Office of the Historian

13. Memorandum From the Assistant to the Deputy Director (Plans) for Covert Operations (Barnes) to Director of Central Intelligence Dulles0

Washington, January 5, 1961.

SUBJECT

  • Material for the 5 January Special Group Meeting1

Essentially what we should try to obtain from this meeting is some specific understandings on certain important problems, all of which have been discussed but no precise resolutions reached. We should also report on certain of our plans to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding.

A. Points on which we should report:

1.
The 3 January meeting spoke of increasing the strike force.2 We all agree that this would be useful but we should make it absolutely clear that we are only able to handle the 750 maximum planned. Assuming we get the Special Force trainers, we can be ready by the end of February with, we believe, 750 although it is likely that a number of these will only have been in training by then a very short time. In this connection, a definite understanding should be reached as to:
a.
Where will the additional men (i.e. over 750) be sought? Who will do the recruiting? Where will they be maintained? Who has the responsibility for preparing the site or sites? Who will undertake whatever training is necessary?
b.
In the remaining time, how realistic is it to assume any additional individuals can be obtained? Moreover, since this would become substantially overt and since the U.S. has now broken relations, wouldnʼt it be better to concentrate on some acceptable method of providing military back up with U.S. forces joined perhaps overtly by a few Latin American countries?
2.
We have started to prepare the Puerto Cabezas strike base since it is absolutely essential that we have a strike base and since the Nicaraguan base is the only available one if we cannot use some U.S. base.
3.
We are presently contemplating resupply (after the strike landing) from Puerto Cabezas and from Guatemala. We should have, however, a U.S. base for this purpose. Authority to do so is needed [Page 22] immediately in order to get ready but if this is impossible at least authority to settle on which base could be used if later approved.
4.
We are planning to move to Puerto Cabezas substantial amounts of material starting around the 15th or 20th of January including aviation ordnance, resupply ammo and weapons for ground forces, aviation gas, diesel fuel, and possibly some extra one-man packs. Should we delay longer, there is a danger that we might not be able to get the needed inventories in place in time. It should be recognized, however, that in making those moves, we are risking a possible loss of the inventories since Somoza will unquestionably take them over if they are not used as planned. Consequently, if there is any likelihood that ultimately U.S. bases may be authorized, these preparations would result in a substantial increase in our costs as the inventories will roughly have an estimated value of about $1,500,000.

B. Issues which we should clarify with the State Department:

1.
There has been a lot of talk about bi-lateral arrangements with selected Latin American countries in order to get them on our side. Work on this should start immediately particularly now that there has been a break in relations. We are prepared to help on this. With whom should we work, what countries will be involved and what will the approaches to these countries consist of and when will they be made?
2.
For sometime now it has been agreed that a post-Castro regime should receive economic aid from the U.S. Definitive decisions as to how much and what kind should be reached very soon and plans made as to how it may best be announced since an announcement will clearly give a strong political boost to any provisional government.
3.
A number of issues regarding the provisional government must immediately be decided.
a.
It has been stated that such a government will be recognized but it has not definitively been indicated that there are no legal objections.
b.
When will it be recognized? We still believe that it should not be recognized until it is in place or about to be put in place on some Cuban real estate.
c.
Who should be in the provisional government and how should they be selected? In this connection, we believe that the U.S. should retain control of designating the individuals, at least the two or three leaders of the original junta, leaving the expansion to these individuals and such selection process as the times may produce.
d.
Precisely what benefits will recognition of a provisional government provide, i.e., presumably it will mean support both in equipment and men to defend any Cuban real estate held by the provisional government (on an analogy to the recent U.S. action in support of Nicaragua and Guatemala).
e.
Will it mean overt U.S. support to enable the provisional government to extend its control over the rest of Cuba by overcoming Castroʼs forces?
3.
Who has the responsibility for doing something about Trujillo and what will be done? Again, the time is very short. We had a program approved last week but it is not one that can move rapidly enough to meet the kind of time schedules discussed on 3 January. Figueres has been invited to come to Washington as soon as possible.

C. Issues which we should clarify with the Defense Department:

1.
The top levels of Defense should make it clear in appropriate places that we should obtain full and rapid cooperation from the services on matters requested through General Erskineʼs office. We are happy to work with Erskineʼs office but the actual support must come from the services and the channels have been very unclear and consequently slow in a number of cases. This could be clarified if the Secretary or the Deputy Secretary of Defense could call in an appropriate representative of each of the services together with a representative of Erskineʼs office and direct them to take the responsibility to see that appropriate requests are rapidly supported. The case of the Special Force trainers is a ghastly example of how things can go badly.
2.
Is there any need for us to work with appropriate Defense elements with respect to post-strike support which may be needed?
C. Tracy Barnes3
  1. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, DCI Files: Job 85-00664R, Box 2, Vol. III, Part IV. Secret.↩
  2. See Document 14.↩
  3. See Documents 2 and 3.↩
  4. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