Ike's Spies (50 page)

Other testimony before the Church Committee strongly denied that the President had any knowledge of a
CIA
connection with the Mafia or any assassination plots against Castro. Gordon Gray said that he had direct orders from the President to the effect that “all covert actions impinging on the sovereignty of other countries must be deliberated by the Special Group (the 5412 Committee).” Like Bissell, Gray said that the 5412 people never discussed any assassination plans for Castro. “I find it very difficult to believe,” Gray testified, “and I do not believe, that Mr. Dulles would have gone independently to President Eisenhower with such a proposition without my knowing about it from Mr. Dulles.”
³²

As to the possibility that Ike and Dulles conferred privately about the plot, General Goodpaster—who ordinarily was the first person to see the President in the morning—testified, “That was simply not the President's way of doing business. He had made it very clear to us how he wanted to handle matters of this kind, and we had set up procedures to see that they were then handled that way.”
SOP
was to clear everything with 5412, then get the President's direct approval, as in the U-2 program. Bissell's assumption of a “circumlocutious” personal conversation between Ike and Dulles was to Goodpaster “completely unlikely.”
³³

Thomas Parrott, Secretary for the 5412 Committee, said, “I just cannot conceive that President Eisenhower would have gone off and mounted some kind of covert operation on his own. This certainly would not have been consistent with President Eisenhower's staff method of doing business.”
³⁴

John Eisenhower, who was Goodpaster's assistant, testified that his father had confided secret matters to him “to a very large extent.” As examples, John said Ike had told him about the atomic bomb a month before Hiroshima. He then said that his father “never told him of any
CIA
activity involving an assassination plan or attempt concerning Castro and it was his opinion that President Eisenhower would have told him if the President had known about
such activity.” John also said that his father “did not discuss important subjects circumlocutiously.” He added that his father believed “that no leader was indispensable, and thus assassination was not an alternative in the conduct of foreign policy.”
³⁵

Finally, Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, told the Church Committee, “It is my firm conviction, based on five years of close association with President Eisenhower … that he would never have tolerated such a discussion, or have permitted anyone to propose assassination, nor would he have ever authorized, condoned, or permitted an assassination attempt.”
³⁶

All of which is strong testimony to Ike's innocence. The fact remains, however, that Dulles did approve at least two assassination plots, and the
CIA
did do its best to carry them out. It is highly unlikely, almost unbelievable, that Dulles would have done so unless he was certain he was acting in accord with the President's wishes. It may be that Dulles was too zealous or liberal in his interpretation of what the President wanted done. With both Eisenhower and Dulles dead, we will never know.

GENERAL
ANDREW GOODPASTER
, in Ike's opinion, was not only the best officer in the U. S. Army, but also one of the two or three smartest men in the country.
¹
Well over six feet tall, ramrod straight, impeccable in his perfectly pressed uniform, with rugged features, broad shoulders, and a powerful chest, he was graceful in his movements, polite yet firm in his attitude. He was second in the West Point class of 1939 and earned a series of combat medals plus two Purple Hearts in Italy during the war.

Goodpaster's bearing, manner, shock of hair, and good looks reminded some observers of his namesake, another general, Andrew Jackson. When he emerged from retirement in 1977 to take up the duties of Superintendent of the Military Academy, to restore West Point to its full integrity, he reminded other observers of Sylvanus Thayer, the legendary founder of the academy.

Goodpaster was a man who spoke carefully, meaning exactly what he said, saying exactly what was on his mind. Late in 1960, in the Oval Office, Goodpaster expressed concern that the assembling and training of an organization of Cuban refugees, authorized by Eisenhower months earlier, might well be building up a problem with difficult consequences.

THE CUBAN TRAINING PROGRAM
had its beginning in December 1959 at the same time that the
CIA
began its assassination plotting against Fidel. J. C. King wrote a memorandum to Allen Dulles observing that the Castro dictatorship in Cuba was expropriating American property at an alarming rate, and warning that if it were permitted to stay in power, the Castro regime would encourage similar actions against other U.S. holdings in other Latin American countries. He recommended a broad-based program to eliminate Fidel, including assassination and paramilitary activities.
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On January 13, 1960, Dulles took King's recommendations to the 5412 Committee. Dulles told the committee that “a quick elimination of Castro” was not contemplated by the
CIA
, but he also “noted that over the long run the U.S. will not be able to tolerate the Castro regime in Cuba, and suggested that covert contingency planning to accomplish the fall of the Castro government might be in order.”

