Senator Baker. The reason I ask is, from the other

16

documentation I have, which consists primarily of the

Inspector General of the CIA's report, and maybe other

18

material that I can't think of at the moment, it is clear

19i and unmistakeable that they think of RRIFLE or Executive Ac-

20

tion Capability as a White House initiative, or a White House

21

request of considerable insistence from the White House that

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they get on with the job.

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Mr. Bundy. That is totally inconsistent with my un-

reconstructed recollection.

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Senator Baker. Let me track that carefully.

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Do you recall that there was not?

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MI. Bundy. Ifan only speak for myself here, and for

3

my colleague Rostow, and my knowledge of his assignments.

I recall that his assignments would have made it wildly out

5

6

7

of place, and totally out of character, for him to initiate a

matter of this kind. And I recall that I did not. And I

recall that quite independently of any reconstruction of

8

recent months.

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10

Senator Baker. I would like to limit this, then,

just to yourassignment.

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Was it your general assignment to take care of so-

called covert operations?

MI. Bundy. It was my assignment - may I take a minute

on this?

Senator Baker. Yes, sir.

MI. Bundy. There were two ways in which I could become

involved in covert - three ways. I: might have thought up

an idea myself. I will have to say that I have no recollec-

tion that I ever did. It was not a subject in which I had

201

an independent personal motivating interest.

So, there were

21

two ways in which I could get involved in it. One was by

22.

a proposal upward from the Agency or the Defense Intelligence

23

Services, which would come to the Special Group.

24

And the other was when the President had an interest--

25

and I did have an interest - from time to time in these

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matters. He had a great interest at different points in

1961, 1962, in doing more about Cuba. And part of the more he

wanted to do was covert.

And he would say so to me. And

5

I would say so to somebody else.

Senator Baker. Can you give us examples of that?

6

MI. Bundy. No, I can't. I rican only say that the kind

77

8

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10

of things he was talking about was, why do all these raids not

get us anywhere? They say they can do something about the oil

refineries, why don't they?

These are purely hypothetical,

Senator Baker, but they would be in a category, subversion

11.

12

and sabotage.

Senator Baker. WAs it Harvey that was

spoken of as our

0073

14

15

Mr. Schwarz. Once yesterday.

SEnator Baker. Do you remember when Mr. Harvey was

16

17

18

brought to see the President at the Oval Office?

Mr. Bundy. I have been told about that, but I

am afraid that is non-refreshed recollection. I don't know

19

anything about it.

20 11

Senator Baker. Would that have been the character of

27

the things that the President was interested in, 007?

Mr. Bundy. I am not going to try to repair the record

22

23

at this late stage and say that the President never read

Ian Fleming.

24

Senator Baker. Or ever seen Ian Fleming?

25

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Mr. Bundy. I don't think the President ever acted Ian

Fleming.

Senator Baker. I think that is right. But I think it...

5

is

important for us, Mr. Bundy, to try to establish, as the

Chairman said, the range of available information or evi-

dence that sheds some light on the three alternative possi-

7

bilities, and the type of things that the President interested

8

9

himself in is terribly important in that respect.

I believe that you said you had no

information or no

recollection of what particular situation, or what other

10

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deals that were made he was interested in.

Mr. Bundy. I will put it

more concretely than

that.

The President said, can't we do something

more about Cuba?

why don't you get ahold of these people who are dealing with

this and see if they can't do better, and pass the word

16

• 17

that I am interested, that kind of thing.

Senator Baker. Do I understand that to mean that he never

18 | spoke of a particular practice?

19

MI. Bundy. I can't tell you that, because I know, the

20

record indeed reminds me, that particular actions that are

21.

related to Cuba that came up through the group of ten

22

went to him, and some were approved and some were not.

24

24

So, he clearly looked at them.

I would have to have the documents there in order to

25

be precise, and I don't have them with me.

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Senator Baker.

"Which documents?

Mr. Bundy. Documents which the Committee staff

has provided.

Mr. Schwarz. We have them.

Senator Baker. Tell me what they are.

Mr. Schwarz.

November 30, 1961, Tab -- is that Tab H

or Tab 4 about the November 30, 1961, which authorizes

MONGOOSE?

Mr. Kelley. Tab 4.

MI. Schwarz.

May 5, '62, Lansdale Tab 21.

Senator Baker. Let's stop there, if I may.

Do you have a copy of this memorandum, Mr. Bundy?

Mr. Kelley.

He will have it in

a moment.

Mr. Bundy. One place these documents did not go is

into the memorabilia of former members.

Mr. Kelley. We are talking about Tab 4.

Senator Baker.

Mine says, see Lansdale Tab 4.

MI. Kelley.

Yes.

November 30, 1961.

Senator Baker. I would

really prefer if someone gave

Mr. Bundy a copy of the same material I am working on.

Mr. Kelley. All right, that is the chronology.

MI. Bundy. November 30, 1961?

Senator Baker. Yes, sir. It is on page 3, the third

item.

Mr. Bundy. I have it.

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Senator Baker. President Rennedy's decision to begin

MONGOOSE. Is it clear, Mr. Bundy, that President Kennedy made

the decision to initiate the MONGOOSE program?

Mr. Bundy. No question.

Senator Baker.

• I notice in the staff interpretation

under the column "Issues and Questions" that they alleged

that you recall probably writing this memorandum.

Mr. Bundy.

That is really a logical inference. The

President would not himself have written a long memorandum of

instructions of this kind. It is possible that General

Taylor wrote it. But I think it is more likely that I did.

But in any event, whichever of us did so was doing it as a

staff officer for the Prsident's convenience in recording

his decision.

Senator Baker. So at least to this extent there is

no question about the chain of command, or the chance to

control it, the President authorized it?

MI. Bundy. Just to underline that point, as I recall

the paper which was shown to me, it is one from Mrs. Lincoln

to General Taylor saying, the President wants you to have

this as a description of the decisions.

Senator Baker•

Would you repeat that?

Mr. Bundy. I think the covering memorandum on that

document is from Mrs. Lincoln to General Taylor, and it says,

the President wants you to have this as a record of his

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decisions.

Senator Baker. Thank you, sir..

Do you have an independent recollection of the meeting

or the encounter with President Kennedy in connection with

MONGOOSE?

Mr. Bundy... Not a specific meeting, but of the process

which led to this decision, yes.

Senator Baker. Describe for me, if you will, what

MONGOOSE was intended to be?

MI. Bundy. Well, MONGOOSE in a general way was the

whole set of things to be concerned with mostly, but not only,

covert activities against the Communist regime in Cuba.

Senator Baker. The chronology also quotes the memo as

saying, one, we will use our available assets to go ahead

with the discussed project in order to help Cuba overthrow

the Communist regime.

Can you elaborate on that?

Mr. Bundy. Not without documentary assistance beyond

what I have just said.

It was to be a fairly wide ranging

program. I believe that what that really sort of implies

to me is that all departments are to cooperate, that the

Committee is to review possibilities, proposals, to seek

them out, and that the thing is to be coordinated by the

Committee, whose chairman will be -- this summary doesn't

say so, but my recollection is that the chairman was to be

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General Taylor/and It does say that General Lansdale

was to be the Chief of Operations.

The Chairman. I have some questions at this point, please.

Item 4 of this memorandum reads:

"The NSC 54/12 GrOUP

will be kept closely Informed of activities, and will be

avallable for advice. and recommendation".

Does this suggest to you that the regular channel was

supposed to operate with respect to MONGOOSE, that l6 to say,

a central role was to be played by the Special Group in

connection with its activities?

MI. Bundy. It is a puzzling sentence to me as I read

it now. And I can't give you a precise answer on that. I

think the general answer has to be that the 54/12 Group continua.

through this period. General Taylor was the chairman of

both. The overlapping of membership

was extensive. And

I think you would get a more precise answer as to the exact

relation from General Taylor than I am in a position to give

yOu.

The Chairman. I have a very clear memory of General

Taylor's testimony. And his testimony was that the Special

GrOUp Augmented was the group that had charge of operation

MONGOOSE. It was further his testimony that all plans, all

operations, were to be brought to the Special Group Aug-

mented for its approval. And the approval of that Group

was necessary before any such plans were actually implemented.

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MI. Bundy: I would certainly be clear on that, Mr.

Chairman. I thought you were asking whether there was a

further requirement that it go from the Special Group

Augmented to the Special Group.. And I have no precise view

on that.

The Chairman. I see:

Now, when you refer to the NSC 54/12 Group -

Mr. Bundy. That is what I think of as the Special Group.

The Chairman. That is what you think of as the Special

Group.

I asked the question because the language is a little

fuzzy.

MI. Bundy. It is.

The Chairman. This language might suggest that there is

an independent line of authority, and that the Special Group

Augmented of the Special Group was simply to be kept informed,

and its advice and recommendations would be taken under advise-

ment.

Mr. Bundy.

I think myself, Mr. Chairman, that

we don't have a very serious problem here, because I would

agree with General Taylor's recollection that the Special

Group Augmented was the Cuba group.

Now, the Special Group is simply the same people less

two or three. And the only real operational value of this

paragraph is that perhaps the staff officer who serviced the

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54/12 would be available in a decision to the staff officer

servicing the Special Group Augmented. But the decision-making

persons are simply a smaller number of the very people

that both General Taylor and I recollect. as having the main

responsibility.

The Chairman. So according to your best remembrance,

you would agree with the testimony we have received from

General Taylor?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, I would.

The Chairman.

MI. Smothers?

Ms. Smothers. Mr. Bundy, perhaps we could get some help

in how the recollections come together here.

I might pursue

for just a moment some of the background regarding other

sources of information you may have had regarding the subject

matter of his testimony.

You indicated earlier that you had talked with Mr.

Bissell about his testimony.

Did you talk with persons other than Mr. Bissell?

Mr. Bundy. Oh, yes.

Mr. Smothers. Did you talk with Mr. McNamara?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, indeed.

Mr. Smothers. Regarding these events?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Smothers.

Have you spoken with Mr. Gilpatric?

MI. Bundy. NO, I don't think I have.

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Mr. Smothers:: Mr: Rusk?

MI. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Smothers.

Mr. McCone?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Smothers. Are there others?

Mr. Bundy. I am sure there are.

Mr. Rostow. Mr.

Goodwin. There may well be others, Mr. Schlesinger and Mr.

Dungam - who has very little to do with it, but I talked

to them because of my own absence of recollection about the

Dominican Republic.

Mr. Smothers.

Let me just raise a few questions regard-

ing those discussions, and perhaps it will be somewhat helpful

to us in trying to piece this together.

Has any documentary evidence passed between you and

the persons previously.

mentioned regarding the subject

matter of these hearings?

MI. Bundy. Not that I know of.

Mr. Smothers. Did Mr. McCone provide you any documentary

evidence?

MI. Bundy. No.

Mr. Smother. Did you receive any documentary evidence

from any source other than the staff?

Mr. Bundy. No -- I beg your pardon. When I testified

before the Rockefeller Commission I asked through that

Commission whether I could look at NCS files particularly in

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• 39

order to clarify my recollection of the 6th of August 1962.

And I was allowed to look

at the NSAM files. And my memory was

refreshed by NSAM-1, which I believe the committee has.

Mr. Smothers. Have you made a similar request to

persons now within the Agency

for on the White House staff?

Mr. Bundy. No.

Mr. Smothers. Could we go back into your conversation

with Mr. Bissell? Could you describe for the Committee, please,

your reaction when Mr. Bissell indicated to you that he had

in testimony before this Committee told the Committee that

either you or Mr. Rostow had asked him to establish an Execu-

tive Action Capability?

Mr. Bundy. He didn't report it that way to me.

He

reported it to me that the testimony that had been given by

others placed this event in February 1961. Testimony by

others indicated that he had

said to them that he had been

encouraged to do this by the white House, and that in casting

around as to who might have encouraged, he had given the

names of Rostow and Bundy. I think this is roughly what

he said to me.

The Chairman. That was the character of his testimony?

MI. Bundy.

I told him that I thought he must

be wrong about rostow, because that wasn't the way it worked,

and that my own recollection was not that we had encouraged

him, but that I had at some stage been informed about it.

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We then went on to' a discussion of what it was. And

we agreed that whatever else-it was, it was not an operation

plan, and it was not targeted against anyone.

Mr. Smothers. What was his reaction to your comment

that he had been informed as opposed to initiating?

MI. Bundy. I don't recall that we had a very extended

discussion on it. I don't recall his reaction, and I don't

recall exactly how I put the point.

The Chairman. Let me just ask at that point, the way you

have characterized Bissell's testimony correspnds with my

memory of it.. It is hard for me, however, to understand

how Mr. Bissell - why Mr. Bissell would have directed Mr.

Harvey to develop such a capability, and apparently represented,:

if the documents are to be believed, to MI. Harvey that he had

been twice instructed to do this by the White House, if he

had not in fact received such authority.

Do you think that Mr. Bissell would have undertaken

on his own initiative to develop such

a capability and

simply represented to his subordinate that he was doing

so on

instructions from the White House?

Mr. Bundy. I think there is a prior question, Mr.

Chairman, which is the credibility of the witness

from whom he .

is taking this recollection.

The Chairman. That is fair.

Though Mr. Bissell himself did not seem disposed -

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Mr. Bundy, Mr. Bissell may not recollect that I did

not give him this instruction, but I do, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Did Mr. Bissell at any time during the

period under question, or at any later time, ever inform

you of CIA activities or involvement in assassination attempts

against any foreign leader?

Mr. Bundy. No.

The Chairman. Doesn't it strike you as strange, since

Mr. Bissell was aware of such attempts, that he would not

have told him?

Mr. Bundy, Well,. I don't want, for reasons that I

have

already explained, to speculate as to why he did or did

not. I was operating, working on

the assumption that I

would know that kind of thing if it existed.

The Chairman Senator Mathias?

Senator Mathias.

Mr. Chairman, I don't want to leave

the record, or Mr. Bundy's mind, or in the alternative, my

mind, in a state of confusion as to what exactly Mr. Bissell's

recollection was.

Now, he was depending somewhat on Mr. Harvey's recollec-

tion and notes in the first instance. But as I recall, he

was very clear as a matter of independent recollection that

he had been horsed along a couple of times by the white House

on proceeding with the development of the Executive Action

Capability. And that was a matter of independent recollection,

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it didn't depend on anybody else's notes or anybody else!s

refreshing his recollection.

Mr. Bundy. That he didn't say to me, and I have no way

of commenting on it.

The Chairman. I think we must carefully review the

record on that score.

Senator Baker. It may be necessary to ask him to come

back for that purpose.

May I ask a question there?

MI. Bundy, do you have any recollection of any specific

covert plans that would involve

poisons, hypdermic syringes,

or other potentially lethal devices

in

conjunction with acti

vities against Cuba?

Mr. Bundy. I have no recollection of any specific plan.

I do have a very vague, essentially refreshed recollection

that I heard the word poison at some point in connection with

a possibility of action in Cuba.

But that is as far as I

have been able to take

it in my

own memory.

Senator Baker. Can you remember who may have men-

tioned it to you and what the purposes of the poison may have

been?

Mr. Bundy. Nothing at all about it in detail.

Senator Baker. A poison pen?

MI. Bundy. No, some kind of poison about which -- one

thing that does stick in my mind is that it seems totally

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impractical because it was

going to kill a large group of

people in a headquarters mess, or something of that sort.

Senator Baker. Do you remember whether the plan was

declared non-feasible or infeasible by the Department of

Defense?

Mr. Bundy. No, I have no such recollection.

Senator Baker. Do you remember anything about a hypodermic

syringe to carry poisons in a ballpoint pen?

MI. Bundy. That is the sort of thing that I was asked

the other day, and I said I remember it, and then it seems to

me about ten seconds later was that what I was remembering

was

murder mysteries and nothing related to Cuba. I have no

recollection of connecting anything like that to Cuba.

Senator Baker.

I have another question, but I will

wait, if you have something else.

The Chairman.

Go ahead, sir.

Senator Baker.

