Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  Goodpaster was a man who spoke carefully, meaning exactly what he said, saying exactly what was on his mind. Late in 1960, in the Oval Office, Goodpaster expressed concern that the assembling and training of an organization of Cuban refugees, authorized by Eisenhower months earlier, might well be building up a problem with difficult consequences.

  Eisenhower had given authority only to form and train the force, reserving any decision whether actually to use it and, if so, how. In his view, it was only a small training base, really not much more than a place to keep an eye on some of the hotheaded Cubans who were so anxious to return to their homeland and overthrow Castro. Goodpaster’s fear, however, was that the operation would build up a momentum of its own, which would be hard to stop.

  Ike refused to see any danger. He said he was only creating an asset, not committing the United States to an invasion of Cuba or anything like that. Whether this paramilitary force of Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, would be used or not would depend entirely on circumstances, specifically on political developments. In any event, the decision would be made in the White House, not by the CIA or the Cubans themselves.

  THE CUBAN TRAINING PROGRAM had its beginning in December 1959 at the same time that the CIA began its assassination plotting against Fidel. J. C. King wrote a memorandum to Allen Dulles observing that the Castro dictatorship in Cuba was expropriating American property at an alarming rate, and warning that if it were permitted to stay in power, the Castro regime would encourage similar actions against other U.S. holdings in other Latin American countries. He recommended a broad-based program to eliminate Fidel, including assassination and paramilitary activities.3

  On January 13, 1960, Dulles took King’s recommendations to the 5412 Committee. Dulles told the committee that “a quick elimination of Castro” was not contemplated by the CIA, but he also “noted that over the long run the U.S. will not be able to tolerate the Castro regime in Cuba, and suggested that covert contingency planning to accomplish the fall of the Castro government might be in order.”

  The State Department representative on 5412 commented that “timing was very important.” The CIA should not move against Castro until a “solidly based Cuban opposition” was prepared to take over. Dulles then “emphasized that we do not have in mind a quick elimination of Castro, but rather actions designed to enable responsible opposition leaders to get a foothold.”4

  In February, Dulles came to the Oval Office to discuss with Ike possible moves against Castro. The President was sympathetic but hardly enthusiastic. Dulles had brought some U-2 photos of a Cuban sugar refinery, along with plans to put it out of action by using guerrilla saboteurs. Ike scoffed at this, pointing out that such damage could be easily repaired. The CIA had to come up with something better than this. Ike said that Dulles should go back to his people and return when they had a “program” worked out.5

  The CIA then created a task force, under the direction of Richard Bissell, to take charge of Cuban operations. That group was tempted to try for a quick fix—Castro’s assassination—as a solution. J. C. King’s attitude, as recorded in a memorandum of a meeting on March 9 with the task force, was “that unless Fidel and Raúl Castro and Che Guevara could be eliminated in one package—which is highly unlikely—this operation can be a long, drawn-out affair and the present government will only be overthrown by the use of force.”6

  The following day, March 10, 1960, the NSC discussed American policy to “bring another government to power in Cuba.” The minutes of that meeting record that “the President said we might have another Black Hole of Calcutta in Cuba, and he wondered what we could do about such a situation.” Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, said the chief immediate requirement was to find a Cuban leader around whom anti-Castro elements could rally. Dulles reported that the CIA was working on a plan to rid the island of Fidel. Burke suggested that any plan for his removal should be “a package deal, since many of the leaders around Castro were even worse than Castro.”7

  Bissell, meanwhile, had drafted a policy paper, “A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime,” and on March 14 brought it to the 5412 Committee. It called for four steps: (1) creation of a “responsible and unified” Cuban government in exile; (2) “a powerful propaganda offensive”; (3) “a covert intelligence and action organization in Cuba” that would be “responsive” to the government in exile, and (4) “a paramilitary force outside of Cuba for future guerrilla action.”8

