Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, & the Garrison Case

by DiEugenio, James

  On July 1, 1953—a year before the fall of the French empire in Vietnam— Kennedy spoke on the floor of the senate about why France would not win the war: “the war can never be won unless the people are won from sullen neutrality and open hostility to support it. And they never can be, unless they are assured beyond a doubt that complete independence will be theirs … at the war’s end.”29 The following year, Kennedy tried to explain that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were popular because they were seen as conducting an epic battle against French colonialism. Whether they were communists or not was not the point. For, in Vietnam, they were first seen as liberators.30

  Needless to say, Kennedy’s advice was not heeded. He understood this. So in May of 1953 he wrote a letter to then Secretary of State Dulles. He asked him forty-seven specific questions about what the aim of American involvement in Vietnam was.31 The following year, he got his answer—in rather dramatic fashion.

  In March of 1954 Commander Christian de Castries’s French garrison at Dien Bien Phu was being surrounded and trapped by the brilliant Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap. The French asked the United States for help. Days of consultation ensued. John Foster Dulles argued to extend aid. Vice-President Nixon was also predisposed to send help. In fact, Nixon began a lobbying campaign to convert the press and congress to a hard line on the issue. The idea was to prevent the French surrender. At any cost.32 The contemplated solution was to send in over 150 air sorties, code named Operation Vulture, to relieve the French garrison. The operation was to be topped off by the use of three tactical atomic weapons. When Senator Kennedy got wind of this, he again took to the floor of the senate and had what was perhaps his first defining national moment. He wanted to know how “the new Dulles policy and its dependence upon the threat of atomic retaliation will fare in these areas of guerrilla warfare.” Then, during the actual siege, he again took the floor and said, “To pour money, material, and men into the jungles of Indochina without at least a remote prospect of victory would be dangerously futile …. No amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, ‘an enemy of the people’ which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.”33

  Eisenhower decided not to commit to Operation Vulture. But the day after Kennedy’s speech, he announced that America would not retreat from its commitments in Indochina. He added that to do so would lead to a domino effect in Southeast Asia. Therefore, in September of 1954, John Foster Dulles organized the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), to protect that area of the world against further communist encroachment. But further, in the summer of that year, Dulles commandeered the American presence at the Geneva Accords. This served as a settlement conference for the first Indochina War. The conference agreed to a temporary partition of Vietnam between north and south in preparation for national elections in 1956. This would lead to unification under one leader. But the unification never came off. Although the USA orally supported the treaty, it did not actually sign the agreement.34 Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles then used this as a pretext to actually subvert the accords. It was a two-pronged strategy. First, as the Eisenhower administration would do with Cuba, the U.S. “began an economic boycott against the North Vietnamese and threatened to blacklist French firms which were doing business with them.”35

  Then, in an act that would have epic American repercussions for two decades, Director Allen Dulles sanctioned a huge CIA operation to find an alternative leader for the South and to prop him up with American support. The man Dulles placed in charge of this Agency effort was veteran black operator Edward Lansdale. Lansdale engineered a huge psychological covert operation to bolster the American discovered leader of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem. Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers realized that Ho Chi Minh would overwhelmingly win any national election.36 So now, with the CIA’s help, Diem seized complete power in the South. He then announced that there would be no unification elections in 1956. Yet Diem proved so unpopular with the peasants in the countryside that, as early as May of 1956, Eisenhower had to send 350 troops as military advisors to protect him. John Foster Dulles actually crowed about this. In what is today a startling statement, he said, “We have a clean base there now, without a taint of colonialism. Dien Bien Phu was a blessing in disguise.”37 As Senator Kennedy feared, Secretary of State Dulles had been secretly planning for the United States to assume the French role in Vietnam. This therefore became President Kennedy’s problem in 1961.

