On Edwin Kaiser and Related Topics

[Cliff Varnell]

This Stephen Kinzer article destroys Jim DiEugenio's claim that Allen Dulles was engaged in a "Machiavellian agenda" during the BOP.

Worth repeated readings...

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/20...ulles.html

How the worst blot on JFK's presidency happened

Was Allen Dulles' early dementia to blame for the Bay of Pigs?

November 23, 2013 6:00AM ET
by Stephen Kinzer

Before dawn on April 17, 1961, a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles landed in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro's new regime. History has recorded the disaster that befell them. "How could I have been so stupid?" President John F. Kennedy shouted after the scope of the failure became clear.

Soon afterward, Kennedy fired his CIA director, Allen Dulles. "In a parliamentary system of government, it is I who would be leaving office," he told Dulles. "But under our system, it is you who must go."

Historians often call the Bay of Pigs failure the worst moment of Kennedy's presidency. Historian Michael Beschloss has called it Kennedy's "first enormous defeat" and said Kennedy felt he had "blotted his copy book forever." What has not been understood, however, is that this failure may have been in part the result of dementia that was beginning to affect Dulles.

Listening to baseball

Planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion began under President Dwight Eisenhower. As soon as Dulles was given the assignment, he did something he had never done before in his eight years as CIA director: He turned over a vital assignment to another officer and stopped paying attention to it.

The person Dulles chose, Richard Bissell, did almost all the talking every time the two of them went to the White House to brief Eisenhower on the plot. When Bissell briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dulles did not even attend.

Stories of Dulles' increasingly distracted behavior had already begun to circulate quietly at the CIA. One day in 1958, an analyst took him a batch of surveillance photos taken by a U-2 reconnaissance plane but found him unwilling to switch off the baseball game he was listening to. He paid little attention to the photos and remained absorbed in the game, muttering comments like, "He couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a banjo." With the same extreme inattention, he absented himself from planning for the Bay of Pigs.

In the weeks before the invasion, secrecy was broken by reporters from Time, The New York Times and other news outlets. The landing spot was changed to a beach, from which the invaders would have no chance to reach mountain hideouts.Kennedy, eager to limit U.S. involvement in the plot, made clear that he would allow only eight planes to provide air cover not enough to knock out Castro's air force and would under no circumstances order U.S. Air Force planes to support them.

These changes convinced the two men Bissell had chosen to direct the invasion CIA officer Jacob Esterline and Col. Jack Hawkins of the Marine Corps to conclude that it would fail. On Sunday morning, April 9, they went to Bissell's home, evidently distraught, and told him the plot was certain to end in "terrible disaster." He told them it was too far advanced to be called off and persuaded them to go back to work.

Under other circumstances, these two men might have appealed to Dulles himself. They did not because they understood that Dulles did not know much about the plan, had delegated everything to Bissell and would have nothing to say.

On the day of the invasion, Dulles was not even in Washington. Instead he was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, joining Margaret Mead and Dr. Benjamin Spock as speakers at a convention of young businessmen. He returned late at night.

"Well, how is it going?" he asked the aide who met his plane in Baltimore. "Not very well, sir," the aide said. Dulles' only reply was, "Oh, is that so?"

The two men chatted on the ride to Dulles' home in Georgetown. After they arrived, Dulles invited his aide in for a drink. Over whiskey, he shifted the subject away from Cuba and began rambling aimlessly. The aide later described this conversation as "unreal."

Sobering lessons

After the invasion failed, Dulles fell into a period of shock. ThenAttorney General Robert Kennedy later wrote that he "looked like living death" and "was always putting his head in his hands." John Kennedy dismissed him a few months later.

The declassified transcript of a closed hearing that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held two weeks after the invasion shows that some of Kennedy's advisers attributed the fiasco to Dulles' dreamy absentmindedness. "He showed up at meetings and sat there smoking his pipe," said Admiral Arleigh Burke, chief of naval operations. "I blame him for not being there."

Years later, in an oral history now available at the Dulles family archives at Princeton University, another witness to the disaster, William Bundy, made a similar judgment.

"I had the feeling that by then, he was slowing down a bit," said Bundy, who at that time worked under Paul Nitze, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security Affairs. "He hadn't been quite the man I had known. All through, he hadn't been as much on top of the operation as I expected."

