The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 21 (22)

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0:00 Okay, Renee, I'm going to give you a speaker real quick to make sure this is working because people just keep dropping out like used to happen all the time. Let me know if you get the speaker request. No, I guess you don't see it. Oh, there you go. Okay, good. You can hear me? Yes, all good. Okay.

0:42 All right. All right. I don't know what's going on, but there was an update today to X and I loaded the update and it's been working weird. So we're going to go ahead. There's Bridget. Let me get her up here. Okay. Yeah, I threw you the co-host, Bridget, so we can get started. There she goes. All right.

1:19 For those of you who may be following along on the book, we're on page 231, and we're in the chapter, Another Black Hole of Calcutta. So we begin, and we're almost done with this chapter, by the way. We'll be into the next chapter here during this hour. We start with President Eisenhower, and we're talking about the Cuba preparation for the Bay of Pigs.

1:49 There were lots of leaks, according to the author, during the Eisenhower administration. The repeated recasting of the operation and the OAS, which is the Organization of American States, that combined organization that represents the Western Hemispheres, complete rejection of sanctions against Havana. They didn't want to go along with it.

2:19 Bilateral trade became one area where Eisenhower pretty much had his say. Eisenhower beamed at the performance of Bob Anderson, coordinator of US economic actions. In mid-March of 1960, the US revoked export licenses already issued for the sale of helicopters. Two months later, Eisenhower terminated all existing aid.

2:50 In July, he dramatically reduced the quota for Cuban sugar after amendment of the law permitted such revision. In other words, they're orchestrating an economic war against Cuba because he can't get the OAS.

3:09 to go along and basically cut off Cuba from all of the Western Hemisphere. So they're just going to directly attack, even if it means having to change the laws and change trade agreements that they had already had in place. On October 14th, Fidel completed nationalizing the Cuban sugar industry. The administration answered by embargoing almost all trade.

3:41 Political relations deteriorated. Twice during 1960, U.S. Ambassador Philip Bonsall, B-O-N-S-A-L, was recalled from Havana for consultations. After Castro demanded withdrawal of half the embassy personnel, the U.S., on January 3, 1961, broke diplomatic relations. And again, this is 17 days before they're going to change administrations.

4:11 The final message from Jim Noel's CIA station in Havana went out that afternoon, reporting his code materials had been destroyed. The rupture of relations occurred after the Cuban project expanded yet again. The new concept aired in Allen Dulles' office the week after the 1960 presidential election, so back in November of 1960.

4:38 envisioned a conventional amphibious landing. Now, what's important about this is, remember, we learned a long time ago in the study that in order to lock in the new president, they will conduct all kinds of operations from election day of a compliant president, which Eisenhower certainly was.

5:01 up until the new president comes in so that the new president is forced to go along with whatever operation that they're initiating. The Cuban exiles could establish a beachhead, declare a provincial government, then call for American help. That was the plan. The plan for an invasion went to the 5412 group on November 16th. Again,

5:31 just a week after, a couple of weeks after the new president was elected. President Kennedy was briefed during this period of time. Eisenhower made no final decision, but he demanded expedited preparations, put everything on a fast track.

5:59 At the meeting on November 29th, which included many of the same people who sat on the 5412 group, he questioned the boldness and imagination behind the project, given the necessity for plausible deniability, as well as whether actions were effective. The president repeated the concerns of William Pauley, who had complained to Eisenhower about the size of the operation and the political character.

6:30 of the Frente, which was kind of the name of this front. Polly, a presidential crony, sided with E. Howard Hunt's view of exile leadership being, quote, too far to the left. Eisenhower showed his unhappiness.

6:52 Referring to the transition, he said he did not wish to be in a position of turning over the government in the midst of a developing emergency. If a developing emergency existed, no fault lay with the Eisenhower's intelligence overseers. More than three dozen 541-2 group meetings touched on Cuba between the project's approval and the end of the Eisenhower administration.

7:22 which is very rare. From November 1960 on, eight to 10 of these involved detailed discussions of the future Bay of Pigs operation. On December 8th, the CIA mounted a full-scale briefing. Jack Hawkins described this conventional invasion option, including the latest developments. Hawkins detailed a concept, including an amphibious landing.

7:53 On the Cuban coast, preceded by airstrikes to seize and hold a beachhead. Then draw dissident elements to join up, hopefully triggering an uprising. There could be extensive air preparation, up to 100 flights a month for many weeks. Some of them included bombing missions. The landing force would be heavily armed unit of

8:21 600 to 750 exiles with U.S. training and equipment. Frank Egan described the Cuban force at Camp Trax and its superior motivation and leadership. Egan felt these exiles would have no trouble extracting a heavy toll on Cuba's larger forces. The 5412 group issued no formal approval but encouraged the CIA to continue preparation. The agency complained,

8:51 of the Pentagon's foot dragging, specifically the refusal of special forces personnel for temporary duty in training. It was true. Since August, the Office of Special Operations, which advised the Secretary of Defense on covert operations, had been registering objections to the operation. Both Graves, Erskine, and Ed Lansdale was very critical of the overall operation.

9:21 And that's weird because Lansdell loves these things. Lansdell was especially upset in his comments to Undersecretary James Douglas, who represented the Pentagon at the Cuba meetings. In the discussion on December 8th, Douglas agreed to recommend a release of 27 special operations advisors, but made clear that the Pentagon in no way supported the CIA's plan.

9:53 Many of these other books all said that the Pentagon did not view it as viable in any way. Lansdale spoke up, but Allen Dulles interrupted to say he was not a principal in the committee. In other words, Ed Lansdale was representing the Pentagon there, but he wasn't sitting in the official seat, so he wasn't allowed to talk. Undersecretary Douglas countered.

10:23 that the group should listen to him. Months later, when CIA Airboss Stan Beerly told an investigating panel that the agency had had to fight for every single thing it got out of the Pentagon, the complaint really referred to Lansdell and his colleague, Fletcher Prouty. Again, because they didn't view it as viable. Eisenhower worried about synchronization among U.S. agencies.

10:54 Eisenhower's November meeting, he created a coordination panel with senior officials from the State Department plus one from the agency. The conversation took place immediately after the president spoke to William Polly, who had wanted a single coordinator and proposed himself for the job. So William Polly wanted to be the commander of the Bay of Pigs invasion. That's crazy. Instead, Eisenhower went for a panel.

11:25 And anybody that's ever worked, especially in military operations, panels, multiple people being in charge is the first sign of failure. You can't do an operation with a panel of people. Somebody has to be in charge if there's any chance for success. The State Department had nominated Whiting Willauer. Richard Bissell chose Tracy Barnes.

11:55 On December 7th, the president approved. These men handled everything related to ATE. Willauer, the chairman, who had done so well in maintaining the Honduran base for the CIA Guatemalan coup, was recalled from Costa Rica, ostensibly as the special deputy to Thomas Mann, the assistant secretary for Latin America. He usually took the CIA side in every single.

12:26 dispute. The special group itself continued to furnish overall guidance. So in other words, Thomas Mann was pretending to be in the State Department when he was actually operating on behalf of the CIA. At Willauer's first meeting with his focal group, the ambassador's vision emerged as even more expansive than the CIA's. Now again,

12:59 We've said that the State Department is an extension of the CIA. This illustrates that point perfectly. You have an ambassador serving as the head honcho for a covert operation. He wanted 5,000 to 10,000 volunteers to train in the US to get rid of Castro. A Pentagon representative was aghast. Willauer also called attention early.

13:32 On the skimpy air side of the project, his experience with civil air transport was illustrative to the meeting. The leaders of the secret war gathered again on January 3rd, 1961 to discuss progress as well as the rupture of diplomatic relations with Cuba. Richard Bissell reported that Yedgorius wanted CIA forces out of Guatemala by March 1st.

14:03 The exiles' own morale would suffer if they didn't see action soon. The time problem also applied to the OAS, observed Willauer. American bases, unacceptable to Eisenhower, were the only suitable alternatives. No one spoke of the difficulties of CIA's Miami base, the ineffective aerial supply, the lack of visible strengthening of resistance in Cuba.

14:31 or the continuing popularity of Castro. And no one was talking about the deep division among the exile leaders. Participants instead emphasized their confidence in the troops, even though they were squabbling among themselves. Gordon Gray mentioned a report calling the Cubans the best army.

