C.A.A. Savastano's Blog, page 9

The OSS: History and Documents

Inspecting the foundations of the modern historical American intelligence system and its military origins reveals the influences that created the Office of Strategic Services from which all later intelligence groups would evolve. Additionally noted are some resulting power struggles between civilian and military departments about the policies and future path of American intelligence.

The Past American Century continues its Allen Dulles review

Historian Mike Swanson and author Carmine Savastano return to complete their prior study of former Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles in another look at the whether he was the a legendary spymaster or merely presenting the crafted image of one.

The Bi-Partisan American War Machine

An increasing expansive budget, repeated calls for military escalation, bipartisan love of political pork, and expansive benefits have fueled an expanding war machine that presents there will be no end to government-authored violence without public demands for reason.

The Past America Century reviews Allen Dulles

Historian Mike Swanson and The Past American Century podcast return with author C.A.A. Savastano to discuss the historical successes and failures of Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles. They consider whether he is truly the mastermind of lore or perhaps his legend is founded upon less than substantial evidence.

Who controls Covert Action?

The Past American Century podcast is back featuring a discussion with author C.A.A. Savastano and historian Mike Swanson. They review US covert action operations while considering if decades of official and public debate and restructuring have diffused responsibility so much that no official or government agency completely does.

JFK 201 The Military Establishment

Authors Carmine Savastano and Larry Hancock join your host Chuck Ochelli to discuss some notable people, structures, and conflicts among the United States military's establishment. These subjects and other related facets of the Kennedy assassination are discussed and debated.

Intelligence Media Matters

Discoveries in the latest and prior releases of the official files are repeatedly evolving our understanding of related historical matters. Yet one thing remains ever the same, the ability of some news media to spotlight aspects of a matter that often distract from the greater questions and instead cast aside the substantial for the salacious. In some cases people directly act as knowing advocates for official agendas and more often a government can utilize a person for their purposes without the subject knowing it occurred. Insightful members of the public should not just question a media personality's ideas, but also the original source of the information they promote.

Commentator Gordon Barton McLendon owned Dallas radio station KLIF and was broadcasting during the assassination of President Kennedy. McLendon as a youth gained the notice of journalist, CIA contact, and later publisher of "Life" and "Time" magazine Henry Luce with a political essay submission. He subsequently served as a broadcaster on Armed Forces Radio and became an intelligence officer in the United States Navy during WWII. Following McLendon's wartime duty he completed a law degree at Harvard, moved back to Texas, bought a financial stake in the radio station KNET, and subsequently decided to develop his own station KLIF in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas. The business soon expanded to hundreds of stations carrying the KLIF lineup and McClendon established Liberty Broadcasting System with his father. The pair won awards for their sports casting talents and repeated on air innovations such as mobile news broadcasts, all news stations, and radio jingles.i  

Gordon B, McClendon

In nineteen fifty-two, Gordon provided business cover for a CIA contact agent in Japan under Project DKMIKADO but his past "fraud, duplicity, evasion, and an indiscreet moral life, i.e. heavy drinking and extramarital activity" gave officials pause when considering further use.ii The Agency was likely not actually concerned with morality but that he possessed questionable loyalties and his negative acts would further compromise his possible utility. These flaws could provide an enemy intelligence group means to blackmail him, convert him, or embarrass the CIA and thus in nineteen fifty-two the Office of Security's Staff C Special Security Division denied requests to use the business executive with his knowledge.iii iv During nineteen fifty-three, another document purported no further interest existed for McLendon's use and officials should close his file.

McLendon during the intervening years reportedly established friendships with both mafia connected nightclub owner Jack Ruby and CIA officer David Atlee Phillips. By nineteen sixty-five he owned several radio stations and in the wintry months of December became a witting asset of CIA Project WUENTREE. McLendon according to another Central Intelligence Agency file states he was a consistent "witting collaborator" or someone aware of his or her intelligence relationship with government officials. In May of nineteen seventy-two McLendon met with an unnamed Agency staff officer to explore additional ways he could serve his government. Some often mention his rich past as a broadcast pioneer but his frequently unmentioned association with the Central Intelligence Agency and frequent promotion of official narratives is notable as well.