  In 1956, Senator Kennedy attempted to make some speeches for the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. By this time he had seen that both parties were missing the point about independence for the Third World. Kennedy was now even more convinced that the nationalistic yearning for independence was not to be so quickly linked to the “international Communist conspiracy.”38 When Kennedy made some speeches for Stevenson he used the opportunity to attack the Manichean world view of the Eisenhower-Dulles administration. But he also alluded to the fact that the Democrats were not that much better on the issue:

  The Afro-Asian revolution of nationalism, the revolt against colonialism, the determination of people to control their national destinies … in my opinion the tragic failure of both Republican and Democratic administrations since World War II to comprehend the nature of this revolution, and its potentialities for good and evil, has reaped a bitter harvest today—and it is by rights and by necessity a major foreign policy campaign issue that has nothing to do with anti-communism.39

  Again, Kennedy was not playing political favorites. But the content of the message was too much for even that liberal paragon Stevenson. His office now requested that Senator Kennedy make no further foreign policy comments associated with the candidate’s campaign.40 But Kennedy did not let up on John Foster Dulles, or Richard Nixon. He strongly objected to the “us or them” attitude that would not let a Third World nation be neutral or nonaligned. And then be allowed to choose a middle ground in the Cold War. And he also objected to the self-righteousness with which people like Dulles expressed this stark choice. John Foster Dulles’s string of bromides on the subject, such as, “godless communism,” and the “Soviet master plan,” were met with this response from Senator Kennedy: “Public thinking is still being bullied by slogans which are either false in context or irrelevant to the new phase of competitive coexistence in which we live.”41

  1957: Kennedy Attacks Eisenhower on Algeria

  In 1957, Kennedy again attacked the presiding foreign policy establishment of Eisenhower, the Dulles brothers, and Richard Nixon. And again, the issue was over French colonialism and American willingness to support it. Instead of Vietnam, the location this time was the colony of Algeria on the north coast of Africa. France invaded the territory in 1830 and, after a brutal imperial war, Algeria became a colony in 1834. But in 1954 a rebellion broke out. Having just lost in Vietnam, French Premier Pierre Mendes was not going to now give up Algeria, which was much closer to the homeland and was actually considered part of France. By 1957 France had 500,000 troops in the country to suppress this ferocious rebellion. Because the Algerian rebels fought guerrilla style and out of neighborhood cells, the war degenerated at times into torture, atrocities, and barbarism. When these were exposed, it split the French nation in two and eventually caused the fall of the Fourth Republic and the rise to power of Charles de Gaulle.

  On July 2, 1957, Senator Kennedy rose to speak in the Senate chamber and delivered what the New York Times was to call the next day, “the most comprehensive and outspoken arraignment of Western policy toward Algeria yet presented by an American in public office.”42 As historian Allan Nevins later wrote, “No speech on foreign affairs by Mr. Kennedy attracted more attention at home and abroad.”43 It was the mature fruition of all the ideas that Kennedy had been collecting and refining since his 1951 trip into the nooks and corners of Saigon. It was passionate yet sophisticated, hard-hitting but controlled, idealistic yet, in a fresh and uniq
ue way, also pragmatic. Kennedy assailed the administration, especially John Foster Dulles and Nixon, for not urging France into negotiations, and therefore not being its true friend. He began the speech by saying that the most powerful force in international affairs at the time was not the H-bomb, but the desire for independence from imperialism. He then said it was a test of American foreign policy to meet the challenge of imperialism. If not, America would lose the trust of millions in Asia and Africa. He then pointed out specific instances where the USA had aided the French effort there both militarily (through the use of weapons sales) and diplomatically (by voting to table the issue at the United Nations). He attacked both the administration and France for not seeing in Algeria a reprise of the 1954 Indochina crisis:

  Yet, did we not learn in Indochina … that we might have served both the French and our own causes infinitely better had we taken a more firm stand much earlier than we did? Did that tragic episode not teach us that whether France likes it or not, admits it or not, or has our support or not, their overseas territories are sooner or later, one by one, inevitably going to break free and look with suspicion on the Western nations who impeded their steps to independence.44