15:04 in Latin America, meaning the Cuban exiles. Although he saw some equipment shortages, Lyman Lemesker, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed with all of them, even though the people on his staff did not. Within weeks, frustrated, these wonderful exile troops would mutiny. President Eisenhower summarized,

15:35 Two reasonable alternatives were to support the Cubans to go in March or abandon the operation. Exactly seven days later, the New York Times published an account of Cuban exiles training in Guatemala. Did the president bequeath his successor a developing emergency? Yes, he did. Eisenhower's presidency ended with the Cuban project in mid-course.

16:04 But during his final months in office, and especially after the election that Kennedy won, Eisenhower had sparked a remarkable surge in preparation, including a much expanded operational concept. Then he left JFK to choose between the tough alternatives Eisenhower had summed up on January 3rd. Only two days before Kennedy's inauguration, Eisenhower's counsels

16:33 were still grappling with problems that could only be passed on. The horns of the dilemma were even clearer then. Whiting Willauer wrote a memo on January 18th that explicitly said the Cuba project might not succeed under existing plans. That to proceed assumed the U.S. stood ready to intervene.

16:59 At the conclusion, and this is the day after Eisenhower's famous speech and the day after the CIA had killed Patrice Lumumba, by the way, January 18th, Willauer wrote an infamous memo that basically said this likely was not going to work and the U.S. needed to be prepared to intervene, meaning the military.

17:26 Don't you love those memorialized memos? Kind of reminds you of the Obama administration. We did everything by the book. The next morning at the last Eisenhower-Kennedy meeting of the transition, Eisenhower turned Cuba. According to Clark Clifford's notes, the president insisted that the U.S. had to support to the utmost those who struggled against Castro.

17:54 And that responsible action meant to do whatever's necessary. They've boxed JFK into a corner and they had every intention of using military forces. The plan depended on it. The post-mortem conducted later by a panel under General Maxwell Taylor.

18:19 concluded that it had been incumbent on the president at the latest by November or December of 1960 to make basic decisions as to how far the U.S. was willing to go. By not confronting that choice himself, Eisenhower left questions history has yet to confront openly. Rather, given events that

18:44 actually took place on Kennedy's watch, the JFK forthright acceptance of responsibility, historians have repeatedly presented the Cuba fiasco as a JFK failure. Not an Eisenhower failure, but a JFK failure, even though they all knew it would fail. Kennedy's people implicitly trusted the secret warriors. Eisenhower

19:12 had been at the apex of the secret war for eight years, he knew better. He knew that almost every one of his successes were almost a failure. He knew the difficulties the 5412 group was having, the CIA's penance for avoiding implementation reviews once approval had been given, and the conflicts between the military and civilian intelligence agency. JFK knew none of this.

19:42 Eisenhower knew the status of Project ATE and its specific problems. Until the moment JFK took his oath, Eisenhower could have shut down that project with a few words. He didn't. The declassified records of the Cuba meetings during Eisenhower's final months revealed the arguments given Kennedy were well rehearsed. Many knew the weaknesses of the CIA plan. Castro's forces were clearly more powerful than the exiles.

20:13 would ever be. The point had also been noted by the State Department on January 3rd and most recently by Will Auer on the 18th of January that American forces would have to back up the invasion. They knew it. They were counting on it. The condition for success simply had not been created. Eisenhower's stated motive to counter a leftist or

20:40 communist Fidel Castro evolved despite the lack of Cuban diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. They had none. He was not a communist, definitely a socialist, not a communist. Actual exchanges of Cuban and Soviet diplomats occurred only during the summer of 1960 when the CIA already had the project in motion. The rise of U.S. hostilities in many ways resembled the tragic

21:12 Eisenhower had permitted to develop toward Nasser in Egypt. The preemptory choices for covert action, dismissals of the foreign leaders' words and deeds, and almost willful refusal to understand their positions. He understood them perfectly well. They were not going to be bought off by the US government. Therefore, they had to go.

21:40 The net result put America on the wrong side of its own advocacy of national self-determination. Covert actions to impose regime change, even if successful, also put Washington in a bad position to insist America stood for democracy. The question of direct American involvement in ATE and Pluto also illustrates the control system gone awry.

22:07 That no American were to be involved in combat remained a fundamental assumption. After the fiasco in Indonesia, it is doubtful whether Eisenhower would have accepted any direct involvement. But before the end of his administration, Americans were flying with the Exiles Air Force and the CIA officers were commanding the rebel landing ships. Eisenhower told Max Taylor,

22:36 just weeks after the Cuban operation went down, that he held no responsibility. He had never approved any invasion. Two years after Kennedy's death, Eisenhower repeated the claim in the interviews and in his memoirs, Waging Peace. He had never approved a plan because the exiles never had been unified political, had never had a political unifying leadership. That's just...

23:06 flat out bullshit. The fact that he didn't give the final go, he led every effort up until the change of administration. And this was planned for that particular purpose. According to Eisenhower, there had been a program, but no plan. That's a lie. He had already been presented the plan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff

23:34 underlings had already argued it was dumb in his meeting in front of him. This recollection is supported by his son and other White House staff members. Of course it is. Yet the date on the CIA's plan for a conventional invasion of Trinidad, Cuba is December 6th, 1960. There was a D-Day too, March 1961.

24:08 as well as a specific timetable for the invasion-related events. So he had, in fact, approved a plan. It wasn't a program. It was a plan. It had dates. Eisenhower's memory is only technically correct because he didn't give the final go. He personally participated in numerous deliberations about the Cuba.

24:43 He also was actively sitting in, which is not his normal mode. He always sent his representative for plausible deniability. But he had set in on these planning sessions for the operation. This threw his plausible deniability out the window. He had actually pressed for action. He did approve an invasion dependent scheme.

25:14 and he knew that JFK would have to execute or cancel it. Eisenhower also knew that Kennedy lacked a detailed understanding that might have guided a decision to cancel it because it was all withheld from him. Eisenhower, not acting to halt the operation, essentially gave it its approval. At numerous meetings, Gordon Gray remembers the president repeated one of his mantras.

25:44 Now, boys, Ike would say, if you don't intend to go through with this, let's stop talking about it. Eisenhower did not take his own advice. Within months, the result would crash atop the Secret Warriors' enterprise like a ton of bricks. The Cuba operation almost never came off, and in every way, it would have been better had it not.

26:10 Each day, Castro grew more entrenched and his militia more numerous. Each day, the exiles lost a little credibility. But Jake Esterling and his bosses, aware of the stakes, had no intention of moving against Castro until their exile force was prepared and the U.S. military trainers reached camp tracks only late in the game. Jake Hawkins

26:38 a solid on-the-ground evaluation of the Cuban force. General Lemitsker could say whatever he liked at White House meetings, but his were paper assessments based on figures or equipment. Hawkins and Esterling realized that many of the Cuban weapons had just been issued and the exile unit, swollen every day by new recruits, no longer actually met U.S. military standards.

27:08 Agency trainers like Napoleon Valerino and William Buckley knew a lot, but lacked the up-to-date awareness of the professional military standards. Without special forces trainers, the CIA believed their Cubans would not be set until the fall of 1961. The Cubans thought themselves ready and viewed American higher-ups.

27:38 as suspicious, and they had their own doubts about whether they were actually committed, especially their Filipino trainer, Valerino. Exile veterans often romanticized this Guatemala training phase. The truth was different. The Cuban pilots resented the handling of air operations and their exclusion from the base's social club. The failures of flight

28:09 to the resistance lowered morale even more. And if you guys remember, we've covered this before, but they had set up basically like an officer's club at the training air base, but the Cuban pilots weren't allowed in, just the American pilots. And they were pissed off about it. A number of the American airmen staged a strike to protest. They were taken away, not to be seen again.

28:43 Wow. At Camp Trax, the Cubans also abhorred their conditions. The American trainers lived in the plantation hacienda at the top of the hill, and they basically lived in these newly built barracks that were just bare minimum like slave quarters. The training necessarily remained perfunctory until the weapons were distributed.

29:12 On January 13th, Lieutenant Colonel David Crowe finally arrived with 40 Special Forces soldiers. Meanwhile, divisions sharpened between exiles from the student groups and those of the former Cuban military that are now Cuban exiles. When the Cubans tried to elect their own leader, the Americans insisted on selecting him instead. The CIA chose

29:39 Jose Pepe San Roman, an officer of the old Batista army trained in the US at Fort Benning. You know, the home of School of Americas. He was one of theirs. And that shows you just how close the CIA was with the Batista government. So this is a known guy to them. And again, some of these Cuban exiles.

