Executive Secrets

by William J. Daugherty

  According to former CIA director of operations Richard M. Bissell, while the Special Group’s role “did not change greatly” at first under JFK, in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs it became “much more conscious of its responsibility and reviewed proposed operations both more rigorously and more formally than before.”3 Partly due to the Bay of Pigs failure and partly as a result of the administration’s review of U.S. paramilitary resources and capabilities occasioned by the growing conflict in Southeast Asia, in 1963 the “Special Group” was formally divided into two subcommittees, with the Special Group-Augmented (SG-A) focusing on covert action and Special Group-Insurgencies (SG-I) concerned with guerrilla warfare. The split was purely for administrative clarity, as the membership for both was the same: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the president’s primary advisor, confidant, and brother; the presidential military advisor and war hero General Maxwell Taylor; McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor; General Lyman Lymnitzer; deputy defense secretary and close Kennedy friend Roswell Gilpatrick; and the DCI (initially Allen Dulles, later John McCone).

  The Kennedy inner circle was captivated by the allure of counterinsurgency operations as a method to contain Soviet expansionism in Southeast Asia and Africa; this was manifested in Special Group-I. Special Group-A was given responsibilities to review “important” covert action programs and operations, and to assume the oversight and planning for any other projects as assigned by the president.4

  Following the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, covert action programs funded in excess of $3 million were required to navigate the SG-A, while minor operations, usually defined as operations costing less than $250,000 and/or operations that were not highly sensitive, could still be approved and run with only the DCI’s authority, so long as they were in congruence with general NSC guidance and directives. By then, SG-A had “developed general but informal criteria, including risk, possibility of success [or failure], potential for exposure, political sensitivity, and cost, for determining” which programs were submitted to group scrutiny.5 Another change in policy, enacted in October 1962, required the DCI to begin vetting each of his programs with the Special Group-A.6

  The use of the Special Group-Augmented, which not only reported to the president but also included him as an active participant, resulted in Kennedy’s exercising concentrated authority over all major covert projects initiated by his administration. There can be little doubt that if Kennedy hadn’t agreed with a program that came to his attention, that program would have been canceled. Thus, ultimate responsibility for approval and execution of these operations lay directly with Kennedy. That said, the criteria still permitted the CIA to originate and run numerous low-cost, low-level, low-risk operations, with the upper threshold set at $250,000 before the programs had to be taken to the SG-A.7

  KENNEDY’S COVERT ACTION OPERATIONS

  In the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, covert action was employed to deal with impending and genuine national security dangers, and was aimed either at halting the spread of Communism or weakening pro-Communist regimes. After 1962, however, these programs became more and more directed toward intervention in the domestic affairs of foreign nations, even without a concomitant high level of threat to core American interests. There was a “new doctrine” that seemingly justified “unlimited intervention to promote internal change in countries that [were] both friend and foe . . . directed against countries that [did] not threaten our national security [or were] allies of the United States.”8

  In a meeting in the White House on January 27, 1961, just days after inauguration, Kennedy ordered the CIA to conduct a number of covert operations against the Castro regime, to include sabotage and political action, and directed the State Department to generate an anti-Castro propaganda program for Latin America. Kennedy also ordered covert action programs in Africa, particularly in the former Belgian Congo. Concurrently, a paramilitary operation involving a force of Cuban exiles being trained in Guatemala with objectives of invading Cuba and overthrowing the Castro regime was in the final stages. This is the program that ultimately became known as the “Bay of Pigs.” Assured by DCI Allen Dulles and his director of operations, Richard Bissell, that the invasion couldn’t fail, Kennedy gave the go-ahead, even though experts in Cuban affairs at the State Department and CIA and amphibious warfare experts at the Defense Department—specialists who could have identified and explained the numerous flaws in the operation’s concept and details—had been excluded from the planning.9

  The invasion of Cuba by the CIA-trained exiles, Operation ZAPATA, has to be counted as among the worst CIA programs of any sort, ever. The long-classified report of the Agency’s inspector general on the program, written in 1967, was finally published in 1994 and—combined with a large volume of other previously published materials on the Bay of Pigs disaster—renders superfluous yet another accounting now. One intelligence veteran and scholar summed up the Bay of Pigs fiasco as the “end of the golden age of covert action,” demonstrating that “subversive warfare” was not the “complete answer to Soviet adventures around the globe.”10

  What remains little-known is that the few CIA career officers who were aware of the Bay of Pigs program argued against it to their politically appointed superiors; others, once they learned of the operation, were aghast at the mistakes made—mistakes that, had experts been consulted, could have been avoided. Indeed, such consultations probably would have convinced Kennedy not to allow planning for the invasion to go forward in the first place. Policy analyst David Isenberg has alleged that Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles “sought to steer Kennedy into a project he deeply mistrusted but that the CIA nevertheless wished him to carry out.”11 The truth of the matter is that it was not—and could not have been—the institution known as the CIA and its career staff who wanted the operation carried out, for they did not even know of it. Rather it was individuals within the CIA, Dulles, as DCI, and his head of operations, Bissell, who were so convinced of the Agency’s infallibility that they persuaded the president that the plan could not fail. From then until William J. Casey’s tenure as DCI, directors avoided being drawn into policy decisions.

