Operation Mongoose operation
also: Mongoose, JMATE, Project ATE, the Cuba project, covert paramilitary plan, Cuba project, the Cuba plan, the invasion, Project Mongoose, mongos, Task Force W, the secret war against Castro, Mongoose playbook, quest to kill Castro, covert Cuba team, CIA-sponsored terror campaign, CIA Operation Mongoose, the Cuban project, this operation, JM Wave, Cuban operation, sabotage ops, OFTED
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
CIAintelligence service · 76Cubacountry · 50Fidel Castroperson · 34Robert F. Kennedyperson · 28Edward Lansdaleperson · 26John F. Kennedyperson · 26United Statescountry · 21Allen Dullesperson · 17Richard M. Bissell Jr.person · 14William Harveyperson · 14Miamiplace · 12Ted Shackleyperson · 11John McConeperson · 11Operation Plutooperation · 10National Security Councilorganization · 10Cuban Missile Crisisevent · 9Soviet Unioncountry · 7Robert Amory Jr.person · 7Directorate of Intelligenceorganization · 7Dwight D. Eisenhowerperson · 6Guatemalacountry · 6Brigade 2506organization · 6Richard Helmsperson · 5Joint Chiefs of Stafforganization · 5
Claims (59)
Edward Lansdale founded
Operation Mongoose documented
“The Church Committee report says in November 1962, the proposal for a new covert action program to overthrow Castro was developed. The president's assistant, Richard Goodwin, and General Edward Lansdale, there's that twit again, who was exp…”
▶ Operation Gladio - Vietnam Phoenix Program Part (4) @ 59:44
Edward Lansdale headed
Operation Mongoose documented
“A special group was created to oversee Mongoose, and Lansdell was made its chief of operations. Those operations included assassination, or the favored term, executive action. The memo written by Lansdell and introduced during the hearing i…”
▶ Operation Gladio - Vietnam Phoenix Program Part (4) @ 1:00:10
Richard Goodwin founded
Operation Mongoose documented
“The Church Committee report says in November 1962, the proposal for a new covert action program to overthrow Castro was developed. The president's assistant, Richard Goodwin, and General Edward Lansdale, there's that twit again, who was exp…”
▶ Operation Gladio - Vietnam Phoenix Program Part (4) @ 59:44
Adnan Khashoggi funded
Operation Mongoose documented
“And let me read just this little bit. Khashoggi was directly involved in helping organize and fund the top secret Operation Moses in 1984 to airlift 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel during a famine caused by the Ethiopian civil wa…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Revolutionaries for the Right -Kyle Burke @ 1:26:02
Richard M. Bissell Jr. headed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“At this point, Task Force Chief Esterling returned to Guatemala for one final visit to the camps. As a morale booster, he brought along rebel leader Jose Mera Cardona. The men flew black out of Miami, crewed by some of CIA's Polish pilots. …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 22 (23) @ 29:13
John F. Kennedy removed_from_power
Operation Mongoose documented
“The EXCOMM discussed the operation and McComb personally briefed the landings. President Kennedy and McGeorge Bundy both spoke of reorienting Mongoose. Bobby went to Langley and denounced everyone except Bill Harvey. On October 30th, the Wh…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 26:20
Allen Dulles exposed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Allen Dulles told legislatures about the Bay of Pigs in advance. On March 10th, he appeared before a secret subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and informed the overseers not only of the timing of the original decision, which…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 22 (23) @ 19:25
CIA covered_up
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Plausible deniability remained necessary precisely so that leaders might deny U.S. involvement. At an important forum for world opinion, the U.N. General Assembly, then in session in New York City, a Cuban debate already figured on the agen…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 22 (23) @ 31:47
John F. Kennedy funded
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Successfully overthrow Castro because of his control over his armed forces and the country in general, unless you had an invading force backed up by intervention of U.S. forces, unquote. JFK received the O&E estimate judging time to be on C…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 22 (23) @ 9:04
Ministry of Information (Cuba) exposed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Publication outraged Esserling. Hunt's efforts to sanitize the photos did little to disguise their true meaning. Sets of the pictures even reached the Cuban government. The Ministry of Information gave them wide publication. Oh, the CIA is …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 20 (21) @ 49:27
Allen Dulles exposed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Amori undoubtedly found out. They all got through a capital briefing on January 6, 1961, where Alan Dulles presented the Senate CIA subcommittee some details of the Cuban project. But Amori had no standing to supply reports that might call …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 20 (21) @ 44:59
CIA funded
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“While many agency folks picked up the quote-unquote forward leaning for their lexicon, General Cabell leaves this episode completely out of his memoirs because it makes you look like a freaking idiot. Seaborne supplies had its own difficult…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 20 (21) @ 40:23
U.S. Intelligence Board covered_up
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“And again in February 1961. But without deeper knowledge of the CIA plans, their reporting failed to tell the headquarters element of this operation much of what it needed to know about Castro's capability both against the resistance and th…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 20 (21) @ 45:29
Edward Lansdale managed
Operation Mongoose documented
“Moving on to Chapter 15, where we get into Southeast Asia. Although not cut from the same cloth as Maxwell Taylor, Ed Lansdale also considered himself something of a theorist. Managing Operation Mongoose and backstopping covert actions at t…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 29 (30) @ 39:02
George H.W. Bush member_of
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“At first, a tiny part of Operation Mongoose, the CIA's codename for their anti-Castro operations. According to the late John Sherwood, a top William King Harvey deputy in Washington, quote, Bush was like hundreds of other businessmen who pr…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Prelude to Terror by Joe Trento Chap 2 @ 18:25