30:08 had actually been part of the revolution against the Batista government. And here the CIA is putting one of those people that was responsible for the repressive government of Batista in charge of the Cuban expats. That's dumber than dirt. San Roman had led a military revolt against Batista and had been imprisoned. But that didn't excuse him.

30:38 in the eyes of the expat community because he had been part of the Batista government. When the CIA saw as ensuring a professional cadre, many Cuban exiles viewed against a very principle of democracy for which they wanted to fight. You know, like electing their own leader. Nope, you're not allowed to do that. While TRAC's boss, Colonel Frank, Army Lieutenant Colonel Frank Egan,

31:08 was in Washington, the exiles had it out. San Roman assembled the brigade, told the men they would be going to Cuba under his command, and asked those who did not wish to follow to step right. Almost half of the existing force, 230 men, including every person in the planned 2nd and 3rd Battalion, took the step. Egan returned to face protesters' demands.

31:37 In interviews and oral history, many participants pass over this January 1961 near mutiny. In his book account of the Bay of Pigs, CIA contract officer Grayston Lynch fails to even mention the mutiny. Francisco Molino of the 2nd Brigade is the one exception, but he remembers some problems in Guatemala as the coup against the effort.

32:08 Battalion Commander Hugo Surio describes events simply as political turmoil at the camp. Francisco Hernandez, another 2nd Battalion participant, recalls fearing that their officers were taking CIA orders, not those of the Cuban political leadership. And that was what caused the trouble. Yeah, because you're doing a CIA operation. They're in charge, not you. That's what you signed up for.

32:40 A hundred exiles remained adamant even after mediating a working arrangement. The agency, among other things, agreed to banish trainer Valerino, whose role had much diminished anyway with the arrival of the special forces. That's the Filipino guy that Ed Lansdale had worked with in the Philippines. Cuban holdouts were kept intense for two weeks during the raining season, you know, as punishment. Then Howard Hunt,

33:12 and several other political leaders visited tracks and extorted them. The FRD people told the men the CIA were there to help, disguising the degree to which, in fact, the brigade existed as a CIA creation. In a political move, Jose San Roman resigned, re-enlisting as a private. Egon defended Pepe and reinstated him as the brigade commander.

33:43 A dozen hardcore people that had refused to participate were sequestered. In fact, they were kept prisoner until the Cuban operation had ended. Pepe San Ramon gradually gained the confidence of the rest, even those who had seen him as a Batista stooge. The CIA selection had been a good one. Manuel R. Time,

34:13 resident political authority of the FRD and liaison with the Americans also helped in the controversy. It had happened for reasons that had everything to do with what made ATE a CIA project rather than an exile movement. Meanwhile, the exiles suffered their first training casualty. Carlos Rodrigo Santana

34:41 Recruit number 2506 fell to his death during a march through the mountains. In memory of him, that's how they came up with the 2506 Brigade. So Felix Rodriguez, the guy that we talk about all the time because he's another Forrest Gump guy of Gladio, he was a member of Brigade 2506. And the name of that brigade comes from Carlos.

35:10 rodriguez santana who was killed during training and his serial number or exile number was 2506 san roman commanded a force that eventually totaled 1400 men beginning with the second battalion battalion the brigade units were success um successively um trained in intensive

35:43 warfare. The brigade contained six small battalions and a heavy weapons group. Men of the first battalion trained as paratroopers, getting up at three or four in the morning for even more strenuous exercises. The fourth battalion made up a small armored force of M41A2 tanks.

36:09 Plus trucks mounted with .50 caliber machine guns. The tank detachment actually trained at the U.S. Army base at Fort Knox and never met their comrades until the invasion. So, hey, you guys all get on this airplane. We're going to fly you to Fort Knox and we're going to train you at Fort Knox on how to tank maneuver. And then you're not going to train with the people who's actually going to be working with you on the invasion.

36:40 until the invasion. Brilliant. The weapons unit contained 4.2 inch mortars, 3.5 inch bazookas, 57 and 75 millimeter recoilless rifles. The battalions ranged from 167 to 185 men, somewhat fewer than a standard rifle company in the U.S. Army. There were also a commando force

37:10 under Nino Diaz of about 168 men who would make a diversion at another point on Cuba's coast just before the main landing. They too trained separately, as did the brigade frogmen in Louisiana. Landing craft crew trained in the Florida Keys and or Puerto Rico, both places. So you're training all of these people all over and they're only going to come together to do something.

37:40 at the event, which is ridiculous. Finally, there was an Exile Air Force under the command of Major Manuel Villafanta. The air group numbered more than 150 Cubans and an equal number of Americans, both as air crew and support roles. The combat element consisted of 16 B-26 bombers and air transport units of

38:09 eight C-46s and six C-54s. Richard Bissell expected to reinforce the brigade 2506 beachhead once the invasion began. About 500 Cubans gathered in the Miami area and 162 joined the brigade before it left Guatemala.

38:30 The rest would fly into the battle area once the exiles had set up an airbase. The invasion force carried extra weapons for 4,000 volunteers and expected to enlist numerous rebels in Cuba. They don't know who those are, but whatever. Meanwhile, problems with the Cubans seemed to grow daily.

38:55 Besides discussions in Miami and Havana newspapers, a major leak appeared in the New York Times on January 10, 1961, an article by Paul Kennedy. And yet another sign of eroding secrecy. In its January 27, 1961 issue, Time magazine printed a photograph of Cuban rebel aircraft sitting on the ground in Guatemala. The Guatemalan government

39:23 began insisting the CIA Cuban units leave immediately. A different and huge obstacle lay in the fact that Eisenhower no longer commanded the secret warriors. JFK had won the 1960 presidential election on November 6, 1960, defeating Richard Nixon. Had Nixon won, the secret warriors would have no doubt, had no doubt about their Cuba project. Nixon had lacked Eisenhower's

39:53 mastery of the craft of intelligence, but he was an enthusiastic supporter of the entire thing. Kennedy remained an unknown quantity. Dulles did know the new president. He had met JFK in April of 55 in Palm Beach. And that's because, remember, we talked about this in another book, JFK had a house next door to some of Dulles' best friends.

40:23 And that's where they met. He was good friends with Kennedy's father, Joe. Dulles' biographer, Peter Gross, maintains that Allen knew Joe Kennedy mainly by reputation, but Dulles himself insisted in a 1964 oral history with Tom Braden that he knew Joe Kennedy quite well from his days at Sullivan and Cromwell.

40:58 Dulles befriended Palm Beach neighbors of Jack's father. The neighbor's home on North Ocean Boulevard lay next to the Kennedy compound, so Dulles could hardly miss the Kennedys on his visit. Dulles met JFK as the Massachusetts politician was recuperating from an illness. Working on what he said was his profile in Courage book. Dulles knew.

41:28 JFK as a devotee of spy fiction and he knew him well enough that Jackie Kennedy made Allen a present of one of Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels from Russia with Love. Dulles liked it so much he joined the legion of Fleming fans and bought the next Bond novels himself. Of course there were occasional contact with congressman then Senator Kennedy on official business.

41:57 and Alan Dulles, Richard Bissell, and other senior CIA people had also encountered Kennedy on the Washington social scene. Dulles, Bissell, and Kennedy, for example, all shared friendships with newspaper columnists Joe Alsop, Robert Amory, the agency's deputy director for intelligence, had met Kennedy while an undergrad in college. And while they were not close, they were definitely

42:25 had associated with each other. Richard Bissell had his own Kennedy moment, which he speculates resulted from an all-stop comment to JFK. The candidate invited Richard Bissell to a Senate office and asked him his views on a long range of issues. Bissell answered, but made it clear he still worked for Eisenhower and could do nothing of an active nature. Kennedy asked Bissell to give him ideas that might

42:55 be fed into the campaign, according to Bissell. Bob Amory's impression was that Kennedy regarded Bissell as one of the four or five good people in the government. During the 1960 presidential campaign, Allen Dulles briefed JFK on international matters in general, including the Cuba situation, but Kennedy had not been privy to any of the covert operations. As a matter of policy, Dulles

43:27 would later say, quote, I did not brief candidates on secret operations which were destined to come out in the future, unquote. Richard Nixon, not so sure, pressed Allen after his first briefing, admonishing Dulles to tell JFK nothing. Indications are that Dulles had mentioned a covert capability designed to bring political pressure on Castro and the Swan Island.