  The 5412 people were impressed. Although Bissell warned that it would take six to eight months to put his program into action, what he proposed was more solid and helpful than the earlier talk about assassination. The committee did have “a general discussion as to what would be the effect on the Cuban scene if Fidel and Raúl Castro and Che Guevara should disappear simultaneously.” Admiral Burke observed that the only organized group in Cuba was the Communist Party, and that if the Castros were eliminated the Communists would move into the vacuum. Dulles thought “this might not be disadvantageous” because it would give the United States and the Organization of American States an opportunity to move in on Cuba in force. J. C. King suggested that nothing be done hastily, as so far no anti-Castro Cuban leader had appeared who was capable of winning popular support.9

  Three days later, on March 17, Ike approved Bissell’s four-point program. The President put his emphasis on Bissell’s first step, finding a Cuban leader living in exile (probably in Miami) who would form a government in exile that the United States could recognize.10

  Through the spring and summer of 1960, Bissell worked on several fronts. As noted in Chapter Twenty-one, various attempts to assassinate Castro were made, possibly without Ike’s knowledge, certainly without success. Meanwhile, the flow of anti-Castro Cuban refugees into Miami was becoming a flood. Many of these refugees were eager to return to their homeland and, with American military help, overthrow Fidel. Unfortunately, they bickered among themselves. Some were pro-Batista, most were anti-Batista, all were hot-tempered and hardheaded, few were willing to cooperate or take second place in a government in exile. No genuine leader emerged.

  Bissell, meanwhile, began to put step four, the creation of a paramilitary force, into action. If nothing else, it was a way to give the most active refugees a sense of movement, a feeling that something was being done. The original training camp was outside Miami, but it was too public, so Bissell sent the group down to the Panama Canal Zone.

  There the CIA trained an initial cadre of thirty Cuban leaders for guerrilla warfare inside Cuba. As Bissell explained in an interview, “The notion was that when a larger group was assembled subsequently for training, that larger group would be trained by Cubans, thus insulating the U.S. from any direct involvement.”11

  By July, it was obvious that the plan was no good. It was based on the concept of a strong guerrilla movement inside Cuba, which “began to appear less and less possible.” One reason was that the anti-Castro Cubans never developed a command and control net, a true organized underground. There were virtually no communications between Miami and Cuba. There were resistance groups on the island but, as Bissell explained, “they were so poorly organized and their security practices were so poor that … they were rounded up quickly,” except in the Escambrey Mountains.

  And in the mountains, Bissell said, “what Castro did was to put a cordon of militia around the whole area, using enormous numbers, and in effect he starved these people out. They had to come out to forage, and they were picked up at that time.”

  The CIA did infiltrate a few small groups of guerrillas onto the north coast of Cuba during the summer, but because there was “no command and control net, no underground, no organization, no way they could be sheltered from informers, it was simply impossible to build up the basis of a resistance movement in the island.”12

  Assassination had failed. Infiltration had failed. Something bigger, something better planned and executed, was clearly necessary. On August 18, 1960, Ike approved an expanded
program, with a $13 million budget. He was willing to take more active steps because the CIA had obtained photographs of Czech arms in Cuba.13

  The same day, Ike approved the use of Department of Defense personnel and equipment in the Cuban operation, although he insisted that “no United States military personnel were to be used in a combat status.”14

  After giving his approval to Bissell’s expanded plans, Ike asked again, “Where’s our government in exile?” Bissell and Allen Dulles explained that it was difficult to get the Cubans to work together. Ike, impatient, replied, “Boys, if you don’t intend to go through with this, let’s stop talking about it.” Nothing could happen, he insisted, without a popular, genuine government in exile.15

  As Bissell’s operation grew, it had to move to larger quarters. None were available in the Canal Zone, so he made contact with his friends in the Guatemalan Government, whose President, Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, had helped to overthrow Arbenz seven years earlier. Ydígoras agreed to allow the CIA to establish its training base on Guatemala’s Caribbean coast. By October the agency had four hundred guerrillas-in-training at the base.