Do you

feel that you have a good insight

into the relationship

between the President and his brother

Robert Kennedy in this respect, that is, having to do with

Cuba operations, and Robert Kennedy and Richard Helms?

MI. Bundy. I have a pretty good picture of the relation-

ship between President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy on Cuba,

and on many other things. It is a recollection which grows

stronger as the administration goes on, because I got to

know them better, and, of course, they got to know me better,

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and the relationship tends to become closor, my relation with

2

both of them. I had known the President for many, many

3

years, and the Attorney General much more briefly.

I do not -have any clear picture of the relationship

between the Attorney General and Mr. Helms: My curbstone

6

judgment would have been that it was not close.

7

8

• Senator Baker. Based on your insight, did the Presi-

dent delegate to Robert Kennedy substantial aspects of Cuba

9

10

policy during the period we are speaking of?

MI. Bundy. I wouldn't put it that way, Senator

11.

Baker. He certainly counted on the Attorney General to be

12.

a kind of gingerman on a great many subjects, of which Cuba

13

and counterinsurgency were the two that came more closely with-

14

15

16

In my area of interest.

Senator Baker. Counterinsurgency meaning what?

MI. Bundy. Counterinsurgency meaning all those efforts

1'7

like the Green Berets and organizing to be able to assist

18

countries threatened by Communist

subversion internally.

19

Senator Baker. Are you speaking of counterinsurgency

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as it led to Cuba, or as a general capability?

Mr. Bundy. There was a separate committee, the Special

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Committee on CI, counterinsurgency. And the Attorney General

was an active member of that. And I used to see him playing

2'3

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this very important role of poking and prodding, and why can't

25

you do more, and why can't you do better, and why aren't we

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making more progress.

Senator Baker. Who was on that committee?

MI. Bundy. I am sorry, I can't decide from recollection.

General Taylor was again the Chairman, but the membership was

different.

Senator Baker. Do you have minutes or records of that

group?

Mr. Schwarz. No.

Senator Baker. Mr. Chairman, I would like to request

that with Mr. Bundy's assistance after this hearing that we iden-

tify as much as we can what that group is, and make a fomral

request for

documentation.

MI. Aaron. We have reviewed some of that: material at

the John F. Kennedy Library. It is essentially in fact the

group that reviewed paramilitary operations and potential

insurgency situations.in a number of countries. There was

an

insurgency list. It did not seem to relate to the subject

we are speaking of here. So we did not request the documents.

But we could have gotten them.

Senator Baker. Will you do that, please?

Is that agreeable, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman. What is your request?

Senator Baker. I would like documentation or any records

relating to the counterinsurgency group during the period in

question.

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The Chairman. Let me suggest. that we designate a mem

ber of the committee staff to undertake that review, and

report back to the committee.

Would that be satisfactory?

Senator Baker. That is fine. I just want to know if

there is any worthwhile documentation.

The Chairman. Yes.

Because it may be entirely ancillary

to this issue.

Senator Baker. Let me ask Mr. Bundy this. Would that

group have been important toward American policy during this

period?

Mr. Bundy. The CI Group?

Senator Baker. Yes.

Mr. Bundy.

I would think only most marginally,

Senator Baker, simply because the existence of other groups,

the Special Group Augmented or the MONGOOSE GrOUp, was so

clearly dominant and was the Central Committee for that sub-

ject.

Senator Baker. The gingerbread man concept?

Mr. Bundy. The gingerman concept.

Senator Baker. The gingerman concept. There is a

difference.

Do I directly infer from that description that the

President would authorize Robert Kennedy to urge and expedite

action to move from assignment to assignment and to push people

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along

'to produce' a result?

- MI. Bundy. In a general way that 18 right. But the

form it took in the areas in which I was concerned was in one

sense quite informal.. I know of no instance where the Attorney

General tried to replace the normal channel - let's stay away

for the moment from the covert question and the Cuban ques-

tion, which I know you will want to talk about more precisely --

but if he felt, as he often did, that, American policy in

Africa, for example, was insufficiently sensitive to the aspir-

ations of black people in Africa, he wouldn't fire off a kick, he

would come in and say, why can't you people do something about

the State Department on news and stuff.

Senator Baker. There is some evidence - we had direct

testimony that Mr. Helms, who was DDP at the time in ques-

tion, rather than DCI, clearly thought that the authority of

the Agency was to overthrow the Castro regime by any means, in-

cluding assassination.

And when pressed on the source of that authority he de-

signed to say

that anyone specifically told him that, but

that he talked to Robert Kennedy frequently about it. Would

this be in the gingerman concept you are speaking of?

Mr. Bundy. Now we are right at the specific point I

would like to make. But everything I knew about Bobby Kennedy

when he was goading and spurring people on is that he never

took away from the existing channel of authority its authority

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:48

or responsibility.

Senator Baker. Would what I describe be consistent

with whatyou describe?

Mr. Bundy. Not if it is Interpreted as meaning that he

was providing a separate channel of authority.

Senator Baker:

What I meant was just what it was, and

that is, Helms described for us meeting with Kennedy apparently

to stimulate the Agency's activities to produce the overthrow

of the Castro regime, and that he met regularly with Kennedy

in this respect.

Mr. Bundy. I don't know how often they met of what was

said, I know nothing about that. I would have said, just in

passing, that the Attorney General's relationship to the Direc-

tor of Central Intelligence was much closer and more impor-

tant than his relationship to Mr. Helms.

Senator Baker. I am correct, am I, that Helms at the

time was DDP and not DCI?

Mr. Schwarz. That is right.

Senator Baker. Do you have any idea why he would have

met regularly with the DDP rather than the DCI?

MI. Bundy. I have no idea that he did. I know that he

met often and intimately and easily with the Director of

Central Intelligence, who was a close personal friend of his.

Senator Baker. You are speaking of MI. McCone?

MI. Bundy. Mr. McCone.

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49

The Chairman. I think that since the point is impor-

tant, that when the Committee Staff complete Its review of the

evidence it ought to be reminded to look closely at that Helms

testimony and identify exactly what words Helms might have

used to describe his relationship with Robert Kennedy.

Senator Baker. And the time involved and what position

Helms occupied at the time.

The Chairman. I have another question.

MI. Bundy, we also have it from Mr. Bissell that at one

time he called in an officer, a subordinate, O'Donnell, -

that at one time Mr. Bissell called in a subordinate whose

name was Mr. O'Donnell, and asked Mr. O'Donnell if he would

be willing to undertake the assassination of Mr. Lumumba.

MI. O'Connell testifies that he said he would not be

willing to undertake the assassination of Mr. Lumumba, because

he had moral compunctions against killing.

Mr.. O'Donnell further testifies that he was then or

thereafter dispatched to the Congo, where he was informed that

some poison had been made available -- had come to the CIA

headquarters in the Congo.

Mr. Bundy. I am sorry, I missed that last.

The Chairman. He was informed that some poison had

arrived at the CIA headquarters in the Congo.

When we asked Mr. Bissell on what authority he had asked

O'Connell as to his willingness to undertake the

assassination

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of Lumumba, he could not provide us with that authority,

except to say that he may have done it on his own initiative.

Do you have any reaction to that?

Mr. Bundy. Where is it in time?

Senator Church. It was in the fall of 1960. It was

not during the Kennedy Administration, it preceded the Kennedy

Administration. But I asked you the question, because it

strikes me as being a very disturbing piece of testimony, that

any man so positioned, in the CIA could not identify higher

authority for such an action, and would under oath say that it

might have been on his own initiative.

Mr. Bundy. I can't add to your comment on that, Mr.

Chairman.

The Chairman. Very well.

Senator Morgan. Let me ask him a question or two, Mr.

Chairman.

The Chairman. Senator Morgan?

Senator Morgan. Mr. Bundy, you recall very vividly

talking with the President on many occasions about Cuba,

is that right?

MI. Bundy. I recall vividly that I talked to him on many

occasions, I am not very good on remembering specific dis-

cussions.

Senator Morgan. You told us a few minutes ago that he was

constantly prodding, and why don't you do this, and why doesn't

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so and so work?

Mr. Bundy. If I may correct that, I said he prodded me

from time to time, not all the time:

Senator Morgan.

Quite frequently?

Mr. Bundy. I wouldn't put it that often. It might have

been three or four times.

Senator MOrgan. Mr. Bundy, you were head of the Security

Council, you were his assistant?

Mr. Bundy.

I am trying to give an accurate pictúre of

the number of times, Senator.

Senator Morgan.

You are trying to give such an accurate

picture that you are not giving much of a picture at all.

Are you telling this committee that throughout the time

you assumed your duties, throughout the Cuban crisis, and all

the MONGOOSE operations, that you might have talked to him two

three times about it?

Mr. Bundy. No.

Could I separate and try and clarify my answer?

Senator Morgan. Yes.

Mr. Bundy. I talked to the President, I suppose, many,

many times in the context of the events that led up to and

followed the Bay of Pigs. I talked to him dozens of times,

maybe even hundreds of times, in the context of the events

that

led up to and followed the Cuban missile crisis. Those are the

two great moments of Presidential concern over Cuba during the

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time I was in Washington. I talked to him mach less I can't

give you a number- on these intervening matters. And that is

the distinction I am trying to make.

Senator MOrgan. You were something between himself and

the National Security Council, were you not?

Mr. Bundy. That isn't exactly the way it works.

Senator Morgan. Just tell me what did you do.

Mr. Bundy. I am trying.to.

Senator Morgan. I have been listening all morning, Mr.

Bundy, and I just don't get it.

Let me go to one other question. Was it true a while

ago when you said that Robert Kennedy was constantly prodding

people? Why can't we do more?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, that is certainly true.

Senator Morgan. I have no other questions.

Senator Mondale. Could I ask one, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman. Senator Mondale.

Senator Mondale. I don't like to ask this question,

but I think it is important.

lave you talked to others involved during this period

when you may have been testifying before us and before the

Rockefeller Commission, say, in the last five months about

this testimony?

Mr. Bundy. I answered that question. Yes, I have.

Senator Mondale. Would you repeat it briefly for us?

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Mr. Smothers:

I was about to pursue that line,

Senator Mondale.

Senator Mondale. Go ahead.

Mr. Smothers. I believe you indicated previously, Mr.

Bundy, that you talked to MI. Bissell, Mr. McNamara, MI. MeCone,

Mr. Rostow, Mr. Goodwin, MI. Schleinger, and others that may

not be on that list. And you indicated that you had

spoken to

Mr. Bissell after his testimony regarding executive action.

Mr. Bundy. That is right.

Mr. Smothers. Had you spoken with him also before that

testimony?

Mr. Bundy. No.

Mr. Smothers.

Did he call you or did you call him?

Mr. Bundy. I don't honestly recall. I think I said the

other day that he had called me, but I think actually what

happened that he called me, and my first words were, I needed

to call you.

Mr. Smothers.

Can we go to your conversations with MI.

McNamara.

When did you first talk with him about these matters

being testified to?

Mr. Bundy. I think pretty much as

soon as it hit the papers.

MI. Smothers. Can you give the Committee the sense of

your conversations with Mr. McNamara?

MI. Bundy. There have been a number of them. Mr.

McNamara and I not only have been close friends, but are very

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closely assoclated. now

So, Isee him and talk with him fre-

quently, both about substance of matters of international

development, and about the business of the Ford Foundation.

So, I have talked to him a number of times both on the

telephone and face to face. The essence of the conversation

is the exploration of questions raised or doubts raised babout

the conviction we both share, which is that no one in the Kennedy

Administration, in the White House, or In the Capitol, ever

gave any authorization, approval, or instruction of any kind

for any effort to assassinate anyone by the CIA.

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Mr. Smothers. Did you discuss with him, or did he raise

with you specifically, the fact that he had received from

Me. McCone a memorandum from Mr. McCone in 1967?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, he told me that.

Mr. Smothers. Did you discuss the substance of that

memorandum?

• Mr. Bundy. I discussed 1t: initially with Mr. McCone.

Mr. Smothers. Did you discuss it with Mr. McNamara?

Mr. Bundy. He mentioned it to me. I don't recall much

about it.

Mr. Smothers. Did you discuss the meeting of August 10

in Secretary Rusk's office?

Mr. Bundy. That was the first discussed because the

newspapers said that there had been a meeting of three, four

or five of us, and the question was whether there had been

such a meeting limited to three, four, or five. And we were

able

to satisfy ourselves that that was wrong.

Mr. Smothers.

That was wrong. What do you recall to

have been Mr. McNamara's reaction of the August 10 meeting?

MI. Bundy. He didn't seem to have any that I can recall,

at least I don't recall that he told me of any reaction of

it.

Mr. Smothers. Do you recall the substance of his

comment regarding the 1967 McCone report?

Mr. Bundy. No. I don't think he commented on it. He

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told 'me what it said..

Mr. Smothers. With regard to your conversation with

Mr. McCone, when did this occur, approximately?

Mr. Bundy. That occurred earlier on.

Mr. Smothers. Before the.

Rockefeller Commission inquiry?

Mr. Bundy. I don't know exactly when it was. But it

was within the context of the Rockefeller Commission

inguiry and not this inguiry.

Mr. Smothers. Are you talking about more than one

conversation?

MI. Bundy. No, I think I talked to him on the phone

and then I had a meeting with him.

MI. Smothers. In either the phone conversation of the

meeting did you discuss Mr. McCone's 1967 report?

Mr. Bundy. He told me that he had heard of it. I don't

think he had then seen it.

MI. Smothers. You don't think he had then seen it?

Mx. Bundy. He had then seen it as of 1975. He obviously

saw it in 1967.

Mr. Smothers. Can you give us a feeling for the approx-

imate time when this conversation occurred?

Mr. Bundy. I could probably work it out from my own

calendar, but I don't have it in my head.

Mr. Smothers. But at this time he had not seen the

report?

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Mr. Bundy. He had not Been the report In 1975.

But

since it: is a report that -'as I understand 1t, it 18 a

report that he made in

1967, and he had seen it then.

Mr. Smothers. Did he indicate to you that he was.

making an effort to get that report?

Mr. Bundy. I think he told me that he had been in touch

with the Agency and would be seeing the report, but I don't

really recall.

Mr. Smothers. To go into your conversation with Mr.

Rostow, would you indicate to the Committee, please, the

substance of that conversation?

MI. Bundy. Yes. I called him after my conversation

with Mr. Bissell, because it seemed to me that he ought to

be informed, and the two of them ought to talke with each

other about that testimony.

MI. Smothers. At the time you called him it was your

impression that M.. Bissell had not talked with MI. Rostow?

Mr. Bundy. But was planning to.

MI. Smothers. And this was after Mr. Bissell's testi-

mony?

MI. Bundy. That if right.

Mr. Smothers. Did you and Mr. Rostow discuss the fact

that both you and Mr. Rostow had been named as potential

sources for the Exective Action authorization?

MI. Bundy. My emphasis in talking about Mr. Rostow was

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the fact that he had been mentioned, because it seemed to me

that in my recollection that must be wrong, and he would be

interested in getting it straightened out.

Mr. Smothers. Can we go to your conversation with Mr.

Goodwin. Did you call him or did he call you?

Mr. Bundy. I called him.

Mr. Smothers. And the nature of that conversation?

Mr. Bundy. That conversation was about the Dominican

Republic, because of my complete failure of recollection as

to who or what the White House line of action, responsibility

and concern was with respect to the Dominican Republic in

1961. And I called him, and I called Dungan, and I called

Schlesinger, because they were the the who had been very

much involved in things like the Alliance for Progress, and

new appointments to embassies in Latin America, and Latin

American Policy generally, except for the Bay of Pigs. And

I wanted to see if they had recollections about events in.

that spring that were more extensive than mine. I didn't learn

very much, but that was the purpose of the call.

Mr. Smothers. And it it your testimony that your first

exposure to the documentary evidence beyond these recollections

was when either the Rockefeller Commission staff or this

staff showed you documents pertaining to this inquiry.

Mr. Bundy. I want to be precise about the Rockefeller

Commission staff. They did not show me the documents, the

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59

White House: Staff showed me the documents.

Mr. Smothers:

The White House Staff showed you the

documents?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

Mr.. Smothers. Under what circumstance did the White House

Staff provide these documents to you?

