AP. Independent News. UK, 22 March 2001.
A secretive group of advisers to US President John F Kennedy saw the months
leading to the Cuban missile crisis as riddled with failures in intelligence
gathering, contradicting the popular view that the incident was a definitive
success for the United States.
At a meeting on November 9, 1962, less than two weeks after the Soviet Union
agreed to withdraw its ballistic missiles from Cuba, members of the President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board groused about the lack of US spy plane
activity over the island nation for most of September despite suspicions by the
head of the CIA that Soviet missiles were there.
The insights into the pressurized period are revealed in more than 400 pages
of newly declassified documents now available among the Kennedy assassination
records at National Archives in College Park, Maryland. The records provide a
glimpse inside a group of civilian experts enlisted to provide the president
independent advice on intelligence matters.
The group also questioned an intelligence–gathering "paralysis"
that set in regarding Cuba in the months after the US–backed Bay of Pigs
invasion debacle in April 1961.
"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 another meeting. "If the president
thinks a good intelligence operation took place, this could have dangerous
implications."
First formed in 1956, the advisory group's impact has varied among
administrations, but it was particularly influential during the Kennedy years.
On October 4, 1962, the group discussed the ongoing work of Operation
Mongoose, a once–secret plan to cause disruptions in Cuba, including
blowing up power stations and planting US intelligence infiltrators. Attorney
General Robert Kennedy, 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.
Kennedy formed his version of the advisory group in May 1961 with an
executive order directing it 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 US government can plausibly disclaim
responsibility for them."
Among those on the board were Clifford, chairman of the group for most of
the Kennedy years and later Lyndon Johnson's defense secretary for a time;
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.
Steven Tilley, who runs the National Archives collection of Kennedy
assassination records, said the documents don't specifically deal with the
assassination but fall under a broad definition of related issues, such as
conspiracy allegations and assertions that Cuba was involved.
The records mention the Kennedy assassination only on November 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 began his
tenure as president.
In a summary of the advisory board's work presented to Johnson, the group
said Kennedy approved 125 of its 170 recommendations, mostly concerning overhaul
of the CIA and the Defence 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 George W. Bush will have his own version of the advisory board but
as yet has not appointed members, White House spokesman Mary Ellen Countryman
said yesterday. | 