  The whole concept of the operation, meanwhile, had undergone a radical transformation, although neither Ike nor the 5412 people were informed of the change until months later.16 The original idea had been to rely primarily on the anti-Castro resistance forces already on the island, but by the fall of 1960, Bissell had reluctantly accepted the fact that such a plan was impossible, because there was no resistance force that could be counted on. Bissell’s new plan was to land a fairly large, well-equipped, heavily armed force that would secure a beachhead and be able to hold it against Castro’s counterattack.17

  The next stage would be a repeat of the CIA’S performance in Guatemala in 1954. That is, the invasion force would hold its position, as Castillo Armas’ “army” had sat in the Church of the Black Christ, while cu airplanes carried out raids on Havana and cu radio stations bombarded Cuba with propaganda and rumors. Then, as in Guatemala, it was hoped there would be defections by Castro’s army and air force, Castro would lose his nerve and flee the island, and the cu would have another triumph.18

  As the training went forward, Bissell built his radio station on Swan Island, 110 miles off the coast of Honduras and 400 miles southwest of Cuba. Swan Island, a mile and a half long and half a mile wide, with a population of twenty-eight humans and thousands of lizards and gulls, was claimed by both Honduras and the United States. Bissell put up a fifty-kilowatt radio station which was powerful enough to cover the whole Caribbean area at night. It could also be heard in Miami. To give the appearance of evenhandedness, it attacked both Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Castro.19

  In the United States, meanwhile, the Cuban operation became an issue in the Kennedy-Nixon presidential contest. Nixon was urging Ike to act: He felt that the overthrow of Castro before Election Day would be “a major plus, a real trump card.” But Ike was unwilling to order action before the Cubans had agreed among themselves as to the government that would replace Fidel. The President continued to press Bissell and Dulles about the government in exile; they assured him that progress was being made. Ike was skeptical. “I’m going along with you boys,” he said, “but I want to be sure the damned thing works.”20

  Bissell later confessed in an interview that no real progress had been made. “We had to virtually force a kind of alliance among the Cubans,” he said. “They never achieved sufficient unity at the political level to make possible the formation of a cohesive, effective Cuban-manned organization, that could direct the training, much less conduct it, that could plan for operations, that could do any of the logistic planning or support, or that could be entrusted with sensitive Intelligence or anything of this kind. So the impossibility of constructing such a Cuban organization left no alternative, if the operation was to be continued, but to have a U.S. organization [the CIA] that in effect made all the decisions.”21

  Democratic nominee Kennedy, meanwhile, thrust Cuba to the front of the campaign. On October 20 the New York Times headline ran, “KENNEDY ASKS AID FOR CUBAN REBELS TO DEFEAT CASTRO. URGES SUPPORT OF EXILES AND ‘FIGHTERS FOR FREEDOM.’ ”22

  Nixon later wrote that, when he saw the headline, “I could hardly believe my eyes.” He checked with Dulles, who said he had informed Kennedy about the training operation in Guatemala and Bissell’s plans. Nixon, furious, felt that Kennedy had jeopardized the operation while winning votes from the millions of Americans who wanted Castro toppled and who thought the Republicans too weak to do it. But despite his anger, Nixon believed that “the covert operation had to be protected at all costs.” He therefore went to the other extreme, attacking Kennedy’s proposal “as wrong and irresponsible because it would violate our treaty commitments.”

  In his campaign debate with Kennedy the following night, Nixon predicted that if the United States supported the Cuban exiles in a military adventure, it would be “condemned in the United Nations” while failing to “accomplish our objective.” It would be “an open invitation for Mr. Khrushchev … to come into Latin America.”23 The irony, of course, was that precisely what Nixon predicted would happen—although he never really believed it himself—did happen. The United States did fail, it was condemned, and the Bay of Pigs operation was an invitation for the Russians to move military forces into Cuba, an invitation Khrushchev quickly accepted.