Several years after his forced retirement, Dulles wrote rambling notes for an essay defending his performance, but his sister, Eleanor Dulles, persuaded him not to publish it because "he had already begun to lose his command over his memory and ideas." In retirement, he began losing his way on the streets of Georgetown.

"Perhaps it was what we call Alzheimer's disease today," a cousin, Eleanor Elliot, who cared for him later suggested. She recognized what no one at the White House or CIA had seen or dared to mention in the weeks leading up to the Bay of Pigs invasion.

When Allen Dulles died in 1969, obituaries focused on his responsibility for what one called "the greatest U.S. intelligence blunder." His appalling performance may be explained at least in part by the onset of dementia. It taught Kennedy what he called "sobering lessons," but it remains the low point of his presidency.

[Scott Kaiser]

1. Cabell, Dulles and Bissell were forced into resigning, they did not resign of their own free will. Big difference. For example, when Kennedy confronted Dulles after the reports were in, he said words to the effect that if this was a parliamentary system, he would have to resign. But since it was a presidential system, Dulles would have to go.

2. The main body of the invading force was in Central America. They did not get guerrilla training.

3. Every person who JFK consulted during the collapse advised him to save the operation with American forces. In addition to Cabell, this included Nixon and Burke. And when Dulles returned from Puerto Rico, around the second day, who did he go visit? Nixon.

The fiasco at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, reinforced by Kennedy's frustration at the meeting with Khrushchev in early June, changed everything. General Clifton informed current intelligence director Sheldon that the President was reluctant to continue receiving intelligence in the normal way. Clifton suggested that the Agency would have to come up with some entirely different way of presenting its information if it were to regain the President's confidence. He volunteered that there was no point in the DCI discussing the matter directly with the President as that would be counterproductive. Dulles took this implicit criticism calmly, possibly foreseeing that the President's disappointment with the Agency on this and other scores would lead, as it did in November 1961, to his own removal.

Meaning, Dulles took it upon himself to resign whereas not to further come under the president's criticism.

Dulles gamely soldiered on in his attempts to bring the new President the fruits of the Agency's collection and analysis in the traditional manner, but it was largely the unauthorized efforts of his subordinates that opened a new and less formal channel to the White House that would satisfy Kennedy and most of his successors. In mid-1961 Huntington Sheldon and other managers of the Office of Current Intelligence--working with Clifton but without the knowledge of their superiors either at the White House or the Agency--came up with a new intelligence briefing publication designed exclusively for the President.

[Anthony Thorne]

Re the dementia article, Kinzer quotes 'an analyst' and 'an aide', but can't be bothered mentioning their names, or from which documents or books he sourced the info, which is always a great sign. At this rate he could have added further testimony from 'a friend of a friend' if he was really determined to sell the thesis.

The onset of dementia does offer a generous interpretation of the conclusions Dulles pushed on the Warren Commission though.

[Drew Phipps]

I'm guessing "dementia" was also the reason Dulles went to the bookstore (or the CIA copy shop) and purchased copies of a ten year old book that concluded that lone nuts were the most likely assassins, and then delivered a copy to each member of the Warren Commission at their first meeting on 12/16/63?

[Cliff Varnell]

Re the dementia article, Kinzer quotes 'an analyst' and 'an aide', but can't be bothered mentioning their names, or from which documents or books he sourced the info, which is always a great sign. At this rate he could have added further testimony from 'a friend of a friend' if he was really determined to sell the thesis.

The onset of dementia does offer a generous interpretation of the conclusions Dulles pushed on the Warren Commission though.

He directly quoted Adm Burke, William Bundy and Eleanor Elliot -- so it's not as if the thesis isn't supported.

I'd love to see a cogent explanation for Dulles ditching the BOP to spend crucial time in Puerto Rico.

[Scott Kaiser]

IF I may, I would like to add. In defense of stricken information from the record, I do believe I have demonstrated that leadership is a lonely place for the one baring its mantel.