Allen Dulles funded
Operation Mongoose documented
“who would assemble other exiles in the Latin community country, after which they would infiltrate Cuba and lead anti-Castro dissidents. This formed the heart of the eventual covert paramilitary plan. Alan Dulles took the anti-Castro project…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 17 (19) @ 4:29
Allen Dulles funded
Operation Mongoose documented
“February 17th, and it became the first one he presented to Eisenhower. Direct action to eliminate Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Dulles met with the president and Gordon Gray. Accompanied by aides, Dulles went armed with schematic drawings o…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 17 (19) @ 10:05
Dwight D. Eisenhower funded
Operation Mongoose documented
“Eisenhower accepted the CIA's Cuba project. Not before some discussion, however. Once Allen Dulles presented the basic plan, Bissell did most of the talking. Bissell, whose skills lay elsewhere, and who had appointed Tracy Barnes as his ass…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 17 (19) @ 25:40
William Pawley funded
Operation Mongoose documented
“And we're going to hire all of our lawyers and bankers that are CIA agents to be the businessmen assigned to this investment entity that is going to do all of this as cover. Money from private sources could also help disguise the agency's h…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 17 (19) @ 24:41
Radio Swan front_for
Operation Mongoose documented
“if we're going to wage political warfare. They were temporarily setting it up in Mexico. The CIA director also went on about how great Radio Swan on Swan Island was with all of their propaganda. Its broadcast had expanded who they were atta…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 17 (19) @ 35:34
Richard M. Bissell Jr. headed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Richard Bissell supplied details. Tracy Barnes, Bissell's assistant, supervised. Richard Helms sat quietly, which was rather out of character for him. Soon Helms stopped coming to project meetings altogether. Beyond his help in drafting the…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 19 (20) @ 21:33
Tracy Barnes headed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Bissell preoccupied on many fronts, spy satellites, a new generation of reconnaissance aircraft, the U-2 affair investigation, to which Bissell had to respond. There were other, oh, and there were other CIA operations going on, you know, li…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 19 (20) @ 28:53
Richard Helms covered_up
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Richard Bissell supplied details. Tracy Barnes, Bissell's assistant, supervised. Richard Helms sat quietly, which was rather out of character for him. Soon Helms stopped coming to project meetings altogether. Beyond his help in drafting the…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 19 (20) @ 21:33
Allen Dulles covered_up
Operation Mongoose host_asserted
“Recently declassified records of phone conversations with John McCone, Allen Dulles' successor, who dealt with both Dulles and the White House during the controversy and advised Kennedy officials on public statements, indicated that private…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 21 (22) @ 48:53
Tosh Plumlee carried_out_attack
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Plumlee is named in several books and articles about the Contra affair, but is only identified by his mysterious pilot name, Tosh, T-O-S-H. In the 1982 book, The Fish is Red, he is identified, although only by his name, Robert Plumlee, and …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Mafia, CIA, & George Bush Part 8 @ 24:30
Victor Krulak skeptical_of
Operation Mongoose documented
“with JFK, and that happened to be Major General Victor Krulik. His assistant was Colonel Hawkins. Both maintained that they were skeptical of covert operations like Mongoose. Despite the Cuban setbacks, the CIA retained solid and growing ca…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner- Presidents’ Secret Wars Chap 12 @ 48:58
Robert F. Kennedy monitored
Operation Mongoose documented
“Only a few officers retired and almost no one was fired. While there was plenty of complaints about the handling of the covert operation of the Bay of Pigs, it did not bring an end to the secret war against Castro. If anything, the administ…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner – Presidents’ Secret Wars Chapter 11 cont’d @ 20:37
Edward Lansdale coordinated
Operation Mongoose documented
“Edward Lansdale served as the Pentagon's contact man for matters concerning Operation Mongoose, coordinating military support as well as arranging for the agendas and keeping the records of the NSD special group, which effectively replaced …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner – Presidents’ Secret Wars Chapter 11 cont’d @ 21:26
Robert F. Kennedy headed
Operation Mongoose host_asserted
“had he not been under attack by the United States. President Kennedy kept his distance from the paramilitary offensive, but his brother Bobby was at the forefront of the operations, prodding the planners to get moving, encouraging action wi…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner – Presidents’ Secret Wars Chapter 11 cont’d @ 34:18
Edward Lansdale headed
Operation Mongoose host_asserted
“the chief of operations task force running Mongoose, with a CIA group under him called Task Force W and headed by William K. Harvey from the new CIA headquarters at Langley. Harvey supervised the activities of Ted Shackley's Miami station. …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner – Presidents’ Secret Wars Chapter 11 cont’d @ 35:37
Ted Shackley headed
Operation Mongoose host_asserted
“I've never been in a base like that. It just blows my mind that that would have been the case. SR-71. Thank you, Colonel. I can add a little more to JM Wave here. One of our favorite names, Theodore Shackley, was the one who headed JM Wave …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner – Presidents’ Secret Wars Chapter 11 cont’d @ 59:59
William P. Bundy member_of
Operation Mongoose host_asserted
“We've never heard of the guy until we stumbled across him. I've never heard anybody talk about him and his name's literally on everything. It's just crazy how often we come across him because obviously he lived down in Miami and he was part…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner – Presidents’ Secret Wars Chapter 11 cont’d @ 1:01:30
