Concerns within the Eisenhower administration over Communist expansion in Indochina after the fall of Dien Bien Phu and the ouster of the French in Vietnam almost inevitably led to the same concern with respect to Indonesia, whose various islands had been in different stages of unrest since the Truman days. American policy in the first Eisenhower administration was to “woo” the Indonesian leader, Achmed Sukarno, into a more pro-Western posture, a policy codified in May 1955 in NSC-5518, which recommended to the president a number of training and assistance programs for elements of the Indonesian security and military forces, as well as various categories of economic assistance. The paper also, however, expressed concern over the “vulnerability of Indonesia to Communist subversion and a manifest willingness [of the U.S. government] to support non-Communist elements both within and outside the Jakarta government.” As a counter to this, NSC-5518 authorized a small covert action program to support the Muslim (and noncommunist) Masjumi Party, to the tune of about $1 million.
The policy of attempting to attract Sukarno to the West continued through 1956, when Sukarno returned from a visit to the Soviet satellite countries of Eastern Europe in late summer manifesting an appreciation for a Socialist system. In November of that year, having won reelection handily, “Sukarno called for a prohibition on the capitalist system and for the circumscription of political parties.” Three months later, in February 1957, he “assumed quasidictatorial powers with support of the one-million-strong Communist Party.”25
The concerns in Washington over the future of the island nation occasioned by Sukarno’s apparent rejection of the West were exacerbated in 1957 by the Indonesian president’s open support from the Communist Party and by the increasingly aggressive actions by military commanders on the outlying islands against the central government, threatening political instability. A meeting of the National Security Council in March 1957, at which Indonesia was a principal topic, led eventually to a change in U.S. policy toward the Sukarno government, inspired by circumstances in Indonesia and by Indonesian dissidents seeking financial assistance and other aid from American officials. The most exigent concerns for the administration were the growing rebellion against the Indonesian government and increased representation of members of the Indonesia Communist Party in the cabinet. A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE 65-57) published on August 27, 1957, further bolstered the administration’s worries by concluding that “there is an immediate and pressing danger” of increased Communist influence over the Indonesian government and its leadership.”26
By this time, the Indonesian leader had come to be viewed by the Eisenhower administration as “the classic American ‘enemy’ of the 1950s,” although a more benign observer might have seen only a “high-riding nationalist who exploited Russian-American hostility for foreign aid, which he then ‘squandered’ on wasteful projects.” Regardless, Sukarno’s rule, increasingly anti-American, along with his fairly decadent personal life, upset the “puritanical” Foster Dulles, who was irate over what he perceived to be Sukarno’s “immoral neutralism.”27
In response to the NIE, Eisenhower requested an interagency position paper on consequences and options. A “Special NSC Ad-Hoc Committee” submitted its findings to the president on September 3, and included the option of covert action programs to counter Indonesian leader Sukarno’s plans to allow leftists in his government. At that point, so acute were Eisenhower’s fears of a Communist takeover in Indonesia with the consequences of that strategic region falling under Soviet influence that he told his ambassador in Jakarta that, “given a choice between a single Indonesia under Communist rule and a divided entity with noncommunist elements, he preferred the latter.”28
There was also, according to historians Kenneth Conboy (also an Indonesian expert) and James Morrison, a domestic “political dimension” to Eisenhower’s actions and decisions. Mao Tse-Dong’s Communists had gained power in mainland China in 1949, driving the pro-West forces of Chiang Kai-Shek to exile on the island of Taiwan. Additionally, the Communist Chinese had invaded the mountain kingdom of Tibet, the North Koreans had invaded their southern brethren, and the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh had beaten the French in Vietnam. Eisenhower was afraid that the “potential loss of Indonesia to leftist forces [was] likely to have negative ripple effects not just in Southeast Asia but across the free world.”29
