IP: Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation available on

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff () iconia com>


PRESS RELEASE


February 22, 1998


Contact person: Peter Kornbluh


202-994-7116


 


SCATHING CIA CRITIQUE ON BAY OF PIGS DECLASSIFIED 


Withheld 36 years, IG Report Blasts CIA Handling of Cuba Invasion






Washington D.C.: A key document in the history of covert warfare, the CIA's
own
internal investigation into the April 1961 debacle at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba,
was made public today. The top secret 150-page report, officially known as
"The
Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation," castigates the Agency for
misinforming Kennedy administration officials, bad planning, inadequate
intelligence, treating rebel leaders as "puppets," and conducting an overt
military operation beyond "Agency responsibility as well as Agency
capability."


The report, one of the most tightly held secret documents of the Cold War and
CIA covert operations against Cuba, was obtained after a two year Freedom of
Information Act effort by the National Security Archive, a foreign policy
documentation center at George Washington University. The Archive today
published the document and its attachments on its website
(http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive).


Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive's Cuba Documentation Project and filed
the FOIA request, hailed the release as "an end to a cover-up of history." The
report, he said, was "one of the most important examples of self criticism
ever
written inside the Agency. Had it been declassified years ago instead of
hidden
in secrecy, it would have changed the public debate over covert
operations--against Cuba and elsewhere."


The "highly critical" report, written by CIA Inspector General Lyman
Kirkpatrick in October 1961, after a six month internal investigation, so
offended senior officials that then CIA director John McCone ordered all but
one copy destroyed. The original report, along with angry rebuttals written by
the CIA officials in charge of the invasion, remained locked in a safe in the
director's office. "In unfriendly hands, it can become a weapon unjustifiably
to attack the entire mission, organization, and functioning of the Agency,"
states an attached memo by Gen. C.P. Cabell, then deputy CIA director. 


In a lengthy response to the "black picture" painted by the Kirkpatrick
report,
CIA deputy director of plans Richard Bissell blamed the "political requirement
of deniability" for the invasion failure and held "senior policy makers"--a
reference to President Kennedy--responsible for decisions that compromised the
invasion.


The Archive, in collaboration with Brown University's Watson Institute for
International Studies, has recently published a book of new evidence on the
invasion, Politics of Illusion: The Bay of Pigs Invasion Reexamined, edited by
James Blight and Peter Kornbluh. "The public now has access to one of the most
guarded secrets of the CIA's dark past," according to Kornbluh. "Hopefully,
the


Agency's decision to declassify this and other historical documents
reflects an
new understanding that an informed citizenry is fundamental to a healthy
democracy."




------------------------------------------------------------------------


About the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project


The IG Bay of Pigs Report
(http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/latin_america/cuba/ig_report/index.html)


Today, following two years of efforts under the Freedom of Information Act, a
report documenting the CIA's internal investigation of the Bay of Pigs debacle
was made public. Entitled "The Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban
Operation," the report criticizes almost every aspect of the Agency's handling
of the operation, including the misinforming of Kennedy administration
officials, poor planning, faulty intelligence, treating rebel leaders as
"puppets," and conducting an overt military operation beyond "Agency
responsibility as well as Agency capability."


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Geoff_Goodfellow () Iconia com, s.r.o.  *  tel +420 (0)603 706-558
Vsehrdova 2, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic  *  fax +420 (0)2 5732-0623
"The difference between a rut and a grave is depth"  *  icq # 8448107




********************************
See you at INET'98, Geneva 21-24, July 98   <http://www.isoc.org/inet98/>