Was it at your request,

or their request?

Mr. Bundy. My request.

Mr. Smothers. When did it occur?

Mr. Bundy. At the time of the Rockefeller hearings.

Mr. Smothers. At the time of the Rockefeller hearings?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

MI. Smothers. And prior to your testimony?

MI. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Smothers. Who provided these documents to you?

Mr. Bundy.: I never have testified on - this

is not a

serious matter, because there is no secret about it. But I

have always taken the position that White House decisions

are for the White House to discuss, and I perfer to hold to

that position

now:

Mr. Smothers. Are you saying that you do not feel at

liberty -

MI. Bundy. No, I am not saying, I am saying that I would

request the committee to address that question with the White

House.

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The Chairman. "what is the question?

MI. Smothers. The question is who in the white House

provided Mr. Bundy with documents relevant to this investigation.

And I believe his position is that he would prefer not to

disclose that matter, or that that is a matter for the

Committee's determinátion.

Mr. Bundy. Let me explain, MI. Chairman, because you

were out of the room, that I have always taken the position

that decisions of the White House are for the White House

to discuss. I always asked permission to see documentation

and permission was given. I looked at the document, but I

would rather not discuss it, because I think it is for the

White House to discuss it.

The Chairman. What is the document?

MI. Bundy. I just described it, it is National Security

Action Memorandum No. l, we showed us the National Security

Action file, which I believe your staff has.

Mr. Schwarz. We have it here.

Mr. Smothers. My question was, who had the request been

made to, and showed him the document?

MI. Bundy. My point is that I have tried historically

not to discuss this kind of question when it is something

that concerns the White llouse, but to leave it to the White

House to discuss it, and I would prefer to hold to that

position.

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(off: the record.):

Mr. Smothers.. This quite frankly, Mr. Bundy, this

related to an ancillary matter that is of concern to the

Committee.

You mentioned conversations with Mr. Schlesinger. Again,

were

those initiated by you?

Mr. Bundy. The most recent one, he called me. And I

think there were earlier ones, but I don't know.

I can't be

precise. I must say I don't know that I understand the line

of questioning. These are very important matters, and

people closely involved in them should be trying to get a

clear

sense of what each other remembers after this many

years, it seems to me this would be entirely natural.

Mr. Smothers. I don't question the fact that it is

natural, Mr. Bundy. I think one of the difficult things

for this committee to do is to separate out, if you will,

the independent recollections from the documentary evidence

we have shown you, and from conversations with others

MI. Bundy. You are quite right. And I have tried

quite carefully to teil you my recollection.

Mr. Smothers. We are merely trying now to establish

those relationships so that when we get the point in the

record there is some question regarding the nature of the

recollection that might be of some assistance

to us. That

is not an attack on your veracity, it is not an attempt to

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see if there has been any Offortyat collusion

or whatever,

but merely to give us some guidelines in looking at the

record.

Do you recall, Mr. Bundy, from these conversations that

we have just mentioned,. any matters which have been raised

by the participants: that may be inconsistent with the

documentary record as you have seen it?

We know, of course,

that Mr. McNamara's recollection appears to be inconsistent

with the documentary evidence regarding the August 10

meeting.

Mr. Bundy. Well, so was mine. And I have no such

recollection.

MI: Smothers. I am speaking. now of the recollection of

others, if you will.

MI. Bundy. I can't really recite on that, because

haven't made the kind of comparison document by document

and conversation by conversation that would allow me to make

a clearcut and comprehensive answer. But I don't have any

recollection of sharp divergency of that sort.

The Chairman. Mr. Schwarz.

Mr. Schwarz. Mr. Bundy, I want to pick up on one

thing that you testified to that was left hanging and then

come back through your involvement with Cuba and

starting

from the beginning. You testified that to your knowledge

no authorization for an assassination was given. I want to

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63

come at the subject from another direction. Were you ever

told at any time by anybody: that assassination effofts were

actually under way with respect to MI. Castro?

Mr. Bundy. Absolutely not.

Mr. Schwarz. Were you ever told by anybody that the

Central Intelligence Agency had hired the Mafia to assassinate

Castro?

" Mr. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz.

were you ever told by anybody that during

the MONGOOSE program MI. Harvey was engaged in assassination

efforts upon Fidel Castro?

MI. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz.

Were you

ever told by anybody that in the

fall of 1963 the Central Intelligence Agency was passing

asgassination devices to a Cuban military officer?

MI. Bundy: No.

Mr. Schwarze

Were you ever told by anybody that in the

fall of 1963 the Central Intelligence Agency was engaged in

an assassination effort with respect to Fidel Castro?

Mr. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, after the Bay of Pigs, was there a

reevaluation or reconsideration of what the policy toward Cuba

should be? And would you turn in that connection to Tab B, .

of the Bundy Book 1 of 2 --

Senator Tower. May I raise a purely technical point. I

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Know it is not intentional but think we use

the term, the

Mafia was hired to assassinate Castro, I think that was

inaccurate, because I don't think we have anything that

Indicates that we contacted the syndicate as such, and I think

if we use, "individuals likely associated with the Mafia,"

or something like that --it is a little technical.

Mr. Schwarz. Let me restate the question to make sure

that there is not a problem with the scope of my question.

And Senator Tower is correct.

Were you ever told that the Agency had contacted a man

called John Roselli?

Mr. Bundy. NO.

Mr. Schwarz. A man called Sam Giancana?

MI. Bundy. No.

MI. Schwarz. A man called Santos Traficante?

MI. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz. Any person who was a criminal or allegedly

a criminal for the purpose of assassinating MI. Castro?

MI. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz. Do you have any recollection whatsoever

related to the subject we have been exploring in that group

of questions?

Mr. Bundy. No - you are familiar with the fact that -

refreshed my recollection of activities associated with the

Mafia in a law enforcement context in Florida in 1964.

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Mr. Schwarz. Since you raised it, let's just pin that

down right now. What happened in 1964 with respect to the

Mavia and Cuba, to the best or your recollection?

And then

we will just mark some documents.

Mr. Bundy. Let me be clear that my recollection here is

entirely refreshed. Perhaps you would rather come back to

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it?

Mr. Schwarz. Let's put it in the record here, since we

have raised the subject.

Let's mark as Bundy Exhibit I the llelms memo to DCA

on the Cuban exile plan dated June 10, 1964.

(Document referred to is marked as

Bundy Exhibit No. 1 for identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz.'

As" Bundy Exhibit 2A, the minutes of the

meeting of the 303 Committee dated June 22, 1964.

(Document referred to is marked as

Bundy Exhibit No. 2A for identification.)

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As Bundy Exhibit 2B the minutes of the

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identification.)

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And Bundy.,Exhibit 2C the minutes of the

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Mr. Schwarz.

303 Committee of July 31, 1964.5

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identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz

And as Bundy, Exhibit 2D the memorandum

for the Honorable McGlorge, Bundy, Special Assistant to

the President, "Status of FBI Investigation re Plans by Cuban

Exiles to Assassinate Cuban Government Leaders," dated

August 19, 1964.

(Document referred to is marked as

Bundy Exhibit No. 2D for

identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz. Mr. Bundy,, based upon your having had an

opportunity prior to the testimony, and now again if you seek

to do so, to refresh your recollection, will you recount for

the Committee what happened in the summer of 1964 in connect-

ion with this matter?

Mr. Bundy. Well, it is a relatively small matter in the

context of what you are discussing, but what happened in the

summer of 1964 was that it came to our attention that there

were relations between Cuban refugees in Cuba and people

apparently associated with the Mafia. And this did not seem

to be a good idea. And this was in a period in which

sentiment had been

steadily growing

for some time against

activities by Cuban refugees that were wholly outside the

control and not really in the interest of the U.s., and that

they should be associated with a criminal group.

And so when the matter came to the Special Group, the

decision was made to refer it to the Department of Justice

as a matter of internal American law enforcement. That was

done.

And the Department said that it was going after the

matter, which it then did, and reported back.

The reports

don't give any conclusive picture of what

really was going on, but they do show that the Bureau went

to a number of people asking around about these matters, and

as far as I know, it then faded away.

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87 1.

Mr. Schwarz. In the context of that aiscussion dia

anybody from the Central Intelligence Agency or anybody

else Inform you that in earlier years there had been

a relationship with - to use Senator Tower's caution

with persons alledgedly involved with the criminal syndicate

in order to accomplish the assassination of Fidel Castor?

MI. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, going back to the post-Bay of Pigs

period, would you put before the witness and mark as Exhibit

2 the National Security minutes of a meeting held May 5, 1961.

It is at Tab B of the Senator's Book I of 2. This reflects,

am I correct, Mr. Bundy, a discussion of Cuba, held with the

President and high officials of the government who are all

listed on the front page?

Mr. Bundy. Correct.

Mr. Schwarz. And Cuba was discussed, and it was

agreed, following the discussion that U.s. policy toward Cuba

should aim at the downfall of Castro, and that since the

measures agreed below are not likely to achieve this end,

the matter should be reviewed at intervals with a view to

further action?

MI. Bundy. Right.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, can you describe the measures agreed

to at that point?

Ms. Bundy. My only way of doing that with any accuracy

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is to in effect to quote from or summarize this document;

Mr. Schwarz.

Mr. Schwarz. The document speaks for itself, then. And

you can add nothing to it?

MI. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz. But can you say that the measures did or

did not include assassination?

MI. Bundy. There is nothing in my recollection and

nothing in the document that seems to me to imply assassin-

ation.

MI. Schwarz. Now, following this instruction, was

Cuban policy reviewed again in the fall of 1961?

MI. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Schwarz. And ultimately out of the fall review

in 1961 came the so-called MONGOOSE program; is that correct?

Mr. Bundy. That is right.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, prior to discussing upon the MONGOOSE

program, did you consider a lot of other options?

Mr. Bundy. I think we were -- and this is a hard

question, but I think what we were doing was working toward

---

an organization that would be able to take charge of the

complicated, varied

inter-departmental kinds of things involved

in Cuba. We have been concentrating this morning on covert

actions, but there were also propaganda problems, economic

problems, and Cuban refugee problems in Miami, and a number

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:73

of others that did not all' fall within one jurisdiction.,

Anytime you get that kind of problem you have an organization

problem. And the solution of 1961, which took sometime to

work out, as the passage of time suggests, was the creation

of a Special Committee under the Chairmanship of General

Taylor and with General Lansdale as its operating officer.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, in the course of the review that did

take place prior to the establishment of that Special Committee

which then got called the MONGOOSE program, was one of the

matters which was considered the assassination of Mr. Castro?

Mr. Bundy. As I have already said, I can not tell you

that this question never came up. But I recall no sustained

discussion of that matter in that period.

Mr. Schwarz. Whether you recall a sustained discussion

or not

Mr. Bundy. I don't recall a discussion that I can pin-

point anywhere, but over the period of 1961 to 1963 the

subject was mentioned from time to time by different indivia-

uals, never to me that I can recall by the President. But

it did come up.

Mr. Schwarz. And it may have come up in this period in

the fall of 1961 as something to consider, is that correct?

MI. Bundy. As something to talk about rather than to

consider, would be my answer.

Mr. Schwarz. Would you put before the witness as Bundy

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Exhibit 3 the National Security Action Memorandum No. 100,

dated October 5, 1961, Tab C of the senator's Bundy Book 1.

And as Bundy Exhibit 3A the minutes of the Special Group

meeting dated October 6, 1961, which is at Lansdale Tab'2.

• (Document referred to is marked ag

Bundy Exhibit No. 2 for identification.)

(Document referred to is marked as

Bundy Exhibit No. 3 for identification.)

(Document referred to is marked as

Bundy Exhibit No. 3A for identification.

100. .. n

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Mr: Schwarzo

Would you give a copy of the other document,

the Parrott document, to all: the Senators too?

And finally,. as Bundy Exhibit 3B a memorandum which we

have retyped from an indistinctroriginal dated October 5,

1961 For the Record, Subject: Cuba, signed by Mr. Parrott.

And the Indistinct original Is attached.

(Document referred to is marked as

Bundy Exhibit Nu. 3B for identification)

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76

Mr Schwarz!

Mr Bundy, to summarize - before I ask

: 12

you the question - in NSAM No. 100 you sent to the Secretary

of State the following note: "In conformation of oral

Instructions conveyed to Assistant Secretary of State

Woodward, a plan is desired to the indicated contingency in

Cuba". Do you have an independent recollection of what that

indicated contingency. was?

MI. Bundy. Before seeing this document?

Mr. Schwarz. Before seeing the documents.

Mr. Bundy. No:

Mr. Schwarz. Having looked at not only Exhibit 3, but

Exhibit 3A and 3B, do you agree that the contingency referred

to in 3A and the contingency referred to in 3B are related

tO NSAM NO. 100?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, I do.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, the contingency referred to in 3B,

which is the earlier of the two following documents, is

said by MI. Parrott to be a plan against the contingency

that

Castro would in some way or other be removed from the Cuban

scent. And I am going to come to some of the other parts

of that document with respect to the President's interest or

not.

And the contingency in 3A, which is the minutes of the

Special Group, as characterized

as follows:

"Mr. Parrott also

told the Group that two other exercises are in progress in

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connection with Cuba, the preparation of a contingency plan

in connection with the possible removal of Castro from the

Cuban scene, and an updating of the overall plan for

covert operations"

Now, after having reviewed those documents, and in the

light of your testimony that it is possible that the

consideration of the possibility of assassination which you

say did occur at some point; occurred in the fall of 1961,

do you agree that at that time the contingency under consider-

ation here was the possibility of the assassination of Castro?

MI. Bundy. No, I would put it another way. The contin-

gency here is, what would we do if Castro were no longer

there. So that the question of how Castro ceased to be

there is left out of this set of papers. Clearly one of

the possibllities would be assassination, but only one of

them. What we are talking about here, as I read the docu-

ments, is a plan against the contingency that I am not reading

from the Parrott memorandum, against the contingency that

Castro would in some way or other be removed from the Cuban

scene. NSAM 100, whose language is indirect, nonetheless

indicates, to me at least, rereading it, that the President

wanted to know what was likely to happen

if Castro were no

longer there. He was, in other words, trying to get a picture

of whether that would really change things, and if so, in

what way.

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78

Mr. Schwarz. Just one detail that MI. Smothers suggested

to me. Is NSAM 100 what the White House showed you, or is

it another document?

Mr. Bundy. No, 181.

But let me be precise. I asked

to see the documents relating to - from the National Security

files relating to August 1962. And they gave me the NSAM

..file identified as the significant memorandum, NSAM 181.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, the contingency to be examined.

therefore, was what would happen - would it help the u.s...

that is the question, if Castro were to disappear?

Mr. Bundy. What would it be like if Castro were to

disappear? The question is open ended.

Mr. Schwarz. What was the conclusion?

Mr. Bundy. I don't remember. My unaided sense of the

matter is that intelligent political analysis would have

suggested in 1961 or at any time later that the removal of a

single individual

in a revolution complex and general as this

would have quite unpredictable and not necessarily helpful

effects.

Mr. Schwarz. You said that while you were clear the

assassination was not in fact authorized, you believe that

at some point it was examined, is that a fair characterization!

Mr. Bundy. That isn't the word I used. Talk about.

MI. Schwarz. Talk about. And this exercise constitutes

an analysis of what Cuba/the U.S. would be like if Castro were

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79

removed.

Mr. Bundy. It constitutes a request for such an analysis.

~ Mr. Schwarz. Was the analysis made?

MI. Bundy. I don't have any recollection.

MI. Schwarz. If one were exploring the possibility of

assassination, I take it this kind of analysis is the sort

of analysis one would wish to make if one was not simply

ruling assassination out as a matter of principle in the first

instance.

MI. Bundy. Let me put it another way. If people were

suggesting this to you!

and you were curious about whether

it was worth exploring, one way of getting more light on it

without going any further with that notion itself would be

to ask political people, not intelligence

people, what they

thought would happen if Castro were not there any longer.