In response to the NIE, in November 1957 Eisenhower approved a new covert action program with a large paramilitary component to it, in which the United States was to support the emerging (and ultimately unsuccessful) rebellion during the next two years. The program ended “ignominiously” when an American-made B-26 Invader bomber was shot down and the CIA contract pilot captured while in possession of documents identifying him as an American and allowing the Indonesian authorities to “trace him back to the CIA,” thereby undermining Eisenhower’s plausible deniability of knowledge of the program. Former deputy director of central intelligence Ray S. Cline succinctly summed up the hazards of covert action, especially a paramilitary program, saying that the “weak point in covert paramilitary action is that a single misfortune that reveals the CIA’s connection makes it necessary for the United States either to abandon the cause completely or convert it to a policy of overt military intervention.”30
The Indonesian program was a multidimensional failure by virtue of the fact that it left the target—Sukarno—in power, while strengthening his hold. The president was unable to deny American involvement, plausibly or any other way. Worse, it failed to dampen the Agency’s hubris with respect to covert action, nor did it lead them to be more deliberate and cautious in undertaking future projects. The Indonesian program was clearly not a fail-proof silver bullet, and there were indeed lessons to be learned—but they were ignored.31 In point of fact, had the lessons that appeared from the Agency’s own study of the Indonesian program been applied to the Bay of Pigs operation, the program would have either been significantly improved or, much more likely, cancelled, thus avoiding the disaster that followed.32 Once humbled by the Bay of Pigs, it wasn’t until the 1980s that the Agency again displayed such operational hubris, only to sustain counterintelligence disasters inflicted by Cuba, East Germany, Ghana, Yemen, and Iran. (But unlike with the Bay of Pigs failure, the hubris factor was so ingrained by the 1980s that the senior Agency officers managing these programs seemed incapable of feeling any sense of humiliation or seeing any failure on their part, with the Iranian disaster subjected to a coverup at the highest DO levels.)
The Eisenhower administration undertook another covert action program in Asia, occasioned by the invasion and occupation of the small kingdom of Tibet by the Chinese Communists near the end of 1950. While the Eisenhower administration was interested in assisting the Tibetans soon after it took office, the Tibetan internal resistance movement was at that time “isolated and not sufficiently organized to justify” a covert program; however, an increase in resistance activities on the border with China in 1956 “indicated that more active U.S. involvement was warranted.” Ultimately, a revolt by the Tibetans against their Communist Chinese occupiers began in the spring of 1956 and was quickly seen by the cold warriors in the Eisenhower administration as a way to counter Communist expansionism. From the summer of 1956 until terminated in 1969 by Richard Nixon (who sought a rapprochement with the leadership in Beijing, in part to play the Chinese off against the Soviets and in part to help end the war in Vietnam), the CIA conducted a covert action program to assist the Tibetans. The CIA provided weapons and communications equipment to the Tibetans and trained them in guerrilla tactics, small arms use, and intelligence collection.
The “impetus for the Tibet operations” lay with Foster Dulles at the Department of State and his undersecretary, Herbert Hoover, Jr. Told that the State Department “had no objection” to the program, DCI Allen Dulles insisted that State tell CIA unequivocally that it wanted the Agency to do it. The NSC Special Group and, perforce, the president, were unanimously supportive of the program. The
great majority of U.S. foreign policy programs during the cold war were intended only to confront, thwart, or harass the Soviet and Chinese Communist governments in their expansionary designs, and this was also the case with the Tibetan program.33
Africa was also a locus of Eisenhower’s anti-Soviet covert action programs. Circumstantial, but not conclusive, evidence exists to suggest that Eisenhower personally approved the (attempted) assassination of Patrice Lumumba, prime minister of the Congo and a Marxist whose political leanings automatically made him suspect as a potential asset to the Soviets—especially worrisome in light of the enormous quantity and diversity of strategically important natural resources found in the Congo.34 The 5412 Committee convened on August 25, 1959, to discuss the situation in the Congo and options to deal with the pro-Soviet Lumumba. Contrary to his usual custom, Eisenhower sat in on the meeting, during which he expressed his “strong feeling” that the committee’s original plan was too weak. Then, according to the minutes of the meeting, phrases like “getting rid of” and “disposing of” were made in reference to the African leader. (Later, though, several attendees suggested that the speakers—none of whom were the president—were only joking.) The committee finally agreed that all options would be on the table, presumably including assassination. In the end, Lumumba was indeed murdered, but not by the hand of the CIA. One researcher, Ludo De Witte, investigated the event and has concluded that either the Belgian security service or the Belgian military intelligence organization actually was the “mastermind” behind the death of Lumumba.35