E. Howard Hunt exposed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Esterling used his frequent trips to keep the Guatemalan leader humored. CIA contributed to rupturing secrecy. In his effort to recruit Cubans in Miami, Howard Hunt took photos of the forward operating base in Guatemala. Again, OPSEC. The p…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 20 (21) @ 48:57
National Security Council headed
Operation Mongoose documented
“President Kennedy also revamped White House controls. Instead of Robert Kennedy taking the lead, the National Security Council became the direct point of contact. Aspects of the Cuban project figured in EXCOMM discussions in late 1962 and e…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 31:05
CIA funded
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Action that Eisenhower had requested. Immediate activity at CIA headquarters followed President Eisenhower's August decision. The first move became securing a Central American base to prepare the Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs. As Guatema…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 19 (20) @ 18:59
CIA funded
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“David Morales led the paramilitary staff. Jack Corris, C-O-R-R-I-S, took charge of support. Seymour Bolton headed the political action staff. The station eventually grew larger than the one that had supported the Bay of Pigs. Soon, Shackley…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 26 (27) @ 42:47
Ted Shackley headed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Theodore Shackley's JM Wave had 112 exiles on board from the beginning. In addition, it had 40 CIA officers and 39 more co-located at Opelika. At any given time, there was a dozen or more special forces training exile commandos. Bob Moore a…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 26 (27) @ 42:13
Richard M. Bissell Jr. member_of
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“and his first name is spelled E-R-I-C-H. With Von Marbad's endorsement, Shackley, fresh from Vietnam, was assigned to pick up the pieces of the coup plotting in the Directorate of Plans. Shackley worked in Operation Mongoose, made him the p…”
▶ Operation Gladio - Prelude to Terror Chap 5 @ 34:17
Richard M. Bissell Jr. headed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“They knew well enough the signs of an operation gone awry. Esterling's section chiefs assembled on April 9th, right after his return from Guantanamo visit, and just before Hawkins went to Porto Cabanza for the brigade embarkment. Richard Bi…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 22 (23) @ 36:10
Edward Lansdale headed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“for the new Cuba project. In an effort to obscure the project, Halpern looked at a list of code names that had been set aside for Thailand and selected Mongoose. Lansdale became the man of Project Mongoose, planning and supervising this cov…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 26 (27) @ 16:57
Sam Halpern founded
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“for the new Cuba project. In an effort to obscure the project, Halpern looked at a list of code names that had been set aside for Thailand and selected Mongoose. Lansdale became the man of Project Mongoose, planning and supervising this cov…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 26 (27) @ 16:57
Robert F. Kennedy headed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“in order to help Cuba overthrow a communist regime. The Pentagon State Department and CIA were to designate representatives to help Lansdell, and each should have effective operational control over all aspects of their department operations…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 26 (27) @ 17:26
Edward Lansdale member_of
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“instructed the Secret Warriors to proceed in such a fashion as to permit disengagement. General Lansdell would continue as the project chief. The CIA's next day promised to ensure a steady flow of intel on Cuba. This flaw of the Bay of Pigs…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 26 (27) @ 21:23
William Harvey appointed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“reported back that he had told Tracy Barnes that an up-to-date report be furnished as soon as possible on what was going on and what was being planned. Parrott then added, I did not tell Mr. Barnes about the presidential interest. Coinciden…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 26 (27) @ 37:13
Zenith Technical Enterprises front_for
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“or JM Wave by its agency designator. So JM Wave is the operation name, but it actually had a proprietary front company called Zenith Technical Enterprises. The walls were graced with phony charts purporting to display sales and production t…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 26 (27) @ 41:44
Edward Lansdale headed
Operation Mongoose documented
“There were restrictions that RFK had set telling McCone that Mongoose had lots of data but little to show for it. At the time, Mongoose remained mired in phase one. Lansdale worried that the agencies were protecting their interests and that…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 4:54
Robert F. Kennedy approved
Operation Mongoose documented
“A strike force of about 50 commandos would conduct sabotage missions and a wide variety of psychological warfare propaganda and other means would be used to sharpen fears. Lansdell cut back Bill Harvey's prospectus, which had called for sev…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 5:46
Edward Lansdale covered_up
Operation Mongoose documented
“had himself brought up the question of assassination in Russ' office on August 10th. Staff took the Lansdale memo and whited out the offending phrase, but it survived in Harvey's notes to help. In Lansdale's deposition to the Rockefeller Co…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 15:02
Edward Lansdale covered_up
Operation Mongoose documented
“Recollection improved before the church committee where Lansdale testified that the idea had been shot down on the August 10th meeting, but that he had included it in the instructions to Harvey because it might be a possibility someplace do…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 16:20
Edward Lansdale proposed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“Lansdale told the group that half a dozen new raids were planned and another strike on a major target would be added. Some talked of mining Cuban territorial waters. On October 4th, the meeting concluded that more dynamic action was indicat…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 17:46