43:56 operation but nothing more. The reports Dulles sent to President Eisenhower after each of his briefings were sparse on detail and indicated simply inclusion of the subject of Cuba because they don't like putting that stuff in writing. Many years later agency historians preparing a history of presidential candidate briefings said quote

44:22 A search of CIA records has failed to confirm that Dulles briefed Kennedy on the status of the Cuban covert action planning in either of their two sessions held before the election of 1960, unquote. In contrast to the first Kennedy briefing at Hyannis in July, the second took place in an impromptu fashion on September 17th when Dulles interrupted a Georgetown dinner and was asked to meet with JFK.

44:51 and spoke to him privately for half an hour. There could not have been time to tour the world horizon and cover all of the covert operations. And we know he was very stingy with that information because JFK had been in office over a month before he even found out the CIA had murdered Patrice Lumumba three days before he took office. But nothing convinced Richard Nixon this was the case. In mid-October, during the...

45:22 climatic phase of a series of televised debates between the candidate, Nixon denounced Castro in a speech, declared his patience exhausted, and advocated for a quarantine of Cuba. The Cuba issue resounded in the debates in which Nixon painted Kennedy as soft on communism. Responding to the charge on October 20th, the Kennedy campaign put out a statement demanding support for the Cuban freedom fighters.

45:52 blaming the U.S. government for not providing enough support. Drafted by Kennedy aide Richard Goodwin, who had tried to get JFK on the telephone the night before but found him asleep, the statement went out, further enraging Nixon. At their last debate, Kennedy took up the October 20th statement, but Nixon, who later insisted he was trying to preserve the secrecy of an ongoing operation, attacked the position as reckless. He asserted that

46:23 American backing of the exiles would not work. It would be condemned by the UN and amounted to an invitation for Russian involvement in Latin America. Well, in hindsight, although Richard Nixon knew about all of this, he couldn't say it out loud. It definitely did send an invitation to Russia, the Soviet Union to get involved in Cuba because that was the result. Nixon insisted afterward that Kennedy must have known and had stolen a

46:55 march in the debate, forcing him to oppose the administration's actual policy as dangerously irresponsible. Within government, Vice President Nixon demanded to learn what Kennedy had been told about the CIA plan. By his account in his memoir, within an hour, aide Fred Seaton reported to Nixon that Allen Dulles had indeed told JFK.

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, in part, to an unnatural stance adopted regarding Castro. In his book, Six Crises, Nixon wrote that the newspapers had

47:51 reported in July of Dulles briefing JFK about Cuba and that he had corroborated his suspicions by speaking to knowledgeable people, i.e. Fred Seton. On publication of Nixon's book in 62, the Kennedy White House said that two and a quarter hour CIA briefing had not dealt with the Cuba operation.

48:20 battle of press releases, Nixon countered that he had personally researched the matter, adding that Eisenhower's orders had been that Kennedy should be as well briefed as the vice president. There's no record of that, but take that for what you will. In an April 1962 interview with television reporter Eric Severide, Alan Dulles called the entire episode an honest misunderstanding.

48:53 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 approaches were made to Nixon, but did not dissuade him. Dulles told McCone accurately that Kennedy could not have known about the invasion plan because as of the date of the debate, October 20th,

49:23 There was no plan. It would have been adopted weeks later. Nevertheless, Nixon's analysis in the debate itself proved exactly correct. The enterprise he himself had pushed was indeed dangerously irresponsible. Freedom fighters happened to be the exact term used by Eisenhower's secret council to refer to the Cuban exiles.

49:48 As a matter of fact, secret warriors recount that the final weeks before the election, Nixon encouraged a slowdown in the expectation that he would be taken over. Then, having lost, the vice president egged Ike to accelerate the project. Task Force Chief Esterling told CIA interviewers in 1975, I blame Nixon far more than I do Kennedy for the timetable that led to the disaster.

50:17 The flap over Kennedy's Cuba statement was the first of four decisions that in the eyes of history seemed to have taken authorship away from Eisenhower and placed it squarely on JFK's head. The second was Kennedy's action during the final preparation. Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell visited JFK at Palm Beach on November 18, 1960. Now they broached the Cuba project.

50:45 The meeting took place outside near the swimming pool where a big table permitted him to lay out maps. Bissell described the plan for almost an hour, including the invasion, thus Eisenhower's authorship. Bissell recalls the plan as we outlined it to him did contemplate some form of landing of a significant force to act as a catalyst to inducing ultimately a revolution in Cuba.

51:13 The CIA briefing papers note that points prepared for presentation included Eisenhower's original project approval. The political action efforts already underway, the propaganda publications, the radio broadcasts, and a range of paramilitary phases. The briefing included discussions of an early guerrilla phase, a second phase with a combined air-sea assault,

51:40 coordinated with guerrilla activity, and a final phase that provided for an airborne assault on Havana, as well as the contingency for U.S. military intervention if needed. Also, the timing and numbers of men and items of equipment to be sent. The CIA explicitly noted that it did not believe resistance activity in Cuba could unseat Castro without outside action.

52:09 Dulles and Bissell avoided soliciting an approval and the president-elect volunteered none. The CIA officials also spent time discussing covert activities in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Tibet.

52:30 Allen Dulles took Kennedy into the back garden for a private conversation. Bissell stayed on the terrace. Soon after the top bosses returned, Tracy Barnes told E. Howard Hunt that JFK had given a quote-unquote qualified go-ahead. Meanwhile, Kennedy proceeded. We don't know that Kennedy actually said that. This is Allen Dulles' version of it.

52:55 Meanwhile, Kennedy proceeded to rob himself of the machinery Eisenhower had created to control the secret warriors. Kennedy's White House arrangements dismantled the NSC systems. The device of this 5412 group, in theory, was intact. By March, it would have been three sessions. In practice, had taken a backseat to meetings at which JFK personally presided.

53:25 More than ever before, a new NSC staff transacted business directly. Kennedy never consulted Eisenhower's White House staff secretary, Andrew Goodpaster, who had relevant information at his fingertips. Kennedy also abolished the presidential board of consultants on foreign intelligence activities. The entity supposedly intended for intelligence oversight. That was full of the oligarchs.

53:54 that I'm sure JFK was not interested in their input. Finally, in an action with super special impact on interagency coordination for the Cuba operation, on February 8th, the Willauer-Barnes group passed out of existence. So we're not having the ambassador run the operation anymore. JFK swept into office with confidence that belied his narrow electoral victory.

54:24 Although his new frontier offered fresh visions of America's role in the world, real policies on questions like Cuba changed not a whit. Instead, Kennedy eliminated staff offices he thought would stifle action. He did not see the positive value of those institutions. JFK would have no staff senior enough to do things on their own and no board capable of providing a second opinion.

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 young president had a certain ambivalence to it. The secret war went on.

55:20 As before, the difference being the mechanisms established to control it disappeared. They were perfunctory anyway. The CIA did whatever they wanted. But a lot of people make a hoopla about this. The most obvious continuity between Eisenhower and Kennedy was Cuba. The project decisively demonstrated the fallacy of, well, the author's version is that the project.

55:52 demonstrated the fallacy of abolishing controls. Those entities did not control anything because Eisenhower, we've read through this entire book, Eisenhower repeatedly listened to him and did whatever the CIA told him to do, repeatedly. The same with John Foster Dulles and Alan Dulles. They did whatever they wanted. Eisenhower would eventually side with them regardless of what anybody said.

56:21 I think he makes a little bit too much out of that particular point, but whatever. Okay, we're going to stop right there for today. That kind of takes you, I think to me, the most notable part of all of this is how it's like trying to put Jell-O through a funnel. The entire operation is Jell-O.

56:53 The infighting of the ground forces, the hostility in the air forces, and the fact that the Navy forces did not even train with the air or the ground until the day of the event. For those of you who don't know, who have no background in the military, we have joint exercises routinely.

57:19 For this very reason, the doctrine in the army is very different than the doctrine in the Navy, which is very different than the doctrine in the Air Force. And the only way that you meld those together so that they all work seamlessly is by joint exercises.

57:36 knowing what the other people are capable of, what their limiting factors are, so that you can surge one area over the other based on the circumstances that you encounter in warfare. And none of that happened. All of that happened, all of those decisions were made under an Army four-star who was sitting as the president and an Army four-star who was sitting at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyman Lemonsker.