A revolution on the Caribbean island of Cuba in 1958 brought Fidel Castro, a lawyer, to power by ousting Fulgencio Batista, a dictator of exceptional cruelty and greed. Once in control of the island, Castro proclaimed himself a longtime Communist. Determined to stop another potential Soviet penetration of the Western Hemisphere, in March 1959 Eisenhower directed that the CIA produce a covert action program to topple Castro, despite having just experienced the failure of a similar program in Indonesia. DCI Dulles took the anti-Castro program, Operation ZAPATA, to the 5412 Committee on January 13, 1960, and obtained the committee’s conditional approval. Eisenhower again deviated from his usual practice and personally convened the 5412 Committee in the Oval Office on March 17, 1960, to review the “Program of Covert Action against the Castro Regime.” The plan essentially called for the clandestine infiltration of Cuban exiles to organize local insurgents, and the logistic support of those groups. Eisenhower accepted the plan, but in doing so insisted, as usual, that U.S. sponsorship remain concealed. Within months, however, it became clear that this program was failing—Castro remained popular, he tolerated no internal dissent, and efforts to supply the insurgents were ineffective. Rather than halt these covert efforts to unseat Castro and wait until circumstances were more favorable to begin planning anew, organizers “metamorphosed [ZAPATA] into an invasion plan” with a brigade of exiles.36
Eisenhower discussed funding for the Cuban program with his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Maurice Stans, and noted that he would also give approval in the future for other Cuban operations if he was “convinced” that the operations were “essential and . . . [wouldn’t] fail.”37 Eisenhower pressed for strong action—even stronger than his 5412 Committee advocated—against Castro during his final years in office. According to Eisenhower’s last national security assistant, Gordon Gray, even “drastic” measures (e.g., assassination) were to be considered.38
There was also trouble on another Caribbean island in the period. By 1959 Eisenhower had become personally and politically fed up with the strongman of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, whose regime was as murderous as it was corrupt. Trujillo’s rule was not only threatening American interests in the region but, worse, undermining the United States’s anti-Castro policies. Leaders of Latin democracies such as Venezuela and Costa Rica were equally disturbed, especially as Trujillo “harbored and funded Latin American counterrevolutionaries, leading these democrats to insist, as a price for their support of anti-Castro policies, that the United States oppose all undemocratic regimes, including Trujillo’s.” Eisenhower agreed.39
After a series of political and economic measures to convince or force Trujillo to step down, none of which had any effect on the tyrant, the administration began considering assassination. In a meeting with senior officials on May 13, 1960, the president referred to Castro and Trujillo and commented that he “would like to see them both sawed off.” A month later the State Department authorized the U.S. ambassador in Santo Domingo to serve as a conduit for communications between the CIA and internal opposition groups, which made no bones about their intentions to kill the dictator. In August 1960 the administration severed diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic (which, of course, was a republic in name only) and instituted economic sanctions against the regime. Discussions on how to oust Trujillo continued into the last days of the Eisenhower administration. With but a week to go in office, Eisenhower approved the provision of arms to the dissidents. As Eisenhower left office, Trujillo’s days appeared to be numbered, through one means or another. He was assassinated five months into the Kennedy administration by Dominican oppositionists.40
At the very end of the Eisenhower administration, the CIA established a super-secret unit with a cryptonym of ZRRIFLE to conduct political murders at the (perceived?) behest of the White House. The head of ZRRIFLE was none other than the legendary case officer Bill Harvey. Professor John J. Nutter thinks it is still unclear who authorized the establishment of this unit, opining that Eisenhower would not have done so with but days remaining in his term, and that it was probably much too early for Kennedy to do so. As such, Nutter finds the mystery behind the creation of this unit to be “unanswered, intriguing, and worrisome.”41 However, the CIA’s director of operations at the time, Richard Bissell, recalled in an interview years later that he and either Walt Rostow or McGeorge Bundy (Kennedy’s national security advisors)—or both—discussed “very early” in the Kennedy administration (i.e., within days of inauguration, if not before) the establishment of an “Executive Action Committee” to conduct assassinations.
