Dear Mac from Des Re: Cuban Ops

BK NOTES: This is a very interesting letter from Desmond FitzGerald - Chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division to MacGeorge Bundy, the President's Special Assistnat for National Security Affairs, a few months after the assassination. They are discussing a recent meeting with Dick Helms about what to do with the Covert Operations they were conducting against Cuba, that the new LBJ administration didn't want to have anything to do with Cuba - and for good reasons. 

MacGeorge Bundy and Desmond FitzGerald 

LBJ told the Joint Chiefs of Staff that he would give them the war they wanted - but not in Cuba, in Vietnam. 

And both Bundy and FitzGerald knew that the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas was directly connected to the JMWAVE plans and operations against Castro, so they had to delicately decide what to do with these teams of covert operational commandos they had paid and trained, and who killed the President and got away with it because of the approval of their actions by those in the upper echelons of the military chain of command. 

Bundy was in the basement White House Situation Room when Air Force One was returning from Texas, while FitzGerald was having lunch at an exclusive historic private club in Georgetown when news of the assassination arrived, and FitzGerald's assistant Samuel Halpern said they wondered if the Cubans were involved, just as Bobby Kennedy did when first informed of his brother's murder.

And that, I believe, we too should wonder, - were the anti-Castro Cubans who the CIA paid and trained to kill Castro turn their guns to JFK in Dallas? 

That's what RFK, FitzGerald, Halpern, Bill Turner, John Rosselli, David Atlee Phillips and Rolf M. Larrson all thought as well. And these are all official intelligence and security agency officials, and not silly conspiracy theorists. 

What do they do with these 50 covert commandos they spent millions of dollars conditioning and training for Cuban operations that they were now shutting down? And it is significant that they brought in Jacob Esterline, the guy responsible for the success of Guatemala in 1954 and the failure of the Bay of Pigs in 1961, to shut down JMWAVE after LBJ took command and wanted nothing to do with the Cuban operations. 

As Fitz wrote: "In the first place, as you know very well, although the Agency appears as the proposer of most covert action programs at the Special Group and elsewhere, we do this only in response to what we understand to be policy requirements and have no interest in either commencing or perpetuating any programs which are not demanded by policy and which are not geared to the accomplishment of a specific objective. The interdependent program of actions which we proposed last spring and which was accepted in June 2 was based on three propositions which were accepted at the time: (a) that it was in the U.S. interest to get rid of Castro; (b) that, in attempting to do so, the U.S. did not wish either to employ overt force or to raise the international “noise level” to an unacceptable degree; and (c) that the ultimate objective of the program was not mass uprisings but to encourage disaffected elements within the military establishment and other power centers of the regime to carry out a coup."

But that coup was not carried out by anti-Castro Cuban military officers but by US military officers led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were disaffected elements within the military establishment and power centers of the Kennedy administration and it was carried out against JFK instead of Castro. 

As one of the five key attributes of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, and one of the assumptions in this hypothesis that the German military plot to kill Hitler, was to be used against Castro, and was redirected to JFK in Dallas, is that the operational plan be approved by the victim. 

This is one of the more bizarre aspects of the plot, but a key aspect as it would prepare the continuity of government plans to be implemented in the death of the leader, and head off retribution from RFK, as he would know of and even approved of the covert operations against Cuba that were being used to kill his brother. 

As Des Fitz put it:  "The sabotage raids, built into the program as a sort of firing pin for internal unrest and to create the conditions for a coup, which was to be the main force leading to Castro's defeat, ran only from August to December and only five were actually conducted...The sabotage raids are conducted by Cuban exile groups held and trained in Florida and entirely subject to our planning and control. There are three of these groups totaling approximately 50 men. To place them in position and recover them there requires an extensive maritime apparatus in Florida, which likewise serves intelligence agent infiltrations and exfiltrations."

The problem they had was what to do with these highly trained and motivated men who were "entirely subject" to their planning and control, as they had been at Dealey Plaza? 

"To maintain the raiding capability on a stand-by basis is expensive but, more importantly, the raiding groups themselves have a relatively short shelf life; if not employed their morale deteriorates and some of the members, usually the best motivated, drop out. Replacements can be acquired and trained but their caliber and morale is in large part determined by the morale of the exile community as a whole. We probably can retain the present raiding groups at roughly their current capabilities for another month or two, although the well-known Cuban volatility is capable of causing sudden and more rapid deterioration.....In short, we will need to know within a reasonable time whether we should continue to effect repairs to and keep in being our sabotage raiding apparatus."