  Of course, no one will ever know what would have happened if Kennedy had decided to approve whatever measures would have been necessary to ensure success in the invasion, most notably by permitting air strikes from U.S. Navy and Marine squadrons on nearby aircraft carriers in support of invading exiles on the beaches. While he could not have canceled the invasion without incurring the wrath of the Republican Party, once the exiles stepped foot in the swamps of the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy was equally concerned over Soviet and world reaction to overt American intervention. Kennedy let the exiles go it alone, which meant going down in failure.

  Taking personally the defeat at the Bay of Pigs and, perhaps, giving in to a personal hatred of Castro afterward, Kennedy became more determined to end Castro’s regime in Cuba. To that end, he authorized the CIA to initiate and execute Operation Mongoose, a multifaceted covert action program to overthrow Castro through methods more subtle than invasion and war, predominantly economic sabotage. However, another important element of the program was to deter or prevent Castro from “exporting the revolution and Communism to other countries.” Also included were at least eight assassination attempts on the life of the Cuban leader. (Former DCI Richard Helms, former DDCI Ray Cline, and former undersecretary of state U. Alexis Johnson all concur that the directive for the assassination of Castro was generated from within the White House.) Mongoose soon became the primary and most expensive foreign policy initiative of the Kennedy administration.12

  Although Mongoose was cancelled near the end of 1962, the two Special Groups continued to oversee other covert operations in Cuba, as well as in Laos, Vietnam, and various African locales. According to Undersecretary of State U. Alexis Johnson, Kennedy took “a great deal of interest” in SG-A activities, which approved around 550 covert action projects of all kinds—political action, propaganda, and
paramilitary—during the JFK years.13

  The Cuban alliance with the Soviet Union also caused concern as the Castro regime, acting as a surrogate for the Soviets, began supporting subversive movements throughout Latin America. An additional concern in Chile were the Communists in the local trade unions who sought, like their political allies, close ties to Moscow.14 Although CIA covert action undertaken in Chile is most readily identified with the Nixon administration, the CIA first began managing political action operations there in April 1962, in response to a diplomatic initiative by Kennedy known as the Alliance for Progress, which was intended “to promote the growth of democratic institutions” in Latin America. But there was also a covert element to the Alliance, via a presidential directive to strengthen the Chilean rightist party, the Christian Democrats (PDC), and support its leader, Eduardo Frei, who, Kennedy believed, both shared his political beliefs and possessed the organizational skills and structure to achieve their common objectives. In 1962 the Special Group approved an initial payment of $62,000 for the Alliance, followed by an additional $180,000 the same year. Interestingly, the next year, the administration also decided to aid the Chilean Radical Party (PR) in the April 1963 elections, to the tune of $50,000. As a result of the elections, the PR became the largest party in Chile.

  Covert action in Chile continued through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, with propaganda and political action operations involving “the press, radio, films, pamphlets, posters, graffiti, and direct mailings . . . and $3 million in 1962–64 for projects that ranged from organizing slum dwellers to funding political parties.” Both the CIA and independent analysts have since concluded that these operations successfully kept the Socialists, or even Communists, out of power until 1970. It must be emphatically noted that CIA activities in Chile were not kept from Congress, at least until the Nixon administration, even though Chilean operations began a decade before Hughes-Ryan required that covert action programs be reported to the Hill. Former DCI Bill Colby has written that from 1964 until 1973 “at various times . . . the major steps in Chile were brought to the attention of the chairmen or appropriate members” of the cognizant committees, with “a series of discussions between the CIA and senior members of Congress which brought them up to date with the fact that this occurred and was occurring.”15

  In addition to the Chilean operations, the Kennedy administration also undertook, much to the astonishment of the British government, a “long, determined campaign, diplomatically and covertly, to prevent the Marxist Chedi Jagan from becoming the head of government in British Guyana after it achieved independence.” Professor John Lewis Gaddis notes that Jagan, as a Marxist, made “no better impression than Castro and Kennedy ordered the CIA to get rid of him,” believing that Jagan constituted “a major threat to the region.” Despite political action operations involving bribery and instigating street disturbances, Jagan remained in power, leading the Brits to defer granting independence until Jagan’s colonial government collapsed of its own accord. Ironically, once granted independence, Guyana voted Jagan in as its first freely elected president.16

  Like Eisenhower, Kennedy was worried about events in the Dominican Republic under the iron rule of the cruel dictator Trujillo, and American patience with the regime was running thin both on the island and in Washington. The U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic recommended to the White House that its current policy of nonintervention be overturned, and to Richard Bissell at the CIA that the Agency provide weapons and munitions to an internal dissident group opposing Trujillo. It was obvious at the time to those in Washington that any arms supplied probably would be used to assassinate Trujillo. Bissell approved the arms transfer, but for one reason or another, it was soon put in abeyance. Then on January 12, 1961, with the Kennedy administration recently installed in power, the Special Group-Augmented met and approved the transfer of limited amounts of small arms and explosives, with the proviso that the handover of weapons take place outside the Dominican Republic.17