You will notice that this National Security Action

Memorandum is not addressed to the Central Intelligence

Agency, less still to the covert part of the Agency, but

rather to the Secretary of State. And specifically clearly

the action of certain is Assistant Secretary Woodward.

M. Schwarz. Now, document 3B indicates -- and you

have had an opportunity to review this one before, I think --

Mr. Bundy. Which one are we now talking about?

MI. Schwarz. 3B, MI. Parrott's memo.

MI. Bundy. Yes. I have a clearer copy now than I had

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TOP SECRET

80

yesterday, for which I am grateful.

Mr. Schwarz. It indicates that there was a Presidential

interest in the matter.. And then General Taylor told MI.

Parrott that he prefered that the State Department, or Mr.

Woodward in the State Department, not be told about the

Presidential interest in the matter. First, was there a

Presidential interest in the matter? You have no reason to

doubt that there was, I take it.

MI. Bundy. I am sorry, I was reading a note, and I

didn't hear the last part of the question.

Mr. Schwarz. I asked really two questions, the first

of which is a direct question, was there a Presidential

interest in the matter?

Mr. Bundy.. There was a Presidential -- there was no

doubt in my mind that when I write in a National Security

Action Memorandum a plan as desired, that the desire is not

mine.

Mr. Schwarz. And the desire is in fact the Presidents?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

MI. Schwarz. Now, have you any other recollection of

calling your attention to the fall of 1969?

Mr. Bundy.

could I go back and comment on your earlier

question.

You correctly pointed out that there was concern to

keep the President's name out of this process of request,

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TOP SECRET

• 81

although you correctly point out that the President was the

one who wanted to know.. My impression here is that whatever

concern we have, General Taylor or I, in the frame of this

language,. it was precisely to insulate the President from

any false inference that what he was asking about was

assassination. It is easy to confuse the question. What

are things going to be like after Castro, with the other

question, and we were trying to focus attention on the

information he obviously wanted, which is, what would happen

if we did do this sort of thing, and not get one into the

frame of mind of thinking that he

was considering doing it.

That is the distinction, I think.

MI. Schwarz. Do you have any further recollection of

discussion of this matter in this fall of 1961? And by this

matter I mean either the broader inquiry into what it would

be like if Castro disappeared, or a scenario arising of the

specific subject of assassination.

MI. Bundy. No, I don't.

MI. Schwarz. Had you ever heard before I asked you

about the last night about a conversation, an alledged conver-

sation, between the President and the Journalist Theodore

Schwartz, and or Mr. Goodwin in this timeframe?

MI. Bundy? I saw that in the newspapers.

Mr. Schwarz. Or in Esquire magazine?

Mr. Bundy. Wherever I saw it, I saw it in print.

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82

Mr. Schwarz. But you have no independent recollection

of that or of the fact that Mr. Schultz met with the President?

Mr. Bundy. No.

But I will say this - and it is a random

observation -- if I were planning an action of great sensitivity

I: wouldn't discuss. it with any journalist, I don't think.

Mr. Schwarz. The record from Mr. Schwartz is that the

President said he was opposed to assassination, but that he

brought it up in a

conversation with Mr. Schwartz, saying

that he was being encouraged to order assassination.

Now, you have said that you do recall that the subject

was talked about, your words, at some point, and that it

might have been in the fall of 1961.

Mr. Bundy. I wouldn't want to say that it was only in

any given period.

Mr. Schwarz. But that one of the points in which it

might have been discussed was the fall of 1961.

MI. Bundy. Certainly•

Mr. Schwarz. We are going to come to another period

which relates to you.

MI. Bundy. May I interrupt one second.

Could we go off the record for a moment?

The Chairman. Yes.

(Discussion off the record.)

The Chairman. Let's put that on the record.

Would you restate what I have just stated?

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83

Mr. Bundy.... Going back to your earlier, question, I

have a message through the courtesy of the Committee from the

White House that

there is no objection to answering the

question as to how the White House came to show me the NSC file.

When I learned of some of the interesta. of the Rockefeller

Commission, it seemed to me that it would be useful if I

could refresh my recollection. I telephoned DI. Kissinger,

who it seemed to me would be the right person both in his

capacity

as Special Assistant and the capacity as Secretary

of State, and he called me back to say that General Scocroft

would show me the documents I needed, and he did not.

Mr. Smothers. Just one question.

This file contained what, now, other than the NSAM?

Mr. Bundy. The only file that I had time

to go through

that I can recollect was the NSAM file, which is a relatively

short one.

Mr. Smothers. For which time period?

Mr. Bundy. For the period surrounding August 1962.

Mr. Smothers. It was given to us as an existing file,

or matters that had been pulled, or organized --

MI. Bundy. No, they gave me the whole file, they were

all documents that I have been

involved with, it was nothing

new to me. But the ones I was looking for were the ones

relating to this subject.

Mr. Smothers. Were these only your documents?

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* 84

Mr. Bundy. As far as I recollect.

Mr. Smothers. And by your documents, I mean documents

signed by you?

MI. Bundy. They wouldn't be all signed by me, not

every NSMA was signed by me. But they would all be documents

for which I had responsibility.

MI. Smothers. And the timeframe was

Me. Bundy. Sufficiently before and after to give me a

picture of the political context of August 1962 in relation

to Cuba.

MI. Smothers. And do you recall when you saw this file?

MI. Bundy. Well, as I say, it was in the context of my

appearance before the Rockeferrer Commission. And that would

be early this year. I don't have the dates, and I don't

want to make

a mistake on it.

MI. Smothers. I am not trying to pin the date down. It

would

be helpful if you remember. But we can ask.

Mr. Schwaiz.

Mr. Schwarz. I want to make

sure that we have what we

have done so for accurately summarized, and that you agree

with it.

Can I use discussion of an

assassination, will you

accept that?

MI. Bundy. It implies more seriousness and more

sustained argument than I recollect.

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Mr. Schwarz. So your records are, with respect to

persons asking about

MI. Bundy. Or talking about.

Mr. Schwarz. - or talking about assassination, that

did occur, that it probably occurred on more than one occasion?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Schwarz. And that one of the occasions may have

been in the fall of 1961?

MI. Bundy. What I recollect about the fall of 1961 is

this question, what would happen if he is not there?

Mr. Schwarz. Which would be a relevant question to ask

if one was talking about assassination.

Mr. Bundy.

Yes. But I have no independent recollection

of talks about assassination, Mr. Schwarz, and I musn't lead

you by saying that I did.

Mr. Schwarz. In any event, passing from talking about or

discussions or contingencies, to authorizations for action,

and specifically focusing on this concrete period, was

assassination authorized in the fall of 1961?

Mr. Bundy. Absolutely not.

Mr. Schwarz. In fact what was authorized in the fall of

1961?

Mr. Bundy. Well, we have a long document on that, I

think.

MI. Schwarz. And that is the MONGOOSE program?

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86

Mr. Bundy. And that is the MONGOOSE programs.

Mr. Schwarz. In connection with the MONGOOSE program,

you had some dialogue about the Attorney General which was

guite extensive. Let me ask you one additional question on

that subject. What was the relationship personally and pro-

fessionally between the Attorney General and General Maxwell

Taylor?

Mr. Bundy. It was very close. I think that they first

met in a hardworking sense when they were - I think they

were both members of the committee to look into what happened

after the Bay of Pigs, or if the Attorney General was not

a member he was certainly closely interested.

Mr. Schwarz. He

was a member.

Mr. Bundy. And I am sure the Attorney General was

one of the people strongly favoring the appointment of General

Taylor as the President's military advisor. They were both

active and ardent tennis players, they liked each other, and

they visited back and forth. One of the Kennedy children

is named for General Taylor, I think. There was a relation of

real trust and confidence between them. And the measure of

its strength is that I think it easily survived later very

shart differences over Vietnam.

Mr. Schwarz. Now

recognizing

that, what I am asking for

you is a matter of opinion and not a fact, given your under-

standing. of that relationship, will you give us your opinion

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the likelihood that Robert Kennedy, In the face of Maxwell

Taylor's Chairmanship of the Special Group Augmented - was

Maxwell Taylor understood to be the Chairman of the Special

GrOUP. Augmented?

MI. Bundy. It certainly is my understanding.

MI. Schwarz. Would Robert Kennedy in your opinion,

in the fact of Maxwell Taylor's Chalrmanship of the Special

Group Augmented, have developed a bach-channel relationship

with someone else for the purpose of assassinating Fidel

Castro?

MI. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, in connection with MONGOOSE, you were

a member of the Special Group Augmented, were you?

Mr. Bundy. I was.

I wasn't its most faithful attender,

but I was a member.

MI. Schwarz. To the extent that you did attend, would

you describe the nature of the meetings, what kind of items

were brought before you, what was the process for decision

making?

Mr. Bundy. It is very difficult to do that without

documentary reconstruction. But in the broadest sense, I

think I can do it. The kinds of things would be Cuban exiles,

training them, how united are they, whose the leader, and

what kind of operations against the island are we able to

mount, specific proposals, just because I have seen it in

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88

the last two or three days - I saw a

sabotage. program which

involved, I think, oil facilities, transportation facilities,

and a couple of other categories - exfiltration was a

frequent problem. I don't recall that we worried so much

about getting the agents in, but there seems always to be

a great problem about getting them out.. And that sort of

thing that I mentioned, propaganda, there was the one island

enterprise - was

Florida doing much good, and how much

does it cost and things of that sort.

MI. Schwarz. At any MONGOOSE meeting did Mr. Harvey

state that he had taken steps to assassinate Fidel Castro?

Mr. Bundy. I never heard anything from Mr. Harvey in

any context in any meeting at any time on that subject.

Mr. Schwarz. And it was clear that the President was

the person basically in control, perhaps not of the details,

but of the general program; is that right?

MI. Bundy. The President had worked it. The day to

day operations where in the hands of different departments

for different categories of programs. The coordinator was

Gencral Lansdale, and the Chairman of the Committee was General

Taylor.

Mr. Schwarz. Would you turn to Lansdale Tab 38, please?

Where is the August 8 document that transmits the new

guidelines for MONGOOSE?

Mr. Kelley. That is Lansdale Tab 20.

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Mr. Schwarz. The new guidelines, I mean the August

guidelines.

Mr. Kelley. 38.

Mr. Schwarz. 38A.

Was there a change in of about August between what was

characterized as Phase I of Operation MONGOOSE and a step-up

activities under the MONGOOSE?

Mr. Bundy. It appeared to be so from the documents I have

been reviewing. I couldn't give you an independent recollection

on that point.

Mr. Schwarz. You have got no reason to doubt that there

was some

step-up commencing

in August?

Mr. Bundy. I think that sounds reasonable. I just

don't have any expertise other than as a reader many years

later.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, with respect to the August 10 meeting,

you have previously testified - - I am not sure you have -

do you recall the subject of assassinations being brought up?

MI. Bundy. In the August 10 meeting?

NO.

MI. Schwarz. Specifically, do you recall Mr. McNamara

ever bringing the subject of assassinations up?

Mr. Bundy. NO.

Mr. Schwarz. We have shown you notes of Mr. Harvey on

August 14, and General Lansdale's

memorandum of August 13

that refers to the liquidation of leaders and certain things

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whited out." Do you remember seeing those?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Schwarz. Do they refresh your recollection?

MI. Bundy. No. They give me no - they do not persuade

me. I simply don't from that suddenly have any flash, so and

so said that, not at all.

Mr. Schwarz. But you don't have any reason to question

them, you just don't have a recollection, is that fair?

MI. Bundy. I simply tell you that I was in a large

meeting in which a great many subjects were discussed, and

I have no recollection of that.

Mr. Schwarz. I will pass around Mr. Bundy's notes from

the meeting. If someone thinks they should be marked we can

do that.

Mr. Bundy.

IF

the Committee is feeling charitable I hope

they may not go into them.

MI. Schwarz. iI don't think they will, but I thought we

would pass them around in case they were.

The Chairman. Let the Senators see them.

MI. Schwarz. We will make one observation, though. Both

Mr. Rusk's calendar and Mr. Bundy's notes do not indicate

MI. Lansdale's being present at the meeting, although the

minutes of the meeting do. And I take it you have no

independent. recollection of whether or not he was not there.

MI. Bundy. I have no objection to entering anything in

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anything that memorandum that the Committee thinks is

relevant. It simply illustrates what the hand will do

while the mind is elsewhere.:

The Chairman. Can you identify what you meant by the

words, "Worms who were opposing".

Mr. Bundy. "Worms" was a Cuban word, gusanos, and it

was their own word for themselves, Cubans in opposition to

Castor.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. Schwarz. Mr. Bundy, would you mark with a B your

notes of the August 10 meeting.

And Mr. Reporter, will you mark that as Bundy Exhibit 4.

(Document referred to was marked as

Bundy Exhibit No. 4 for identification.)

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The Chairman.

Going back to the doodle sheet, the

last item in your handwritten underlined - do you have this?

Mr. Bundy. The Lansdale concept?

The Chairman. Is that concept?

MI. Bundy. Concept. I don't wonder you ask.

The Chairman. Do you recall what you meant by that?

Mr. Bundy. My guess - and this is a reconstruction

really -- is that that has to do with the Lansdale plan which

we were referring to a minute ago, his long memorandum of

August 8, outlining all the things that might now be done

under the MONGOOSE.

MI. Smothers. Would that have been planned plus?

MI. Bundy. We argue about plans - this is again

reconstruction -- and I think I saw it in some discussion --

we argued about plans A and B and C, and settled on so-called

B Plus, which I hope you have for the record, because that

would show what the decision was.

Mr. Schwarz.

We do have it.

The Chairman. This was the l0th day of August 1962. And

that was about the time that some concern was given to be

expressed as to the possibility that the Russians were moving

into Cuba -- moving

missiles into Cuba. You have on the

memorandum, I think, "USSR will put missiles". Do you recall

what you meant by that?

Mr. Bundy. I think. what that is, a hand following

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somebody elses, and the somebody else would most likely to

be Mr. McCone:

The Chairman. All right:

Where are we, Mr. Schwarz.

Mr. Schwarz. In NSAM 181 - which will you please mark

as Exhibit 5, you will find it at lansdale fab 42-1

(Document referred to was marked

as Lansdale Exhibit No. 5 for

identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz." Do you' have that in front of you, Mr.

Bundy?

MI. Bundy. Yes, I have.

Mr. Schwarz. This reflects a number of options or

study that the President called for in the light of the

evidence of new block activities in Cuba. Was that evidence

connected with the missiles?

Mr. Bundy. Well, there was quite a buildup reported

in the press and in the intelligence initially of soviet

military personnel, of Soviet surface-to-air missiles. And

the crucial question was, what for

and what is coming. And

the Director of Central Intelligence - who was proved in

the end to be right -- was almost alone in his belief that

this was going to lead to a nuclear capability in Cuba that

could hit the U.S. And he raised these questions in the

month of August in a number of different ways. And the

National Security meeting from which this memorandum emerged

reviewed those problems, and as the memorandum itself

shows,

the heavy emphasis of the President's concern and of the

Group's concern on the likelihood that developed and what

should be done about

it, or in preparation for it, in August.

Mr. Schwarz. The memorandum has quite a range of matters

to be considered. And they range from, if I can use the

characterization, on the soft side, Item 1, which was consider-

ation of the U.S.: pulling its missiles near the Soviet Union out

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of turkey, two, on the hard side, Items y and 8, which

are military possibilities of invasion or some other military

possibilities in connection with Cuba.

Now, is that a

typical exercise that that white rouse, the President and

yourself would go through to look at a number of optiona.:..

ranging from the soft to the very tough?

MI. Bundy. Yes.

Let me say in passing that there was nothing soft about

the problem of getting the Jupiter missiles out of Cuba.

Mr. Schwart.

Conciliatory, would that be the word?

Mr. Bundy. It problem of actually getting them out

which we came to in the following year was one which

demanded great diplomatic energy

and finesse on the part of

the State and Defense Departments. But you are right. A

wide range of issues charactically would be discussed. And

the President had a habit of trying to look at problems from

many angles.