58:05 And under their oversight, this operation was not only created, but allowed to be segmented into stovepipes that were indicative of just how ludicrous the overall plan was. And anybody from a military standpoint that read through the material that we just did said there's no fucking way this is going to work. None. It can't work.

58:35 You cannot have elements of power, be it Navy, Air Force or Army that had never coalesced around a joint mission, let alone practiced it with the existing capability that you have, which was fragmented at best and expect a success. It's literally, I just envisioned Jell-O on a table and then basically trying to funnel it.

59:05 into some form of successful operation. It's crazy. What happened to Bridget? They're just totally screwing with our space today. Let me bring her back up. Bridget, did you get your mic? I don't know. Renee, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. I don't know what's going on. That's really weird. Okay, so I sent it back to Bridget. Go ahead, Renee.

1:00:03 Yeah, it's quite impressive if you think about it, how this little island of Cuba has protected themselves against the big, dumb military giant of the world for over 60 years. And thinking of that and reflecting upon our Operation Gladio journey, has there...

1:00:29 been any other places that stand out to you that did outside of Russia, but that did as good a job as keeping these psychopathic criminals out to create a new satellite, a proxy satellite for themselves? Well, you know that the

1:00:51 China was under attack for 40 years from Taiwan internally in the Uyghur area and in Tibet, reinforced by the CIA. And they all held out, or well, China did against all of that. And I don't know that I would consider them just because of their landmass anywhere near what Cuba was able to do.

1:01:20 Off the top of my head, you had Syria, you had Libya. Both of those countries were under constant, the Assad, both his father and the one that was just deposed. You know, they probably held out the longest. And as far as being in the league with Castro, but of course they eventually fell as well.

1:01:50 Um, so those are the only ones that come to mind that were able to hold off, um, NATO and the United States, um, in, in that, in that kind of, because basically, as we've indicated, we coup just about every government in, um, Latin and South America at some point.

1:02:17 We've done all kinds of crap in Asia. So there's some that basically don't have enough resources to warrant any level of attack, but Syria and Libya come to mind as well as Cuba. That's a great question though. Okay, thank you. Yeah, because it is truly impressive for such a little island. It is.

1:02:49 And again, it really makes you scratch your head that were they really that good or did they serve a purpose? It really makes you scratch your head. True, true. Over the weekend, I really try and learn more of the journey, of this journey with Cuba since the revolution. And it is hard finding, you know, because you put on your Gladio glasses.

1:03:21 And now we have eagle eyes and we can spot the propaganda and the BS so quickly. And it's hard to find information because I'm so curious of the journey they went on internally, like with real Cubans living there to hear their side of the story. But a lot of what I found is very twisted and convoluted and it's got a lot of the outrage and.

1:03:49 from the Cuban exile side and the communism side. It's really hard to find stuff. It is. What would be nice to be able to do at some point is sit down with some of the people that were actually in Castro's government and some of the people that were business owners.

1:04:14 and some of the people that were just the normal Cubans that had to live through it and kind of record all of that and kind of congeal that down into a story that has those different perspectives in it. Because there's no doubt that those people lived in horrendous conditions.

1:04:42 it would be very difficult to, and that's kind of the point that I keep coming back to. You get the impression that, and let's just say that the first several years of the Castro administration was socialism because they were not tied to the Soviet Union initially.

1:05:04 We drive them into the arms of the Soviet Union, just like we did in Chile and all of these other places, the Congo, for some period of time until they kill them, just because we cut them off both politically, economically, and then attack them paramilitarily, if that's even a word.

1:05:29 Is that being done because the oligarchs don't want anyone in the world to know that that type of a system will work? If they're so convinced that democracy is the answer and that capitalism is the best thing since sliced bread, why would you not want to have something that illustrates that?

1:05:58 Besides the Soviet Union, and there's a whole different discussion about the Soviet Union, because we know that the original Bolshevik Revolution was part of the London and Wall Street funding and creation. And in large part served as the boogeyman for the operation that was spawned after that in that.

1:06:25 you know, we could go and do everything because we were quote unquote fighting communism. So just put the Soviet Union aside. What is the problem with having a Chavez in Venezuela and using under his own words, the oil revenue and for the people and by any standard?

1:06:51 whether it was hospitals or education, the literacy rate, whatever. He definitely improved Venezuela. Is there corruption? Yes. But who are we to talk about corruption? I mean, we have one of the most corrupt governments ever. They have been robbing us blind for the last 75 years and before. I mean, since 1913, they've been robbing us blind.

1:07:19 I just find it interesting that it's almost impossible to have a philosophical conversation with anybody because most people are brainwashed. So what would be wrong with having a Chavez in Venezuela use their own oil for their own people and for their welfare and just trade with them, just treat them as a sovereign country?

1:07:46 allow them to exist, if the premise is it's only democracy and only capitalism that works, then why not let them have that and let them fail? According to your own assertions, that's a bad model.

1:08:06 any level of socialism is a bad model. So it's gonna fail. Why not just let it fail? And don't tell me that you care about the people. You've been murdering millions of people all over the world by overthrowing governments and installing military dictators. That's just all bullshit. You don't give a damn about the people. You give a damn about control. And so you almost, the default for me is always, they were petrified.

1:08:35 that one of those models would work. And they weren't going to control the resources if that model worked. And if any of those models worked, they would spread. And then what are they going to do with a narrative that they want to have one world government and we've got all of these other models of things that work in a, like an Indonesia, non-aligned.

1:09:03 um belt of countries that all operate independent of this control mechanism um the whole thing would fall apart and so that's kind of where i end up in the conversation is that they couldn't allow any of these different models to stand they had to be perpetually attacked because it was not fitting in their

1:09:29 one world government in state. If anybody could survive outside of it, then it would set the world on fire of trying to do that. And they adamantly was not going to allow that to happen. Thank you. That makes so much sense. Yes, it would collapse the house of cards. Yes.

1:09:54 That's where I get to. At the end of the day, I end up there every single time. You know, it wasn't about workers' rights. They thwarted every unionization where they offshored all of our jobs. If they offshore...

1:10:08 you know, copper production in Chile, then no, they work people for whatever it was, $1.80 a day. And no unions were allowed. If people tried to unionize, they orchestrated false flags, blamed it on the unions, the legitimate unions. They created their own unions in some cases and orchestrated.

1:10:36 terror attacks on the facilities, blaming the unions, even though they didn't know at the time they were controlled by the CIA. So it was never about the people. It was never about democracy because generally they installed military dictatorships after the overthrow. So at the end of the day, you're left with

1:10:59 They just was not going to allow any country to maintain any form of government, regardless of whether it was a democracy or otherwise with a leader that they didn't control. I mean, how else do you explain them murdering JFK? That had nothing to do with democracy. So anyway, anybody else?

1:11:30 No? Okay. So later tonight, six o'clock my time, I will be on with Crypto Rich again. I'm looking forward to that. That was a hoot to do that last time. I just did a show. I don't know when he'll have it up with Nino Rodriguez, just kind of talking about what's going on a little bit about Iran. It was a very interesting conversation as well.

1:11:59 So if you're interested, you can go look for that. Otherwise, I'm going to jump off here and grab something. Oh, I see Moneypenny. Let me bring her up here real quick, and then I'm going to run. Go ahead, Moneypenny. The Colonel and myself have been exchanging messages back and forth.

1:12:28 just took a light when I saw her first Diego Garcia post. She was on it. The colonel was on it. NATO has just come out and said they have absolutely no evidence that the Diego Garcia actually happened. Obviously, the two missiles, neither of them actually got that close to the island at all. They were deflected, taken down. One of them failed, apparently.

1:12:52 I've just done another post update on it for anyone that wants to see it. I collated. I went through different European, international, Al Jazeera. I went through global press cuttings to look how the rest of the world had picked it up. And I picked up a train of Chinese whispers from the IDF statement that went out onto the broadcast media. That was the only real statement with somebody putting their face up onto camera, willing to actually say it has happened.

1:13:19 There is no radar. There is no documented evidence. Every other missile has had some evidence somewhere in documented form or even a video that somebody has taken and stuck on social media. I think there's a load of baloney. I agree with you. And that's what you see in a lot of these instances where if you sit back and you...

