Yahoo! March 22, 2001
Kennedy Wanted More Cuba Sabotage
By David Ho, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, 21 (AP) - President Kennedy sought to expand sabotage against
Cuba in the days leading up to the Cuban missile crisis, more than 400 pages of
newly declassified documents reveal.
A secretive advisory group held a meeting on Oct. 4, 1962, to discuss the
ongoing work of Operation Mongoose, a once secret plan to cause disruptions in
Cuba, including blowing up power stations and planting U.S. intelligence
infiltrators. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who was tapped by his brother to
oversee Mongoose, attended.
"The attorney general informed the group that higher authority was
concerned about the progress on the Mongoose program and felt that more priority
should be given to trying to mount sabotage operations,'' minutes from the
meeting said.
From other reports, it is understood that "higher authority'' refers to
President Kennedy, said Anna Nelson, a historian at American University and a
member of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board, which requested release of
the documents.
The records say that there was some discussion of mining Cuban waters with
devices "appearing to be homemade and laid by small aircraft operated by
Cubans.''
Nelson said that plan didn't become reality.
"Either they never did it or we never knew about it,'' she said.
The documents now available at the National Archives in College Park, Md.,
provide a glimpse inside the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a
group of civilian experts gathered as an independent source of advice on
intelligence matters. First formed in 1956, the group's impact has varied among
administrations.
After the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961,
Kennedy sought improved intelligence gathering and formed his version of the
advisory group. His executive order directed the board to review intelligence
work, including "highly sensitive covert operations relating to political
action, propaganda, economic warfare, sabotage, escape and evasion, subversion
against hostile states.''
The document adds that "these covert operations are to be conducted in
such manner that, if uncovered, the U.S. government can plausibly disclaim
responsibility for them.''
Among those on the board were Clark Clifford, who was chairman of the board
for most of the Kennedy years and later became Lyndon Johnson's defense
secretary during the Vietnam War; retired Gen. James "Jimmy'' Doolittle,
who led the first bombing raid on Tokyo during World War II; and William Baker,
head of research at Bell Laboratories.
Following the missile crisis, the board conducted a review of intelligence
gathering before the crisis and found many flaws in what was popularly seen as a
success for the United States.
During a meeting on Dec. 6, 1962, Clifford said the CIA (news - web sites)
and top presidential advisers didn't propose or conduct enough surveillance
flights over Cuba.
"The feeling in responsible parts of government seems to be that things
turned out all right, so why bother the president,'' the records cite Clifford
as saying. "If the president thinks a good intelligence operation took
place, this could have dangerous implications.''
Nelson said that requests by the assassination records board, which
disbanded in 1998, to have the material declassified were initially rejected,
but on January 19, President Clinton (news - web sites) approved the release.
Steven Tilley, who runs the National Archives collection of Kennedy
assassination records, said the documents don't specifically concern the
assassination, but fall under a broad definition of related issues, such as
conspiracy allegations and assertions that Cuba was involved.
The records only mention the Kennedy assassination itself on Nov. 22, 1963,
the day the president was killed. The advisers expressed their sorrow and
decided to hold off on their latest recommendations until after Lyndon Johnson
took over as president.
In a summary of the advisory board's work presented to Johnson, the group
said Kennedy approved of 125 of its 170 recommendations, most of which concerned
overhauling the CIA and the Defense Department's intelligence programs. The
recommendations ranged from launching more satellites to spy on Soviet missiles
to finding a new name for the CIA.
President Bush (news - web sites) will have his own version of the advisory
board, but hasn't yet appointed any members, White House spokesman Mary Ellen
Countryman said Wednesday.
Cold War Adversaries Gather in Cuba
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 22 (AP) - President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) briefly joined
former Cold War adversaries as they came together Thursday to attempt a
dispassionate look at the disastrous Bay of Pigs landing that shaped four
decades of U.S.-Cuba politics.
Castro made his appearance as former advisers to President John F. Kennedy,
ex-CIA (news - web sites) operatives, members of the exile invasion team and
retired Cuban military men opened three days of meetings. He personally greeted
former Kennedy aide and American historian Arthur Schlesinger, but made no
public statement.
"I would like to say that this conference is a victory, a victory over
a bitter history and has a hundred parents - most of whom are in this room
now,'' said Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archive, recalling Kennedy's
remark that victory has a hundred parents while defeat is an orphan.
Later, behind closed doors, the rest of the men were to discuss their roles
and examine newly declassified documents to better understand the event still
dividing Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits.
