CIA Report on Castro Plots

In his Nov. 11 Column Left, Robert Scheer wrote that there is no question that Seymour Hersh was correct in writing that John Kennedy ordered Fidel Castro’s assassination. Scheer cites as support the CIA’s 1967 inspector general’s “Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro.” The report states the opposite of what Scheer and Hersh proclaim. In it, we find the following statement:

“Former Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy was fully briefed . . . on 7 May 1962. A memorandum confirming the oral briefing was forwarded to Kennedy on 14 May 1962. The memorandum does not use the word ‘assassinate,’ but there is little room for misinterpretation of what was meant. . . . It should be noted that the briefing of Kennedy was restricted to Phase One of the operation, which had ended a year earlier. Phase Two was already underway at the time of the briefing, but Kennedy was not told of it.”

Phase One and Phase Two refer to separate prongs of the assassination attempts against Castro. In other words, Robert Kennedy was told only after such plots, which had been ongoing during President John Kennedy’s tenure, had ended. Why would he need to be briefed on these plots after they had ended if he was aware of them while they were taking place? RFK was not told that new efforts were underway to kill Castro. Two pages after this admission, we find the next quite explicit question asked and answered by the CIA itself:

“Can CIA state or imply that it was merely an instrument of policy? Not in this case.” The CIA has admitted flatly, in its own report, that it had no authorization for these plots, that it was not following any expressed policy.

JAMES DiEUGENIO, Chairman

Citizens for Truth About

the Kennedy Assassination

Culver City