Ike's Spies

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  Katanga, the richest part of the Congo and thus the area of most concern to the Belgians, settled down under Tshombe’s rule. He was discreetly backed by the Belgian mining companies, who paid their taxes to him and not to the central government. The United Nations, meanwhile, responding to Lumumba’s plea for help, sent a peace-keeping force to the Congo.

  In late July, Lumumba flew to the United States to consult with UN and State Department officials. He made a very bad impression on Under Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon. “He would never look you in the eye,” Dillon reported. “He looked up at the sky. And a tremendous flow of words came out. He spoke in French, and he spoke it very fluently. And his words didn’t have any relation to the particular things that we wanted to discuss. You had a feeling that he was a person that was gripped by this fervor that I can only characterize as messianic.… He was just not a rational being.”

  The State Department had hoped that it would be able to work with Lumumba, but those hopes vanished after his meeting with Dillon, who concluded that “this was an individual whom it was impossible to deal with.”16

  Rebuffed, Lumumba returned to the Congo. Unable to obtain arms and support in the United States, he turned to the Soviet Union. Khrushchev had already been shaking his fist at the West in general and the Belgians in particular, warning them not to attempt to reassert colonial control in the Congo. The Russian leader responded positively to Lumumba’s request for military planes.

  On August 18, 1960, Dillon reported on developments in the Congo to a meeting of the NSC, at which Ike was present. Both Lumumba and Khrushchev were demanding that the UN peace-keeping force get out of the Congo. Dillon, according to the minutes, said that “the elimination of the U.N. would be a disaster which … we should do everything we could to prevent.” If the UN were forced out, he warned, the Soviets would come in. The minutes went on, “Secretary Dillon said that Lumumba was working to serve the purposes of the Soviets and Mr. Dulles pointed out that Lumumba was in Soviet pay.”17

  Ike then said it was “simply inconceivable” that the United States could allow the UN to be forced out of the Congo. “We should keep the U.N. in the Congo,” the President said, “even if such action was used by the Soviets as the basis for starting a fight.” Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Ambassador to the UN, said he doubted that the UN force could stay in the Congo if the government of the Congo was determined to kick it out. The President responded, the minutes record, by stating “that Mr. Lodge was wrong to this extent—we were talking of one man forcing us out of the Congo; of Lumumba supported by the Soviets.” The Congolese people wanted the UN force there, Ike declared.18

  THE FIRST DIRECT REFERENCE to assassination as a solution came from Hedgman, the station chief in Léopoldville who had sent the alarmist telegram of August 18. On August 24 he reported that anti-Lumumba leaders in the Congo had approached Kasavubu with a plan to assassinate Lumumba, but Kasavubu had refused to endorse it because he was reluctant to resort to violence and in any case there was no other leader of sufficient stature to replace Lumumba.19

  The next day, August 25, the 5412 Committee met to discuss CIA plans for political actions against Lumumba. It was at this meeting that Gordon Gray, Ike’s personal representative on 5412, reported that the President “had expressed extremely strong feelings on the necessity for very straightforward action in this situation, and he wondered whether the plans as outlined were sufficient to accomplish this.” The minutes state that the committee “finally agreed that planning for the Congo would not necessarily rule out ‘consideration’ of any particular kind of activity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba.”20

  The following morning, Allen Dulles sent his own cable to Hedgman in Léopoldville telling him that the “removal” of Lumumba was an “urgent” objective.

  Before Hedgman could act, the swirling events inside the Congo intervened. On September 5, President Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba from the government. He evidently was afraid that Lumumba would make the Congo into a Cold War battleground. Lumumba’s dismissal should have solved the problem, but Hedgman wired Dulles, “LUMUMBA IN OPPOSITION IS ALMOST AS DANGEROUS AS IN OFFICE.”

  In response, Dulles told Hedgman that the United States was apprehensive about Lumumba’s ability to influence events in the Congo by virtue of his personality, irrespective of his official position. A week later, on September 14, General Joseph Mobutu seized power via a military coup. Lumumba then placed himself in UN custody.