Edward Lansdale proposed
Operation Mongoose documented
“The only political warfare would trigger a Cuban revolt, he reiterated. He also said that a scheme to have a submarine surface and fire star shells over Cuba for all souls day night igniting Cuban superstitions, that seems to be a favorite …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 18:14
Ted Shackley proposed
Operation Mongoose documented
“Believe fluctuations in go and stop orders over past seven days have been such that we are sitting on explosive human situation, which could blow at any time within the next 48 hours. The station chief reminded the headquarters that his 50 …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 23:56
Desmond Fitzgerald headed
Operation Mongoose documented
“To get Desmond and avoid the impression that a Far East baron had taken a demotion to lead a task force, the Mongoose unit became a DO special staff. Desmond, simultaneously a deputy chief of a division responsible for Cuban matters. Genera…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 30:35
Jacob Esterlin headed
Operation Mongoose documented
“To get Desmond and avoid the impression that a Far East baron had taken a demotion to lead a task force, the Mongoose unit became a DO special staff. Desmond, simultaneously a deputy chief of a division responsible for Cuban matters. Genera…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 30:35
United Fruit Company funded
Operation Mongoose host_asserted
“He was trying to persuade U.S. oil companies to stop refining crude for Castro at their Cuban refineries. Three weeks later, Charles Cabell briefed Vice President Nixon on the developments. Richard Bissell and J.C. King were on hand to take…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 17 (19) @ 31:31
Ted Shackley headed
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“when the Kennedy administration forced the Soviet Union to withdraw missiles from the island. He also ran Operation Mongoose, an anti-Castro intelligence campaign that had been ordered by Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President JFK's …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Twilight of the Shadow Government #8 @ 37:14
John McCone covered_up
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“McCone insisted he protested instantly that he went to Robert McNamara's office right afterwards and reiterated the protest. McCone's special assistant said that he did protest, but not immediately. Okay, let's see. And that no such suggest…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 13:11
William Harvey covered_up
Operation Mongoose book_quoted
“There were commando strikes on Cuban railroads, oil, and sugar refineries and factories. Photographic intelligence expert Dino Bruganini recalls Harvey almost as an enemy, believing that the analysts spied on him. But Harvey lied about resu…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 27 (28) @ 9:17
Lyman Lemnitzer provided_bridge_financing_for
Operation Mongoose host_asserted
“an all-out covert war. You can think of it as an actual war. It was just done covertly. And it had every part of a war footing associated with it. Does that help? Yes, ma'am. Yeah. And so you had, you know, the people like, and keep in mind…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner – Presidents’ Secret Wars Chapter 11 cont’d @ 57:04
Mentions (120)
▶ 18:25
At first, a tiny part of Operation Mongoose, the CIA's codename for their anti-Castro operations. According to the late John Sherwood, a top William King Harvey deputy in Washington, quote, Bush was like hundreds of other businessmen who pr…
▶ 34:17
and his first name is spelled E-R-I-C-H. With Von Marbad's endorsement, Shackley, fresh from Vietnam, was assigned to pick up the pieces of the coup plotting in the Directorate of Plans. Shackley worked in Operation Mongoose, made him the p…
▶ 34:45
that he had recruited for Operation Mongoose. Shackley's team was being ready for a new effort to overthrow the Chilean government. On September 12, 1973, half a year after Helms left, although, let's see, Allende's economy was collapsing. …
▶ 16:04
that he now feared for his security. Wilson had not heard great reports about Rodriguez from Quintero. Quintero had worked with Felix Rodriguez on both Operation Mongoose and on the Phoenix program in Vietnam, but he still thought Tom Cline…
▶ 1:26:02
And let me read just this little bit. Khashoggi was directly involved in helping organize and fund the top secret Operation Moses in 1984 to airlift 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel during a famine caused by the Ethiopian civil wa…
▶ 59:44
The Church Committee report says in November 1962, the proposal for a new covert action program to overthrow Castro was developed. The president's assistant, Richard Goodwin, and General Edward Lansdale, there's that twit again, who was exp…
▶ 1:00:10
A special group was created to oversee Mongoose, and Lansdell was made its chief of operations. Those operations included assassination, or the favored term, executive action. The memo written by Lansdell and introduced during the hearing i…
▶ 1:25:02
Rock chased the 1981 storyline Ice Princess to Operation Mongoose. When that happens, that's so funny. Thank you, Donnie Vision, for doing that. That is hilarious because it is absolutely a soap opera. And you couldn't, if you were to write…
▶ 48:58
with JFK, and that happened to be Major General Victor Krulik. His assistant was Colonel Hawkins. Both maintained that they were skeptical of covert operations like Mongoose. Despite the Cuban setbacks, the CIA retained solid and growing ca…
▶ 27:08
cited the quote-unquote disposal problem to JFK as one reason to go ahead with the Bay of Pigs invasion. Far from disposing of the Cuban contract agents, the operation led to an almost open-ended CIA involvement with the Cuban exiles all ov…
▶ 21:08
Operation was dubbed Mongoose, and it was ongoing. Although NSD directives following the Bay of Pigs made the Department of Defense primarily responsible for advice on activities, its operational role remained minimal.…
▶ 21:26
Edward Lansdale served as the Pentagon's contact man for matters concerning Operation Mongoose, coordinating military support as well as arranging for the agendas and keeping the records of the NSD special group, which effectively replaced …
▶ 23:21
cloaked only by an array of political groups centered in Miami because the operations was being ran out of the United States, you know, where you're not allowed to do any CIA operations. The CIA was compelled to create a liaison with severa…