In one document released Thursday, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev warned
Kennedy in a letter sent the day after the invasion began that the "little
war'' in Cuba "could touch off a chain reaction in all parts of the
globe.''
Khrushchev issued an "urgent call'' to Kennedy to end "the
aggression'' against Cuba and said his country was prepared to provide Cuba with
"all necessary help'' to repel the attack.
"That was a long time ago and our countries are still divided,''
Schlesinger said at a news conference Wednesday night.
"I hope that this conference serves one purpose: that Cubans from both
sides see that there is no need for this conflict,'' said Alfredo Duran, one of
five former members of the Bay of Pigs invasion force who arrived in a
delegation of about 60 Americans.
Trained by the CIA in Guatemala, the 2506 Brigade comprised about 1,500
exiles determined to overthrow Castro's government, which had seized power 16
months before.
New in office, Kennedy inherited the mission from the Eisenhower
administration. "I do not believe that Kennedy would have initiated this
adventure, but I think he felt admiration for the brave Cuban exiles who wanted
to go back and fight for their homeland,'' Schlesinger said.
At the time, Washington worried that the Soviet Union would use Cuba to
establish a beachhead 90 miles from American shores. The invasion foreshadowed
the crisis that blew up the following year over Soviet nuclear missiles being
deployed in Cuba.
The three-day invasion was disastrous. Short of ammunition and lacking U.S.
air support, more than 1,000 invaders were captured. About 100 invaders and 151
defenders died.
Duran admitted that the presence of some former 2506 Brigade members at the
conference was been criticized by fellow exiles in Miami as a propaganda
maneuver by Cuba, but said it was important that the brigade be represented.
"This is a historical event and we felt it was our duty to come express
our role and express our views,'' Duran said.
Other key American figures attending were Robert Reynolds, the CIA station
chief in Miami during the April 17-19, 1961, invasion; Wayne Smith, then a U.S.
diplomat stationed in Havana; and Richard Goodwin, another Kennedy assistant,
who with Schlesinger considered the invasion ill-advised.
On the Cuban government's side were Vice President Jose Ramon Fernandez, a
retired general who led defending troops on the beach known here as Playa Giron,
and other retired military men. Castro issued orders to the battlefield by
telephone from a nearby sugar mill.
Newly declassified Cuban and U.S. documents about the Bay of Pigs, as well
as formerly secret papers from Brazil, Canada, the Soviet Union and
Czechoslovakia, will be released in Havana after sessions Thursday, said Peter
Kornbluh of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
After two days in Havana, the group will visit the Bay of Pigs on the
island's south-central coast on Saturday.
JFK Warned of 'Chain Reaction'
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, 22 (AP) - A day after the American-sponsored invasion at the Bay
of Pigs began in April 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev warned President
Kennedy in a letter that the "little war'' in Cuba "could touch off a
chain reaction in all parts of the globe.''
Khrushchev issued an "urgent call'' to Kennedy to end "the
aggression'' against Cuba and said his country was prepared to provide Cuba with
"all necessary help'' to repel the attack.
The letter was one of hundreds of previously classified American and Cuban
documents that were released Thursday as a three-day Bay of Pigs review
conference was getting under way in Cuba to mark the 40th anniversary of the
Cuban triumph.
Besides loyalist Cubans involved in event, participants include officials of
the Kennedy White House and some members of the 1,500-member force of exiles who
took part in the invasion.
The event is cosponsored by the University of Havana and several Cuban
government agencies, along with the National Security Archive, a George
Washington University affiliate that specializes in declassifying foreign policy
documentation.
Kennedy responded to Khrushchev's letter not long after receiving it. He
said the Soviet leader was under a "serious misapprehension'' in regards to
developments in Cuba. The invading refugees were simply trying to reclaim
democratic liberties denied them by the Cuban revolution, Kennedy wrote.
At no point in the letter did Kennedy acknowledge any U.S. role in the
training and equipping of the refugee invaders.
He cautioned Khrushchev against any effort to use Cuba as a pretext to "inflame
other areas of the world.''
"I would like to think that your government has too great a sense of
responsibility to embark on any enterprise so dangerous to the general peace,''
he said.
Two days later, after the defeat of Brigade 2506 had been confirmed, Kennedy
convened a Cabinet meeting at the White House to assess the debacle.
"The president was really quite shattered,'' wrote Chester Bowles, an
undersecretary of state who attended the meeting. "It was clear to see that
he had been suffering an acute shock.''
Bowles said in a newly declassified memo that almost without exception,
Kennedy's public career "had been a long series of successes, without any
noteworthy setbacks.''