  He later added that, “The time has come for the United States to face the harsh realities of the situation and to fulfill its responsibilities as leader of the free world … in shaping a course toward political independence for Algeria.”45 He concluded by stating that America could not win in the Third World by simply doling out foreign aid dollars, or selling free enterprise, or describing the evils of communism, or limiting its approach to military pacts. (This last was a direct knock at John Foster Dulles, who specialized in setting up these kinds of regional alliances against the Soviet Union.) He then said the true appeal of America to these emerging nations “lies in our traditional and deeply felt philosophy of freedom and independence for all peoples everywhere.”46 This speech ignited howls of protest, especially from its targets—Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, Acheson, and Nixon. The latter called it “a brashly political” move to embarrass the administration. He further added that “Ike and his staff held a full-fledged policy meeting to pool their thinking on the whys underlying Kennedy’s damaging fishing in troubled waters.”47 Eisenhower complained about “young men getting up and shouting about things.”48 John Foster Dulles commented that if the senator wanted to tilt against colonialism, perhaps he might concentrate on the communist variety.49 Jackie Kennedy was so angry with Acheson’s disparaging remarks about the speech that she berated him in public while they were waiting for a train at New York’s Penn Central.50 Kennedy’s staff clipped newspaper and magazine responses to the speech. Of 138 editorials, 90 were negative. Again, Stevenson was one of Kennedy’s critics.

  But abroad the reaction was different. Reporters from both England, like Alistair Cooke, and France, like Henry Pierre, comprehended that to consider the speech a political blast was to ignore its content and its intent, because Kennedy knew what he was talking about. Even the popular French magazine, Le Monde, wrote on July 10 that, “The most striking point of the speech of Mr. Kennedy is the important documentation it revealed and his thorough knowledge of the French milieu.” Kennedy now became the man to see for visiting African diplomats, especially those from nations breaking free from the bonds of European colonialism. And as things proceeded, and the war dragged further on, and the French government fell, more and more commentators came to see that Senator Kennedy was quite wise in his observations. Eric Sevareid noted on CBS radio, “When Senator Kennedy a year ago advocated outright independence for Algeria, he was heavily criticized; were he making the same speech today, the response would pretty surely be different in considerable degree.”51

  But the speech had even more impact than that. As Alistair Cooke noted, the way the speech was perceived by the White House, and the derogatory comments made by its occupants, had now vaulted Kennedy’s profile into high relief in Europe. He was the man pointing out their dogged and doomed attempts to hang on to fading empires. In America he had made himself the Democrat that Eisenhower had to “do something about.” He was now the one Democratic hopeful that the Republicans were uniting to scorn. Cooke incisively concluded, “It is a form of running martyrdom that Senators Humphrey and Johnson may come to envy.”52 Cooke was correct. For five months after making the watershed Algeria speech, on December 12, 1957, Time published its first cover story on Kennedy. It was titled, “Man Out Front.”

  Every book about Kennedy’s assassination ignores virtually all of the above. In my view, one cannot. For example, as author Henry Hurt has documented, while the Warren Commission was in session, in April of 1964, the French government requested information from the FBI on the whereabouts of one Jean Souetre. Souetre had been associated with the numerous attempts to murder Premier Charles de Gaulle. In fact, a whole paramilitary network had sprung up over de Gaulle’s attempt to settle the Algerian war at the bargaining table. They killed thousands of French and Moslem Algerians, and attempted to kill de Gaulle dozens of times. This group was called the OAS, or Secret Armed Organization. It turned out that not only had Souetre been in the United States, he had been in Fort Worth on the morning of November 22, 1963—the exact place where President Kennedy was that morning. When Kennedy went to Dallas and was assassinated that afternoon, Souetre was there also.53 As just pointed out, it was Kennedy’s powerful Algeria speech that helped collapse the Fourth Republic and brought de Gaulle to power. As Hurt writes, it does not appear that the Warren Commission was ever cognizant of the French request for information on Souetre. In fact, the CIA documents that reveal that request, and the fact that Souetre was picked up within forty-eight hours of the assassination, were not declassified until 1976. When they were, further research revealed that Souetre had developed contacts with radical rightwing elements in Dallas and New Orleans, and also with anti-Castro Cubans.54

  But beyond giving a motive to certain possible suspects, one cannot understand Kennedy’s policies when he took office in 1961 without understanding this important background information. For once in office, Kennedy did break out of the Eisenhower classic Cold Warrior pattern, especially in regards to the Third World.