▶ 29:03
terrorist training camps. And they're still using those people. Those are the people that are being shuttled through Turkey that carried out the attack against Moscow, that theater. They came from Tajikistan. So this model has been used all…
▶ 35:08
committee investigation and returned to tell the exiles that Kennedy was all right. Robertson went on to serve throughout the covert operation against Cuba. Operation Mongoose formally evolved from a list of 32 planning tasks assigned by Ed…
▶ 35:37
the chief of operations task force running Mongoose, with a CIA group under him called Task Force W and headed by William K. Harvey from the new CIA headquarters at Langley. Harvey supervised the activities of Ted Shackley's Miami station. …
▶ 37:06
raids against Cuba after they've already been doing them. One commando struck a power plant and sharp arguments erupted as the Mongoose meeting in October 4th, when John McCone, the new director of central intelligence charged that the NFC …
▶ 37:36
and that no specific action had ever been rejected at the NSC level. The October meeting concluded that more dynamic action was needed. Just 10 days later, the CIA U-2 reconnaissance plane flying over Cuba returned with photographs that sho…
▶ 38:30
who was a specialist assistant for Cuban affairs, recommended having the exile pilots bomb all of the missiles. Now, keep in mind, these were nuclear missiles. Oh, my God, these people are crazy. Using unmarked planes and pretending that it…
▶ 39:35
was not the gung-ho advocate of the covert action that he used to be. On October 30th, the NSC ordered a halt to all Mongoose operations. Lansdale was sent to Miami to close down the operation. There was no more talk, as there had been in O…
▶ 44:47
can be easily determined. In other words, we have all these trained people, are you going to use them or not? The basic decision was to restrict post-Mongoose actions to harassment of Cubans and basically for the brigade to disappear. Only …
▶ 53:59
It's just a matter of time until the proof comes out. So, Bridget, did you have anything? Can you briefly, just for the audience, explain how, you know, JM Wave is covered in here, but the breadth of JM Wave was a particularly nefarious sit…
▶ 54:38
Because it also connected with, as I recall, the schools. I mean, it was not just a matter of trying to push out propaganda. Well, no, J.M. Wade was actually the operation to overthrow Castro. It really had very little to do with propaganda…
▶ 55:40
With the hopes that there are other people that will rise up. And in the midst of the quote unquote civil war that ensues. They're going to install this government that had been in exile. That the U.S. had already recognized onto the island…
▶ 56:37
As soon as he made it clear to them that he wasn't going to allow the mafia back in, nor was he going to allow the oligarchs that had confiscated all the people's land in bullshit land deals. And he was out. And so that operation, JM Wave, …
▶ 59:59
I've never been in a base like that. It just blows my mind that that would have been the case. SR-71. Thank you, Colonel. I can add a little more to JM Wave here. One of our favorite names, Theodore Shackley, was the one who headed JM Wave …
▶ 1:01:30
We've never heard of the guy until we stumbled across him. I've never heard anybody talk about him and his name's literally on everything. It's just crazy how often we come across him because obviously he lived down in Miami and he was part…
▶ 1:07:20
Well, it opens with Operation Pluto. Operation Pluto, when it was discovered what was going on, they renamed the operation to Operation Zapata. That's never mentioned. And then it goes to Operation Mongoose, which is mentioned. So I'm begin…
▶ 3:54
not yet willing to go that far, crossed out King's word elimination, substituting it for removal from Cuba. I'm not sure what the difference is. I mean, I know what it is, but he doesn't want to actually come out and say, because they have …
▶ 19:40
The concept received the code name JMATE. The Pentagon would know it as Project Pluto. The paragraph on military action from Project ATE concept is worth quoting. This is the quote. Preparations have already been made for the development of…
▶ 20:13
together with mechanisms for the necessary logistical support of covert military operations on the island. Initially, a cadre of leaders will be recruited after careful screening and trained as paramilitary instructors. In a second phase, a…
▶ 20:40
to be available for immediate deployment into Cuba to organize, train, and lead resistant forces recruited there after the establishment of one or two centers of resistance. A lot of that actually happened inside the United States, as we we…
▶ 25:10
William Polly had already made. The secret war managers now estimated that the project was going to be $4.4 million. So we've already doubled and we haven't even started. On March 17th in the afternoon, President Eisenhower took the unusual…
▶ 33:34
Cabell expressed general satisfaction with the CIA progress on its covert operation, but warned that Castro's popularity remained very high. Economic warfare would be necessary to make Project ATE work. Around the end of June, Eisenhower to…
▶ 34:33
And they needed more money. By August, Esterling's task force had reworked its plan and presented it in a new memorandum to Eisenhower. The key meeting took place at the White House on August 18th. Present were Alan Dulles, NSC officials, c…
▶ 35:04
the Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson, who coordinated the U.S. trade policy with Cuba, after talk of the U2 affair, which had consumed Eisenhower since May, the group turned to ATE. Alan Dulles cited success in creating the Cuban politica…
▶ 21:01
We're gonna call our debt due and we're just gonna use your country to stage a coup in Cuba. Sure, come on in. The plantation became known as Camp Trax, T-R-A-X. At the offices of the task force headquarters, Jake Esterling listened while A…
▶ 23:32
Helms focused on running clandestine activities, leaving Cuba entirely to others. Bissell, blaming his own managerial style, later expressed regret at not having taken Helms' input more seriously. Unlike Helms, Richard Bissell had complete …
▶ 28:53
Bissell preoccupied on many fronts, spy satellites, a new generation of reconnaissance aircraft, the U-2 affair investigation, to which Bissell had to respond. There were other, oh, and there were other CIA operations going on, you know, li…
▶ 7:13