He said reactions around the table during the meeting "were almost
savage, as everyone appeared to be jumping on everyone else.''
Two days later Bowles attended a National Security Council meeting on Cuba
with 35 others.
He said Attorney General Robert Kennedy was determined to find a way to
depose Castro and was "slamming into anyone'' who advocated a go-slow
approach.
Bowles recommended caution and said his ideas were "brushed aside
brutally and abruptly by the fire-eaters who were present.''
The documents show that CIA (news - web sites) director Allen Dulles was
worried about Cuba in November 1959, 10 months after Castro seized power and
almost three months before the first senior-level contacts between Moscow and
Havana.
A "top secret'' memo from the British Embassy in Washington, sent by "Sir
H. Caccia,'' outlined Dulles' views based on a Nov. 24, 1959, conversation.
Dulles seemed somewhat frustrated that no obvious alternative to Castro had
been found. In a surprise suggestion, he said a Soviet-Cuban arms supply
relationship could actually give Washington the excuse it needed to act against
Castro.
As Caccia described it, Dulles said he was hopeful that any refusal by the
British government to supply arms to Castro "would directly lead to a
Soviet bloc offer to supply.''
If that were to happen, then the United States "might be able to do
something'' to depose Castro, the memo said.
In College Park, Md., the National Archives made public more than 400 pages
of newly declassified documents that provide insights into the period more than
a year after the Bay of Pigs fiasco that followed the discovery that the Soviets
were setting up nuclear missiles in the island nation.
The Cuban missile crisis, which ended when Khrushchev backed down in the
face of a U.S. naval blockade and ordered the missiles dismantled, has gone down
in U.S. lore as a definitive success for the United States.
But the National Archives documents, minutes of meetings of the President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, reflected another side of U.S. intelligence
gathering, an episode riddled with failures. Even after John McCone, Dulles'
successor at the CIA, warned in August of the possibility the Soviets were
putting missiles in Cuba, spy planes were not flown over the islands in
September.
The group also questioned an intelligence-gathering "paralysis'' that
set in regarding Cuba after the Bay of Pigs.
"The feeling in responsible parts of government seems to be that things
turned out all right, so why bother the president,'' board member Clark Clifford
is described as saying at one meeting. "If the president thinks a good
intelligence operation took place, this could have dangerous implications.''
On the Net: National Security Archive:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
National
Archives and Records' JFK assassination records:
http://www.nara.gov/research/jfk/index.html
Sherritt Power Noteholders Approve Extraordinary Resolution to Amend
Terms of $225 Million Notes
Wednesday March 21, 12:48 pm Eastern Time. Press Release.
SOURCE: Sherritt Power Corporation. via BCE Emergis e-News Services
Toronto, Ontario - Sherritt Power Corporation today reported that its
Noteholders approved an Extraordinary Resolution to amend the trust indenture
between the Corporation and CIBC Mellon Trust Company (dated March 6, 1998)
governing the $225 million Senior Unsecured Amortizing Notes. The amendment
results in:
1. an acceleration of the first amortization of $198 per $1,000
principal amount to March 31, 2001 from March 31, 2002;
2. a revision to the remaining amortization schedule such that
$200 per $1,000 principal amount is amortized on March 31 in
each of 2003, 2004 and 2005 and $101 per $1,000 principal
amount is amortized on each of March 31, 2006 and 2007. The
original remaining amortization was $401 per $1,000 principal
amount on each of March 31, 2003 and 2004;
3. an increase in the interest rate from 11.50% to 12.125%
effective April 1, 2001; and
4. payment of a consent premium of $15 per $1,000 principal amount
of the Notes.
The Corporation sought approval for the amendment primarily in order to
pursue additional incremental growth opportunities. Sherritt Power Corporation
has already commissioned 151 megawatts (MW) of net power capacity in Cuba and is
committed to add the final planned 75 MW of net power capacity for a total
contracted capacity of 226 MW upon completion, which is expected in early 2002.
The amendment also provides the Corporation with additional capital expenditure
management flexibility that it believes will help to preserve and enhance the
net cash flows from its existing projects.
Sherritt Power Corporation was formed to finance, construct and operate
power-generating businesses. Sherritt Power Corporation trades on The Toronto
Stock Exchange ("TSE'') under the symbol U. The Corporation's Notes trade
on the over-the-counter market.
For further information: Juanita Montalvo Sherritt Power
Corporation (416) 934-3179 1-877-676-6006 (toll-free in Canada) | 