Mr. Schwarz. Were you fully in touch with the President

in connection with what became the missile crisis.

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

MI. Schwarz. Was there any discussion of assassinating

Fidel Castro during that period?

MI. Bundy. None.

Mr. Schwarz. Was there agreement reached that as part

of the solution to the missile crisis that related to u.s.

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action vis-a-vis Cuba..

There was a so-called no invasion

pledge. There was an

undertaking on. our

side that if the

offensive capabilities - and there was an argument on what

those were - were removed, we on our side would undertake

I don't want to present this language as 1f 1t is deeply

mathmatically precise - but there was an undertaking on our

side that there would not be an assassination of Cuba.

The Chairman. Was that ever published?

MI. Bundy. Yes. If my language is inconsistent with

What was published, then what was published should take

precedence, because I am only trying to report that.

MI. Schwarz. Did this agreement exclude the sabotage

of Cuban facilities?

MI. Bundy. Not in my view or in anyones! view in the

U.S. Government. Just to give you an example of things it

did not exclude, it did not exclude continued surveillance,

which is not perfectly normal in relations between friendly

states, that you overfly and check out what they are doing.

But surveillance was an explicit and public part of the

necessary concern for

U.s. satisfaction with the resolution

of the Cuban missile crisis.

MI. Schwarz.

Recognizing again that this is calling for

an opinion, during the course of the missile crisis did

anything happen with respect to the attitudes

and actions of

either the President of the Attorney General that in your

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opinion bears upon the Ilkellhood that at other times

• one

or the other of them ordered the

Castro?

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•Mr. Bundy. Well, Yes.

There are a great many things

enter into my judgment about whether the President or the

that

Attorney General would ever have done that, and I would like

to say, Mr. Chairman, that the most important point I want to

make, just from where I stand personally is that I find the

notion that they separately, privately encouraged, ordered,

arranged efforts at assassination totally inconsistent with

what I knew of both of them. And as an example, I would cite -

and only one among very many - the role played by the Attorney

General in the Missile Crisis, because it was he who, most

emphatically, argued against a so-called surgical air strike

or any other action that would bring death upon many, in favor

of the more careful approach which was eventually adopted by

the. President in the form of a quarrantine or a blockade.

The Chairman. Well, Mr. Bundy, let me put what may be

the same question a little different way:

You came to know both the President and the Attorney

General rather intimately in the period of your long

associa-

tion with them, did you not?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, MI. Chairman.

The Chairman. Based upon that acquaintanceship, do you

bellove, under any of the circumstances that occurred during

that whole period, either one of them would have authorized

the assassination of Fidel Castro?

Mr. Bundy. I most emphatically do not.

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Let me make a more general point that comes at tt trom..:..

another way.

If you have heard testimony

that there was pressure to do

something about Cuba, there was.. There was an effort, both from

the President in his style and from the Attorney General in his

style to keep the government active in looking for ways to

weaken the Cuban regime. There was. But if.you, as I under-

stand it, and not even those who pressed the matter most closely

as having essentially been inspired by the White House can tell

you that anyone ever said to them, go and kill anyone.

Lat me say one other thing about these two men, and that is

that there was something that they really wanted done, they did

not leave peopla in doubt, so that on the one hand, I'would

say about their character, their purposes and their nature and

the way they confronted international affairs that I find it

incredible that they would have ordered or authorized explicitly

or implicitly an assassination of Castro. I also feel that if,

contrary to everything that I know about their character, they

had had such a decision and

such a purpose, people would

not

have been in any doubt about it.

The Chairman. Then have you any way to explain to the

Committee, or any explanation to give to the Committee, as to

why Mr. Helms would testify that he was under, or that he had

no doubts, that the Agency was fully authorized to proceed to

not only davelop schemes, but to engage in active attempts to

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assassinate Castro?

MI. Bundy. I have no explanation of that.

Senator Mondale.

Part of our attempt to solve this riddle

of what would appear to be a record at the highest level, which

is at least not directly an order of an assassination plot or

attempt, and square it with the fact that attempts were made, is

to seek to understand the personalities and motivations and

methods of operation of people further down the chain of

command.

We have heard quite a few evaluations of. Mr. Harvey as

free-wheeling, James Bond kind of operator, and it has been

suggested through some disquiet and apprehension at higher

levels about the nature of his conduct.

And I would -- I don't

know. I am beginning to have doubts about Mr. Helms whom I

have always admired. There is, for example, a memorandum that

is in the record to Mr. Rusk in response to a memo which the

Sacretary wrote Mr. Helms following an article appearing in

some Cuban newspaper charging that the Mafia had been hired and

used by the CIA to assassinate Castro, in which llelms specifi-

cally and categorically denies flat out that any

such relation-

ship existed when in fact it did and when in fact Mr. Helms was

part of it.

Now, how do we sort this out? Is Mr. Helms gomeone who

might have, on his own, gone beyond the authority conferred

upon him by persons higher up?

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MI. Bundy. Well, 1f you had asked me that question a

year ago, Senator, I would have said in my experience with him

he was not such an officer, but I have no way of dealing with

the kind of thing you have just described.

Senator Mondale. It shatters me because I have always

respected him. Because we know that these assassination attempts

occurred. We know that Mr. Helms was a part of it.

We have

testimony that MI. Helms and Mr. Harvey met and agreed not to

tell Mr. McCone what they were doing. And then we have a

document here -- well, that was Cubella -- and then we have a

memo from Helms to Rusk which, in Minnesota language looks

Ilke a lie. Now, I just don't know. Maybe there are other

explanations. '

The Chairman. The memo to Rusk had to do with Cubella

rather than the Mafia.

Senator Mondale. Is that it? It was not the Mafia?

Mr. Schwarz. It was Cubella, except if you just substitute

Cubella for the word Mafia.

The Chairman. What you said otherwise is correct.

Sanator Mondale.

But he was

involved personally with

Cuballa, wasn't he? And he knew that, and this memo said

no.

Is there a plausible explanation?

Mr. Madigan.

Helms has one.

Senator Baker. Helms' position is that he did not lie,

that he did not have anything to do with the Cubella incident,

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Is that Ilght?

Mr. Madigan. I think Helms claimed that Cubella is in

the strict context of the mamos, operating on his own.'

The Chairman. Well, I believe rather than speculate, we

had batter look back carefully, and that ought, to be another

subject for Mr. Helms when he returns.

Senator Mondale. Well, then I will stand corrected.

Senator Hart of Michigan. Would you yield?

I want to make the same record note that I suspend the

comment I made about that document yesterday. I thought it was

a flat-out lie.

Senator Mondale. I did too. I withdraw that,

and I think

it would be good if the staff would write us a little memo.

Senator Baker. Fritz might like to know that yesterday I

asked Counsel if they, as a combined

staff operation, would

prepare for us, and I believe they agreed to do this, prepare

for us two briefs, one citing the testimony

and the exhibit

evidence, that would support an inference that the authority

was Presidential;

and another brief, citing the record and the

exhibit evidence citing the

inference that it was not. There

is an abundance of both, to be frank with you. So that we

can lay them down side by side and make our own separate

judgment.

Do I understand the staff is going to do it?

The Chairman.

That is right.

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Now, I have a couple off iteme of business, and you have

been testifying for quite a long while. "I think you ought to

be given a break, Mi. Bundy:

MI. Bundy. Do you want me to come back, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman. Yes, please, if you want to take & break

for about five or ten minutes and then be available out in the

anteroom, that will give us a chance to take care of this

business.

(Pause)

(Whereupon at 11:17 a.m. the witness left the hearing

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104

The Chairman.

We seem to have a developing problem for

reasons unexplained with the Justice Department. I have

already mantioned one aspect of that problem, in connection with

the failure of the Department to supply most of the material

that we have requested, though that request was put to the

Department two months ago, and it has been -decided already by

the Committee that Mr. Levy and Mr. Kalley should be brought

before the Committee in the hopes that these delays can be

overcome.

The first question before the Committee is when that can

be done. It is suggested that the Attorney General has Tuesda!

morning available. If it is all right with the Committee, I

would like to schedule his appearance, together with that of

Mr. Kelley, for Tuesday morning.

Senator Baker. Mr. Chairman, I don't mean to intrude my

parsonal conveniance into this consideration unduly, but if

the Attorney General could do it at Tuesday noon, say, it would?

help me. I have a commitment in Tennessed Monday night. If

I catch the Tuesday

morning plane I can't get here until 11:50.

If that's not possible, I will cancel Monday.

The Chairman. This is procedural in charactar, so it is

not altogether important that every member be present. I think

that from the standpoint of this Committee

schedule, Tuesday

morning, the Attorney General and MI. Kelley would bs good,

would it not?

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Mr. Miller. Yes.

Senator Baker. Wall, why don't you leave it Tuesday

morning.

• The Chairman.. We are only informed that he has Tuesday

morning available.

MI. Gitenstein.. I spoke to Doug Marvin, one of his

Executive Assistants, and he said Tuesday was a possibility.

Wednesday is a problem because he has a Cabinet meeting and

he wasn't sure about Tuesday and he was going to get back to

us in the next hour or two.

The Chairman. Well, let's see if we can't sat it up

Tuesday.

Senator Baker.

If, you can set it up Tuesday afternoon and

nobody objects, that would be better for me.

The Chairman.

Well, if we cai, we'll set it up Tuesday

afternoon.

Senator Mathias. What is that for?

The Chairman. That is for Levy and Kelley to appear for

the purpose of telling us why they can't, or why it has taken

two monthe and we still are waitino for tha documenes, noe

of the documents we raquested.

Senator Mathias. Well, I won't be hare, but that's no

reason.

Senator Baker. Are you going to be here Tuesday

morning?

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Senator Mathias. Don't worry about: 1t.

The Chairman. All right.

The second thing I would like to bring up in this connec-

tion is that I was informed yesterday by the staff that the

FBI has undoubtedly received instructions that none of its

agents are to be interrogated or interviewed by the staff of

this Committee. I would like someone who knows the details and

can be very specific to tell the Committee the exact status of

that situation, how we have been informed and if we can rely on

that information as being authoritative..

Mr. Elliff. Yesterday morning at 9:00 o'clock or shortly

thereafter, I received a phone call from the: FBI's liaison with

this Committee with respect to a series of interviews that had

been arranged with the Bureau some relating to tha luston Plan,

some relating to Martin Luther King

matters. I was informed that

I had to address this request to the Justice Department in order

secute approval for these staff interviews.

I then called our liaison in the Justice Department,

Special Counsel William O'Conner, and he told

me I might as

well submit these requests in writing, because the Justice

Department would take at least ter days to give us an answer

on these requests and he didn't know what the answer was going

to be.

I then explored with him what some of the reasons might be

for this delay and what the problems seemed to be, and the

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explanation that he gave me verbally twas that the fact that

the Committee had notified the Department in Its letter of

June 27th that certain cases that we were investigating were.

abuse cases meant that any interviews that would be conducted

in connection with those matters would be considered by the

Department to be demand interviews, and therefore this brought

into play the provisions of the Federal Regulations which

require the Attorney General's approval..

Then the question as to whether the Attorney General would

approve or not involved two issues. First was that since we

had indicated the likelihood of an abuse in a particular area

that the Department itself would have to consider whethar it

should institute a criminal investigation of that matter, and

then, if so, whether our interview would interfere with that

ongoing criminal investigation.

And second, that the Department considered that any inter-

views undertaken by the Committee in such cases

might inadver-

tently immunize the subject of the interview, and he referred

generally to some cases and we have attempted to do legal

research on those cases and find this to ba a very shaky position

but they have good lawyers over there and if they want to come

up with a sophisticated argument, we expect that they could be

able to do that.

The Chairman. Lawyers can make an argument over anything.

MI. Elliff. That's so. And so the final conclusion is

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that he did anticipaterthat subpoenas would ba.required.!!

In every instance and this position is very difficult for us to

accept because interviews, the low-key Interview in the non-

pressure situation is an opportunity to allcit Information that

is not matched by the formal subpoena situation, and to be

able to proceed initially by interview and then confirm, under

oath, via subpoena,. is just absolutely essential for an effective

investitation.

So this is where we stand on this issue.

We later received a letter pertaining to an earlier

request for interviews relating to FBI COINTELPRO disruptive

activities where we had asked for certain interviews, and this

letter did not go into specifies, but merely stated that thera

were problems that would have to be resolved, that the charac-

terization of an area of the Committee inquir! as abuse might

significantly alter arrangements of access to witnesses who

are present employees of the Department.

The Chairman. In other words, the thrust of all of this

is that the more serious the nature of the inquiry, the more

difficult it will be to obtain the information, that if we are

concerned about

a possibla illegality or abuse, then the

Department will make it as difficult as possible for us to

secure the information.

Mr. Elliff.. I might add that it seems on he in the nature

of the documents also, the more serious the allegation, the more

resistance there is to providing us --

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They have given usa good-many documents, They nir.

have not given us the documents on the controversial matters.

They've given us

plenty of documentation on less controversial

matters.

The Chairman. I think it is ironic. that the resistance we

get from the Justice Department is so much more substantial than

the resistance we have gotten from the CIA.

Senator Baker. That's not necessarily so. I agree with

you the resistance is unfortunate and inappropriate, but I

can think of a request for documentation .from the CIA that is

now more than a month old and they haven't had the good grace

to tell us no.

They have told us nothing.

The Chairman. But on the whole wa've gotten a greater

measure of cooperation from the CIA.

Senator Schweiker. I wonder, does either counsel know,

Mr. Chairman, whether the

Attorney General or the FBI Director

initially confirmed whether they made any commitments to

Congress

about supplying documents or materials to the

Committee?

Mr. Miller. Senator Mathias can tell you, and Senator

Hart.

Senator Schweiker. Might there be a statement in their

testimony in confirmation, in agreeing to furnish Congrass with

materials of this nature?

Senator Mathias. Yes, those statements were made, but let:

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me say, since my opinion has been asked, that I had a most

discouraging talk with the Attorney General a couple of weeks

ago. I went down to talk to him about privacy legislation and

the Department of Justice at the moment is taking about as hard

a line as any kind that I know of in the last fifteen years.

Its whole kind of attitude

Senator Tower.. I just wonder if we shouldn't take this up

with them.

The Chairman. I think we should, but I think we should

also, in advance of that, in view of the kinds of signals we

are now getting from the Justice Department, Indicate that we

believe that these objections that they are raising, or questions

that they are raising, ars a sarious impediment procedurally

to our Comnittee and that we have every intention of interviewing

such agents as may be necessary, and that it necessary, we will

subpoena them.

Mr. Elliff. Our feeling: is it is preferable not to

proceed by subpoena, but we do have a subpoena for one FBI

agent which we brought with us today which we would like to

proceed with.

The Chairman. Can you give us the facts of that case?

• Mr. Epstein. This is an agent who is presently in'Atlanta

Gaorgia, and the information we've received from other witnesses

was that in 1964, I believe, he visited

a newspaper editor in

Atlanta, closed the door, put his hat on the desk, and said he

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noted from reading The Constitution that we were picturing

DI. King as a moral leader and something of a hero and then this

agent went on to talk in great detail about Dr. Ring's personal

life which he claimed he had learned from a confidential source,

and our intarest

in interviewing. this agent obviously relates

to the circumstances surrounding that visit to a newspaperman,

who directed him to do that, what the purpose of that visit

was, whether there was any documentation -

Senator Baker. Who was the newspaper man?

Mr. Epstein. His name was Eugene Patterson and he was

with the Atlanta Constitution at that time. He's now with a

newspaper in Florida.

The Chairman. Do you believe the subpoena now to be

necessary because, of what you have been' told by the Justice

Department?

Mr. Elliff. We have other agents which we would like to

proceed with at the interview level, so wa would like to proceed

at both levels to get their reaction to both types

of requests.

What is their reaction to a

subpoena going to be, what is

their reaction to a renewed request to interview going to be?

So we crystallize each issue.

Senator Tower. I still think it might be good for us to

hold that up until we talk about it, since they ara coming

ir.

Tuesday morning or Tuesday sometime, it's not going to push

things too far.