It so happened, however, that the CIA's WH-4 unit that was overseeing the preparation for the Bay of Pigs, political action chiefs, held opposing views. For Project AET and Pluto, both simultaneously going on, Howard Hunt wanted no M-26 peo…
▶ 29:29
The divided command during Operation ATE and Pluto resulted in competitive relationships that didn't enhance the mission. By then, Reynolds had 160 CIA officers on his roles. Almost half of them were communications people. Many of the rest …
▶ 36:21
flew 11 times to Cuba before registering a good drop. The frustration was palatable. The resistance felt the same. One mission rated successful took place on December 30th. Four days earlier, Miami base learned that one of the CIA trained a…
▶ 36:49
He specified what he needed and how it needed to be packed, as well as the location and the layout of the drop zone. The request went to Esterling, who passed it to Beerly. Approval procedures naturally led to a meeting in General Cabell's …
▶ 37:18
Told the cargo represented a small proportion of the capacity, Cabell ordered the load topped off with rice and beans. Dick Drain, startled, warned Cabell that the plane's task was to deliver the specific items requested. Propaganda chief D…
▶ 37:50
The next day, the headquarters sent word to tell the agent he would retrieve the shipment as he had requested. But the air staff, in cables not cleared through Esterling, added allotments of 80 pounds of rice and beans. 800 pounds, sorry. A…
▶ 38:17
They also threw in 200 pounds of leaflets for propaganda. That'll get you killed, but go ahead and put it in there. When the C-54 flew the mission, the plane lingered too long in the area, showed lights, dropped the leaflets onto the agent'…
▶ 38:49
The agent actually left Cuba in February and went to Miami to denounce the air operation, canceled a follow-up drop, and said that he would not accept any more airdrops no matter what they were sending. So let's unpack that. He's accusing t…
▶ 40:50
Since the project began, boat operations were all improvised. Cubans themselves were quicker off the mark. With Cuban-owned boats, such as the Reefer and Wasp, beginning supply deliveries in September of 1960. Typically, CIA case officers l…
▶ 41:20
or anti-Castro people, or insert agents. They basically contracted out everything. Around November, the agency actually acquired, they bought the WASP from the Cuban owners. In 1960, a dozen Cuban or CIA boat missions took place off of Cuba…
▶ 41:50
and extracted 79 people. Early in 1961, Castro imported fast patrol boats and radars from Russia to stop those activities. Around December of 1960, Castro's FAR became actively involved in major counterinsurgency campaigns against the Escam…
▶ 42:21
the food going to the guerrillas. They were also capturing and killing some of them. By the spring of 1961, the FAR blockade had the guerrillas starving. In all, aircraft dropped almost 14 tons of materials. Perhaps a third actually reached…
▶ 42:55
So Castro knows what's going on. This amounted to very thin supplies. And it was at some point, there was probably rebels wishing the CIA had in fact dropped them the rice and beans, not the CIA agent. Meanwhile, the analytical component of…
▶ 43:27
I'm sorry, I just have to laugh. We don't actually want anybody getting intelligence because we're just creating it. We're making it up to justify what we're doing. We don't need the Directorate of Intelligence involved in an intelligence o…
▶ 43:56
that might even suggest what was impending for Cuba. So again, they may know over here in this office that Castro's on to all of them, but they're insulated by the covert action people because they don't want to hear that because then they …
▶ 44:25
We don't want to hear it. It's like the deaf, dumb, and blind monkeys. The analysts were deemed not to have a need to know about what they were doing. The chief analyst, Deputy Director Robert Amore Jr., went to many of the same Georgetown …
▶ 44:59
Amori undoubtedly found out. They all got through a capital briefing on January 6, 1961, where Alan Dulles presented the Senate CIA subcommittee some details of the Cuban project. But Amori had no standing to supply reports that might call …
▶ 46:00
To cap it all off, the CIA from TRAX, which is in Guatemala, intervened in Guatemalan politics. On November 14th, a number of army officers revolted against Fuentes, who had allowed the CIA into his country. Richard Bissell awoke at 3.30 a.…
▶ 46:55
Bissell cabled Egan on his own authority, permitting the use of CIA pilots, but not any of the Cuban exiles, supposedly, and recalls no evidence the troops were ever used. But President Eisenhower was later briefed that the Cubans deployed …
▶ 48:28
His name they don't use, which is his last name, Fuentes, is easier for me to pronounce, just so that you guys can keep up. All right, President Fuentes survived, and with him, the CIA's privileges in Guatemala. But he became very restive a…
▶ 48:57
Esterling used his frequent trips to keep the Guatemalan leader humored. CIA contributed to rupturing secrecy. In his effort to recruit Cubans in Miami, Howard Hunt took photos of the forward operating base in Guatemala. Again, OPSEC. The p…
▶ 49:56
that we've already been intercepting. We've got airdrops into the mountains to feed rebels. Gosh, I wonder if he was able to figure out they're about to get invaded. In Eisenhower's counsel, after November 1960, it would have been implausib…
▶ 52:40
And everything that's gone wrong. What I find most interesting is most historians will take one piece of the fuckery and concentrate on that saying that it was indicative of all of it. This is the first author that I have seen that took all…
▶ 53:07
All of this had taken place. Dulles knows unequivocally the entire operation is compromised. And again, the place where the intelligence analyst and the intelligence operators, the covert side, meet is at the Cabell and Dulles level. So it …
▶ 54:36
the entire operation's compromised. OPSEC violation, OPSEC violation, OPSEC violation, OPSEC violation, the entire operation is compromised. So if in addition to all of those compromised operational components, you were to be told that Cast…
▶ 55:05
They were doing shit on their own. And the analysts using the U-2 overhead satellite capability would have had intelligence that indicated that. So they would have had intelligence where they were massing their forces. Because again, using …
▶ 47:21
But the CIA director's account, Eisenhower's political wizard, Wilton Persons, phoned and Dulles informed him that he had briefed JFK on Cuba, but didn't mention anything about Project ATE. Nixon later attributed defeat in the 1960 election…
▶ 54:51
