On Edwin Kaiser and Related Topics

[Scott Kaiser]

Jim mentions the Kirkpatrick report. Googling around for it, I see the National Security Archives eventually obtained most of the Jack Pfeiffer report, linked here

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/

which contains

lengthy and harsh critiques of two previous official investigations of the Bay of Pigs: the report of the Presidential Commission led by Gen. Maxwell Taylor; and the CIA's own Inspector General's report written in the aftermath of the failed assault.

Are the Kirkpatrick and Pfeiffer reports both worth reading? Does anyone have any comments about any pros and cons I might encounter if I dig through both? Just curious, and happy to hear anyone's thoughts.

As someone who is not bias, Robert Kennedy did make sure that his brother Jack would not be responsible for the fiasco through the Taylor report, but, he was the president that did have three months to call it off, or at the very least postponed the operation.

[Scott Kaiser]

However, Jack did not want American military involved therefore, the A4s appeared to supply air cover, but that really wasn't going to happen.

[Scott Kaiser]

Did Kirkpatrick build a fair case against the Bay of Pigs operation? If he did, what can be inferred about the rejection of his Survey by Dulles, Bissell, and other Agency principals? Historian Piero Gleijeses has noted that the White House and the CIA were like ships passing in the night during the planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion; they assumed they spoke the same language with regard to Cuba, but they actually were imprisoned by mutually exclusive misconceptions about the invasion's likely outcome. The Kennedy administration believed the assault brigade would be able to escape destruction by melting into the countryside to wage guerrilla warfare. However, the Brigade would be more than 75 miles from the mountains making it impossible for guerrilla warfare. According to Gleijeses, CIA officials, from Dulles on down to the branch chief who ran the operation, professed this same belief but tacitly assumed President Kennedy would commit US troops rather than let the Brigade be overrun.4 A close reading of the IG's Survey and the DDP's response supports Gleijeses's thesis and hints that an analogous misunderstanding within CIA itself hampered planning for the invasion and contributed to the communications breakdown with the White House.

The Bay of Pigs invasion met its ignominious end on the afternoon of 19 April 1961. Three days after the force of Cuban émigrés had hit the beach, the CIA officers who planned the assault gathered around a radio in their Washington war room while the Cuban Brigade's commander transmitted his last signal. I mentioned this regarding Osvaldo Coello who was the main radio operator on the Barbra J ship. He had been pleading all day for supplies and air cover, but nothing could be done for him and his men. Now he could see Fidel Castro's tanks approaching. "I have nothing left to fight with," he shouted. "Am taking to the woods. I can't wait for you." Then the radio went dead, however, I believe information that I have already posted is being left out here, leaving the drained and horrified CIA men holding back nausea. 1

Within days the postmortems began. President Kennedy assigned Gen. Maxwell Taylor to head the main inquiry into the government's handling of the operation. 2 Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen Dulles asked the CIA's Inspector General (IG), Lyman B. Kirkpatrick, Jr., to conduct an internal audit. A humiliated President Kennedy did not wait for either report before cleaning house at CIA. He accepted resignations from both Dulles and Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell (although both stayed at their posts until their successors were selected a few months later).

Lyman Kirkpatrick subsequently acknowledged that his Survey of the Cuban Operation had angered the handful of senior Agency officers permitted to read it, particularly in the Directorate for Plans (the Agency's clandestine service and covert action arm, referred to here as the DDP). 3

The IG's Survey elicited a formal rejoinder from the DDP, written by one of Bissell's aides who was closely associated with all phases of the project. These two lengthy briefs, written when the memories and documentation were fresh, were intended to be seen by only a handful of officials within the CIA. They shed light on the ways in which the CIA learned from both success and failure at a milestone in the Cold War.

[Scott Kaiser]

^Edited.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Anthony:

The reason there is a Pfeiffer report is because of two things:

1.) Dulles and Bissell were very angry that Kirkpatrick did such a thorough and coruscating job exposing the almost unbelievable incompetence of Operation Zapata. In some ways, Kirkpatrick goes beyond the Taylor Report. Because it traces back to the beginnings of the operation. To use one example, the CIA was so incompetent about the resistance inside of Cuba--where it was, and if there was one--that many of their resupply operations ending up being recovered by Castro.

2.) Because it was so thorough, Kirkpatrick did not think he could get it to Kennedy through normal channels. So he drove it over to the White House himself.

Therefore, Dulles and Bisell filed dissents. And they then got their buddies in the Agency to put together a formal critique of Kirpatrick. You can get the Kirkpatrick Report in Peter Kornbluh's book, Bay of Pigs Declassified, which is, in my view, the best book on the subject.

Kirkpatrick took almost six months to put the report together. And by all indications, it was the last straw for Kennedy. He read it right after the Taylor Report. And he then made his decision to fire the top level of the CIA.

What the combination of the two reports makes clear is this:

1.) The only way the operation could have had any chance of success is if all the lies the CIA told Kennedy were actually true. That is about the defections, about the element of surprise, and finally, as a last resort, about going guerilla. But that is the whole point of what the investigations revealed: These were all lies. And the CIA lied to Kennedy to get him to OK the project. That is what he came to conclude. And that is what he told his pal, Red Fay. And Schlesinger.