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Senator Hart of Michigan. Would it be useful, at least,

If it is the feeling of the Committee to authorize you people,

or Bill, today, to say that the Committee harely suppressed its

outrage and that it won't do, and we will see you Tuesday?

Don't wait till Tuesday.

The Chairman. I think something should be said, actually.

Senator Hart of Michigan. Well, it prejudges the hell out

of it, but unless we get an extension to 1980 for this Committee

The Chairman. I think you're right. Something needs to be

said publicly that the Committee is determined that we feel

that not only has time -- we've already said, we've already

made public the letter we have sent. I think a follow-up needs

to be that we are concerned that impediments. that are now being

suggested which would

interfere

with the Committee's right to

interrogate witnesses, we do not intend to allow the Committee's

work to be obstructed and if necessary we will be prepared to

subpoena witnesses though we would hope that that would not

have to be the case.

Senator Baker. And we are going to try to work it out

from Tueday.

The Chairman. We're going to try to work it out from

Tuesday.

Senator Baker. I have a business matter.

The Chairman. So does Senator Mondale.

Senator Mondale. Just one point.

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There is this troublesome dictum In U.S. vs. Nixon about

what might be nondiscoverabls, all of which seems to bear on

sort of foreign policy matters.

Am I corract - I think we're going to hear à lot about

that -- but am I correct in reading that decision that it

really :" almost i standal wholly that they have the duty to

produce all of the documentation and that case holds for that

proposition, so that in our CIA matters, while they might raise

some of this dictum, the FBI has no such defense, unless we're

really trodding on those same grounds.

Mr. Epstein. Of course, there is another issue in the

Bureau materials, because we're on the issue of investigative

files, which has never been really litigated, and that:

is the propriety of Executive Privilege when it comes to that.

I might add that the importance of the issue of going

to subpoena on these really raises that, because if we go to

subpoena on documents, then that is going to be worthless unless

we know in advance that we are going to win in court in a short

period of time, including whether we have jurisdiction to be

there.

Senator Mondale. In other words, you are saying they are

going to raise the Executive Privilege defense, but that was

the Nixon defense.

Mr. Epstein. I think that they would love for us to be ir

the position of having to issue a subpoena for documents,

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because then it

would be a year.

Mr. Schwarz. The problem, fe the Ervin Comittee was found

not to hava jurisdictton to issue the subpoena.

The Chairman. Well, we know we're going to do the next

step on that.

Now, may I raise one other point

Senator Baker. That's not quite true. The Ervin Committee

wasn't found to have no jurisdiction or standing to seek the

documents or to issue subpoenas, but they failed to carry the

burden of proving that it was required under the mandate of :

their inquiry.

Now, I have another matter,. Frank.

The Chairman. We have two or three matters. Can I

recognize Senator Mondale first, because he had asked it.

Senator Mondale. A few days ago, when the White House

people were here, they showed us a document which we have in

our files which disclosed that President Nixon in 1970 had

ordered the delivery of three machine guns to some people in

Chile and had done so with instructions that that order should

go directly to some subordinate officials in CIA and should he

done without advising the official channels. And it is thought

that they were directed against a General Schneider, who was

a top official in the Chilean government opposed to a coup.

He was a Constitutionalist.

Schneider was killed, and there was a machine gun in the

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$115

possession of those who did so.

Now what I would like is, while we finish this cycle on

assassinations, that we include among our studies of alleged

assassinations this matter and: we request, the documentation, of

all appropriate documents,'under the category.of assassination.

Me. Schwarz. Senator, when that document came to our

attention, we questioned a person who expands upon the allega-

tions contained in the documents. I wrote a letter to the

White House and the CIA. We wanted forthwith to receive

copias of all

such documents relating to the passage of weapons.

We have had no response from the CIA.

Mr. Hills, we met with in the White House a week ago

Tuesday or Wednesday, and I said we must have the documents ari

he said you cannot have them until you have the briefing on

Chila, because we refuse to accept this as an

assassination

plan.

The Chairman.

May I make this suggestion, Senator

Mondale?

First of all, I believe that it is absolutely imperative

that the Committee complete its investigation on the issue of

the assassination of foreign government leaders before the

Iacess and issue its report. That puts us under great pressure,

but if we don't do it, I am

going to ast. the Committse to stay

on the job. I would like very much to go to China, that is my

first opportunity in forty years to go to China, and I have

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7116

such a trip laid on, but I am going to set it aside and ask

the Committee to continue its work sight'into the recess until

this is done. Otherwise, we are in a hopeless situation.

Senator Schwalker.

I think, Mr. Chairman, if we don't

finish it by then, we never will.

The Chairman. We never willi

I think we should look into this assassination, it is an

assassination. I think it's part of our responsibility to

100k into it. But it is not an assassination, whatever the

CIA input may have been, it is not an assassination of a hearl

of state, and so therefore I don't want it to further delay

the completion of this phase of our inquiry.

Now with that in mind, I am in full accord with what

Senator Mondale

says.

Senator Schweiker. Could we put it to another phase and

not in this phase?

The Chairman. Yes, we are going to have a phase on Chile,

anyway. It would fit into the Chilean case.

Senator Mondale. It is significant because if we accept.

their interpretation that it is not assassination, then we

avoid an understanding that we had that these documents, all

supposed to be available.. then we get into a discovery problem.

In other words, I know what we're getting at, and I would

guess that we should proceed

as rapidly as possible, but we

shouldn't hold up the cycle of -

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Senator Schweiker: Well Fritzithere is another question

along the same lines, and that is why I don't want to see it

cloud this issue, and that is the Glomar Explorer, stopped by

the NIRB proceeding was shown to have stopped in Chile just

about a week or so before Allende was killed, just by coincidence

for mechanical repairs. I would like to find out that one,

too.

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But this is a whole new thing. This puts us into the

Chile thing. Because I'm just as interested as you are. I

don't see that it hurts anything to put it in. a Phase II

proposition with Chile.

The Chairman. And Fritz, we can say. that the Committee

regards it in the category of assassination, but we can differ-

entiate it from the initial report, which does deal with

foreign leaders.

Senator Hart of Michigan. MI. Chairman, before you go to

a new

subject -- and I am uneasy raising this -- but your

reply reminds me, you say that we are going to conclude

assassina-

tions and issue our

report before we go on recess. I think that

disposes too readily of the problem that is going to confront

us in a very few weeks, and that is having heard all of this,

now what do we do? I don't think we have decided yet how we

are going to present, once we open the doors, we've got to know

how we are going to handle it. I don't think we ought to lock

ourselves in at the moment to a written report, as we leave towr.

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the first

‚of August.

Senator Baker. I agree with you 100 percent.

The Chairman. This Committee has got to get its business

done and I know the purpose of the delay downtown is to make it

as difficult as possible for us to cope with our work. We will

be angulfed completely if we cannot deal with this phase of

our work in the time that we have given it and put it over until

the fall.. What I'm suggesting-isjnot just: simply: the report of

the Committee. We are goiny to complete our witnesses, ":?:

we have time to issue such a report.

I am

also suggesting

the recommendations the Committee will

make with respect to this issue. We have to put this behind

us. It is just folly not to do it, because we must get on with

the other phases of the report and there is no reason we cannot.

do 1t.. If we can't do it by the end of this month, then we're

not going to be any more advantaged or any better advantaged

to then go out on our recess and come back and take it up anew

in the fall. It is a very clear-cut issue.

Senator Hart of Michigan. But what is not clear-cut to

me is how we report to our peers.

The Chairman.

We will take that up.

Senator Schweiker. We discussed that at one meeting. He

had a little informal meeting. Maybe you missed that, Phil.

The Chairmar. There is nothing that could be gained by

putting it off of defering it or postponing it. It is very

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clear that we are working at a highly intensified pace in

order to get the necessary evidence, and then there is no reason

why we can't address ourselves to this question.

Senator Hart of Michigan. The only reason that I raise

that is that I am as anxious to conclude this chapter, 'but this

Committes,.as a Committee, then must decide the ultimate

question: do you have open hearings?

Do you go to a closed

Senate?

The Chairman. That will be a top item of consideration for

the Committee. I have only deferred this discussion thinking

that we had best get all of the evidence first. That is all.

Then we will take it up at an appropriate time and discuss it.

Senator Baker. Mr. Chairman, do I understand the situation

to be then it is your hope that we will finish our Executive

Session testimony before the August recess, but not a report

to the Senate?

The Chairman. No, that is not my position. My position 19

that we should complete the testimony and make our report and

recommendation on this issue.

Senator Baker. But without prejudice to a future determina-

tion of whether we have public hearings?

The Chairman. Oh, yes, that's always open to us. But I

let me make it -- let's not have any misunderstanding there.

It is always open

to this Committee to decide whether

public hearings on this or any other issue should be arranged in

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the fall. Obviously, we cannot have them until fall.

.. My personal position is against public hearings on the

issue of assassination. But what I am proposing is that the

Committee make its report, and I think that is a question the

Committee will have to take up and decide, and I think the .

appropriate way to disclose these facts, and I personally believe

they must be disclosed, is through a report of the Committee

that 1s made public, and I think that raport should be made

before the recess.

Senator Baker. I don't think we can do that.

Senator Tower. Mr. Chairman, physically we have got three

weaks. Whether we can hear all of these witnesses and sit down

and prepare the report and have the Committee agree on the

report, report it to the Senate and have the Senate act on it

in three weeks is questionable in my mind. I, like you, want

to do it, but I wonder if we can do a workmanlike job and do

it in that time.

The Chairman. Well, let me say this, that the very request

that Senator Baker has made, and I hope we don't get into a 100

prolonged liscussion on this issue because

we cannot decide

it right now, but the very report that Senator Baker has asked

for is now in the process of preparation. That report gives.

by necessity, as much of the meat, the briefs that Senator

Baker has asked for, as much of the report, laying out the

factual, the evidence that the Committee has seen. And I thin!:

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this can be done. I know that we have to work very hard to do

it, but I know that our position will be much worse in every

way if we fail to do it.

Now without trying to decide that now, let us proceed.

Senator Schweiter. May I make one comment on that, Mr.

Chairman?

I have had vacillating feelings on public hearings, and I

think what I have come down on is this. I think we

should go

ahead and issue a preliminary report without public hearings.

I think we should put the matter of public hearings in abeyarce

until we get into' the Chile thing and some of the other areas

of so-called assassinations that may not be Presidential

assassinations per se and leave the Committee option that we

may well want to elect to go into what happened in Chile

publicly and bring up that assassination if that is what we

determined.

I have trouble

determining at this point in time whether

we should have public hearings, and I think we ought to keey

that option open as we go along.

The Chairman. I have no

argument with the Senator on that

ScOrS.

Senator Schweiker. I know.

As I say, it reconciles with

your views and it protects the rights of those who say they

want public hearings.

The Chairman. I have no argument with that.

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Senator Baker has another matter.

Senator Baker. It won't take but a brief moment.

I think I owe the Committee .: a report. on the statement

that I made to the Press a few moments ago. I did not intend

to make a statement, but that it becomes impossible to avoid

when you step outside in these circumstances.

The Chairman. It is a good thing for you that Senator

Morgan is not present.

Sanator Baker.

As some of you may know, the news last

night and again this

morning

carried

a story to the effect that

a Colonel, a retired Colonel in the Air Force by the name of

Fletcher Prowdy, has alleged by Alexander Butterfield was an

associate or an employee or a plant of something of the sort of

the CIA when he was at the White House.

I was asked if I had any comment on that. I was asked if

I was

surprised by that, and my reply was I had heard that

story before. I had never commented on it because I had no

proof of it. And it's really so.

As you know, in this town

if you don't have confirmation of it you get into deep

trouble.

Second, that I think it is worthy of looking into, ard I

said I thought the Prowdy statement added a nev dimansion to

the rumors and I thought

that it did warrant further investiga-

tion, that I would recommend that to this Committee at the

appropriate time.

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The Chairman:

That 18 fine, and I have also said that I

would ask the Committee for an invastigation of this charge,

and Bill Miller tells me we have already received from the

Agency a preliminary report that is not satisfactory. We are

pursuing it and getting further information.

Senator Schwelker?

Senator Schweiker. I have a brief matter I would: Ilke to

seek the Committee's advice on.

Could we go off the record a minute?

The Chairman.

Yes.

(Discussion off the record.)

Senator lart of Colorado. I'm sorty, Mr. Chairman, I have

an item of business

also.

When I was in Europe last week and pursuant to the

direction of the Chairman and staff I tried to contact our

friend QuWIN to try to wrap up that link of the chain with, I

must say, the complete cooperation of the CIA and Mr. Colby,

who in fact sent a person over there to help uncover this

individual. We know who he is and where he is.

The CIA American contact talked to him, largely for the

Isason that he feels extreme loyalty still to the Agency and to !

one or two particular people that he worked with and through.

He opted not to meet with me or anybody else. The feeling is,

both on my part and Mr. Colby's, that if we got his contact in

that chain to get in touch with him directly that he would talk

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to us, and I leave It to the, Committee whether this 1s

important enough for us to pursus and itiwould probably involve

a couple of people going back over.

Senator Baker. What is your recommendation?

Senator Hart of Colorado. My own feeling, based almost

purely on the principle that no stone should be left unturned

is that we should do it.

There are

some unanswered questions.

He was here in the

states in '63, he was not confined to one operation and we

don't know what he was doing.

Senator Baker.

Me. Chairman, I would recommend that we

commission Senator Hart to do that for us.

Sanator liart of Colorado. It would take the cooperation

of one of the witnesses we've had hare before to do it. '

The Chairman. What is your racommendation, Senator

Hart, I'm sorry?

Senator Hart of Colorado. That we should do it, that we

should get the cooperation of Mr. O'Donnell.

The Chairman.

That we should do what?

Senator Baker. Interview QJWIN in Europe.

Senator Mathias. Which means somebody has to do it and

take O'Donnell with him.

Senator Baker. Take Mathias and Hart.

The Chairman. It is

a very

sensitive matter, if his

cover - well, one thing this Committee must worry about -

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Senator Schweiker.

What would you hope to get out of

1t, Gary?

Senator Hart of Colorado. What his orders were, what his

scope of authority was, what he was doing over and above - well,

what he was doing in the Congo, what he was doing over and

above his Congo operations, why he was in Florida in 1963.

The Chairman. Well, Gary, when you told me this, you

told me that this man had said to the CIA go between who was

trying to arrange this interview that first of all he preferred

not to be questioned, and secondly, if he were questioned, he

would lie.

Senator Hart of Colorado. That was on the basis of the

appointment we were trying to arrange then, and that was purely

because of his loyalties to the Agency. The case was not

presented well to him. What I am saying is if we took back his

contact for whom he feals loyalty and the fellow should talk!

I think the feeling of the person who had made the original

contact is that he would talk.

It was not presented to him in the way that the Agency

wanted him to do it.

The Chairman. How valuable do you think this information

is to the Committee? I'll tell you my concern. My concern

is

the one thing

I have feared more than anything else, In this

investigation is that we take some action that allows them to

say that we have blown the cover of some valuable agent abroad,

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and this is what they feared all along, and the whole intelli-

gence apparatus would be gravely weakened and the men in the

field would be jeopardized by investigation of this kind.

We take that chance with this kind of - and what do we

learn from it?. Is it worth that chance?

Senator Hart of Colorado. Well, that question could be

agked of any witness that we have in here.

Number two, the CIA,

Mr. Colby and the chlot of station intimaterial have no doubts

that this can be carried out without any security breach what-

soever. Now that's the CIA. He has not worked for: them in

ten years.

The Chairman. And the CIA would be the first to jump

upon the breach and say, we told you so.

Senator Hart of Colorado. Well, I leave it to the

Committee. I can't tell you what we're going to find out, it

may be zero.

Senator Mathias. The Station Chief does not raise that as

one of the dangers.

Senator Baker. Yas, thay did.

Senator Hart of Colorado. Nor does Colby.