Bissell’s description of the group—“a small special unit highly compartmented from the rest of the [CIA]”—coincides with that of ZRRIFLE. As Bissell’s tenure in office overlapped both presidential administrations, it is probable that Bissell was one of the moving forces—or perhaps the force—behind an assassination team. Bissell was fairly close to Kennedy and obviously had his approval, and he conceivably could have discussed such a plan with Rostow and Bundy (whom he already knew) at some point during the transition before Kennedy’s inauguration. But whether or not he moved to establish an “executive action” capability without the knowledge of anyone in the Eisenhower administration remains unknown. It is certain, however, that Eisenhower and his director of central intelligence, Allen Dulles, were both in favor of assassinating Castro, as well as Lumumba and Trujillo. ZRRIFLE never became operational, however, probably a collateral victim of the Bay of Pigs.42
During his administration, Eisenhower was continually dealing with events in the Middle East. Although most of the United States policies and programs there were overt, including the landing of a Marine force in Lebanon in July 1958, Eisenhower did approve a covert action program intended to instigate a coup in Syria in 1956, code named “Straggle.” This was to be a joint operation with the British Secret Intelligence Service (BSIS, otherwise known as SIS or MI-6), designed to thwart what was perceived to be Syrian alliance with the USSR by deposing a regime highly supportive of Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser, who was anathema to the British. Straggle was aborted when Israel, with British collusion, invaded Egypt, precipitating the Suez Crisis in October 1956 and seriously straining the U.S.–British relationship.43
The Eisenhower legacy of covert action was that it was (a) a means of halting the spread of Communism without risk of starting World War III, and (b) taken as a matter of faith to be a magic bu
llet capable of overthrowing governments with ease, on the cheap, and with little loss of life. When convenient, as with the failure in Indonesia, it was simpler to forget and move on rather than to look for lessons learned. Certainly, if Eisenhower could have had a third term he would have continued to rely on covert action, failures or not, for in his mind the positives would have outweighed the negatives. And like any president, he was far more concerned at that time with stopping the bad guys than he was with what the countries involved might become or experience four decades down the road. Many covert action programs that the Eisenhower administration had initiated continued into the Kennedy years. Like his predecessor, Kennedy would rely on covert action as a tool of statecraft, too, although his first program was to be an unmitigated disaster.
NINE
John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon B. Johnson
The CIA has often been called a “Rogue Elephant” by its critics, but I consider that to be a mischaracterization. During my seven years in the Defense Department (and I believe throughout the preceding and following administrations), all CIA “covert operations” (excluding spying operations) were subject to the approval of the president and the secretaries of state and defense, or their representatives. The CIA had no authority to act without that approval. So far as I know, it never did.1
Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense
KENNEDY
Following his inauguration, John F. Kennedy dismantled the advisory group established in the NSC-5412 series and began permanently to chair meetings with his senior advisors (still loosely referred to as the “Special Group” or the “5412 Group,” despite the official demise of that body). Kennedy’s direct involvement, so different from Eisenhower’s policy of remaining in the background, significantly eroded the concept of presidential plausible deniability. The only other oversight mechanism available to provide an independent review of covert action programs, the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence, was also abolished by Kennedy shortly after he assumed office. With these actions, Kennedy “satisfied his desire for direct leadership” of covert action approval and review.2
Executive Secrets Page 17