2.) Kaiser misses my whole point about the air cover excuse. What Kirkpatrick was trying to demonstrate was that this was hogwash. It was irrelevant at best; at worst it created a "stab in the back" mythology. The operation was so misconceived, so mismanaged, such a hapless comedy of errors, that there was no way it was going to be successful, even with Castro's Air Force neutralized. Without the element of surprise, without the mass defections, then what you had was 1,100 men on the beach facing 35,000 army regulars, backed up with tanks, motorized companies, artillery and mortar. As any amphibious expert will tell you, that is simply ridiculous. This is why the CIA lied to Kennedy about the element of surprise.

When you go through both reports, you are left with the big question: Could they really have believed this crap? I and others--Jim Douglass, Mike Morissey, Larry Hancock, Greg Burnham-- came to the conclusion that, no they did not. And thanks to Lucien Vandenbrouke, we later got the truth from Dulles and Bissell themselves.

[Scott Kaiser]

Bay of Pigs declassified: The secret report on the invasion of Cuba. New York: The New York Press, c1998. viii 339p F 1788 B29 1998. President Kennedy was dreadfully fearful of using American military and had it's military been involved in the invasion of Cuba, this would have certainly set off a chain reaction for other communist countries to engage in war with the United States due to an act of subversion on Kennedy's part. North Viet Nam was already receiving support from Fidel Castro through pints of blood sold to the Vietnamese Embassy in Cuba. Russia was also supporting North Viet Nam with Russian backed military equipment, had the United States invoked a war with Cuba, this would have certainly set off a chain reaction of events, events Kennedy wanted to desperately avoid.

Kennedy did approve (8) A4 Skyhawks to be used in air cover for the B-26's, however, (12) boarded the U.S.S. Essex, the plan was to take out Castro's air-force, however, the B-26's only partially did the damage. Kennedy was faced with two options, 1. continue the air attacks using A-4 Skyhawks for air-cover for the B-26s, or, 2. allow them to fight their own battle canceling the air-cover, but yet, make it appear the United States did all they could do in the wake of this disaster.

Was it really just a fluke, a screw up in time that the A-4 Skyhawks arrived an hour late and at the moment Castro finished off the Brigade? According to the Commander, "there were no more B-26's to protect, all is a lost." At that moment the Skyhawks flew back to the Essex reporting, "the battle is over".

[Scott Kaiser]

I suppose this changes everything? Now, Howard Hunt also said, "I have a reputation for honesty." but lets face it, he also falsified cables, but, isn't everyone a liar including me? I suppose if one is going to tell the truth about something, it's up to the person to tell it. I do know that when Hunt started to spread the rumors of Kennedy calling off the air-cover for the B-26's and then they showed up an hour late meant, Kennedy really did cancel the air-cover, why the A4's did a fly by later is anyone's guess, perhaps, to assess the damage?

[Scott Kaiser]

This is where so many researchers made the mistake wanting to blame it all on the CIA and pushing the story that the CIA was forcing Kennedy into using American military, but if there is lack of communication, and misunderstanding, how then can anyone jump to conclusions? This is where Jim and so many other good researchers get confused. [URL="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19630125&id=VrNWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9egDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5936,2888109&hl=en"]



https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...8109&hl=en[/URL]

[Cliff Varnell]

My response in red

All of this misses the bigger problem - that an invasion of Cuba was doomed to fail because the revolutionary regime was popular with most Cubans, and had a large, combat-experienced army with ideal terrain to defend. It's the reason why JFK didn't want to invade Cuba during the Missile Crisis. As Marine Corps Commandant David Schoup pointed out by displaying a map of Cuba with a small red dot overlaying it. He said that the red dot represented the island of Tarawa, which took three days and 18,000 Marines to capture.

I couldn't agree more -- as a military operation Op Zapata was doomed all along.

However, as a bureaucratic operation designed to get rid of Allen Dulles it was a smashing success.

LOL, ROTF, LMAO

This has gotten to be one of the most absurdly humorous threads I can recall here.

More contentless dismissal.

When it comes to saying nothing with the most, you're the best, Jim!

Like I said, there is nothing more grotesque than one lame theorist teaming up with another to advance ideas that simply are not justified by the evidence, and which ignore certain key facts.

And yet you cannot produce any evidence of pressure from the CIA to force Kennedy to commit US forces -- other than Cabell's pathetic D-Day 4am phone call.

Tell us why Dulles went to Puerto Rico, Jim, if his intent was to pressure Kennedy.

One of the key points that Lyman Kirkpatrick made in his report was this: OK, let us assume for the sake of argument that Castro's Air Force was neutralized. What would that have left on the ground?

About 35,000 Cuban regulars supported by Soviet tanks, mortar and artillery and motorized companies, against about 1,100 exiles who already had one supply ship sunk and one stuck on the reef. This meant ammunition, radios and aviation fuel was lost.(What do you think the last was for Scott?) This greatly crippled their ability to communicate, and also to counter the Cuban troops arriving at the water's edge. Kirkpatrick goes on to say that this was made worse since the CIA told Kennedy there was no police force at Playa Giron, but there was! And Castro also knew when the last ship had left Central America. Therefore since he had been on full alert for a week, he was able to get thousands of his troops to the front within hours. This was another lie by the CIA. They had told Kennedy that, because of the element of surprise, Castro would not be able to mass a counterattack for days.