  1961: Kennedy Breaks with the Cold War Consensus

  Congo is the second largest country in Africa, and one of the largest in the world. It was first colonized by Leopold II of Belgium in the 1870s and formally annexed in 1885. Leopold’s regime was one of the most barbarous in colonial history. The great export at the time was rubber, and if the natives did not meet quota they were maimed by having a limb amputated. Adam Hochschild, in his book King Leopold’s Ghost, estimates that perhaps as much as half the population of the country was decimated during Leopold’s reign, which lasted until 1908. Leopold’s colonization was so brutal that it became infamous. The British exposed it in a report, and Joseph Conrad wrote a classic novel, Heart of Darkness, about it. International opinion was so outraged that the Belgian parliament decided to take over administration of the state from the king.

  By 1960, a native revolutionary leader named Patrice Lumumba had galvanized the nationalist feeling of the country. Belgium decided to pull out. But they did so rapidly, knowing that tumult would ensue and they could return to colonize the country again.55 After Lumumba was appointed prime minister, tumult did ensue. The Belgians and the British backed a rival who had Lumumba dismissed. They then urged the breaking away of the Katanga province because of its enormous mineral wealth. Lumumba looked to the United Nations for help, and also the USA. The former did decide to help. The United States did not. In fact, when Lumumba visited Washington in July of 1960, Eisenhower deliberately fled to Rhode Island.56 Rebuffed by Eisenhower, Lumumba now turned to the Russians for help in expelling the Belgians from Katanga. This sealed his fate in the eyes of Eisenhower and Allen Dulles. The president now authorized a series of assassination plots by the CIA to kill Lumumba.57 These plots finally succeeded on January 17, 1961, three days before Kennedy was inaug
urated.

  His first week in office, Kennedy requested a full review of the Eisenhower/Dulles policy in Congo. The American ambassador to that important African nation heard of this review and phoned Allen Dulles to alert him that President Kennedy was about to overturn previous policy there.58 Kennedy did overturn this policy on February 2, 1961. Unlike Eisenhower and Allen Dulles, Kennedy announced he would begin full cooperation with Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold at the United Nations on this thorny issue in order to bring all the armies in that war-torn nation under control. He would also attempt to neutralize the country so there would be no East/West Cold War competition. Third, all political prisoners being held should be freed. Not knowing he was dead, this part was aimed at former Prime Minister Lumumba, who had been captured by his enemies. (There is evidence that, knowing Kennedy would favor Lumumba, Dulles had him killed before JFK was inaugurated.59) Finally, Kennedy opposed the secession of the mineral-rich Katanga province. The secession of Katanga was a move very much favored by the former colonizers, Belgium, and their British allies. Thus began Kennedy’s nearly three year long struggle to see Congo not fall back under the claw of European imperialism. This story is well captured by Richard Mahoney in his milestone book JFK: Ordeal in Africa. As we shall see, whatever Kennedy achieved there, and it was estimable, was lost when Lyndon Johnson became president.

  In Laos, on the last day of 1960, Eisenhower had commented to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “we cannot afford to stand by and allow Laos to fall to the Communists. The time may soon come when we should employ the Seventh Fleet, with its force of Marines.”60 To which General Lemnitzer replied that the proper units had already been alerted. The communists in this case were the Pathet Lao, who were allied with the forces of Ho Chi Minh. They were attacking the Royal Lao Government and its army, which was allied with provincial Hmong guerrillas. These latter groups were all supplied with money, weapons, supplies, and trainers by the CIA and the Pentagon. As this December 31, 1960 meeting ended, Eisenhower reiterated that Laos could not fall, “even if it involves war in which the U.S. acts with allies or unilaterally.”61 Further, if there were a coalition government, the Pathet Lao were not to be included. In a meeting with president-elect Kennedy on January 19, 1961, Eisenhower stressed how important Laos was in the overarching duel with the Soviets. If no political settlement was possible, the outgoing president advised JFK that the USA must intervene. Laos was the key to Southeast Asia, and if we did not act, it would endanger Thailand, Cambodia, and South Vietnam. He said it would be fatal to allow the communists as any part of a new government; and if we had to act unilaterally, then we should do so.62