And we know what they did - they disbanded JMWAVE but kept the three teams of 50 commandos operational, and gave them serious missions to keep up their morale. 

In 1964 Rip Robertson and Carl Jenkins, the two primary CIA Cowboy leaders of the Cuban Pathfinders, took at least one team to the Congo where they engaged in operations against a pro-Castro Cuban unit fighting with the opposition. 

And while Des Fitz's report says such teams are only effective for a few months at a time, many of the same team were brought back for training and supporting Nicaraguan Contras in their fight against the leftest Sandinistas, that had taken over after the CIA supported Somoza regime fell to the revolutionaries in the mid-1980s. That precipitated the Iran-Conra Affair, the primary scandal that Gene Wheaton tried to expose, though his insights into the JMWAVE Pathfinder commandos is our primary interest here. 

We even have photos of Rip Robertson with a dozen of his commandos in the Congo, and a photo from Soldier of Fortune Magazine of the former JMWAVE trainers - John "I.F." Harper and others training the Contras. 

It was also in Nicaragua and Costa Rica where Quaker matron and primary patron of the accused assassin of President Kennedy also reappears in an operational capacity, keeping track of and reporting on the liberal Quaker support of the Sandinistas, who the anti-Castro Cuban Pathfinders were fighting in their training and support of the Contras. 

So we know now what they kept as a "self capability," what they went on to do, and what they disbanded - the JMWAVE apparatus - disbanded by Jake Esterline. 

Des

Dear Mac from Dez re: Cuban Ops

First Posted July 2011 JFKCountercoup.blogspot.com

National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and Desmond Fitzgerald, head of CIA Cuban Ops

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1964–1968

VOLUME XXXII, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC; CUBA; HAITI; GUYANA, DOCUMENT 249

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v32/d249

249. Letter From the Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (FitzGerald) to the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)

Washington, March 6, 1964.

Dear Mac:

Dick Helms and I are most appreciative of the opportunity you gave us this morning for a thorough discussion of the Agency's various operational problems in connection with Cuba. It was very helpful to us and has served to clarify to a great extent our own thinking on the future of our various operational programs. It might perhaps be well to set forth, in this informal fashion, a list of the various topics which we discussed together with the considerations that appear to me to apply.

In the first place, as you know very well, although the Agency appears as the proposer of most covert action programs at the Special Group and elsewhere, we do this only in response to what we understand to be policy requirements and have no interest in either commencing or perpetuating any programs which are not demanded by policy and which are not geared to the accomplishment of a specific objective. The interdependent program of actions which we proposed last spring and which was accepted in June 2 was based on three propositions which were accepted at the time: (a) that it was in the U.S. interest to get rid of Castro; (b) that, in attempting to do so, the U.S. did not wish either to employ overt force or to raise the international “noise level” to an unacceptable degree; and (c) that the ultimate objective of the program was not mass uprisings but to encourage disaffected elements within the military establishment and other power centers of the regime to carry out a coup.

The resulting program represented a maximum covert effort but only a minimum overall national effort which could result in overthrowing Castro. The percentage of chance of achieving this purpose was admittedly never too high even had the program proceeded on full blower. In fact the economic part of the program suffered a serious, if not fatal, reverse with the Leyland bus contract and subsequent moves by European suppliers to take advantage of Castro's improved cash position.

The sabotage raids, built into the program as a sort of firing pin for internal unrest and to create the conditions for a coup, which was to be the main force leading to Castro's defeat, ran only from August to December and only five were actually conducted. The effectiveness of these five raids is certainly debatable; there are strong proponents on both sides of the argument. Regardless of how that debate might come out, however, five rather low-key raids followed by the present three-month hiatus, the latter clearly noted by pro- and anti-Castroites alike, adds up to a program of a much smaller dimension than originally envisioned which could not be expected to have had the desired detonating effect.

At the present time, as a result of a number of circumstances well known to you, Castro is in a strong upswing and the spirit of resistance within Cuba is at a very low point indeed. In my estimation, a covert program at this time designed to overthrow Castro is not realistic. Acceptance of risks and noise level of a greater magnitude than we had in mind in June would be needed to stand a chance in view of the developments since last June. This then raises the question of what should happen now to the various bits and pieces of the June program. I would like to mention these separately and refer to some of the considerations typical to each.