1:13:42 do the research to try, as you just indicated that you had done, I did some light digging into the source of the information. And generally, the initial sources are all media. It's not coming from a government. It's not coming from, it's just media. And it's like some leak and people just run with it. And I think at this point in our research, that,

1:14:10 If that's the case and it's not a government statement, you have to believe that that is fitting somebody's narrative and it is not at all true. It may in some form be a little bit true, but whatever it is they're telling you is not true. And so if you start looking, for most places in Iran, there was no physical way without going over other countries, which again,

1:14:40 all have radar and the ability to shoot things down, that it would have gotten anywhere near Diego Garcia. And so then I just started searching around for who over there has submarines. And of course, if a missile was launched at all, it is quite possible because Israel has a very healthy submarine.

1:15:04 fleet, thanks to NATO. And that certainly is a possibility. But then you start looking around and you can't find any verification from any authoritarian institution that there was actually any tracking of a radar.

1:15:22 let alone it being checked? No, not even the US. Because as you know, most of the US's radar capability had already been pretty much taken out. So the US were reliant on a lot of the Israeli capability of radar. So there's nothing on any US radar source or any tracking source that the US had in the area or anywhere near. In fact, the only radar apparently that is claimed is the IDF. It's completely Israeli claimed. Yeah. And so who does it serve?

1:15:51 to say that Iran is attacking the U.S. air assets that happen to be in Diego Garcia to prolong it. It's in Israel's best interest to say that. Yeah, it was the only justification. Sorry to interrupt, Colonel, but it was the only justification for Trump to convince the whole of Europe.

1:16:13 the whole of NATO and most of the Middle East, that he had justification to effectively go into an illegal military attack. And it's that illegality that stopped the UK initially and most of Europe actually going in and backing him or helping defend their whole move straight. Nothing was legal until they had proof that Iran had the capability to be able to do at that distance an attack on the European cities and obviously in London. And that, Diego Garcia,

1:16:43 false flag, I'm going to call it, would have been the credentials that Trump would have required. And now even NATO has denied there is any evidence of it being possible. I think that might have been why Trump this morning, he took to social media and put out a statement quickly that he was in talks with Iran. Funnily enough, though, Iran immediately denied they were in talks. Well, the people who are

1:17:11 There's many factions in Iran and there's the factions that aren't being talked to because they're potentially not in any way rational as to the nation state of Iran. They're not going to be talked to. I don't doubt that there has been outreach constantly of factions in Iran.

1:17:40 that are more rational actors to try to transition to something that is a sustainable follow-on to Iran. So I don't doubt that there's talks, but the people that controls their media releases weren't being talked to. That's quite obvious. And as we just found out, also, I was reading that

1:18:08 Trump refused to name who they were working with. And then almost immediately, Israel, one of the media sources in Israel named someone who will likely be dead in a matter of hours after the name was released. And I don't have any verification that that's who in fact Trump was talking to, but they did release a name. And all that does is put a target on the guy and escalate.

1:18:36 the stuff that's going on over there right now. So I think the narrative of the Diego Garcia was necessary because I do believe there are people, not just in Israel, but in the United States that wants this to go into basically a World War III and escalate, just like Iraq and Afghanistan. And they needed some impetus to get NATO in the game.

1:19:07 I'm going to call it a false flag of a missile launch that had at least been discussed as having that range certainly has its implication for NATO countries. And I believe it was just an escalatory false flag to give anyone who was sitting on the fence

1:19:34 a nudge to get in the game. So you can see that both the neocons in the United States and anyone that may be neocons in NATO, but not necessarily in charge would all benefit from an escalation, especially the military industrial complex of this situation. And that provided them fodder to put on the fire. Yes, I agree.

1:20:05 Also, as a former journalist, I'd point out that the way the journalists were briefed

1:20:10 they were using a terminology that referred to Diego Garcia. In most publications, they were referring to it as a UK military base. Now, in fact, there are, you know, 40, 42 people that are claimed to be on Diego Garcia that are of British citizenship who are all effectively admin or security type people. They are not, you know, in active military strategic attack or anything.

1:20:39 like that. They are literally people that wander around with clipboards and check what the Americans are up to. It is an American base that has been leased to the United States for decades. They're caretakers. Exactly. Yeah. But it had to go down in the media as being a UK base in the headlines to make it look as though it had suddenly escalated beyond the US. Yes. Yes. That's exactly right.

1:21:09 And that only fits the neocon story. And that's why I was very cautious about viewing that as what everybody was saying that it was at the time. Again, I think that this audience is so better prepared for

1:21:39 anything that comes up to be able to begin questioning official narratives. If you understand that they will literally lie about anything in order to escalate situations into full out killing people.

1:22:01 and they have done it for the last 75 years with zero remorse or accountability, you really, every single day, have to take every piece of information and run it through that filter. Who benefits from this being published at this particular time? And to Moneypenny's point, the terms that they use in their wording of it.

1:22:28 they basically use it to incite emotional trauma on people to get them to react emotionally because people who are emotional are much easier to control. And so if you just analytically look at all of that with no emotional response and dig down into it, look for sources. If it's a media leak,

1:22:56 there is a 99.999 and about a zillion nines chance that it's fake news. But it's very important to understand what that fake news is being printed for because they don't just take up space printing things for no reason. There is a reason why everything is said at a particular time in a particular way. And if you understand,

1:23:27 This history that we've outlaid over the last several years, it's a lot easier to dissect whose interests these particular stories are in. And that's true across the board, both domestically and internationally. So pat yourselves on the back for having trudged all of these years into the depths of depravity with the CIA because you are prepared.

1:23:58 for what is going on right now in a way I don't think most people are. Go ahead, Moneypenny. Quickly, and not really on that issue, John Kiriakou, former CIA agent, does he speak the truth? I've just put a little video that he's talking about Epstein and faking deaths and how the CIA would do it. Is he respected? I don't know, even from Adam.

1:24:24 I mean, there's people who believe him. He's full of shit as far as I'm concerned. I believe he's a gatekeeper. He is out there. First of all, he's too far out there. He's infamously out there. And he does not, first of all, he...

1:24:48 passes himself off as a whistleblower. He is absolutely not a whistleblower. I dissected that. The whole black site waterboarding shit was talked about well before he ever even said a word about it. And he was actually arrested and put in prison for outing another CIA person. It had literally nothing to do with what he claims it was. And if you look at,

1:25:18 how he is being used right now. We have discovered some of the most hideous ways the CIA tortures people and waterboarding makes it look like it's a Boy Scout event. That is so under the peak of the torture that takes place in these black site prisons.

1:25:43 That as far as I'm concerned, I mean, we waterboard all of those. That's part of the whole special forces. You have to undergo that. That is not like the worst torture that could ever. I mean, it's not like pulling your fingernails out and sticking electrodes on your penis or anything like that. That's what they do at these black sites. We've read about it in books of survivors of some of these black site prisons the CIA runs and teaches other countries to do.

1:26:13 he doesn't talk about any of that. If he wanted to talk about how nefarious the CIA was, he'd be talking about stuff that we talk about. He doesn't talk about any of that. He talks about shit that's out there as if he's like some big, you know, revealer of stuff. He hasn't revealed anything. He hasn't ever even talked about any of the stuff we talk about that has to do with the CIA. So I think he's out there to craft a narrative.

1:26:42 And I do listen to some of the things he says. It's very painful to do that for me.

1:26:51 because you can poke holes. It's like watching Felix Rodriguez on Tucker Carlson and taking five notes of the bullshit he said, because about everything out of his mouth was a lie. But I do that. I do that for you guys, just so that I can keep up with where we're going next on the narrative, because all he's doing is narrative. He is not doing anything at all.

1:27:15 in revealing anything. We already know that, I mean, the CIA produced a porno movie of a guy with a mask on dressed up like Sukarno. That's the shit that if somebody wanted to expose the CIA and had a forum like he does, that's the shit you'd be talking about. You wouldn't be talking about this kind of crap now. He talks about shit now with a little bit of history.

1:27:44 taking credit for something he did not do, like revealing waterboard, and then uses that as a springboard to control the narrative today. If he was really about revealing nefarious shit, he'd be talking about the CIA script writing of movies in Hollywood. He'd be talking about them dressing.

1:28:05 up a man having sex with a woman dressed up as Sukarno and using that to blackmail him. They'd be talking about the escorts that they ferried over to Sukarno to try to get him to go to bed with her in Indonesia. He didn't talk about any of that shit. So my two cents. He's a gatekeeper. He's a narrative creator. Thank you for that. Sure.

