307. Memorandum From Gordon Chase of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0
SUBJECT
- Cuban Coordinating Committee—Covert Operations
The Cottrell Committee held a meeting on Wednesday afternoon to discuss covert operations. Secretary Vance, Dez FitzGerald, Bob Hurwitch, and Joe Scott attended.
1. Propaganda Inciting Cubans Within Cuba to Attack Soviet Troops
The Committee discussed the program outlined in the attached document1 and agreed to recommend it to the Special Group. These attacks will be useful since they will tend to exacerbate relations between every Cuban and every Russian in Cuba. Besides, the Communists are doing the same thing to us in Vietnam.
There was an interesting discussion about where to stop regarding Cuban attacks on Soviet troops and installations. The general consensus was that it was O.K. for individual Cubans to attack Soviet troops or installations (e.g. throw a grenade over the camp fence) but that it was undesirable for groups of Cubans to organize attacks against the Russians. Dez FitzGerald pointed out that, under present circumstances, any action which requires organization is highly dangerous. Also, the Committee felt that the organized attacks would initiate wide-spread reprisals [Page 751] by the Castro government; this was not generally considered a good thing.
2. Shipping Sabotage—Limpets
Dez FitzGerald brought up again the issue of attaching limpets to Cuban ships; this had been turned down by the Committee on Monday2 because of the possibility that the limpets would sink a ship. Dez said that, upon further reflection, he felt we were giving up a good thing; also, the danger of a sinking was a very small one. Dez went on to say that he came away from Wednesday’s meeting with the President3 with the feeling that the President would like some noise level in our sabotage program for morale purposes; limpets fill the bill.
Secretary Vance was reluctant to submit the limpet plan to the Special Group on Thursday. Instead, he suggested that the limpet plan be included on the list of major sabotage acts which is due to be submitted to the President next week. The Committee agreed.
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Cuba, General, 4/1-4/20/63. Secret; Eyes Only. A handwritten “(p.m.)” was placed after the dateline on this memorandum.↩
- Memorandum from Cottrell to the Special Group, April 3, entitled “Propaganda Inciting Cubans Within Cuba to Attack Soviet Troops.” (Ibid.) See the Supplement.↩
- April 1; see Document 306.↩
- No further record of this meeting has been found.↩