  The SG-A membership understood the potential lethal consequences for Trujillo that this approval entailed; however, it was also clear to the committee that there would be no CIA involvement beyond the provision of the arms. Agency officers would neither train the dissidents, nor participate in mission planning, nor execute the operations. Although the president did not sit in on this SG-A meeting, there was a “White House representative” in the persona of Gordon Gray who was expected to brief the president on its results, permitting Kennedy the option of overriding the group’s decision. He did not. Despite this, however, the dissidents were unable to devise a method for receiving the arms. Nevertheless, and without U.S. government assistance, the dissidents did kill Trujillo just a short time later, in May 1960.18

  JFK continued the covert action program in Tibet in part because his secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had served as assistant secretary for Asian affairs during the Truman administration and was “thoroughly receptive” to sustaining the endeavor, despite the strenuous objections of the ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, who held a passionate liberal’s intense dislike of these kinds of programs.19 This split between an “Asian camp” and a “South-Asian camp” was reflected at CIA headquarters. There, the operations officers in the Far East Division favored harassing China anywhere possible, while those in the Near East Division (in whose jurisdiction India fell) were reluctant to “challenge China through their backdoor.”20

  Meanwhile, in Europe the CIA replayed its earlier successes in Italy by continuing to provide covert support to pro-democracy parties in order to undermine the Italian Communist Party (PCI).21

  While there is no way of knowing what Kennedy would have done vis-à-vis Cuba, Indochina, and other critical regions had he lived to see a second term, nothing in the record indicates that he would have reduced his reliance on the CIA to achieve foreign policy objectives or to contain Communist expansionism, even after the Bay of Pigs. For JFK, the World War II veteran, war in the shadows was as much a tool of statecraft as diplomacy, and manifestly more preferable to an overt war that might trigger a reciprocal Soviet intervention.

  JOHNSON

  Assuming the presidency in 1963 after Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Baines Johnson inherited growing foreign policy problems and the National Security Council mechanisms to deal with them, including the covert action committee familiarly, if incorrectly, referred to as the “5412 Group.” Seven months after Johnson took office, a book appeared on the CIA that revealed the existence and name of Kennedy’s “Special Group” committee. The publicity prompted the national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, to issue National Security Action Memorandum 303, Change in Name of Special Group 5412, on June 2, 1964. Thereafter, this covert action approval and review group was known as the 303 Committee. However, despite the name change, the purpose, responsibilities, and membership of the group did not change. As one member stated, “all of the CIA’s covert operations worldwide required clearance by the 303 Committee. The membership of the committee included the number twos at CIA, State, and Defense, and was chaired by national security advisor McGeorge Bundy.”22

  JOHNSON’S COVERT ACTION OPERATIONS

  Covert action programs during the Johnson years included a continuation of the political programs in Italy to prevent the PCI from gaining ground and to counter Soviet activities supporting the PCI, and new or continuing programs in Indonesia, British Guyana, Pakistan, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Israel-Jordan, Greece, Bolivia, and Chile.23 However, very little has been declassified about these programs beyond an official acknowledgment of their existence, with a number of them running into the Nixon years. The assorted small-scale propaganda and political action programs infiltrating news, perspectives, cultural materials, and historical data into the USSR continued, as well, throughout the Johnson years. However, until more files from the LBJ administration are declassified, a fuller accounting of these covert action programs will have to wait.

  The long-running Ital
ian program was finally terminated by the Johnson administration in 1967, having run its course, although apparently not without some debate in the White House. The following material, texts from White House memos and State Department cablegrams, present a marvelous example of the back-and-forth that occurs at the policy levels in evaluating covert action programs.

  Declassified minutes from a June 11, 1965, meeting of the 303 Committee explains the essentials of the Italian program at that point:

  The basic political problem to which the FY 1966 program is addressed is that Italy’s four-party, center-left coalition Government, which was formed in December 1963 is faced with a profusion of problems which makes it a fragile working partnership. The Italian Communist Party has skillfully exploited the Government’s vulnerabilities and has steadily increased its electoral appeal during this period when the vote of the two major coalition partners, the Christian Democrats (CD) and the Socialists (PSI), has declined. A basic premise of the FY 1966 program is that if the strength and unity of the Government coalition can be increased, thus permitting implementation of its program of basic social, economic and administrative reforms, the democratic parties’ appeal in the next national election should increase and that of the Communist Party should decline.

  But a June 25, 1965, meeting of the 303 Committee recorded that a proposal to authorize funding for Fiscal Year 1966 was “generally viewed as a ‘necessary evil’ and approved with . . . National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy deploring the chronic failure of the Italian democratic political parties to utilize their own bootstraps. . . . [Bundy] used the term ‘annual shame’ and felt obliged to advise [the president] of this continuing subsidy.” The purpose of the program was declared to be the “strengthening of the [four-party] center-left government.” The underlying premise was that if the coalition could be shored up, it would be able to make good on essential social, economic, and administrative reform programs.24