The sabotage raids are conducted by Cuban exile groups held and trained in Florida and entirely subject to our planning and control. There are three of these groups totaling approximately 50 men. To place them in position and recover them there requires an extensive maritime apparatus in Florida, which likewise serves intelligence agent infiltrations and exfiltrations. To maintain the raiding capability on a stand-by basis is expensive but, more importantly, the raiding groups themselves have a relatively short shelf life; if not employed their morale deteriorates and some of the members, usually the best motivated, drop out. Replacements can be acquired and trained but their caliber and morale is in large part determined by the morale of the exile community as a whole. We probably can retain the present raiding groups at roughly their current capabilities for another month or two, although the well-known Cuban volatility is capable of causing sudden and more rapid deterioration.

In short, we will need to know within a reasonable time whether we should continue to effect repairs to and keep in being our sabotage raiding apparatus. The dismemberment of these raiding teams could be accomplished without too much shock to the exile community. It would be noticed, but, if done carefully, particularly if it coincided with the commencement of “autonomous” operations, it should not cause undue repercussions and polemics against U.S. policy.

As you know, again as part of the June plan, we are supporting two “autonomous” exile groups headed respectively by Manuel Artime and Manolo Ray. In both cases we have gone to maximum lengths to preserve the deniability of U.S. complicity in the operation. Artime, who now possesses the greater mechanical and paramilitary apparatus, has required a good deal of hand-feeding although still within the context of deniability. He will probably not be ready for his operations against Cuba before April or May of this year. He possesses most of his hardware and maritime equipment and has negotiated geographical and political bases in Central America. Manolo Ray has been handled on a much more independent basis. We have furnished him money and a certain amount of general advice. He does not possess the physical accoutrements that Artime has and is probably not as well equipped in terms of professional planning. Ray has a better political image inside Cuba among supporters of the revolution and has recently acquired, according to reports, some of the other leftwing exile activist groups such as Gutierrez Menoyo and his Second Front of the Escambray. He is said to be ready to move into Cuba on a clandestine basis late this spring. His first weapon will be sabotage inside Cuba, apparently not externally-mounted hit-and-run raids.

If U.S. policy should demand that the “autonomous” operations be suspended, we could of course cut off our support immediately. Artime and his group might or might not disintegrate at once. Manolo Ray almost certainly would continue. Both groups are based outside the United States and our only real leverage on them is through our financial support but withdrawal of this support would probably be fatal to their operations in time. A cutoff of this support, even though this support has been untraceable in a technical sense, would have a considerable impact within the exile community. U.S. support is rumored, especially in the case of Artime, and the collapse of the only remaining evidence of exile action against Castro would hit the exile community hard which is what it in turn would do to its favorite target, U.S. policy. The exile of today, however, appears to have lost much of his fervor and, in any case, does not seem to have the capacity for causing domestic trouble which he had a year or two ago. The Central American countries in which the exile bases exist would be greatly confused, although we have carefully never indicated to the governments of these countries any more than U.S. sympathy for the “autonomous” groups.

We have a capacity, which is increasing, to sabotage Cuban merchant ships calling at foreign ports. We are emphasizing in this program the more subtle forms of sabotage as against large explosions obviously stemming from agent-placed bombs and limpets. The Cuban merchant fleet, among the most badly run in the world, can be helped along to a measurable degree by this program.

On the economic warfare front, as you know, we have for many months conducted a covert denial program based on limited capabilities directed at very narrow targets. The effectiveness of this program is dependent on the careful selection of items to be denied in terms of their critical value to a key element of the Cuban economy. Despite the virtual collapse of the U.S. overall economic denial program against Cuba, we still retain the capacity, using unofficial and covert methods, to hurt but obviously not to destroy certain bits of the Cuban economy. This effort can be complemented by carefully concealed contamination of lubricants and similar actions.

Our program to get in touch with and subvert members of the military establishment and other elite groups in Cuba continues. Its chance of success naturally rises and falls with the state of morale inside Cuba as influenced by the success or inactivity of our other programs and the U.S. posture in general.

Our intelligence program continues at full force. It will be affected by anti-Castro morale but we believe that we can offset the effects of further deterioration in this morale by increasingly tightened and efficient operations.

We are seeking your advice to know which of the above lines of actions we should continue, which we should try to retain as a shelf capability and which to abandon. (Of course, intelligence collection would continue.) As parts of an integrated national program designed to have at least a fighting chance to get rid of Castro, they seemed to us to make sense; as separate pieces they can serve to exert some braking effect on Castro's progress, but that is about all.

Sincerely,

Des

1 Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Cuba, Intelligence, Covert Program, 1/64–6/65. Secret; Eyes Only.
2 For text of the proposed program of action, see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. XI, Document 346.