Mr. Wides. Mr. Chairman, excuse me. The paper that

suggests the possibility that Mr. Win might have been in the

United States in 1963 is a paper involving the activity records

of William larvey who will be here this afternoon and that may

be that you can get more testimony under oath from him that will

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shed some light as to whether he was just using JwIN as a cover

which is what he told me, the designation for billing, or

whether he's willing to give out some more testimony.

The Chairman. Well, let us get that additional informa-

tion --

Senator Baker. One further point, Mr. Chairman, that might

be of interest if my memory is correct, and I beliave it is

correct, is that the major commercial cover for the Agency in

Insterdam was run by (the Mull InaCompany!

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Senator Hart of Colorado.

Frank, he's not worked for the

Agency in ten years. He's not an active agent.

The Chairman. Suppose that he were to tell us something

that is of importance, than how do we cross-examine him? Then

we have to bring him here

for cross-examination, then we have

blown his cover.

Senator Baker. MI. Chairman, may I say one other thing?

I meant to say it, and I frankly forgot, just so my colleagues

know what I'm about and not that I'm doing it behind their

back.

I got a call last night from one of the editors of Harper's

magazine in Europe relaying to me that Bernard Barker wanted to

talk to me, and he thinks about the Butterfield situation, and

I intended to call him, but I wanted you to know that.

The Chairman. That's fine.

Let's defer decision right now, on that decision, Senator

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Hart.

Let's get our witness back and complete his testimony this

morning.

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(Whereupon, at 12:00 noon the witness re-entered the

hearing room.)

The Chairman. All right.

You understand that the oath still applies to this part

of the testimony?

Mr. Schwarz. will renew the questioning.

Mr. Schwarz. MI. Bundy, I want to call your attention now

to 1963, the Missile Crisis is over. Was there another reassess-

ment of Cuban policy in the winter and spring of '63?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, there was.

Mr. Schwarz. Again, did that reassessment of Cuban policy

Involve a lot of reassessment of a lot of options?

Mr. Bundy. That is my refreshed recollection.

Mr. Schwarz. All right.

We've shown you a lot of documents, mostly by you in that

period, but some to you as well, and was one of the options the

consideration of the possibility that Mr. Castro might defect

or might be communicated to in a way that would bring him around

more closely to the United States?

Mr. Bundy. The question of opening communications with

Fidel Castro arises in 1963, I think at more than one time,

and without having my attention drawn to specific documents, I

wouldn't be able to spell that out very much.

Mr. Schwarz. But you agree that it is in there, and it

is in there?

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Mr. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Schwarz. Now did you also consider, in the spring of

1963, as you had in the fall of 1961, what would happen if

Castro died or were killed?

Mr. Bundy. What we did, we certainly posed the question,

the precise form is not clear to me, but what I now know from the

documents you have shown me, is we posed to the Director of the

Office of National Estimates, a Dr. Sherman Kent -

MI. Schwarz. And what did DI. Sherman Kent say in response

to that inguiry?

Mr. Bundy. Well, I would have to look at his response.

Mr. Schwarz. All right.

I would like to then mark a string of documents so you

can have that in front of you.

All right, would you mark as item 6, Bundy item 6, the

Bundy memorandum to the President dated January 4, 1963, which

appears at Bundy Tab K.

(The document referred to

was marked Bundy Exhibit

No. 6 for identification.)

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"Mr. Schwart.

I'll mark astring, Mr. Bundy, and if Mr.

Kelley could put it in front of you, we'll then talk about

them.

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As Bundy Exhibit 6-A, the memorandum for the record,

Meeting on Cuba, 3 April: 63, between the President, the Attorney

General, yourself and five or six other people.

Mr. Bundy. Right.

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(The document referred to

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No. 6-A for identification.)

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Mr. Schwar?.

April 11, 1963:

NAs Bundy 6-B, the Special Group minutes of

(The document referred to

was marked Bundy Exhibit

No. 6-B for Identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz.;

As Bundy Exhibit 6-C, the memorandum also

dated April 11, 1963 from Mr. Gordon Chase to yourself, headed

Cuban. Policy®

7.

(The document referred

to was marked Bundy: -

Exhibit 6-C for

identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz

As Bundy G-Rithe minutes of a meeting of

the Special Groups 18 Apr1l 1963.

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(The document referred

to was marked Bundy

Exhibit 6-D for

identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz. As Bundy: 6-B the Summary Record of NSC

Standing Group Meeting, April 23, 1963.

(The document referred

to was marked Bundy

Exhiblt 6-E for

identification.)

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Mr. Schwart.

As Bundy 6=f, the memorandum for Mr.: Bundy,

Subject, Cuba Policy, dated April 23, 1963.

(The document referred

to was marked Bundy

Exhibit 6-r for

identification.)

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Mi. Schwarz As Bundy 6-6 the Agonde for the meeting of

the Standing Group, meeting Tuesday, April 30th, the document

being dated

April 29th and signed by you.

(The document referred

to was marked Bundy

Exhibit 6-G for

identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz.

Standing Group dated May 2, 1963.

6-H, the memorandum for members of the

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(The document referred

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Exhibit 6-R for

1dentification.)

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Mr. Schwarz:

Finally! as Bundy 6-I, the Central

Intelligence Agency, Office of National Estimates, May 13th,

1963, draft memorandum; Subject:: Developments in Cuba and

Possible U.s. Actions in the Event of Castro's Death.

(The document referred

to was marked as Bundy

Exhibit 6-I for

identification.)

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Now, have you had a chance to read them

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Mr. Schwarz..

again, Mr. Bundy?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Schwarz. In summary, Mr. Bundy, is 1t a fair charac-

terization of these papers that you were, iand'the Standing..

Group was, examining the question of what the situation would

be if Castro were to die?

Mr. Bundy. That is one of the things we were examining,

certainly.

Mr. Schwarz. That was a gamut of matters I tried to:

pose at the beginning of this line of questioning?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Schwarz. That was one of the things you were consider

ing?

Mr. Bundy. Right.

Mr. Schwarz. This was a period of time, as the fall of

1961 may also have been, when people asked about or talked

about assassinations as a means of causing Mr. Castro's death.

Mr. Bundy.

I am

not aware of much conversation on that

subject in the spring of '63, so I would have to take your

word on that.

MI. Schwarz. I am asking you, I have no word on that.

Mr. Bundy. No, I don't think there was much discussion in

the spring of '63 on that subject.

MI. Schwarz. Well, let's see if we can agree on some

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things first.

Can we further agrae that the ultimate conclusion was that

Castro's death would not be desirable for the United States?

MI. Bundy. The recommendation, or the assessment, which

comes back from the Office of National Estimates, makes it

clear that the odds would be that, upon Castro's death, his

brother Raul or some other figure in the regime would, with

Soviet backing and help take over control.

Then it goes on to say that there might be divisions and

splits, but that it was unlikely that anti-Communist forces

would be able to take over without extensive U.S. halp and

probably U.S. military intervention.

Mr. Schwarz. All right.

Now, I would like to avoid having to go through every

single document.

Mr. Bundy. So would I.

Mr. Schwarz. And see if I could get you to agree with

this statement. You do agree that you were looking at

situation that would exist as if Castro were killed?

MI. Bundy. That is one of the things we were looking at.

Mr. Schwarz. And in connection with that, was his being

killed by assassination one of the ways which you understood

he might be killed?

Mr. Bundy.. I don't have any recollection of that point,

of it being on our minds.

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Mr. Schwarz. All right.

Then why were you looking at the question of his being

killed? Was there something known?

Mr. Bundy. I really don't have any independent of it.

My sense of events in 1963 is that the internal pressure from

within the Administration to "do something about Cuba" was

very much lower. There was, however, external pressure. There

was political pressure in the United States, critics of the

Administration were making speeches about how not enough was

being done and we must get rid of the Castro regime, and as I

think I may have said earlier, and I would like to say now,

I think that one reason for getting an estimate of this kind

was to

o get it on record.

" from the point of view of those who

did not think we should be fusging with questions of assassina-

tion or anything like it, that it was not a sound policy,

leaving aside its moral meaning and wider political meaning

from the point of view of the narrow objectives we had in Cuba.

Mr. Schwarz. Who was taking the position that assassina-

tion

could be -

Mr. Bundy.

I have no recollection on that.

Mr. Schwarz. But someone was?

Mr. Bundy. I have no recollection on that.

Mr. Schwarz. You have no recollection of any position

being taken pro or con?

MI. Bundy. I have no recollection of any specific

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conversation or position that triggered this particular

inquiry.

The Chairman. Well, isn't it perfectly plausible that

this inguiry sought to examine what the situation would be in

the event of Castro's death by whatever means it might occur?

Does it necessarily follow that because the Administration

was making

such a plausible inquiry against such a contingency

that might arise at any time that therefore it was within the

mind of the Administration to kill Castro? I don't see the

connection.

MI. Bundy. Well, "you make my point, Mr. Chairman. That's

just my point.

Mr. Schwarz. Now in connection with that, would you look

at your own Agenda for the April 19th meeting, 6-G?

Under item 1 - you distinguish between item I and item

2. Item l is the possible use of contingencies for the

achievement of wider political objectives; and item 2 is programs

that might be initiated by the United States government.

I call your attention to the fact that the reference to

the possible death of Castro is one of the items under item

1 and not under item 2.

Mr. Bundy. That is correct.

Mr. Schwarz. And do you regard that as relevant to the

exchange you had with the Chairman just now?

Mr. Bundy. It seems to me it bears out the Chairman's

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47 :

point, that you have a number of possible things that might

happen, that you would then have something to do something

about, of to act in the light of. The other are the things

that you might do without waiting for some contingency to

arise.

Mr. Schwarz. Now the only remaining question I have on

this group of documents is, how was it that the subject of the

death of Castro -- do you investigate the possibilities of the

death of foreign leaders as a regular matter?

Mr. Bundy. Well, the question i "After: Stalin,: What?" was

the staple of discussions

in the 1910's, everywhere, academies

and I would asgume inside the United States government; the

question after DeGaulle was a guestion about Western European

policy for a great many years. And one could pick: smaller

figures, more and lass controversial, and have the same kind of

question coming up, in a situation in which a particular

individual . is as dominant

a figure in a set of events which

it had the two, quite contrasting but heavy

consequences

of the

Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis, it doesn't seem to me to

be an irrational question to ask, without any relation as to

whether the United States itself would have any active advisory

role or any role whatever in having that event come to pass.

Mr. Schwarz. All right.

Would you mark as Exhibit 7 the September 20 document --

which is the page - which states the assassination of Castro

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excluded in order to avoid his martyrdon.

(The document referred

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Exhibit NO. 1 fOr

identification.)

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Mr. Schwarz.: Mr. Kelley, would you take over the ques-

tioning of Mr. Bundy, with the permission of the Chairman, on

that particular series of documents, which is at the heading,

September 20th '63 on the chronology.

Mr. Kelley. Yes.

Let me show MI. Bundy the documents.

Mr. Schwarz.

Well, first, will you tell us where the

documents are, because I couldn't find them under the heading

you gave us.

Mr. Kelley. Yes.

In Bundy Book 2, there is at Tab A the memorandum dated

July 25th, 1963 from MI. George Denney to Mr. Crimmins,

entitled "Cuba, Possible Courses of Action.

At Tab B of Bundy Book 2 is a memorandum dated September

20th, 1963, from Gordon Chase to Mr.

Bundy, and this memorandum

summarizes the Denney memorandum of July 25th.

Mr. Bundy, did you review these documents with members of

the staff earlier this week?

• Mr. Bundy. Yes, I did.

MI. Kelley. Do you have any independent recollection of

these

documents?

Mr. Bundy.

Well, as I read a document of this kind, which

comes to me from a member of my own staff, I am very often

reminded and I am in this case, that this is a document which

I did review and that it reflects his arguments as I then heard

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Mr. Kelley. Who was MI. Gordon Chase?

MI. Bundy. Well, he was an assistant of mine at the time

with special rasponsibilities for Cuban affairs, and perhaps

more widely in Latin America. He was at that time a foreign

service officer secunded to the White House.

Mr. Kelley. Did he have any responsibility for covert

actions?

MI. Bundy. No. I

Mr. Kelley. Did he provide staff assistance

to you with

respect to the Special Group or the Special Group

(Augmented)?

ME. Bundy. Well, he may have done in some exceptional

case when I needed his opinion on a matter, but in ordinary

cases he would not have been party to Special Group

work.

Mr. Kelley. What kind of things did he do with the

special responsibility for Cuba? What did that' involve?

Mr. Bundy. He would be keaping in touch with the Cuban

Task Force, which by this time was in the Department of State,

the MONGOOSE operation having been disbanded. He would have

been responsible for keeping me alert to matters that were

proceeding in that Task Force that might have an implication for

the White House.

Mr. Kellay. Who was the head of the Cuban Task Force?

Mr. Bundy. Well I don't want to get this wrong, but I

think by this time it was Mr. Crimmins.

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MI. Kelley. Mr.. Crimmins was in-the State Department and

he was a foreign sarvice officer?

Mr. Bundy. That is right.

Mr. Kelley. The Cuban Task Force, what was that?

MI. Bundy. Well, it was the successor to the MONGOOSE

group, but much less oriented toward secret operations than

MONGOOSE, and the faview of secret operations then came back

under the complete control of the Special Group, by now, I

think, called the 303 Committee, which was a lineal successor

of 5412.

Mr. Kelley. I call your attention now to Mr. Denney's

memorandum, which is at Tab A in Book 2, and it is true, is

it not that the memorandum is to MI. Crimmins?

Mr. Bundy: Right.

Senator Tower. Do you have any independent recollection

of this memorandum?

MI. Bundy.. I have no knowledge that I ever saw it, and I

did not find it familiar when I looked at it the other day.

MI. Kelley. It is true, is it not, that Mr. Chase's memo

to you summarizes this much longer memorandum by Mr. Denney?

MI. Bundy. Is that what it is?

Mr. Schwarz. Does it do that, Mr. Kelley, because Chase

memorandum starts by saying, here is a summary of Paul Sakwa's

MI. Kelley.

I think that is an error in Mr. Chase's memo, i

because it is clear that what is being summarized here is Mr.

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Denney's memorandum.

MI. Bundy. Let me suggest that: you focus 'on MI, Chase's

memorandum, with respect to my: recollection and responsibility.

that 1s. iclearly the operativa document.

Mr. Kellay. With respect to MI. Chase's memorandum, in

his summary of the rationale of proposals, he states, as second

"the present importance of Castro as a nationalist symbol makes

him the obvious operational target; assassination i. excluded

to avoid Castro's martyrdom."

Do you have any recollection of why he would exclude

assassination?

•Does that imply to you, or do you recollect,

whether Castro's assassination was being considered

and: here

is a staff paper excluding it, because. someone asked them to

consider it?

Mr. Bundy. No, I think it's a simple statement of what

I would regard as a rationale assessment of the situation by

whoever the original author was, and certainly by the staff

man with respect to a subject that emarges directly from the

notion that he is an operational

target, whatever that means

and goes on to say, but we don't mean assassination, because

it would make him a martyr, what other reasons against: that

there may be. It doesn't seem to me that you can read the

statement that assassination is excluded as an inference that

somebody else is including it.

Mr. Kelley. That's all.

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Mr. Schwarz. In any. event, Mi. Bundy, the document says

it is excluded.

Mr. Kelley. That's right.

Mr. Schwarz. Now at that period of time in the fall of

1963, were you aware that through the offices of Ambassador

Atwood, or Mr. Atwood, as he may inhave then been called, and

through the offices of a French journalist called Jean Daniel,

another effort was being made to establish contact with Mr.

Castro?

MI. Bundy. I remember the Atwood effort, as I racollect.

that he came to see me about it. I don't recollect specifically

Jean Daniel, although it strikes a chord as you mention it.

Mr. Schwarz. What the purpose, very briefly, of Mr.

Atwood's effort?

Mr. Bundy. Well, as I understood it, he had been approached

by someone he knew from Cuba and had been givan to understand

that there was interest in, Castro had an interest in, opening

communication, and he was exploring with us whether he could be

encouraged to undertake such an explanation.

Mr. Schwarz. And did you encourage him?

