Legacy of Secrecy (57 page)

Hoover, he was moving forward with some of his unauthorized Castro

assassination operations. His European assassin recruiter, QJWIN, was

still on the CIA payroll in December 1963 and would remain so for

several months. CIA memos confirm that their plans were proceeding

with Rolando Cubela as a result of his November 22 meeting in Paris,

meaning that Helms was sure Cubela was not a double agent working

for Castro.

We noted earlier the December 7, 1963, CIA memo about the weapons

cache of shotguns, pistols, grenades, “C-4 [explosive]” and “rifles with

scopes” that Helms approved for Cubela. The material was especially

appropriate for an assassination attempt, and was slated to be delivered

in January 1964 under David Morales’s supervision. The memo was sent

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the day after the earlier-noted failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro

by Santo Trafficante’s bodyguard, Herminio Diaz, who had known of

Cubela’s desire to act against Castro since at least September 1963.12

President Johnson had to face a constant barrage of worrisome infor-

mation in late November and December about Alvarado, Silvia Duran,

KGB agent Kostikov, and other stories claiming that Castro or the Soviets

were behind JFK’s murder. Meanwhile, LBJ was still learning about the

entire scope of JFK’s covert operations against Cuba, from the CIA’s

AMWORLD and AMTRUNK to the US military’s Cuban plans, to opera-

tions involving multiple agencies such as the CIA-DIA Task Force and

the “Plan for a Coup in Cuba.”

LBJ’s reaction to this complex torrent of information about Cuba set

him on a path that would ultimately have a tremendous impact on the

US and future presidents: President Johnson decided to make Vietnam

his main foreign-policy focus, instead of what he saw as the Kennedys’

secret war against Cuba. Confronted with the problematic Mexico City

information, and realizing the massive scope of Cuban operations he

hadn’t been told about while he was vice president, LBJ thought that

making his stand against communism in Southeast Asia was simply a

safer choice than Cuba. LBJ’s decision would drive him from office in

just over four years, and would ultimately cost fifty-seven thousand

American lives.13

However, in contrast to common misperceptions, LBJ didn’t imme-

diately shut down all covert Cuban operations, nor did he start sending

regular US combat troops into Vietnam in the coming days, weeks, or

even months. It took a year and a half for each of those things to happen,

and in the interim, LBJ kept his options open about Cuba.

CIA Director John McCone noted the turning point in a meeting

LBJ had with his advisors on November 25, 1963, the day after JFK’s

funeral. In contrast to the overly optimistic assessment presented by

the US ambassador to Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, LBJ was much

more cautious in the meeting. However, LBJ clearly liked what he heard

about Vietnam better than the news about Cuba. The following day,

LBJ authorized “covert action” against the North Vietnamese. However,

those secret operations would prove no more effective than in Cuba

and would help to trigger the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964,

which in turn led to the first US combat troops being sent to Vietnam

in March 1965.14

LBJ stated his new focus in a December 2, 1963, memo to General

Maxwell Taylor, saying, “It is clear to me that South Vietnam is our

most critical military area right now.”15 LBJ also reversed JFK’s deci-

sion to bring one thousand American “advisors” home from Vietnam,

although former officials and historians still debate whether JFK had

planned a real reduction, as the start of an eventual pullout, or whether

it was merely a reduction on paper. (Most evidence supports the former.)

However, LBJ couldn’t ignore Cuba, especially while he continued to

receive troubling information about it.

William Attwood, JFK’s special envoy for peace efforts with Fidel

Castro, got official confirmation on November 25 that Fidel was ready to

begin talks. However, LBJ told him to “put the plans on ice for the time

being.” Though Attwood remained ready to pursue the plans, and Lisa

Howard of ABC News would later prod LBJ to restart them, the peace

effort had essentially died with JFK.16

One reason for LBJ’s reluctance to pursue peace with Castro were the

troubling reports about Oswald and Mexico City, as the Silvia Duran

and Alvarado stories continued to unfold. After discussing them in a

November 29 meeting with CIA Director McCone, LBJ said that while

“he did not wish any repetition of [the Bay of Pigs] fiasco of 1961 . . . he

felt that the Cuban situation was one that we could not live with and we

had to evolve more aggressive policies.” The next part of the declassi-

fied memo is still censored, so it’s not known whether LBJ or McCone

brought up the possibility of trying to use someone like Almeida, though

McCone’s later actions indicate it was something the CIA Director con-

sidered. That same day, LBJ asked J. Edgar Hoover “whether [Oswald]

was connected to the Cuban operation with money,” which historian

Richard D. Mahoney believes was a reference to the Kennedys’ anti-

Castro “Cuban operation.”17

On December 2, 1963, Cuba was at the top of McCone’s agenda when

he met with LBJ. McCone’s notes say he brought up the idea of toppling

Castro, “even to [the] possible invasion [of Cuba]”; in doing so McCone

was laying the groundwork to soon prod LBJ to revive JFK’s plan to

stage a coup against Fidel.18 In the early weeks after JFK’s death, LBJ was

at least open to listening to serious ideas about toppling Castro, possibly

because he believed that Castro had something to do with JFK’s murder.

LBJ told his advisor Joseph Califano that “President Kennedy tried to

get Castro, but Castro got Kennedy first.”19 However, we interviewed a

US official who actively participated in high-level meetings about Cuba

in 1963 and 1964, and had much more experience with Cuban opera-

tions than did LBJ. The official told us he was certain that Fidel was
not

involved in JFK’s assassination, since “that possibility was looked at

[and disregarded in the] days and weeks” after JFK’s death.20

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

Even as John McCone and Richard Helms tried to convince President

Johnson to continue AMWORLD and the CIA’s other anti-Castro opera-

tions, LBJ was also consumed with trying to prevent Robert Kennedy’s

allies from stampeding him into appointing a blue-ribbon commission

to investigate JFK’s death. According to McCone’s notes from a Novem-

ber 26, 1963, meeting with LBJ:

The President noted with some considerable contempt the fact that

certain people in the Department of Justice had suggested to him . . .

that an independent investigation of the President’s assassination

should be conducted by a high-level group of attorneys and jurists.