  Hedgman thought that by turning to the UN peace-keeping force for protection, Lumumba had strengthened his position (at least he was temporarily safe from Hedgman and the CIA). Hedgman wired Dulles, “ONLY SOLUTION IS REMOVE HIM [Lumumba] FROM SCENE SOONEST.”21

  At this stage Richard Bissell asked a CIA scientist, Joseph Scheider, to make preparations to assassinate or incapacitate an unspecified “African leader.” Bissell told Scheider that the assignment had the “highest authority” behind it. Scheider procured toxic biological materials and reported that he was ready.22

  On September 19, 1960, Bissell cabled Hedgman, telling him to expect a messenger from Washington in the near future. Two days later, at an NSC meeting, Allen Dulles stated that Lumumba “would remain a grave danger as long as he was not yet disposed of.” On September 26, Scheider flew to Léopoldville with the lethal substances, which he gave to Hedgman. Scheider told Hedgman that President Eisenhower personally had ordered the assassination of Lumumba.23

  The substance was never used. Lumumba remained under UN protection until November 27, when he decided to go to Stanleyville to engage in political activity. Hedgman found out about Lumumba’s plans and reported them to Mobutu. In addition, he cooperated with Mobutu in setting up roadblocks to help capture Lumumba.

  A few days later, Lumumba was captured. Mobutu held him in prison until January 17, 1961, just three days before Ike left office, when he put Lumumba aboard an airplane that took him to Elisabethville in Katanga Province. So many of Lumumba’s followers had been butchered at the Elisabethville airport that the place was known as the “slaughterhouse.”

  At the slaughterhouse, Lumumba was murdered. Eyewitnesses to his appearance as he was dragged off the plane testified later that he might well not have survived the beatings to which he had already been subjected anyway.24

  So, in the end, the CIA was not directly involved in Lumumba’s murder, although it had been in on his capture. That begs the question as to whether Ike ordered the man killed, however, or if Allen Dulles took it upon himself to put out the contract. It is simply one man’s word against another’s. John Eisenhower pointed out to the Church Committee that assassination was contrary to his father’s philosophy that “no man is indispensable,” and as noted Andrew Goodpaster was unequivocal in denying that Ike ever gave any order to assassinate anyone, and positive in his belief that he would have known about it had such orders been given.

  Gordon Gray, who was present at all the crucial meetings, testified that “I agree that assassination could have been on the minds of some people when they used these words ‘eliminate’ or ‘get rid of.’ I am just trying to say it was not seriously considered as a program of action by the President or even the 5412 Committee.” Gray also said that “there may well have been in the CIA plans and/or discussions of assassinations, but at the level of 5412 or a higher level than that, the NSC, there was no active discussion in any way planning assassinations.”25

  But to Richard Bissell, who was after all the number two man in the CIA, Dulles’ cable to Léopoldville was a clear signal that the President had authorized the CIA to kill Lumumba. At the Church Committee, this exchange occurred:

  “Q: Did Mr. Dulles tell you that President Eisenhower wanted Lumumba killed?

  Mr. Bissell: I am sure he didn’t.

  Q: Did he ever tell you even circumlocutiously through this kind of cable?

  Mr. Bissell: Yes, I think his cable says it in effect.”

  Bissell went on to say, “I think
it is probably unlikely that Allen Dulles would have said either the President or President Eisenhower even to me. I think he would have said, this is authorized in the highest quarters, and I would have known what he meant.”26

  FIDEL CASTRO WAS THE NEXT CIA TARGET and the object of numerous assassination attempts. Some of the operations against Fidel crossed the border into pure lunacy. A part of the explanation as to how things got so completely out of hand is that the CIA was, by the end of the Eisenhower administration, at the peak of its power, prestige, influence, and cockiness. Another part is that having a Communist regime so close to the States, literally thumbing its nose at Uncle Sam, and this on an island that owed its independence to the United States and that had always had a special relationship with Washington, infuriated American policy-makers. Quite simply, it drove them mad. The result was lunatic actions.