Mr. Bundy. The exact form of our message to him, or our

if you want to call it, the instruction to him, the President's

decision, I can

no longer recollect, but my impression is that.

we were interested, and that we did want him to explore it without.

engaging the President any more than he could help.

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Mr. Schwarz. "But was the President in fact informed and

in fact approved the actions taken?

Mr. Bundy. That is my understanding.

Mr. Schwarz. Is it your understanding or your recollection?

Mr. Bundy. It is my recollection, but it is a recollection

that is refreshed by what I have learned and hearing more about

it in the last few days.

Mr. Schwarz. Now, were you told, in the fall of 1963,

that assassination devices had been requested by a Cuban for

the purpose of

assassinating Mr. Castro, and that assassination

devices were offered to the Cuban in the fall of 1963?

Mr. Bundy. No.

Mr. Schwarz. Now again, here, calling for a matter of

opinion, as a matter of opinion, do you believe that at. the

same time, at a possible rapprochement with Mr. Castro was being

pursued, the President would have authorized or permitted the

passage of assassination devices intended for their use on

Mr. Castro?

Mr. Bundy. Absolutely not.

MI. Schwarz. I have

nothing further on Castro.

The Chairman. Is there more?

Mr. Schwarz. Well, on Trujillo and Diem, with respect to

Dien --

Mr. Smothers. Well, if you're going on to something else,

there are a couple of things.

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Going back to an earlier memorandun which I don't believe

is in the Bundy matarials, but it: has been talked about

previously in a Committee hearing, & memorandum which will be

identified as a Memorandum for the Record, dated 16: October

1962, a memorandum signed by Mr. Richard Helms.

(The document referred

to was marked Bundy

Exhibit No. 8 for

identification.)

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Mr. Smothers. Mr. Bundy, I am going to read through this

memorandum and ask you a couple of questions. about that. It's

a memorandum from Helms for the recoid on MONGOOSE.

Reading. from this memorandum, Mr. Bundy, reading from

Paragraph 2: "The Attorney General" -- well, let me read the

entire paragraph.

"The Attorney General opened the meeting" - we're talking

about a MONGOOSE meeting - by expressing the general dissatis-

faction of the President," --"'dissatisfaction of the President'"

in quotes - "with Operation MONGOOSE."

Mr. Bundy. What date are we at? The date?

Mr. Smothers. The date of the memorandum is 16 October

1962.

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"He pointed out that the Operation had been underway for a

year, that the results were discouraging, that there had been

no acts of sabotage, and that even the one which had been

attempted had failed twice. He indicated that there had been

noticeable improvement during the year in the collection of

intelligence, but that other actions had failed to influence.

significantly the course of events in Cuba. He spoke of the

weekly mestings of top officials on this problem, and again

noted the small accomplishments, despite the fact that Secre-

taries Rusk and McNamara, General Taylor, McGeorge Bundy and he

personally had all been charged by the President with finding

a solution. He traced the history of General Lansdale's personal

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appointment by the President a year ago.

"The Attorney General then stated that in view of this

lack of progress, ha was going to give Operation MONGOOSE more

personal attention. In order to do this, he would hold a meetina

every morning at 0930 with the MONGOOSE operational representa-

tives from the various agencies (Lansdale, Harvey, Hurwich,

Ryan and General: Johnson)."

Now, the best of our information, Mr. Bundy, is that these

meetings were in fact held on a daily basis as indicated, and

that they did involve Lansdale and these mambers of the working

group noted.

Were you aware of such meetings?

MI. Bundy. I have

no independent recollaction of them, but:

that does not sound implausible to me at all.

Mr. Smothers. It doesn't sound implausible to me that the

Attorney General Lansdale and members of the working group to

develop MONGOOSE activities with him?

Mr. Bundy. To report to him how they were getting on, and

to see if he couldn't, by listening to those reports and keeping

a lively -- keeping his lively concern in their consciousness

move the thing more rapidly.

Mr. Smothers. This is your interpretation of giving more

personal attention to it?

Mr. Bundy. Exactly.

Mr. Smothers. You say you had no knowledge of these

in

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Mr. Bundy. I didn't say that. I said I had no independent

recollection of then.

Mr. Smothers. They did not come to your attention at that

point?

MI. Bundy. I didn't say say that. I don't know that they

did, but I don't know that they didn't.

Mr. Smothers. But your recollection at this point is that

they did not come to your attention?

MI. Bundy. That is not my recollection: I don't recall

that one way of the other.

MI. Smothers. Okay.

Let me

ask you then about your knowledge of the Lansdale

situation.

• Do you know General Lansdale?

Mr. Bundy. Yes.

MI. smothers. Do you know his reputation for truth and

honesty?

MI. Bundy. I don't think I have any -- his reputation for

truth and honesty, if you ask me the question as one asks it

about, you know, all kinds of people, I have no reason to

question it.

I have doubts about

some of the things I have

seen attributed to him in recent weeks.

Mr. Smothars. Wall, let me put it this way. Would you

believe General Lansdale under oath?

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Mr. Bundy. It would depend

on what he said.

Mr. Smothers. It would depand upon what he said.

Is your experience that General Lansdale is trustworthy

only on a selective basis?

Mr. Bundy. You are asking me questions about matters

essentially in which his testimony, as I have sean it reported.

Mr. Smothers. No, I am not asking you about his testimony.

I am asking you if you would believe him under oath, based on

your knowladge.

No. Bundy. It would depend upon what he said, and if it

was a matter on which I had my own knowledge.

Mr. Smothers. Without regard to matters that General

Lansdale has testifiad to before this Committee, based on your

knowledge of him, your working relationship with him, your

knowledge of what other people know of General Lansdale, his

reputation in the community, if you will, would you believe him

under oath?

Mr. Bundy. I would currently have to say that I could

not.

give you a definite affirmative answer to that question.

Mr. Smothers. That's fine.

Now, let's go back to the period of General Lansdale's

appointment.

General Lansdale was appointed as the coordinator of the

Special Group, the Chief of Operations.

After General Taylor's efforts had been under effort for

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some time, six months, seven months, General Taylor comes in,

I balieve, in July after he completes his Bay of Pigs examina-

tion, General Lansdale is appointed by the President at the end

of November.

Do you have any present recollection of the circumstances

surrounding that appointment?

Mr. Bundy. None that goes bayond what I discussed earlier.

Mr. Smothers. Io the best of your knowledge or recollection,

did the appointment of this Chief of Staff or Chief of Operations

reflect any lack of confidence in General Taylor on the part of

either the Attorney General or the President?

Mr. Bundy. No, the

opposite. General Taylor had heavy

responsibilities in his general responsibility as military

representative of the President.. He was made Chairman of the

Committee to keep oversight on this. It was inappropriate

entirely in terms of his rank and his other duties that he

should ba the day to day action officer.

Mr. Smothers. Are you familiar with the degree of General

Taylor's involvement with the development of the Special

Group. (Augmented)

agendas?

Was this done by General Taylor?

Was it really General Lansdale's responsibility?

Mr. Bundy. I don't have

any knowledge of the details of

the operations of the staff. It was clear to me, and I think

to everyone else, that the man in charge of that operation, of

that Committee, was General Taylor.

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Mr. Smothers. Okay.

Just one final series of questions.

If we might, Mr. Bundy, go back to our conversations

regarding your request to see documents prior to your testimony

before the Rockefeller Commission, when you talked to Mr:

Kissinger, precisely what did you request of him?

Mr. Bundy. I said to him - and again I cannot be precise

and I thought that there were going to be questions with respect

to which it would be much easier for me to give helpful and more

accurate answers if I could have access to appropriate documents

since I have taken no documents of that character, no official

documents of that character, from the White House. And he said

he entirely agreed and he made the appropriate arrangements.

Mr. Smothers.

Did you ask for a timeframe for these

documents?

Mr. Bundy. I don't recall that I did, but when I came

to

look more closely at what I needed to see, as I told you

earlier, it related specifically to the period around August

1962.

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Mr. Smothers. Did the White House make the gelection of

documents for you?

Mr. Bundy. No. The White House handed me a file of

documents which covered the period.

Mr. Smothers. They

handed you a file of documents covering

roughly the August 1962 period?

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Mr.: Bundy. That's right.

Mr. Smothers. Had you made a request for documents

covering this August '62 timeframe?

Mr. Bundy. I must have told him the rough period with

which I am concerned. Again, I don't understand the drift of

your question.

Mr. Smothers. Well, the drift of my question is, if indeed

you selected the August 1962 documents, why did you select

that?

Mr. Bundy. Because Counsel to the Rockefeller Commission

had directed my attention to the period.

MI. Smothers. To August 1962?

MI. Bundy. Yes.

Mr. Smothers. In the file that centered roughly on this

point in this timeframe, included NSA memo 181, was the file

put together by the White House pursuant to this guidance?

Mr. Bundy. The file that came into my hands, whether

they put it together or whether it was a file drawn off the

shelf, I can't tell you. You'll have to ask them.

MI. Smothers. Did it appear to you to be an off-the-shelf

file?

Mr. Bundy. I don't know what it was.

The Chairman. What is the object of this series of

questions, Curtis?

Mr. Smothers. Well, I am trying to determine, Mr. Chairman!

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"160

what Mt. Kissinger was requested to do and what actually

happened.

The Chairman. Don't we have that now in the record?

It just seems to me like we're going over the same series of

questions.

MI. Smothers. Well, since we don't know what was in the

file --

Mr. Bundy. Well, I thought I said the file was a file of

National Security Action memoranda, a file which you already

have here.

Mr. Smothers. Relating to August, 1962?

MI. Bundy. Uh-huh.

Mr. Smothers.

That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Schwarz. On the Trujillo matter --

Mt. Bundy. Sure.

MI. Schwarz. You know Mr. Trujillo was killed. Did you

know of do you know that the persons who killed him had

obtained some weapons from the United States?

Me. Bundy. I did not know, and do not now know, of my

own knowledge that that was the case.

I did know, or at least I believe I must have been on

notice because of documents again that you have shown me, that

weapons by a decision of the Special. Group in early January

had been or were being

passed

to Dominican dissidents.

Mr. Schwarz. Were you involved in the sending of a telegram

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to the Domincan Republic, either two or three days prior to the

actual assassination of Mr: Trujillo?

Mr. Bundy. I have no recollection of it, and when I saw

those telegrams in discussions with your staff, they stirred no

recollection on my part.

MI. Schwarz. Is it fair to state that Mr. Richard Goodwin

is the best witness on those

subjects

from the White House for

that period of time?

MI. Bundy. It appears that way to me, although that

appears more from the fact that

important documents

seem to

have been addressed to him than because of my own recollectior.

that he was interested in the matters.

and because of my phone

conversation with him, he showed a considerable familiarity

with events in the Domincan Republic, political events during

that spring.

Mr. Schwarz. Well, you got a memo from Mr. Bissell in

February, 17th February '61. It is Tab R

of the Trujillo

Book

I of 2, in which you were informed that the dissidents

had been told by the United States that it was prepared to

provide them with a limited supply of arms and equipment.

When you got such information, did it trigger in your mind

anything to the effect of, let's be concerned about how they're.

going to use those weapons, or did you just accept the informa-

tion and do nothing about it?

Mr. Bundy. It is clear that the information was sent to

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•45

me and it was clear, in that

sense, that I had become responsi-

ble fur knowing what was in the document, but I have to say that

as I raread it I have no recollection that I ever, in fact, did

read it at the time. Whether that was because of the flow, the

very heavy flow of other documents or because I passed it to

someone else or because I just simply didn't get to it, I cannot

tell you, but I have no recollection' that I saw it.

Mr. Schwarz. You did make a request for a briefing paper?

Mr. Bundy. It must have been done, and it was either done

in my name or I did it.

Mr. Schwarz. So you're not capable -- you don't remember

it. Are you capable of making a comment on my question, which

was having received information that arms had been supplied --

Mr. Bundy.

laving that information on my desk, anyway.

Mr. Schwarz. Okay.

In the light of hindsight, should persons in your position

when they receive such information inquire into the purpose for

which the arms

are to be used?

Mr. Bundy. Yes, I would -- and my own guess on this, and

it's not much better than that, is that the decision which had

been taken only a week befora the new Administration came in,

in the Special Group, was partly reviewed in some fashion, with

the Special Group as reconstituted after the change in

Administration. So I would have to say that I suppose I knew

that weapons were being introduced into the Dominican Republic

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and I would have to add that I did not, or I have no recollection

and I think I would recollect it, if I had engaged in a careful

inquiry to find out just what, who, when where and so on did

not do that, and I think -- you ask in hindsight, I think it

would clearly be important to have that kind of understanding,

because as I understand the evidence that has now been developed,

there was a level of communication and connection with the

plotters in the Dominican Republic which exceeded what political

authority appears to have expected or believed was going on.

Mr. Schwarz. Hould you agree with one further point,

that it is very difficult for the United States to control

events once

it has made a decision to cooperate with dissident.

elements, and in particular once it's made a decision to

cooperate with dissident elements by providing them with arms?

Mr. Bundy. I think that -- one thing, I don't want to

generalize here, but I think -- I would agree with the generali-

zation, let me put it that way, if I could add that in the case

of the Dominican Republic, I think one has also to recognize

retrospectively that there was no way to have any communicatio.

with dissidents that would not involve recognition that, if you

propose to be an effective dissident in that country under that

ruler, you would probably be contemplating fairly violent

action.

Mr. Schwarz. I have nothing further on Trujillo.

One question of Vietnam.

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You were Involved in the question of the possible coup in

Vietnam that actuallY#took Place?

Mr: Buhdyrz Yes

Mr. Schwarz. And you were substantially involved in that

as a matter of personal

Mr. Bundy? was working closely with the President and

was probably the drattsman under his instruction of: some of

the cablesithat went out:

1022

MI. Schwarz Now Diem was killed.

It does not appear to

me from the record that the United States wanted him killed:

Is that fair?

MI. Bundy. That is correct.

Mr. Schwarz.. But the United States did want him deposed

if a coup could be successful? Is that correct?

MI. Bundy. The: United: States, really had two views. Right

up to the end, the United States hoped, hoped against hope, as

it became more and more difficult to communicate with Diem,

that he would see the, or come to share the kinds of argument,

that were made to him, primarily by Ambassador Lodge, and that

a change in his government and a lower, much lower, role for

his brother. and sister-in-law would assist him in recapturing

public confidence. That was always the preferred solution.

As prospects

for that became more

and more dim, the United

States did come to take the view. that there might be no alter-

native to a coup, and it certainly had the view that if there

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was going to be@ coup/bellavo.the language somewherd..n

one of the cablests.that/t/wastin.the interests.of the United

States that it should succeed,

Mr. Schwarz. Now, onythe day of tha coup, Ambassador

LodgentoldiM.Diem.that. he would provide help to getshimout

of the country ana do co by ateplano, but no couldage have the

plane tor twenty-tourhourpnoheat@you. know.of.the/twenty.four

reprod on adie

hour point?

Mr abundy. Idon remember that wendid.

• Mr. Schwarza

Bi don't you find it incomprehensible that

the United States was not able to supply an airplane for

32194

twenty-four. hours?

MI. Bundy I don' treally know because it depends on

where the plane was going, to go, what kind of planet aon't

think I'm competent, to answer

that question.

2520

What. occurs. to meisthere were.lots.of.other ways of

offering asylum for a twenty-four hour period, and I don't»

think I really find that aivery significant point.

The Chairman

Any further questions?

If there are no further questione. I want to thank you

for your testimony, it has been long, a very long morning, and

it has been very helpful testimony:

We appreciate it very

much.

Mr. Bundy. And I am thankful to you, Mr. Chairman

Mr. Chairmar

piet is not inappropriate and there is no

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objection,

hava a bala? otatement that intend to maka to

the

press/which-wil/simply ra-emphasiza. to them what rathink

have said.anumber. oftimes this morningabout.myrvlew.of

the rolayof President kennedy, and Attorney General Kennedy,

The Chairman. leave, that up to yous

certainly would

t to interpose any objections

Thank you very much.

"Whereupon at: 12:420. clock P.m.

the Committee recessed.)

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