The Very Best Men by Evan Thomas

Author:Evan Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Chapter Sixteen

PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY

“They were mad dogs.”

IN 1975, WHEN the CIA was forced to publicly admit to the assassination plots, the senators on the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the Church Committee) were never able to resolve the question of who, if anyone, authorized the CIA to attempt assassinations. Was the CIA acting alone—a “rogue elephant,” as Senator Frank Church at first described the agency? Or was the CIA merely carrying out the orders of the president and his National Security Council? At the hearings officials from the executive branch indignantly swore that neither they nor Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy would have tolerated, much less authorized, such immoral acts. The CIA officials looked pained and exasperated; they were good soldiers, they weren’t going to point any fingers, but really, how could the senators be so naive? The CIA executed policy; it did not make it. Of course, the CIA had obtained authorization. But such things are never written down, nor are they to be ever acknowledged. That is why presidents have secret intelligence services: to perform secret acts that are supposed to be kept secret.1

Without hard evidence it is impossible to know whether Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy authorized the CIA to try to kill Castro. But it is clear from Bissell’s own words that he did not need much authorization to order an “executive action.” As a general matter, Bissell insisted, he was confident that he was always acting with presidential authority. But when he described how he received that authorization, the links in the chain of command begin to look rather tenuous, and Bissell’s own initiative looms larger. No president ever gave the order directly to Bissell. Allen Dulles did approve of Bissell’s plans, but, as noted, they were conveyed in the most “circumlocutious” fashion. Dulles never told Bissell that he had been given authorization from the president. Bissell just “assumed” it, since Dulles made no objection to Bissell’s plan. “I think the president knew, but I don’t know if he knew, and Dulles is dead,” said Bissell. “I just have to assume that Dulles had authority. He didn’t say it.” Eisenhower’s national security adviser, Gordon Gray, strongly denied that the president ever authorized an assassination and insisted that Eisenhower was not the sort of man to engage in “circumlocutions.”2

Eisenhower did press Dulles for “drastic” action against Castro, which may have been code for assassination. And most CIA veterans take it on faith that Bissell was merely carrying out the wishes of the president. But some who knew him and watched him in action are not so sure. “The CIA had an awfully long leash,” said Chester Cooper, a senior official in the DD/I who became the agency’s liaison to the national security staff in the Kennedy administration. He believes Bissell saw authorization in a double negative: “I think the fact that Eisenhower didn’t say ‘don’t do it’ was enough for Bissell.” Thomas Parrott was the CIA officer assigned to the Special Group. Among his jobs was to record all approvals and authorizations given the CIA by the executive branch.

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