No doubt thinking he was moving away from this hierarchy or bureaucracy, JFK exercised direct leadership. He made no changes whatsoever to upper management of the CIA. Project ATE also continued. Though those close to Kennedy insist the you…
▶ 0:40
Where we left off, Bay of Pigs, failure at Playa Garan. And we're on page 242 of Safe for Democracy in this series. Okay, where we left off, the Robert Amory stunned colleagues when he attended one of Kennedy's inaugural celebrations, a Cam…
▶ 1:10
as Fidel Castro. Some secret warriors saw that as a serious security breach, but he didn't care. He had a point to make. Of course, one level of Amory could not break secrecy. As chief of the Directorate of Intelligence, he led a CIA unit w…
▶ 1:36
Roger Hilsman, whom Kennedy appointed to head the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which again is the belly button into the State Department for the CIA, believes that both he and Emory were cut out of the loop on Cub…
▶ 3:42
He also had a lot more experience with invasions than anyone involved in the Cuba Project. In World War II, Amory had been a landing craft operator, finishing the war as a colonel in charge of a whole regiment of vessels. A veteran of 26 as…
▶ 4:11
The actual invasion boss had participated in exactly two. The massive Irojimo endeavor, where the United States had held all the cards and put ashore many thousands of troops in operation in Korea. Amory thought Hawkins, quote, just didn't …
▶ 4:41
but no one consulted him. Amory, far from alone in his views, represented the element at CIA that was skeptical about the Cuba project. Some doubted the internal resistance could cripple Castro. Others questioned the outcome, even if the CI…
▶ 5:14
Another DI unit was the Office of National Estimates, which produced the community's flagship reports, the National Intelligence Estimates. Without bringing it into the circle of knowledge on the plan, Dulles and Bissell asked O&E to assess…
▶ 6:10
The board had long complained that the director of operations did not incorporate intelligence and analysts into the covert planning. Dulles had defended his agency and did so again in January of 1961 meeting, responding that the DO used in…
▶ 6:40
Equally important, there was no evidence Alan Dulles did anything to ensure that it did. Two days after the inauguration, Project ATE received its first airing before a gaggle of officials of Kennedy's men. National Security Advisor McGeorg…
▶ 7:09
went over the Cuba project with eye-opening details. For most of that day, they brought their knowledge that the US had already created a secret army of Cuban exiles. Gray had poster-sized charts and noted that the US participation was expe…
▶ 7:42
President Kenney attended a full dress presentation a week after the inaugural. While his Palm Beach conversation had been exploratory, the White House meeting on January 28th was very specific. He listened, as Alan Dulles mentioned, what w…
▶ 8:12
and went on to say, quote, a great increase in popular opposition, unquote. There's no evidence that that's there. Discussions focus not so much on the invasion plan as on the comparison of that with six alternatives, including economic war…
▶ 8:34
The official record notes the conclusion, quote, no course of action currently authorized by the United States government will be effective in reaching the agreed national goal of overthrowing the Castro regime, unquote. It was very interes…
▶ 9:04
Successfully overthrow Castro because of his control over his armed forces and the country in general, unless you had an invading force backed up by intervention of U.S. forces, unquote. JFK received the O&E estimate judging time to be on C…
▶ 9:31
and State Department preparation for an anti-Castro propaganda plan to be implemented throughout Latin America. He discovered that the U.S. military had not considered the feasibility of Project ATE and directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to…
▶ 9:56
The JCS, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were officially briefed on the CIA's plan for a conventional invasion. This provided for a landing on the south coast near the town of Trinidad and the Escambray Mountains. The Joint Chiefs of Staff offic…
▶ 10:22
military evaluation of the CIA paramilitary plan Cuba. The 17 conclusions of the joint staff paper indicated continuing differences. On one hand, the military judged that if an airdrop was successful, it would take several days for Castro t…
▶ 10:49
On the other hand, the chiefs concluded that the Cuban army could reduce the beachhead. What constituted a fair chance, Gray asked. He put it at best 30%. No one he heard went any higher than 40. Others estimated the chance against achievin…
▶ 11:17
The military's warning implied the need for a rapid breakout from the landing site, but the CIA's own view, articulated by Jack Hawkins in a January 4th, 1961 report to Esterling, quote, policy decisions required for conduct of strike opera…
▶ 11:45
Brigade 2506 should try to survive the beachhead and not break out until the time became opportune for the U.S. to intervene. Indeed, CIA planned to fly in Cuban politicians to form a provisional government while the agency planners arrange…
▶ 12:15
And this is very emblematic of what they did back in the early 1900s when they stole Panama from Cuba. If you read that history, the conflicting views of military and CIA were not reconciled. And President Kennedy now lacked the supervisory…
▶ 13:47
Clearly does not apply to the evening in February of 1961. Bissell brought down the house at this basic get acquainted session, introducing himself by declaring, I'm your man eating shark. But even from this dinner, the secret warriors did …
▶ 14:15
Operation Hake. American intervention remained a sensitive matter. CIA understood the need to disable Cuban air forces that could disrupt the exile landing. Although a program of exile airstrikes had been laid on, the secret warriors knew t…
▶ 15:13
No, the president said emphatically. If there were any problems, the exiles would fade into the hitherland. American forces need not become overtly involved. The next day, Denison received a directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyman L…
▶ 15:46
knew that ATE could not make the planned invasion date of 5 March. Washington delayed it a month. The Guatemalans were asked to accept the delay. The military used this time to send three colonels to inspect camp tracks and other locations.…
▶ 16:57
for the new Cuba project. In an effort to obscure the project, Halpern looked at a list of code names that had been set aside for Thailand and selected Mongoose. Lansdale became the man of Project Mongoose, planning and supervising this cov…
▶ 18:55
