As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
So much has been focused on the Kennedy assassination, that the intrigue is not relished for what it is, in how the Kennedy's operated. The following are the statements in official investigatory files on the operations to assassinate Fidel Castro.
What they reveal is that there was a Phase I, Phase II and after Kennedy was murdered a Phase III. It originated first apparently from the Kennedy's, as in Jack and Bobby, discussed the Castro situation, and in addition to the Bay of Pigs, an "Executive Action" AKA assassination command was being formulated, directly from the Kennedys, not only on Castro, but Castro was unique in it moved through channels of plausible deniability.
It was difficult for the denials, as a Special Group which included State, Defense, CIA and select intelligence officers, became involved in this operation.
It is interesting that this Special Group sounds like the grandfather of the Vice President George HW Bush, Sub Operational Groups, which have been engaged in all sorts of notorious activities directed against Americans.
What is of interest in this, is Richard Helms and General Edward Lansdale were primarily responsible for this operational stance going on in the White House, and the person in control of all the dirty work was Attorney General Robert Kennedy. It was though Director of Plans in Richard Bissell who first formulated the policy, and in this deniability, it appears that Bobby Kennedy was the catalyst. Whether RFK had a bug put into his ear or it was his or JFK's original idea, nothing is hinted at in these quotes, but what started as a presidential question, soon had the entire White House involved in discussing murder plots.
The assessment came down to, John Kennedy speaking to intelligence planning, about "what if", and making it plain that the what if, is what was the outcome which was expected, and then simply expecting the results.
After all of this, President Gerald Ford in 1975 forbid all assassination policy for America, and by 2009, Barack Hussein Obama had gone wholesale in the drone assassination business.
The quotes provide a most interesting view of how the Kennedy White House was operating, and how some of the most gifted minds were dealing with the situation and the fall out.
Bissell stated that he had "no clear recollection of any discussion with anyone in the Eisenhower Administration concerning any possible plan to assassinate Castro. " but there could have been. He said that if it would have occurred at all during the Eisenhower Administration, "it would have been with Gordon Gray. " Bissell testified that although "my recollection of this is far from clear. . .I am satisfied that very early in the Kennedy Administration I did participate" in conversations with someone in the White House concerning the planning of what was called an executive action capability, which was defined in substance as a capability of the Agency to carry out assassinations, if required. When asked with whom these conversations occurred, Bissell said "I am almost certain it was either Walt Rostow (Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security) or McGeorge Bundy (Presidential Assistant for National Security), or probably- the former, and possibly both. "
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There was direct access of the Director of Central Intelligence to the President, according to Mr, Bundy, He said that based upon his experience, "I would not have expected, , .the Agency would have undertaken anything like an attack on the life of a foreign leader without direct order from higher authority". . , it did not happen in the time I was there, , . but I can conceive of the President saying to somebody, I do not want to make this decision but giving some indication of the kind of decision he wanted made. "
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The Interrogation of the Phase I Case Officer The case officer stated that he had been told that theproject had been approved by Allen Dulles, Director of Central Intelligence, but he (the case officer) had no knowledge of whether or not there had been any discussion or approval from the White House.
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There was direct access of the Director of Central Intelligence to the President, according to Mr, Bundy, He said that based upon his experience, "I would not have expected, , .the Agency would have undertaken anything like an attack on the life of a foreign leader without direct order from higher authority". . , it did not happen in the time I was there, , . but I can conceive of the President saying to somebody, I do not want to make this decision but giving some indication of the kind of decision he wanted made. "
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sIn late 1961 or early 1962, Deputy Director for Plans, Richard Bissell, recalled asking a new case officer "to take over a part of our reviving effort against Castro and the Castro Administration. . .1 probably urged him to look into this plan... which had been the subject of active attention nearly a year before. I have no recollection of authorizing him to revive it, except to look at it as a plan, or to proceed with any action along those lines." Richard Bissell resigned from the Agency in February, 1962. His successor as Deputy Director for Plans was Richard Helms. b. The Interrogation of the Phase II Case Officer • (1) Developing an "Executive Action" capability . The Phase II case officer in a signed recorded interview said that he had a conversation with Richard Bissell, which he believed took place in the latter part of 1961 or early 1962, in which Bissell told him in substance that someone in the White House had raised the question whether or not the Agency should develop what was called an "executive action capability," which was a capability of assassination or liquidation of leaders of foreign countries. The case officer said that Bissell briefed him that an operation against Castro "had been mounted " and "that it had been handled through Sheffield Edwards."
The Phase II case officer stated in his 2 recorded interviewthat after he was briefed by the previous case officer and discussed the matter with Sheffield Edwards, he then discussed the matter with Richard Helms. The Phase II case officer took over the direct contact with the Mafia personnel which to the best of his recollection occurred "about early April 1962."