  Item: The CIA’S Office of Medical Services treated a box of Fidel’s favorite cigars with a botulinus toxin so potent that Castro would die the instant he put one in his mouth. The cigars were given to an agent who claimed he could get them into Cuba and into Fidel’s hands.27

  Item: Richard Bissell enlisted the Mafia in a plot to kill Castro. Bissell liked the idea of bringing the Mafia in on it because the gangsters would be highly motivated, having been cut out of their very lucrative gambling operation in Havana. Thus they had “their own reasons for hostility.” Further, the Mafia provided “the ultimate cover” because “there was very little chance that anything the syndicate would try to do would be traced back to the CIA.” Bissell thought the Mafia was extremely efficient and it had an unquestioned record of successful “hits.”

  Contacts were made with Johnny Rosselli, who had learned his trade under Al Capone, and Salvatore Giancana (also known as “Sam Gold”), who was on the FBI’S list of ten-most-wanted criminals. The CIA wanted a “gangland-style killing” in which Castro would be gunned down. Giancana opposed the idea because it would be difficult to recruit a hit man for such a dangerous operation, and Rosselli said he wanted something “nice and clean, without getting into any kind of out-and-out ambushing.” Giancana suggested a poison that would disappear without a trace. The CIA then prepared a botulinus toxin pill that “did the job expected of it” when tested on monkeys. Pills were given to a Cuban for delivery to the island. Obviously, none were ever dropped into Fidel’s coffee.28

  The various CIA plots to destroy Castro’s public image were even more ridiculous. One scheme was to spray Castro’s broadcasting studio with a chemical similar to LSD, thus undermining his charismatic appeal by sabotaging his speeches. That idea was discarded because the chemical was unreliable. Next the Technical Services Division of the CIA impregnated a box of cigars with a chemical that produced temporary disorientation, hoping to induce Fidel to smoke one of the cigars before delivering a major speech.

  Another plan involved a trip out of Cuba that Castro was scheduled to take. The Technical Services Division prepared some thallium salts that could be dusted onto Castro’s shoes when he left them outside his hotel room to be shined. The salts were a strong depilatant that would cause Fidel’s beard to fall out, thus destroying his machismo image.29

  HOW MUCH IKE KNEW about this nonsense is unclear. Dulles was certainly informed. In December 1959, J. C. King, the former FBI agent who was head of the CIA’S Western Hemisphere Division, sent a memorandum to Dulles recommending that “thorough consideration be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro.” King said that neither Raúl Castro nor Che Guevara had “the same mesmeric appeal to the masses” and that Fidel’s elimination “would greatly accelerate the fall of the present Government.” Dulles gave the recommendation his approval.30

  Whether Dulles told Ike or not is the point at issue. Richard Bissell testified before the Church Committee that he did not inform either the 5412 Committee or President Eisenhower of the Castro assassination operation. Bissell added that to his knowledge, neither did Dulles tell Ike. However, Bissell said he believed that Dulles would have advised the President (but not the 5412 people or the NSC) in a “circumlocutious” or “oblique” way. Bissell admitted that his observation was “pure personal opinion” based on his understanding of Dulles’ standard operation procedure in sensitive covert operations. But Bissell also said that Dulles never told him that he had so advised Eisenhower, although he ordinarily did let Bissell know when he had used the “circumlocutious” approach with the President.31

  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.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Ike and the Bay of Pigs

  APRIL 17, 1961. Some two thousand Cuban rebels land at the Bay of Pigs. They are hit immediately by Castro’s armed forces. A debacle is in the making. Around the world people want to know who is responsible for this terrible plan.

  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.

  Eisenhower had given authority only to form and train the force, reserving any decision whether actually to use it and, if so, how. In his view, it was only a small training base, really not much more than a place to keep an eye on some of the hotheaded Cubans who were so anxious to return to their homeland and overthrow Castro. Goodpaster’s fear, however, was that the operation would build up a momentum of its own, which would be hard to stop.

  Ike refused to see any danger. He said he was only creating an asset, not committing the United States to an invasion of Cuba or anything like that. Whether this paramilitary force of Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, would be used or not would depend entirely on circumstances, specifically on political developments. In any event, the decision would be made in the White House, not by the CIA or the Cubans themselves.