Lansdale's authority to give him orders. So he wanted to have the U.S. Information Agency working under Lansdale on this project. A week after Lansdale warned Bobby of his presentation to the special group, when Lansdale actually presented …
▶ 19:25
presented an elaborate proposal. He divided the new Cuba operation into six phases to end with Castro's overthrow. Like an escalation ladder, the phases began with intelligence gathering and proceeded through more strenuous actions. Lansdal…
▶ 20:52
Bundy's doodles and notes reveal that the special group talked over a number of the Cuban exiles ready to fight teams necessary for various operations, their transportation needs, hardware, and then the point when the U.S. might intervene. …
▶ 22:21
Just before the president entered, Lansdale told the group that Taylor's guidelines would preclude success. Taylor emphasized the need to gather intelligence. President Kennedy, as he had done in the Bay of Pigs, shut off discussion of U.S.…
▶ 23:21
During the key mongoose briefing were CIA officers Richard Helms and William Harvey. Lansdell had asked John McCone to let them in, but the CIA director nixed the idea. McCone had made Richard Helms his lieutenant for Cuba, and the new depu…
▶ 37:42
Since January, shortly thereafter, Harvey was also asked to head the CIA's in-house task force on Cuba. On the morning of January 18, 1962, a few hours before presenting Mongoose to the special group, Lansdale sent Bobby Kennedy a note, quo…
▶ 37:42
Since January, shortly thereafter, Harvey was also asked to head the CIA's in-house task force on Cuba. On the morning of January 18, 1962, a few hours before presenting Mongoose to the special group, Lansdale sent Bobby Kennedy a note, quo…
▶ 40:43
It was decided it lacked evidence to conclude that either Eisenhower or Kennedy had ordered an assassination. But scattered in its reports and depositions of the Rockefeller Commission and other documents, the evidence and chronology are hi…
▶ 41:13
Letters for William Walker, the 19th century American adventurer who had cut a swath across Central America. Huh, we may need to look him up. I wonder if he's related to the Walker family of George H. W. Bush. Miami Station went over the co…
▶ 42:13
Theodore Shackley's JM Wave had 112 exiles on board from the beginning. In addition, it had 40 CIA officers and 39 more co-located at Opelika. At any given time, there was a dozen or more special forces training exile commandos. Bob Moore a…
▶ 42:47
David Morales led the paramilitary staff. Jack Corris, C-O-R-R-I-S, took charge of support. Seymour Bolton headed the political action staff. The station eventually grew larger than the one that had supported the Bay of Pigs. Soon, Shackley…
▶ 44:13
a cover measure separating the individuals from any official government connection. And in this case, something that would have applied to hundreds of personnel. Clearly, Mongoose would have had the same deniability problems as the Bay of P…
▶ 45:11
It also violated things like the Neutrality Act, firearm possessions, because a lot of these Cuban exiles were crooks. But we're going to train them how to be terrorists. The frequent task for JM Wave staff became bailing out or otherwise r…
▶ 50:27
The JM wave people reflected the trainees. Shackley's assistant, Thomas Klein, and the CIA men like Rudy Enders, George French, Robert Wall, Edwin Wilson. You guys all remember Edwin Wilson. Holy moly. And Harold Chipman were all paramilita…
▶ 51:57
The station's maritime branch had been described as huge, but the Special Forces Division remained the largest element. On March 12, 1962, Team Cobra infiltrated Pinar del Rio province, creating network active for some time. In June, AM Tor…
▶ 1:00:55
Mary, M-A-R-Y, F as in Frank, E-R-R-E-L-L.org. It's very cool for cryptonyms. And I typed in the QJ win, and there's a bunch of information on it. So it's a great, cool thing for everybody's reference. Yeah, there's several of those charts …
▶ 3:27
Intelligence supports improved from what it had been a year earlier, but continued to have difficulties. Ray Klein, CIA's deputy director for intelligence, after Amory, knew of every aspect of Mongoose, save the assassination plots. Right. …
▶ 3:55
of the CIA, McCone, occasionally took Klein along to meetings. McCone solicited his advice and permitted Klein to discuss matters with his analyst. Although the director of intelligence did not write papers for the project, knowledge enable…
▶ 4:25
And they overlap boundaries between political operatives and those who were supposed to evaluate Castro's chances. You're not going to get any honest input out of people who are trying to overthrow that government. Come on. Diplomatic suppo…
▶ 4:54
There were restrictions that RFK had set telling McCone that Mongoose had lots of data but little to show for it. At the time, Mongoose remained mired in phase one. Lansdale worried that the agencies were protecting their interests and that…
▶ 5:21
He persuaded Bill Harvey and the CIA to prepare a revised alternative course B and then went to discuss it with Bobby Kennedy. The latest plan aimed at strengthening the atmosphere of resistance in Cuba. Teams of three to five fighters woul…
▶ 5:46
A strike force of about 50 commandos would conduct sabotage missions and a wide variety of psychological warfare propaganda and other means would be used to sharpen fears. Lansdell cut back Bill Harvey's prospectus, which had called for sev…
▶ 6:17
did not. They were swayed by McCone, who held out the scepter of the Hungarian revolt and warned that the U.S. would risk another slaughter. In the context of the rapid buildup of Soviet forces already beginning, McCone's argument had merit…
▶ 6:46
Once the exiles were mounting sabotage missions on their own, it became even more difficult to restrain the Cubans that were working on the task force. President Kennedy reviewed the final version of this plan called B-plus and approved it …
▶ 7:15
Then why the hell are we doing it? In early September, the special group approved phase two raids against Cuba. Lansdale's list of tasks had grown to more than 50. But when Harvey recommended the commando strike at a power plant, the group …
▶ 8:14
McComb took Shackley along to see the president. McComb figured that the station chief would provide a view from the trenches. Kennedy asked a few questions, but none of them related to the paramilitary raids. The project peaked in the mont…
▶ 13:55
rears its ugly head again, the paper General Lansdale sent to his agency managers after the August 10th meeting assigned Bill Harvey to write a paper on the CIA's role, listing under the rubric of political, the aspect of splitting the regi…