. . . President Johnson rejected this idea, and then heard that the

identical plan was to be advanced in a lead editorial in the
Washing-

ton Post
. The President felt this was a deliberate plant and he was

exceedingly critical. He personally intervened, but failed with [edi-

tor] Al Friendly and finally “killed” the editorial with Mrs. Graham

[owner of the
Washington Post
].21

LBJ and other high-ranking officials used such heavy-handed interfer-

ence with the press to suppress other unwanted stories about JFK’s

assassination. But the tide of political and public opinion soon became

too great for LBJ to resist, especially when other investigations—from

Congress to Texas—seemed imminent. LBJ finally resigned himself to

the idea and decided that the panel should be headed by Earl Warren,

Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.

From a legal standpoint, LBJ’s choice of the Chief Justice could have

been a disaster: What if an accessory to Oswald was discovered, arrested,

and put on trial? Given the suspicious reports from Mexico City, that

was still a possibility. The verdict in Jack Ruby’s trial could be appealed

to the Supreme Court in the not-too-distant future. If Warren and his

Commission had investigated or interviewed Ruby, Warren would have

to recuse himself from such an appeal, leaving the court potentially

deadlocked regarding Ruby’s fate.

For LBJ, that prospect was outweighed by the more immediate fear

of a nuclear holocaust. LBJ knew that if competing Texas and Congres-

sional investigations exposed what appeared to be ties between Oswald

and Castro or the Soviets, the call to retaliate would be overwhelming.

Likewise, if those investigations revealed US plans to overthrow Fidel

and invade Cuba, then Soviet or Cuban leaders would be under pres-

sure to attack—and there were still rumors of Soviet nuclear missiles

hidden in caves in Cuba.

Chief Justice Warren was mindful of the legal pitfalls of LBJ’s request,

and “refused at first to take the job even after both Robert Kennedy and

Archibald Cox had asked him,” according to historian John Newman.

LBJ’s recorded Oval Office conversations reveal that LBJ met with the

Chief Justice, and initially Warren turned LBJ down—twice. LBJ said he

then “pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico

City.” Newman writes that LBJ “told Warren this would make it look

like Khrushchev and Castro killed Kennedy. LBJ said that Warren started

crying and agreed to take the assignment.” As Newman noted nine

years later, in a documentary, Warren confirmed LBJ’s account, “except

for the tears. . . . Johnson felt the argument that Khrushchev and Castro

had killed Kennedy might mean nuclear war.”22

Like Warren, Georgia senator Richard Russell didn’t want to join the

new Commission. Russell had been LBJ’s mentor in the Senate and was

one of the few Congressional leaders who shepherded the CIA’s budget

through Congress. The CIA, military intelligence, and the FBI could

depend on Russell to give them whatever they wanted, without asking

questions. However, the senior senator from Georgia was very conser-

vative, at a time when many conservatives considered Warren a traitor

who should be impeached for his court decisions supporting school inte-

gration and banning official prayers in public schools. Newman writes

that “when Russell said he didn’t like Warren and refused . . . Johnson

told him that he had no choice . . . that Oswald’s apparent connection to

Castro and Khrushchev had to be prevented ‘from kicking us into a war

that can kill forty million Americans in an hour.’” Russell finally told LBJ

he would serve with Warren “for the good of the country.”23

Others LBJ appointed to the Commission included Kentucky sena-

tor John Cooper; Congressmen Hale Boggs, of Louisiana, and Gerald

Ford, of Michigan; disarmament official John J. McCloy; and former CIA

Director Allen Dulles. According to historian Michael Kurtz, “Richard

Helms personally persuaded Lyndon Johnson to appoint former CIA

Director Allen Dulles to the Warren Commission.”

Both Helms and Dulles knew about the original CIA-Mafia plots to

kill Castro and still-ongoing operatives like QJWIN, first recruited under

Dulles. Congressional investigators discovered that the CIA’s James

Angleton met with Dulles just before he joined the Warren Commission,

and Richard Helms made Angleton his pointman to the Commission.

That scenario would allow Helms, Angleton, and Dulles to withhold

important information from the Warren Commission. Consequently,

the Warren Report would contain no mention of the CIA-Mafia plots

to kill Castro. None of the Cuban exile leaders involved in those plots,

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or in the JFK-Almeida coup plan, were ever interviewed by the Warren

Commission.24

However, a couple of key Warren Commissioners were told, unof-

ficially and in a general way, about at least the older CIA-Mafia plots to

assassinate Castro. This news was probably intended to ensure that the

investigation did not delve into any areas that might expose the plots.

Vanity Fair
found that “according to Earl Warren’s son and grandson . . .

the Chief Justice did know about the plots.” The other Commissioner

who indicated, years later, that he had been told something about the

efforts to eliminate Castro was Gerald Ford.25

In contrast to Warren and Russell, Michigan Republican Congress-

man Gerald Ford quickly and eagerly agreed to serve on the Commis-

sion.26 His history as a canny and ambitious politician is at odds with the

clumsy, amiable image portrayed by comedians and the media. Most of

the Warren Commissioners had demanding jobs that limited the time

they could spend on the investigation, but Ford made it a point to be the

most active Commissioner. He saw his appointment as a break for his

career, one of the few ways in which a young, conservative Republican