Author James A. Bishop

One rarely observable instance of media collaboration with government officials is when leaders directly help authors supporting government positions. For example, they might edit the content of a book about the Kennedy assassination to aid someone who supports them. While some might be skeptical the Federal Bureau of Investigation was actually fact checking a book in nineteen sixty-eight for a private author, that is precisely what occurred. Author James Alanzo Bishop wrote "The Day Kennedy Was Shot" a minute-to-minute account of the Kennedy assassination guided by later FBI assistance. Prior literary successes would render Bishop a well-known and respected author and his book about the Kennedy assassination became useful vehicle for American intelligence officials.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation spared no effort to help Bishop enlisting its Intelligence, Laboratory, and General Investigative divisions to review his book for errors and useful adjustments. FBI Assistant Director Albert Rosen in one document provides the page-by-page series of suggested corrections to Bishop's novel akin to a media consultant and notes, "The FBI and FBI personnel are favorably mentioned on numerous occasions."v I would imagine this pleased J. Edgar Hoover due to his penchant for pushing favorable information and propaganda to burnish the FBI's image and consequently feed his vanity. Yet this confirms some officials guided another notable member of public media and claims the book was unbiased seems futile based on the evidence. Some officials it seems will take nearly any underhanded method for a matter of grave importance.

UPI’s Robert KorenGold

Lee Harvey Oswald was himself too caught within a feasibly expanding net of intelligence related media in Moscow upon his arrival in nineteen fifty-nine. US Embassy Second Counsel Richard Snyder had interviewed Oswald, embassy officials suggested a local hotel, and staff member John McVickar would inform reporter Priscilla Johnson to interview Oswald at the suggested hotel where she also resided. Snyder would subsequently tell investigators he "may" also have told United Press International reporter Robert Korengold about Oswald following the latter man's arrival.vi Snyder verifiably consulted local intelligence sources and questioned Korengold if he possessed information about Lee Harvey Oswald but the reporter had none.

Reporter Aline Mosby

Similar to McVickar and Priscilla Johnson, Richard Snyder informs Korengold, and the UPI reporter attempts to secure an interview Oswald. The defector refuses an interview but not one to accept defeat easily Korengold would contact his fellow UPI reporter Aline Mosby and she would succeed in obtaining an extensive interview with Oswald akin to the one Priscilla Johnson conducted. Similar to Johnson's interview Aline Mosby would reinforce the idea of Oswald having emotional issues about women, his mother, and that he did not possess any deep understanding of Communism.vii One subsequent media interview featured Mosby offering, "Lee Harvey Oswald struck me as a young boy full of bitterness and hate, someone not too well educated, certainly not a brilliant person. I would say he was extremely superficial, very immature, and very misinformed." With this reinforcement of the broad portrait first begun in the reports of Priscilla Johnson, Mosby would establish the misguided loner Oswald legend despite that her path to him was crafted by intelligence. The Embassy would additionally inform reporter A.E. Goldberg who himself attempted to interview Oswald but like Korengold failed to obtain the defector's consent. Oswald presumably had a media presence in the Soviet Union following his arrival because American intelligence related personnel were freely distributing his name to the press.viii

Intelligence groups have and will utilize members of the press and authors to propagate their agendas, but such propagation requires creating "independent" media to garner maximum effect. Molding the perception of the public is a business and ethics or unbiased reporting hinders some people's attempts to benefit professionally. It seems there is no difference between public and official sources that will violate transparent and honest conduct to conceal the origin of media that is formed in part to secure official directives. We should not question just those media sources not in keeping with our preferred ideas but the motivation of all sources without overwhelming evidence.  
Sincerely,
C.A.A. Savastano  

References:
i. David Dary, McLendon, Gordon Barton, Texas State Historical Association, tshaonline.org
ii. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Segregated CIA file, MCLENDON was of covert interest to the Agency in 1952 but was denied security clearance in that year based on a background of fraud, duplicity, evasion, and an indiscreet (sic) moral life, NARA ID: 104-10124-10173
iii. Central Intelligence Agency, File on McClendon, Gordon Barton,  201-79764, pp. 1-18, NARA ID: 104-10177-10220
iv. HSCA, Seg. CIA file, Withheld, December 30, 1965, NARA ID: 104-10124-10176
v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, JFK Headquarters File 62-109060, Section 161, Memo from Rosen to DeLoach Re: "The Day Kennedy Was Shot", pp. 1-12
vi. HSCA, Seg. CIA file, Staff Notes, No Title, (n.d.), pp. 23- 24, NARA ID: 180-10141-10489
vii. Ibid, pp. 26-27
viii. Ibid, p. 25

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The DGI Revealed

Join historian Mike Swanson and author C.A.A. Savastano to discuss the operations, membership, and origins of the Cuban DGI intelligence group. Documents and discussion reveal the undertakings of this assumed minor group revealed in declassified documents to be more prominent that some expect.

The DGI

Offered for your review is a recent addition of the Primary Evidence Collections that features new research, evidence, and extensive information about the Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence. It presents the historical structure, leadership, relevant documents, and useful resources to support additional public research.