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The Phase II case officer stated that sometime prior to August 1962, he had a conversation with Richard Helms, who had succeeded Richard Bissell as Deputy Director of Plans. The case officer said that the question was raised whether or not the new Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. McCone, should be briefed of the operation. "I did recommend to Mr. Helms that since this 'operation' and the possible repercussions from it all stemmed from actions which had taken place long before either Helms or myself had had any personal connection with it, and before John McCone had had any connection whatever with the Agency, and since the decision had been made at that time that this should be sanitized, tied off and terminated as soon as practically feasible, I saw no reason why the new DCI should be briefed on it,- and I strongly recommended that he not be . "
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The Special Group (Augmented) was a group of senior people in the Administration who were involved in overall planning with operations directed against Cuba. Included in that group were the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk; the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara; the Attorney General of the United States, Robert Kennedy; the Assistant to the President for National Security, McGeorge Bundy; General Maxwell Taylor; and General Lyman Lemn ctzer (who is a member of the Commission) , along with sever:, i others. The coordinating officer of the Special Group (Augmented) was Brigadier General Edward Lansdale. (Robert Kennedy was not present at the August 10, 1962, meeting.) The Interrogation of the Phase II Case Officer The Phase II case officer said that he was at a meeting of the "Special Group (Augmented) in the State Department in August 1962, when someone brought up the possibility of "liquidation" of Castro. John McCone was at that meeting and, according to the case officer, John McCone "got rather red in the face" and made a remark which "was a clear effort to stop any such proposals, suggestion or any discussion thereof at that meeting within that forum immediately. "
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On August 14, 1962, the Phase II case officer prepared a memorandum for the Deputy Director of Plans, who was Richard Helms, in which he attached a copy of an August 13, 1962 memorandum prepared by General Lansdale. The CIA case officer's memorandum to Helms said: 1. Action. None. This memorandum is for your information • 2. Reference is made to our conversation on 13 August 1962, concerning the memorandum of that date from General Lansdale. Attached is a copy of this- memorandum, excised from which are four words in the second line of the penultimate paragraph on page 1. These four . words were "including liquidation of leaders."
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The question of assassination, particularly of Fidel Castro, was brought up by Secretary McNamara at the meeting of the Special Group (Augmented) in Secretary Rusk's office on 10 August.
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In 1961 Lansdale was appointed by Secretary McNamara as Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Special Operations. (a) Discussions with and Written Proposals to President Kennedy Lansdale said that he had a discussion with President Kennedy, "I 'do not recall exactly on that. He asked me if I would think about the situation in Cuba and if I could come up with any suggestions or recommendations from such a study. It was a rather vague assignment by him, o but it was to Be acne for him" I Lansdale "suggested an intermediary" to whom he would report and Lansdale said the President "appointed his brother, who was the Attorney General." According to Lansdale, he made an initial series of recommendations in late 1961 or early 1962, in o writing, addressed to the President, "to see if there was a possibility of using Cuban refugees to help them get their § political thinking together to see if there would be any £ f-iMUt, of . — o„ in c*... He says h e ^ S he S gave the written report to the Attorney General for delivery to the President and that he later saw the paper "in the files of the President. . .he received it and he had possession of it."
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Lansdale said that if there were directions to submit papers , it was an authorization for submitting papers and not an authorization for necessarily carrying out the g action. Lansdale admitted that "there might well have been" a request for the CIA to come up with, as a possibility, a plan for liquidation of leadership. If that request was made, he said it could have been one of his requests and that he "quite probably would have discussed it with the Secretary of Defense" and "possibly the Attorney General with whom I was in contact."
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Lansdale said that at no time during 1960, 1961, 1962 or 1963 did he have any knowledge of the existence of any plans for the assassination of any Cuban leader or any other leader. Lansdale testified that he never heard any discussion of "executive action capability."
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Richard Helms, now .ambassador to Iran, testified that "there was a flat-out effort ordered by the White House, the President,. Bobby Kennedy who was after all his man, his right hand in these matters, to unseat the Castro government, to do everything possible to get rid of it by whatever device could be found and that was the reason for mounting this large operation in Miami to work on this very problem. And the Bay of Pigs was a part of this effort and after the Bay of Pigs failed, there was even a greater push to try to get rid of this Communist influence 90 miles from the United States shores. In response to a question concerning "Who might have been the driving forces from the White House in efforts to do something about Castro" Helms responded, "Well the principal driving force was the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, There isn't any question about this. Involved in this was a group of individuals who were sort of hired and pulled together by Kennedy and Rusk and McNamara and McGeorg Bundy and all those people to get on with this job and as I sit here and start to hink about this, Calif ano was one of them.. It seems to me Lansdale, who had been successful in this kind of operation out in the Par East was brought in for a while." (2)- Possible Assassination Plans Ambassador Helms testified that he did not recall "any plans that were approved or that were viable specifically directed at eliminating Castro, but that there were conversations about it, I haven't the slightest doubt."
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Ambassador Helms said he did not "recall ever* having heard anything about poison pills or any of that." He did recall that "at some juncture" a decision was reached "that it would be advisable to brief Robert Kennedy as the Attorney General " about "various things that the Agency had had to do" with certain Mafia members. He did recall that the Phase II case officer had taken over the plans but he did not "recall any special basis being used to try to get them to do an assassination."
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President Ford has firmly announced that assassina- tion is not and should never Be a tool of United States policy. The Executive Director of the Commission joins in this statement. It is against the constitutional and moral principles for which this Republic stands for there to be any direct or indirect participation of any agency of the United States Government in any plans involving the assassination of any person in peacetime.
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