If I have not presented a valued case then I would appreciate anyone to correct my findings which clearly proves I have not provided any documention or a government source. I did however provide testimonials from a half dozen journalist's. Would that count?*

[Cliff Varnell]

I'm guessing "dementia" was also the reason Dulles went to the bookstore (or the CIA copy shop) and purchased copies of a ten year old book that concluded that lone nuts were the most likely assassins, and then delivered a copy to each member of the Warren Commission at their first meeting on 12/16/63?

I find Allen Dulles' connection to the Paines thru Mary Bancroft awfully fishy.

Such an obvious connection!

Leads me to suspect there were two names on the back-up patsy list for the Agency -- E. Howard Hunt and Allen Dulles.

Hunt took the fall for Watergate; Dulles for the Bay of Pigs.

The patsy jacket is hard to shake...

[Jim DiEugenio]

I'm guessing "dementia" was also the reason Dulles went to the bookstore (or the CIA copy shop) and purchased copies of a ten year old book that concluded that lone nuts were the most likely assassins, and then delivered a copy to each member of the Warren Commission at their first meeting on 12/16/63?

1. LOL Drew.

You might have added, Dulles more or less ran the WC. Walt Brown came to hat conclusion after studying the volumes in detail. He was also very active behind the scenes i covering up certain aspects of both Oswald's life and the Baron's career. He then became a vociferous defender of the cover up he helped construct. He was pretty sharp and energetic in that debate with Lifton, although he lost on points since the facts were not on his side.

2. Varnell has heard all of this stuff about Zapata before. Because its been gone through at Spartacus. SO he comes over here and recycles the same old stuff he could not sell there.

Dulles always said he did not want to cancel that engagement in Puerto Rico, because it would draw attention to itself and give away a hint that something was coming.

But in reality, can you imagine what would have happened if Dulles had done what Varnell wanted him to? In other words, once the thing was a disaster he was supposed to go to the oval office and tell Kennedy he had to commit American forces.

Something like this would likely have ensued, because everyone near JFK said they had never seen him so upset before:

AD: Sir, the invasion is collapsing on every front. We must commit Burke's naval force.

JFK: What about the defections you promised me would come at a 25 per cent rate?

AD: They are not there. At all.

JFK: But what about the surprise element?

AD: It did not work. There was a police force on duty.

JFK: But you said there would not be a police force at Playa Giron.

AD: Well, we were wrong. Castro has launched a counter attack already.

JFK:But you said there would not be a counterattack until days later.

AD: Well, we were wrong.

JFK: What about going guerrilla?

AD: Its 85 miles through swamp to get to the mountains. And most of the men did not get guerrilla training.

JFK: What? You mean everything that i used to OK this mission was wrong!

AD: Yes. Now go ahead and send in the Marines since that is what I snookered you into!


Allen Dulles was too clever to do something like that. So he let others do it for him. If not JFK would have probably fired him right then and there.

3. Finally, as per Kinzer, boy is he lucky we did not review his book. Talbot warned me in advance about how bad it was on the Bay of Pigs, and the WC proceedings. He said as far as JFK and Dulles, it was a big Nothingburger. And it is.

Anyone who can take Burke seriously and Bill Bundy seriously on Dulles's mental condition in 1961-63 is not to be trusted. Burke was one of the guys who JFK eased out after Zapata, he later joined an anti Castro group organized by the Luces. Allen Dulles saved Bill Bundy's career from McCarthy, since he had been targeted by Tailrunner Joe as a commie. If Varnell would have read Talbot's much more credible and candid bio on Allen Dulles he might have learned that.

[Cliff Varnell]

Dulles always said he did not want to cancel that engagement in Puerto Rico, because it would draw attention to itself and give away a hint that something was coming.

Let's put aside for a moment DiEugenio's strange, unconditional belief in everything Dulles ever said about the Bay of Pigs, and check the historical record:

The Soviets, the anti-Castro Cubans, and the New York Times knew "something was coming."

The Soviets knew the exact date for D-Day, and the CIA knew they knew -- which destroys DiEugenio's faith in the above rationale for Dulles ditching the operation.

Even though Dulles knew the operation was an open secret he took himself out of the chain of command and beat it down to Puerto Rico in order to ensure a secrecy that didn't exist?