Yes, the CIA lied to Kennedy.

But Kennedy asked Admiral Burke the chances of success --50/50. Kennedy knew he was taking a gamble based on the success of the popular uprising, and all the principals knew that no US forces would be committed.

That was established US policy one month before D-Day.

To insist as Jim DiEugenio does that the CIA seriously pressured Kennedy to change that policy is unsupported by the evidence.

DiEugenio falls in love with his own Pet Theories, but can't back them up.

Secondly, there were no defections. Period. So it was Castro's regular army of about 35,000 men, with all of the armored weapons available enabling it to hit the exiles with long range artillery shells and short range mortar shells, and then tanks to push forward and polish them off--against a force of about 1,100 men who had two supply ships already inoperative. Kirkpatrick then adds that this was not the worst part. The worst part was the fact that Castro still had a 200,000 man reserve militia he could call upon if needed. But his implication is that it was not needed here. Because it was all over in about 24 hours. And not because of the air cover issue, but because the CIA had planned this thing so poorly, and had anticipated things that did not happen. Like the fact that Castro had rolled up the last resistance weeks before. Therefore, there was no possibility of getting any support on the island.

No one is challenging this.

What does this have to do with your absurd, a-historical Pet Theory that the CIA was trying to force Kennedy to change established, consensus policy?

But beyond that, there was not any hope of going guerrilla either. Because Playa Giron was 85 miles from the mountains. And that 85 miles was swamp not dirt. But further, to show another lie the CIA dumped on Kennedy, the exiles had no training in guerrilla warfare or how to survive under those conditions. Bobby Kennedy made sure that this got in the record of the Taylor Report by supplying exiles who had been trained by the Agency. You should read Dulles' ridiculous and mendacious response to that testimony.

No one is challenging this.

Again, this does not support your lame claim that the CIA applied any kind of real pressure on Kennedy.

See, the whole thing about the "cancelled D Day raids" was simply a dual edged myth that the CIA, specifically Dulles, Hunt, and Bissell, manufactured afterwards to cover the fact that they knew the operation could not succeed unless the USA participated directly. In fact, as Talbot discovered, the Pentagon had written a paper saying just that. But Bissell, who controlled the paper flow going to JFK on this, made sure the president did not see it.

And all the principals knew there would be no direct US involvement.

It had been ruled out a month ahead of time.

If Dulles and Bissell thought differently it only shows how out of touch they were.

When I write "dual edged myth" what I mean is this:

1.) There were no cancelled D Day air strikes.

And no cancelled D-Day-1 air strikes. Bundy changed the plan to allow D-Day-2 false flag strikes, but cutting that fleet from 16 planes to 8 doomed it.

There was no beachhead attained--and Kennedy had made it clear he wanted those launched from the island.

How was that going to happen unless Castro's air force had been taken out?

Kennedy should have looked at the D-Day-1 recon photos and called off the operation.

2.) They would have made no difference to the ultimate outcome anyway. For the simple reason that Zapata was mismanaged in every possible way you can imagine.

And not just mismanaged only by the CIA. The Pentagon, the State Department, the National Security Council and Kennedy himself all screwed up.

But if anyone screwed up on purpose, looks like Dean Rusk and McGeorge Bundy.

And Kirkpatrick takes literally dozens of pages showing how this was the case. Pages that, evidently, Scott wants to ignore. Because it shows that, for the CIA, the Cuban exiles were expendable.

And to Rusk and Bundy the top level of the CIA was expendable.

Dulles and Bissell understood that the operation had simply no opportunity to succeed unless American forces were directly involved.

Stephen Kinzer makes a great case that Dulles didn't understand anything.

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

Of course, that flies against Jim DiEugenio's most cherished Pet Theories.

Bissell applied zero (0)pressure on Kennedy.

Tell us why Dulles went to Puerto Rico, Jim!

And, misjudging Kennedy, that is what they were banking on.

There was nothing to bank on.

US policy was clear, reached by consensus a month earlier.

Any last minute change was not bureaucratically possible: no direct US involvement. Period.

Dulles and Hunt then made up this whole D Day bombing excuse to cover their own butts about the CIA's treachery. And Phillips and Hunt then spread it among the Cubans. And they bought into it. And they are still buying into it. And Scott listens to them.

And Dulles, Cabell and Bissell had to go to cover for Rusk's and Bundy's treachery -- and Kennedy's incompetence.

[Drew Phipps]

Playa Giron was 85 miles from the mountains. And that 85 miles was swamp not dirt. But further, to show another lie the CIA dumped on Kennedy, the exiles had no training in guerrilla warfare or how to survive under those conditions.

Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana is plenty swampy. Wasn't that the site of the "guerrilla warfare training center" that the FBI raided on 8/1/63? And didn't the CIA ultimately admit that it had a "guerrilla warfare training center"?