1:28:36 But I encourage everybody to listen to them because I listen to them with a glass of wine laughing my ass off. That's what I do for entertainment. When you're not driving your nice sports car, how's it going with it, by the way? Oh, it's going great. Yeah, that's all good. I don't get to do too much of that. My husband's taking it to car shows for me now.

1:29:05 And he just stolen it. What? I know. And he did win a trophy at one of them with it. So I just don't really have the time. We're babysitting my grandson during the day. And so I spend my evenings and weekends getting ready for the next week of whatever podcast or reading the next book. I've got like four books stacked up here that I've gotten in the last week that I haven't even cracked open yet. So anyway, it's the life, but I love it.

1:29:36 Okay, so we're gonna get off here so I can get ready for my six o'clock. You guys take care. I will be back. Let's see, it's Monday. So let's look over this week real quick. I don't think we have anything in the way of any of our shows.

1:29:59 Nope, it all looks good. I am going on Thursday with Tim Garner, who is one of the experts in JFK's assassination. And I'm really, really looking forward to that. I'm not sure if it's a live show or if it's something that I will find out from him and let you guys know. But other than that, it's just a normal week with a few extra shows added in there for flavor.

1:30:28 And thank you guys all for helping try to get Tommy's account back for all of you guys that reposted that. He does not have it back yet, but we're still working on it. That's just absolutely crazy. And of course it happened right after Joe Kent called in. So I don't think those are unrelated. Also, I noticed that after I was on that show with him, the activity on our ex account, like...

1:30:57 tanked um so you cannot convince me that um there's not some nefarious people still at x um because they're showing their hand but anyway thanks everyone for being here and i will see you tomorrow thank you take care everybody

Entities here

CIA43 John F. Kennedy26 Cuba25 United States25 Dwight D. Eisenhower25 Operation Pluto25 Allen Dulles21 Fidel Castro17 Richard Nixon12 Richard M. Bissell Jr.10 Guatemala8 José Pérez San Román8 John Kiriakou7 Whiting Willauer7 Pentagon6 5412 Group5 Soviet Union5 Edward Lansdale5 Camp Tzacal5 Fulgencio Batista5 U.S. State Department4 U.S. Army Special Forces4 Frank Egan4 Joint Chiefs of Staff3 Joseph Kennedy Sr.3 Frente Revolucionario Democrático3 Vietnam3 Venezuela3 Lyman Lemnitzer3 Carlos Rodrigo Santana3 Jack Hawkins3 E. Howard Hunt3 Organization of American States3 Napoleon Valeriano3 Felix Rodriguez2 Libya2 Gordon Gray2 Brigade 25062 Sukarno2 Operation Mongoose2

Claims made here

Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered_assassination_of Fidel Castro host_asserted ▶ 2:19

“Bilateral trade became one area where Eisenhower pretty much had his say. Eisenhower beamed at the performance of Bob Anderson, coordinator of US economic actions. In mid-March of 1960, the US revoked…”

CIA carried_out_attack Fidel Castro book_quoted ▶ 5:01

“up until the new president comes in so that the new president is forced to go along with whatever operation that they're initiating. The Cuban exiles could establish a beachhead, declare a provincial …”

Dwight D. Eisenhower funded Operation Pluto host_asserted ▶ 5:31

“just a week after, a couple of weeks after the new president was elected. President Kennedy was briefed during this period of time. Eisenhower made no final decision, but he demanded expedited prepara…”

William H. Pyle member_of 5412 Group book_quoted ▶ 5:59

“At the meeting on November 29th, which included many of the same people who sat on the 5412 group, he questioned the boldness and imagination behind the project, given the necessity for plausible deni…”

E. Howard Hunt member_of 5412 Group book_quoted ▶ 6:30

“of the Frente, which was kind of the name of this front. Polly, a presidential crony, sided with E. Howard Hunt's view of exile leadership being, quote, too far to the left. Eisenhower showed his unha…”

Jack Hawkins trained Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 7:22

“which is very rare. From November 1960 on, eight to 10 of these involved detailed discussions of the future Bay of Pigs operation. On December 8th, the CIA mounted a full-scale briefing. Jack Hawkins …”

Frank Egan trained Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 8:21

“600 to 750 exiles with U.S. training and equipment. Frank Egan described the Cuban force at Camp Trax and its superior motivation and leadership. Egan felt these exiles would have no trouble extractin…”

Edward Lansdale member_of Pentagon book_quoted ▶ 9:53

“Many of these other books all said that the Pentagon did not view it as viable in any way. Lansdale spoke up, but Allen Dulles interrupted to say he was not a principal in the committee. In other word…”

Whiting Willauer headed Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 11:55

“On December 7th, the president approved. These men handled everything related to ATE. Willauer, the chairman, who had done so well in maintaining the Honduran base for the CIA Guatemalan coup, was rec…”

Thomas Massie member_of U.S. State Department host_asserted ▶ 12:26

“dispute. The special group itself continued to furnish overall guidance. So in other words, Thomas Mann was pretending to be in the State Department when he was actually operating on behalf of the CIA…”

Ygorius ordered_assassination_of Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 13:32

“On the skimpy air side of the project, his experience with civil air transport was illustrative to the meeting. The leaders of the secret war gathered again on January 3rd, 1961 to discuss progress as…”

Lyman Lemnitzer member_of Joint Chiefs of Staff book_quoted ▶ 15:04

“in Latin America, meaning the Cuban exiles. Although he saw some equipment shortages, Lyman Lemesker, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed with all of them, even though the people on his …”

Dwight D. Eisenhower funded Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 15:35

“Two reasonable alternatives were to support the Cubans to go in March or abandon the operation. Exactly seven days later, the New York Times published an account of Cuban exiles training in Guatemala.…”

Whiting Willauer exposed Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 16:33

“were still grappling with problems that could only be passed on. The horns of the dilemma were even clearer then. Whiting Willauer wrote a memo on January 18th that explicitly said the Cuba project mi…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered_assassination_of Fidel Castro book_quoted ▶ 17:26

“Don't you love those memorialized memos? Kind of reminds you of the Obama administration. We did everything by the book. The next morning at the last Eisenhower-Kennedy meeting of the transition, Eise…”

Maxwell D. Taylor exposed Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 18:19

“concluded that it had been incumbent on the president at the latest by November or December of 1960 to make basic decisions as to how far the U.S. was willing to go. By not confronting that choice him…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower covered_up Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 22:36

“just weeks after the Cuban operation went down, that he held no responsibility. He had never approved any invasion. Two years after Kennedy's death, Eisenhower repeated the claim in the interviews and…”

Napoleon Valeriano trained Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 27:08

“Agency trainers like Napoleon Valerino and William Buckley knew a lot, but lacked the up-to-date awareness of the professional military standards. Without special forces trainers, the CIA believed the…”

William F. Buckley trained Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 27:08

David Crosby trained Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 29:12

“On January 13th, Lieutenant Colonel David Crowe finally arrived with 40 Special Forces soldiers. Meanwhile, divisions sharpened between exiles from the student groups and those of the former Cuban mil…”

CIA appointed José Pérez San Román book_quoted ▶ 29:39

“Jose Pepe San Roman, an officer of the old Batista army trained in the US at Fort Benning. You know, the home of School of Americas. He was one of theirs. And that shows you just how close the CIA was…”

José Pérez San Román member_of Fulgencio Batista book_quoted ▶ 30:08

“had actually been part of the revolution against the Batista government. And here the CIA is putting one of those people that was responsible for the repressive government of Batista in charge of the …”

Frank Egan headed Camp Tzacal book_quoted ▶ 30:38

“in the eyes of the expat community because he had been part of the Batista government. When the CIA saw as ensuring a professional cadre, many Cuban exiles viewed against a very principle of democracy…”

José Pérez San Román headed Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 31:08

“was in Washington, the exiles had it out. San Roman assembled the brigade, told the men they would be going to Cuba under his command, and asked those who did not wish to follow to step right. Almost …”

Grayston Lynch covered_up Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 31:37

“In interviews and oral history, many participants pass over this January 1961 near mutiny. In his book account of the Bay of Pigs, CIA contract officer Grayston Lynch fails to even mention the mutiny.…”

Francisco Franco member_of Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 31:37