The State Department representative on 5412 commented that “timing was very important.” The
CIA
should not move against Castro until a “solidly based Cuban opposition” was prepared to take over. Dulles then “emphasized that we do not have in mind a quick elimination of Castro, but rather actions designed to enable responsible opposition leaders to get a foothold.”
⁴

In February, Dulles came to the Oval Office to discuss with Ike possible moves against Castro. The President was sympathetic but hardly enthusiastic. Dulles had brought some U-2 photos of a Cuban sugar refinery, along with plans to put it out of action by using guerrilla saboteurs. Ike scoffed at this, pointing out that such damage could be easily repaired. The
CIA
had to come up with something better than this. Ike said that Dulles should go back to his people and return when they had a “program” worked out.
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The
CIA
then created a task force, under the direction of Richard Bissell, to take charge of Cuban operations. That group was tempted to try for a quick fix—Castro's assassination—as a solution. J. C. King's attitude, as recorded in a memorandum of a meeting on March 9 with the task force, was “that unless Fidel and Raúl Castro and Che Guevara could be eliminated in one package—which is highly unlikely—this operation can be a long, drawn-out affair and the present government will only be overthrown by the use of force.”
⁶

The following day, March 10, 1960, the
NSC
discussed American policy to “bring another government to power in Cuba.” The minutes of that meeting record that “the President said we might have another Black Hole of Calcutta in Cuba, and he wondered what we could do about such a situation.” Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, said the chief immediate requirement was to find a Cuban leader around whom anti-Castro elements could rally. Dulles reported that the
CIA
was working on a plan to rid the island of Fidel. Burke suggested that any plan for his removal should be “a package deal, since many of the leaders around Castro were even worse than Castro.”
⁷

Bissell, meanwhile, had drafted a policy paper, “A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime,” and on March 14 brought it to the 5412 Committee. It called for four steps: (1) creation of a “responsible and unified” Cuban government in exile; (2) “a powerful propaganda offensive”; (3) “a covert intelligence and action organization in Cuba” that would be “responsive” to the government in exile, and (4) “a paramilitary force outside of Cuba for future guerrilla action.”
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The 5412 people were impressed. Although Bissell warned that it would take six to eight months to put his program into action, what he proposed was more solid and helpful than the earlier talk about assassination. The committee did have “a general discussion
as to what would be the effect on the Cuban scene if Fidel and Raúl Castro and Che Guevara should disappear simultaneously.” Admiral Burke observed that the only organized group in Cuba was the Communist Party, and that if the Castros were eliminated the Communists would move into the vacuum. Dulles thought “this might not be disadvantageous” because it would give the United States and the Organization of American States an opportunity to move in on Cuba in force. J. C. King suggested that nothing be done hastily, as so far no anti-Castro Cuban leader had appeared who was capable of winning popular support.
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Three days later, on March 17, Ike approved Bissell's four-point program. The President put his emphasis on Bissell's first step, finding a Cuban leader living in exile (probably in Miami) who would form a government in exile that the United States could recognize.
¹⁰

Through the spring and summer of 1960, Bissell worked on several fronts. As noted in
Chapter Twenty-one
, various attempts to assassinate Castro were made, possibly without Ike's knowledge, certainly without success. Meanwhile, the flow of anti-Castro Cuban refugees into Miami was becoming a flood. Many of these refugees were eager to return to their homeland and, with American military help, overthrow Fidel. Unfortunately, they bickered among themselves. Some were pro-Batista, most were anti-Batista, all were hot-tempered and hardheaded, few were willing to cooperate or take second place in a government in exile. No genuine leader emerged.

Bissell, meanwhile, began to put step four, the creation of a paramilitary force, into action. If nothing else, it was a way to give the most active refugees a sense of movement, a feeling that something was being done. The original training camp was outside Miami, but it was too public, so Bissell sent the group down to the Panama Canal Zone.

There the
CIA
trained an initial cadre of thirty Cuban leaders for guerrilla warfare inside Cuba. As Bissell explained in an interview, “The notion was that when a larger group was assembled subsequently for training, that larger group would be trained by Cubans, thus insulating the U.S. from any direct involvement.”
¹¹

By July, it was obvious that the plan was no good. It was based on the concept of a strong guerrilla movement inside Cuba, which “began to appear less and less possible.” One reason was that the
anti-Castro Cubans never developed a command and control net, a true organized underground. There were virtually no communications between Miami and Cuba. There were resistance groups on the island but, as Bissell explained, “they were so poorly organized and their security practices were so poor that … they were rounded up quickly,” except in the Escambrey Mountains.

And in the mountains, Bissell said, “what Castro did was to put a cordon of militia around the whole area, using enormous numbers, and in effect he starved these people out. They had to come out to forage, and they were picked up at that time.”

The
CIA
did infiltrate a few small groups of guerrillas onto the north coast of Cuba during the summer, but because there was “no command and control net, no underground, no organization, no way they could be sheltered from informers, it was simply impossible to build up the basis of a resistance movement in the island.”
¹²

Assassination had failed. Infiltration had failed. Something bigger, something better planned and executed, was clearly necessary. On August 18, 1960, Ike approved an expanded program, with a $13 million budget. He was willing to take more active steps because the
CIA
had obtained photographs of Czech arms in Cuba.
¹³

The same day, Ike approved the use of Department of Defense personnel and equipment in the Cuban operation, although he insisted that “no United States military personnel were to be used in a combat status.”
¹⁴

After giving his approval to Bissell's expanded plans, Ike asked again, “Where's our government in exile?” Bissell and Allen Dulles explained that it was difficult to get the Cubans to work together. Ike, impatient, replied, “Boys, if you don't intend to go through with this, let's stop talking about it.” Nothing could happen, he insisted, without a popular, genuine government in exile.
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