Killing the Wrong Revolutionary

Raul Modesto Castro Ruz and Ernesto “Che” Guevara during 1957

During the Cold War the United States government spent tens perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars seeking the death of their greatest perceived Communist nemesis in the Western hemisphere, Fidel Castro. He was everything business interests and corporations feared, a formerly rich person who embraced violent populism, nationalization of industry, and overturning the established order of Cuban society for communal doctrine. Years passed and the foretold implosion of the Castro regime failed to materialize due in part to widespread popularity and the brutal repression of dissident voices. This left a stark enemy camped just less than one hundred miles from the United States and Castro began to dominate the imagination of several anti-Communist leaders. Yet what if Fidel Castro was not the true Communist influence but instead just the dominant ego of the regime, what if all those failed plots were not just a costly series of failures but failed targeting the right Castro.

The chance for amicable relations between Cuba and the United States following the Cuban Revolution in nineteen fifty-nine seemed more likely in the early winter of that year. According to one document, President Eisenhower had appointed a replacement Cuban Ambassador to smooth over relations and prevent the prior officeholder's support for the defunct Batista regime from affecting diplomacy. When the Eisenhower administration's new ambassador met his diplomatic counterpart, the American president hoped for an "ever closer relationship between Cuba and the United States."i International relations seemed poised to make significant progress in the wake of Cuba's revolution if these two governments located common ground.

Richard Nixon and Fidel Castro “NEGOTIATED” in 1959

Regrettably, a meeting between Fidel Castro and American Vice-President Richard Nixon seemed to initiate a dramatic slide in diplomatic relations. "Castro left the meeting convinced that Nixon was hostile towards Cuba. Nixon's impression of Castro's Communist beliefs led him to recommend President Eisenhower take measures to quash the Cuban revolution. According to the recollections of Ambassador Bonsal, Nixon perceived the situation to be so serious that he advocated an active role by the CIA in providing arms, ammunition, and training of Cuban exiles for use against the Cuban government."ii These suggestions would form government policy in the following decade as more unlikely and exotic methods to dispose of Castro proved beyond the ability of related leaders.

On repeated occasions in the early days of his power, Fidel Castro stated that Cuba was "neither Communist or Capitalist, while his brother Raul Castro clearly and specifically identifies the Cuban revolt with the previous Communist government of Guatemala". The Central Intelligence Agency prior in nineteen fifty-four overthrew the fallen Communist allied government of Jacobo Arbenz held in esteem by Raul Castro on the orders of Eisenhower administration. Raul also told public media that he admired Communist leaders such as China's Mao Tse-tung and that capitalists were the common enemy of Cuba and other Communist aligned nations. Yet not everyone in the CIA believed Nixon's claim that Fidel Castro represented the primary communist threat.   

Leo Cherne was an economist, lawyer, advised nine United States presidents, and was a Central Intelligence Agency adviser. During nineteen fifty-nine, Cherne reported in one of his many political journals that Fidel Castro was not the organizing force of the Communist rise in his government. Castro's relationship with the Eisenhower administration had soured but he was not yet avowedly communist. Conversely, his brother Raul Castro was steeped deeply in the Marxism that later defined Cuba's new government. Cherne advised that Raul's place in Cuba's developing society were "misunderstood and underestimated". "Although Raul's influence within the Revolution is not new, his public emergence as the real organizer of the government is significant." While Fidel Castro operated as the supreme leader of the regime, he left the details of establishing and implementing desired laws to his brother.

Fidel tasked Raul with selecting key appointments in the government that included the Cuban president, armed forces leadership, and government control of land reforms. These land reforms would include the nationalization of foreign businesses that seized all the holdings multiple powerful corporations. While undertaking a consistent political doctrine under Communist tenets, Raul additionally used his political influences to remove or intimidate political moderates into compliance with his ideology. The younger Castro brother was effectively manipulating a growing discord with the United States that Nixon had so foolishly began. Cherne notes, "Whether Fidel Castro fully realizes it or not, he had by now all but lost the ability to balance off Raul's power by backing moderates or middle class figures." The CIA adviser clarifies the Castro brothers have differed in policy before such as when Raul launched a military invasion of Panama and his forces kidnapped United States citizens without consulting Fidel. The Cuban Premier did not support Raul's brazen move and he ordered the immediate withdrawal of all forces. By curtailing this and other dangerous gambits the more pragmatic Fidel understood a powerful enemy nation might crush the infant revolutionary government if sufficiently incited.