  Kennedy, meanwhile, won the closest election in decades. The week after the election was a tense one in Central America. Riots in Guatemala, brought on by the government’s decision to allow the CIA to use that country as a base of operations, raised fears in Washington that the Communists might take over there. Ike told Secretary of State Herter that “if we received a request from Guatemala for assistance, we would move in without delay.”24

  The State Department, meanwhile, always more sensitive to Latin American feelings than the CIA or the White House, was urging the President to order the whole Cuban brigade out of Guatemala. Ike asked Bissell about it. “We thought of moving them by airlift out to one of the islands in the Pacific,” Bissell later recalled, “we were so desperate to find a more secure base for them.” One solution would have been to bring the Cubans back to southern Florida, but as Bissell said, “There was a reluctance to move them back and to face the fact that since the U.S. was doing the training, it might as well be done in the U.S.” It seemed to Bissell that it was important to maintain the fiction that the United States was not involved. He convinced Ike. The brigade stayed in Guatemala.25

  Its presence there practically invited Castro to send his own paramilitary forces, led by Che, into Guatemala. To guard against that possibility, Ike sent U. S. Navy vessels to the Caribbean to patrol the Guatemalan coast. Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua was also worried about Che and other Cuban guerrillas invading his country, so Ike extended the patrols to include Nicaragua and added air cover to the sea patrols. The American servicemen were ordered to “refrain from combat unless specifically authorized or unless necessary to bar a direct Communist invasion attempt.”26

  In December, Dulles finally briefed Ike on Bissell’s evolving concept of the operation. The new idea called for landing a relatively strong, self-contained force that could seize and hold a beachhead. Ike listened, then asked once again about political progress. Did the Cubans have a recognized leader yet? The President wanted a government in exile formed that would have enough popular support among Cuban exiles to allow him to recognize it as the new government.27

  The following day, December 8, Dulles told the 5412 Committee of the new concept. By then the brigade was up to seven hundred men and still growing. The committee “encouraged” Dulles to continue “development” of the force. Someone warned that it was becoming common knowledge throughout Latin America that a United States-backed force was being trained in Guatemala.28

  It was such common knowledge, in fact, that on January 10, 1961, the New York Times carried an article, with a map, describing the force, its loc
ation, and its purpose. The Eisenhower administration ignored the article.29

  Ike’s attitude toward the brigade remained one of wait and see. Douglas Dillon, Under Secretary of State, who discussed the brigade with the President on a number of occasions, reported that Eisenhower maintained “a certain skepticism until such time as the Cubans’ training was completed, and then a willingness to look at it.”30 As always, he insisted on political unity before attempting paramilitary operations. In his memoirs, Ike declared, “Because they had as yet been unable to find the leader they wanted—a national leader known to be both anti-Castro and anti-Batista—it was impossible to make specific plans for a military invasion.”31

  Bissell later reported that “it wasn’t until about January 1961 that the force in training reached as many as eight or nine hundred in strength, and of course at that time there had been no firm decision that they would be employed.”32

  But, as Goodpaster had suggested to Eisenhower, the momentum was there—and it was unstoppable. As Bissell put it, “It’s only fair to say that the Kennedy administration did inherit a military organization here that would have been difficult to dispose of and embarrassing to dispose of in any way other than by allowing it to go into action.”33

  In his retirement, Eisenhower insisted that the distinction between creating an asset and approving a plan remained sharp and clear. He said he never discussed a tactical or operational plan with Bissell, Dulles, or anyone else, because the program had never gotten that far along.34 And various members of Ike’s administration insist to this day that had Eisenhower been in the White House, the Bay of Pigs operation either never would have gone forward or, if it did, there would have been massive American military backup support.

  Perhaps so. But there was that momentum, a big part of which was the CIA’S intense desire to help the refugees while simultaneously pretending that the United States was not involved. Ike was technically correct in saying he had not given his approval to any specific plan, but only technically. Bissell, Dulles, the State Department, and the incoming Kennedy administration all felt that the plan had General Eisenhower’s professional backing.