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2000-04...ell-taylor

<quote on>

CIA Knew Russians Were Tipped Off To Bay Of Pigs
April 29, 2000|By VERNON LOEB The Washington Post

WASHINGTON Shortly after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, a top CIA official told an investigative commission that the Soviet Union had somehow learned the exact date of the amphibious landing in advance, according to a newly declassified version of the commission's final report.

Moreover, the CIA apparently had known of the leak to the Soviets -- and went ahead with the invasion anyway.

In an effort to oust Fidel Castro, the CIA organized and trained a force of about 1,400 Cuban exiles and launched the invasion on April 17, 1961. Castro's soldiers easily repelled the landing force in less than 72 hours, killing 200 rebels and capturing 1,197 others in what became one of the worst foreign policy blunders of the Cold War.

The investigative commission, chaired by Gen. Maxwell Taylor, was established almost immediately and held a series of secret hearings at the Pentagon before sending a sharply critical report to President Kennedy in June 1961.

While portions of the Taylor Commission's report were made public on two previous occasions, in 1977 and 1986, many pages had been blacked out for security reasons by the CIA.

The National Archives released the document late Wednesday to the nonprofit National Security Archive, where senior analyst Peter Kornbluh has been working for years to prod the government to release all classified documents on the Bay of Pigs.

Kornbluh began demanding the full version of the Taylor Commission report in December after determining that the document, cleared for release by the CIA in 1996, had been lost by Pentagon officials.

Documents found in Soviet archives previously indicated that the Russians had learned some details of the operation in advance, but the Taylor Commission report shows for the first time that the CIA knew about the leak and proceeded with the invasion nevertheless.



The revelation came in testimony before the Taylor Commission -- blacked out in previous releases of the report -- by Jacob D. Esterline, the CIA operations official who headed the task force responsible for coordinating the invasion.

"There was some indication that the Soviets somewhere around the 9th [of April] had gotten the date of the 17th," Esterline testified. "But there was no indication at any time that they had any idea where the operation was going to take place."

How the leak occurred is still a mystery.

In extremely candid testimony, Esterline called Tony Varona, one of two Cuban exile leaders working closely with the agency, "an ignoramus of the worst sort" who had "no conception whatsoever of security."

Referring to Varona and his cohorts, Esterline complained, "I've never encountered a group of people that were so incapable of keeping a secret."

For this reason, he explained, CIA planners told none of the Cuban participants when the invasion would actually take place until a briefing on April 12. Since the Soviets had by then already obtained the date, either through a source or a communication intercept, "we were able to isolate the fact that the leak could not have been Cuban," Esterline said.
Kornbluh said there is no indication that Esterline or anyone else at the CIA warned President Kennedy of the leak before the invasion took place.

The newly declassified report also shows that CIA Director Allen W. Dulles expressed doubt just three weeks after the invasion about whether the CIA should have any further involvement in paramilitary operations.

<quote off>

I'll spare the gentle reader the full "ether of his imagination" and boil down DiEugenio's Vulcan Mind Meld with Allen Dulles to the following:

AD: Yes. Now go ahead and send in the Marines since that is what I snookered you into!

It wasn't just the CIA who snookered Kennedy -- Dean Rusk advised Kennedy to approve the operation even though he knew the morning of D-Day-1 that it was doomed.

Kennedy took ultimate responsibility for a good reason -- he knew a month ahead of D-Day the prospect for success was 50/50 and he went ahead anyway.

3. Finally, as per Kinzer, boy is he lucky we did not review his book. Talbot warned me in advance about how bad it was on the Bay of Pigs, and the WC proceedings. He said as far as JFK and Dulles, it was a big Nothingburger. And it is.

Of course you're going to say that, Jim, his take on Dulles destroys your Pet Theories.

Anyone who can take Burke seriously and Bill Bundy seriously on Dulles's mental condition in 1961-63 is not to be trusted.

Anyone who swallows whole everything Allen Dulles said about the Bay of Pigs is not to be trusted.

[Scott Kaiser]

Now I'm really confused, Jim says Dulles and or orhers were out to force Kennedy into using American military, Kennedy said, "no American military would be used" however, Kennedy admitted he approved 8 planes for "air cover" but those 8 were increased to 12. Now, weren't those planes Navy? Isn't that already using American military? Common folks... Wouldnt you say American military was used jim?