Failures of policy and the compelling desire to strike at this potential threat overwhelmed most contending analysis. While Fidel was publicly opposed to training outside expeditionary revolution forces abroad, Raul supported the development of such forces in Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. The older brother previously insisted on just the exportation of revolutionary ideas, Raul instead was committed to the "export of revolutionary muscle." Fidel at one event joked, "If anything should happen to me...you will have my more violent brother to contend with."iii It may be the Congressional testimony of a former leading Cuban military officer to the United States government took the rightful Communist suspicion from Raul and transferred it to a more visible figure.

Leo Cherne visits US President REAGAN during the 1980s

The analysis of Leo Cherne after visiting Cuba multiple times in nineteen fifty-nine states that former Cuban Air Force Chief Pedro Diaz Lanz labeled Fidel Castro a Communist distorted the matter. Diaz Lanz following his defection was prevented from giving information to intelligence organizations for confirmation until after his testimony to garner maximum effect in the press. This public intervention by America "at the hands of Senator Eastland, who is an open admirer of Dictator Trujillo" was a serious mistake diplomatically. "Nothing could better suit the Latin American Communists or more impede the work of U.S. Embassies or the State Dep't." Unfortunately, the subsequent American government policy targeting Fidel Castro using assassination was more akin to the interventionist activities favored by Raul. This undoubtedly led Fidel to embrace his brother's call to purge capitalism from Cuba and consider all nations supporting it as their lethal political enemy.

The American State Department did not appreciate Cherne's unvarnished appraisal of developments in Cuba that did not conform to popular government sentiments. When CIA representatives consulted the State Department on Cherne's upcoming report they replied thinking "it was a good idea for Cherne to make an honest, factual report; however, that they would like to have him, in his report, stick as close to Department policy as possible." Official haste to protect departmental policy would force Cherne to minimize some of the useful information and the primary mover toward Communism in Cuba would remain hidden.iv This disastrous miscalculation would feasibly realign the perceived status of which Castro brother was the primary Communist threat.

A CBS news program debating the slide of island nation into a Communist dictatorship featured Cuban delegate to the United Nations Carlos Lechuga who declared, "Cuba is rapidly becoming one of the most solid democracies of the hemisphere."v The Castro representative states despite "the mass executions" that followed Castro's ascension in the early days of his rule it was not true that opposition voices were suppressed. Additionally, popular "reforms" of the Cuban government included the violent or financial disruption of opposition press along ideological lines.vi Each unlawful act verified the worst claims about Castro while distancing any chance of finding common ground. While Cuba under Castro was indeed not yet a declared communist state, the island was never a functional democracy following the introduction of state approved domestic purges.

Attempts by the United States to interfere in Cuban interests against some popular reforms, retaliatory actions of the Cuban government, and the poor diplomacy between national leaders set further political gears into motion. As the arrest, torture, and execution of Cuban dissidents continued Raul Castro visited Moscow on a diplomatic mission and Ernesto "Che" Guevara declared in the press "the Revolution was on the road set by Marx" and seemingly this path in Cuba became nearly inevitable.vii The same year the Eisenhower administration increased economic trade pressures on Cuba and authorized Nixon's suggested arming and training of Cuban rebels to overthrow Castro. The Central Intelligence Agency employed Mafia leaders to consider assassinating Fidel Castro and things quickly spiraled into a series of repeated failed undertakings that became a legendary example of official skulduggery.

Cuban President Raul Modesto Castro in 2009

American leaders chose embracing clandestine operations in spite of useful opposing intelligence analysis to the great detriment of policy. Why did they ignore repeated signs indicating not Fidel but Raul Castro was the seeming Communist threat guiding Cuba to a political conflict with opposition governments? Administrators wasted a colossal amount of resources, agents, and years in futile assassination efforts and the Bay of Pigs nearly sparked a war. If they had been successful in their limitless desire and Raul Castro had assumed power in the shadow of his politically martyred brother, how many people in both nations would have died in the resulting violence for killing the wrong Castro?
Sincerely,
C.A.A. Savastano

References:
i. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Segregated Central Intelligence Agency file, No Title, p. 1, National Archives and Records Administration Identification Number: 180-10142-10396
ii. Ibid, p. 3
iii. HSCA, Seg. CIA file, Reel 4, Folder B, Cherne-Conte, Cherne, Leo, Urgent report on Cuba, August 1, 1959 pp. 1-2, 1994.03.09.09:22:49:750005
iv. Ibid, Telephone Conversation with Leo Cherne, July 27, 1959, pp. 1-2
v. Ibid, "Is Cuba Going Red? Pat II", May 28, 1959, p. 4
vi. HSCA, Seg. CIA file, No Title, p. 2
vii. Ibid. p. 4

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