Hugo Surio member_of Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 32:08

“Battalion Commander Hugo Surio describes events simply as political turmoil at the camp. Francisco Hernandez, another 2nd Battalion participant, recalls fearing that their officers were taking CIA ord…”

Francisco Hernandez member_of Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 32:08

CIA removed_from_power Napoleon Valeriano book_quoted ▶ 32:40

“A hundred exiles remained adamant even after mediating a working arrangement. The agency, among other things, agreed to banish trainer Valerino, whose role had much diminished anyway with the arrival …”

Frank Egan appointed José Pérez San Román book_quoted ▶ 33:12

“and several other political leaders visited tracks and extorted them. The FRD people told the men the CIA were there to help, disguising the degree to which, in fact, the brigade existed as a CIA crea…”

José Pérez San Román removed_from_power Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 33:12

E. Howard Hunt member_of Frente Revolucionario Democrático book_quoted ▶ 33:12

Manuel R. Tineo member_of Frente Revolucionario Democrático book_quoted ▶ 34:13

“resident political authority of the FRD and liaison with the Americans also helped in the controversy. It had happened for reasons that had everything to do with what made ATE a CIA project rather tha…”

Carlos Rodrigo Santana member_of Operation Pluto book_quoted ▶ 34:13

Felix Rodriguez member_of Brigade 2506 host_asserted ▶ 34:41

“Recruit number 2506 fell to his death during a march through the mountains. In memory of him, that's how they came up with the 2506 Brigade. So Felix Rodriguez, the guy that we talk about all the time…”

José Pérez San Román headed Brigade 2506 host_asserted ▶ 35:10

“rodriguez santana who was killed during training and his serial number or exile number was 2506 san roman commanded a force that eventually totaled 1400 men beginning with the second battalion battali…”

Brigade 2506 trained Fort Knox host_asserted ▶ 36:09

“Plus trucks mounted with .50 caliber machine guns. The tank detachment actually trained at the U.S. Army base at Fort Knox and never met their comrades until the invasion. So, hey, you guys all get on…”

Nino Diaz headed Brigade 2506 host_asserted ▶ 36:40

“until the invasion. Brilliant. The weapons unit contained 4.2 inch mortars, 3.5 inch bazookas, 57 and 75 millimeter recoilless rifles. The battalions ranged from 167 to 185 men, somewhat fewer than a …”

Manuel Villafana headed Brigade 2506 host_asserted ▶ 37:40

“at the event, which is ridiculous. Finally, there was an Exile Air Force under the command of Major Manuel Villafanta. The air group numbered more than 150 Cubans and an equal number of Americans, bot…”

Richard M. Bissell Jr. headed Brigade 2506 host_asserted ▶ 38:09

“eight C-46s and six C-54s. Richard Bissell expected to reinforce the brigade 2506 beachhead once the invasion began. About 500 Cubans gathered in the Miami area and 162 joined the brigade before it le…”

Time-Life exposed Brigade 2506 documented ▶ 38:55

“Besides discussions in Miami and Havana newspapers, a major leak appeared in the New York Times on January 10, 1961, an article by Paul Kennedy. And yet another sign of eroding secrecy. In its January…”

Paul Kennedy exposed Brigade 2506 documented ▶ 38:55

Guatemala removed_from_power Brigade 2506 host_asserted ▶ 39:23

“began insisting the CIA Cuban units leave immediately. A different and huge obstacle lay in the fact that Eisenhower no longer commanded the secret warriors. JFK had won the 1960 presidential election…”

Allen Dulles member_of Sullivan & Cromwell book_quoted ▶ 40:23

“And that's where they met. He was good friends with Kennedy's father, Joe. Dulles' biographer, Peter Gross, maintains that Allen knew Joe Kennedy mainly by reputation, but Dulles himself insisted in a…”

John F. Kennedy paid Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 41:28

“JFK as a devotee of spy fiction and he knew him well enough that Jackie Kennedy made Allen a present of one of Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels from Russia with Love. Dulles liked it so much he j…”

Allen Dulles briefed John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 42:55

“be fed into the campaign, according to Bissell. Bob Amory's impression was that Kennedy regarded Bissell as one of the four or five good people in the government. During the 1960 presidential campaign…”

Richard Nixon ordered_assassination_of Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 43:27

“would later say, quote, I did not brief candidates on secret operations which were destined to come out in the future, unquote. Richard Nixon, not so sure, pressed Allen after his first briefing, admo…”

CIA covered_up Patrice Lumumba host_asserted ▶ 44:51

“and spoke to him privately for half an hour. There could not have been time to tour the world horizon and cover all of the covert operations. And we know he was very stingy with that information becau…”

Richard Nixon targeted_for_regime_change Cuba host_asserted ▶ 45:22

“climatic phase of a series of televised debates between the candidate, Nixon denounced Castro in a speech, declared his patience exhausted, and advocated for a quarantine of Cuba. The Cuba issue resou…”

Richard Goodwin funded John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 45:52

“blaming the U.S. government for not providing enough support. Drafted by Kennedy aide Richard Goodwin, who had tried to get JFK on the telephone the night before but found him asleep, the statement we…”

Fred Seaton spied_on Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 46:55

“march in the debate, forcing him to oppose the administration's actual policy as dangerously irresponsible. Within government, Vice President Nixon demanded to learn what Kennedy had been told about t…”

Wilton Persons spied_on Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 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 late…”

Richard Nixon funded Six Crises book_quoted ▶ 47:21

Allen Dulles covered_up Operation Mongoose host_asserted ▶ 48:53

“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 p…”

Esterling headed Brigade 2506 host_asserted ▶ 49:48

“As a matter of fact, secret warriors recount that the final weeks before the election, Nixon encouraged a slowdown in the expectation that he would be taken over. Then, having lost, the vice president…”

Richard Nixon targeted_for_regime_change Cuba host_asserted ▶ 49:48

Allen Dulles briefed John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 50:17

“The flap over Kennedy's Cuba statement was the first of four decisions that in the eyes of history seemed to have taken authorship away from Eisenhower and placed it squarely on JFK's head. The second…”

Richard M. Bissell Jr. briefed John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 50:45

“The meeting took place outside near the swimming pool where a big table permitted him to lay out maps. Bissell described the plan for almost an hour, including the invasion, thus Eisenhower's authorsh…”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Cuba host_asserted ▶ 51:40

“coordinated with guerrilla activity, and a final phase that provided for an airborne assault on Havana, as well as the contingency for U.S. military intervention if needed. Also, the timing and number…”

Tracy Barnes spied_on E. Howard Hunt host_asserted ▶ 52:30

“Allen Dulles took Kennedy into the back garden for a private conversation. Bissell stayed on the terrace. Soon after the top bosses returned, Tracy Barnes told E. Howard Hunt that JFK had given a quot…”

Allen Dulles briefed John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 52:30

John F. Kennedy removed_from_power Presidential Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities host_asserted ▶ 53:25

“More than ever before, a new NSC staff transacted business directly. Kennedy never consulted Eisenhower's White House staff secretary, Andrew Goodpaster, who had relevant information at his fingertips…”

John F. Kennedy removed_from_power Willauer-Barnes Group host_asserted ▶ 53:54

“that I'm sure JFK was not interested in their input. Finally, in an action with super special impact on interagency coordination for the Cuba operation, on February 8th, the Willauer-Barnes group pass…”

Lyman Lemnitzer headed Joint Chiefs of Staff host_asserted ▶ 57:36

“knowing what the other people are capable of, what their limiting factors are, so that you can surge one area over the other based on the circumstances that you encounter in warfare. And none of that …”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change China host_asserted ▶ 1:00:51

“China was under attack for 40 years from Taiwan internally in the Uyghur area and in Tibet, reinforced by the CIA. And they all held out, or well, China did against all of that. And I don't know that …”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Libya host_asserted ▶ 1:01:20

“Off the top of my head, you had Syria, you had Libya. Both of those countries were under constant, the Assad, both his father and the one that was just deposed. You know, they probably held out the lo…”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Syria host_asserted ▶ 1:01:20

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 1:01:50

“Um, so those are the only ones that come to mind that were able to hold off, um, NATO and the United States, um, in, in that, in that kind of, because basically, as we've indicated, we coup just about…”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Chile host_asserted ▶ 1:05:04

“We drive them into the arms of the Soviet Union, just like we did in Chile and all of these other places, the Congo, for some period of time until they kill them, just because we cut them off both pol…”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Congo host_asserted ▶ 1:05:04