CASTRO DEATH PLOT LINKED TO '62 CRISIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300510128-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 128
• Publication Date: May 31, 1975
• Content Type: NSPR

THE WASHINGTON POST P- L h-&A Al tR G eO& Q.
By George Lardner Jr..-~ + .,. ..-~.,.- ~ ......... .. .. .."..,., ., .., ..,...,.,.,.,.,~,., . 14 y 0/ 4y/I V&P'aIU
Washington Pose scast.wreer. '-7o
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C Death - of h
A once high-ranking De. G
Tense Department official
said yesterday that he draft
ed contingency plans for
dealing with,.the 1962 Cuban
missile crisis that "may".
have included Fidel Castro's
assassination. .
The former' official, '1Iaj.
Gen. Edward G. Lansdale
0,o /.aly 4.4"S0JLe, &du
Linked to '62 Crisis: K e J y t? F.
High-ranking officials of an Aug. 10, 1962, meeting he know whether President'
the Eisenhower administra-
tion are also believed' to
have been involved in ear-
(USAF-retired), hinted ' Tier assassination schemes.
strongly, but refused to con- A source close to the
firm, that the orders to 'Rockefeller commission,'
draw up the plans came. 'which is Investigating. CIA
from the late Attorney Gen violations of domestic law,..,
An expert in counterinsur were not only repeated high-
gency tactics with long ex- level discussions of Castro's
perience In -South Vietnam -assassination during the
and the -Philippines, Lans- Eisenhower and Kennedy
dale said he was told to do ; administrations, "but there's
"some planning for the Pres- also evidence of overt acts
ident's consideration" about -overt, covert acts, I guess
Edgar. Hoover, then direc-
of the FBI, alerted
tor
Robert Kennedy in May,
how to deal with Castro in 'you'd call them"-to kill the
light of reports that Soviet- . Cuban premier.
made nuclear missiles were One of the schemes, ac-
b b 1 I J
t t
i
t
l
d i
1961, that. the CIA was in-
volved in backstage dealings
with. the Mafia.
A warning memo from
Hoover, sources said, was
apparently prompted by the
FBI's discovery in the fall of
1960 of the CIA-sponsored
surveillance of comedian
Dan Rowan, a rival with
Giancana at the time for the
affections of singer Phyllis
McGuire.
Robert Kennedy reported-
ly responded to the secret
Hoover memo by ordering
that it be "followed up vig-
orously." The Attorney Gen-
eral was eventually briefed
by top CIA officials, ap-
parently in 1962, on what
Giancana and Roselli had
done for the agency.
The Attorney General's
a ou
a
o a
ns
e
n Cuba. . cording to other informed Listed as a top assistant
He said It was quite pos- - sources, involved the CIA's ; to McNamara at the time,
sible that the assassination recruiting of Mafia figures Lansdale was told after the
1 meeting to come up with
of Castro was among the op- Sam Giancana, who had pre- pas he put it, about
tions he listed In a subse. Castro Interests In Cuba, proposals,
quent memo, but he said he and Johnny' Roselli, Gian- ? "what to threatened ith aleader
r
no longer had a copy of the cana's West Coast lieuten- who had do
lives of millions d the
memo and thus could not ant, during the waning
definitely recall whether he days of the Eisenhower ad- cans by placing missiles
Included that in his sugges- ministration. aimed at this country."
tions Although he was apparent- Responding to questions,
Lansdale 'insisted,' how-, ly not aware of any. plot Lansdale said the orders
ever, that "neither President . against Castro, the late J. came not from McNamara
Kennedy or any other Ken- i
nedy ever gave me any or-
ders to -plan the assassina-
tion of Castro." .
"All r was doing was to
try, to respond and come up
with what was practical and
what wasn't," he said in a
telephone Interview. "Who
knows? I might have listed
all sorts of possibilities and
that [Castro's assassination]
might have been one of
them" -
Castro has said that re-
peated attempts were made.
on his life and the lives of
other .. high-ranking Cuban
officials-some of them en-
gineered by the Central In-
telligence Agency-after he
became premier In 1959.
Investigations of the CIA
now under way have also
.compiled mounting evidence
that both President John F.
Kennedy and his brother,
Robert, who were later cut
down by assassins, were well
aware of proposals to kill
the Cuban leader.
of a special group at which
Castro's assassination was
discussed but dismissed.
According to the Associ-
ated Press, the meeting was
attended by then-Secretary
of Defense Robert F. Mc-
Namara; Dean Rusk, then
Secretary of State; John A.
McCone, then CIA director,
and McGeorge Bundy; Presi-
dent Kennedy's adviser- on
national security affairs.
Robert Kennedy, the fifth
member of the special
group, was reportedly ab-
sent.
but from someone muc
more intimate" with the
President.
Asked whether it was Rob-
i.ert Kennedy, he said, "All
the signs point to that, don't
they?" He declined, how-
ever, to. be more precise.
'I don't want to get into
a, sort of smearing thing
ri]it now for any individu-
alsor any political parti-
sans," Lansdale said.
He said he might have
listed Castro's assassination
as a possibility, especially
it I saw a lot of American
lives at stake and casualties
that could run into the niil-
lions." But he said he was
positive that "I never had
any part in planning any
details."
Similarly, Lansdale said
he did not recall to whom
he sent his memo, nor did
only response, one source
said, was to tell the CIA
representatives, "next time.
you deal . with the Mafia
come to me first."
Lansdale was said to have
drafted his plans later, after
Kennedy ever saw it. Lans-,
dale agreed, however, that!
he doubtless dispatched a
copy to the official who told
him to draw up the pla..
nsis
The Cuban missile cris
ended on Oct. 28, 1962, when,
Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev announced that
he had ordered a stop toi
work on the Cuban based
and was having the missiles
crated and returned to the'
Soviet Union.
Lansdale said that none
of his suggestions "came to ,j
any fruition." At the same
time, other accounts suggest
that the idea of Castro's as-
sassination was not at all
new to the White House. ";
Watergate burglar E. How-
ard Hunt Jr., a former CIA:
officer, has said he proposed'
it in the spring of .11)60,;
during the early planning
for the Bay of Pigs invasion.
A former Defense Depart-i
ment intelligence officer, L.,
Fletcher Prouty, has said the
CIA dispatched a two-man
assassination team to Cuba
even earlier than that, also !
while Eisenhower was Presi-
dent. According to -journalist
Tad Szulc, then with The
New York Times, President
Kennedy raised the thought:
with him during a private
conversation in November,
1961. Szulc said he told him
it was a bad idea and quo-
ted Kennedy as responding:
"I'm glad you feel that way
because suggestions to that
effect keep coming to me,
and I believe very strongly
that the United States should
not be a party to political
assassination."
The Rockefeller Commis-
sion is expected to deal with
the controversy in its forth-
coming report to President
Ford. -
P- Pr~pL ~ L . - r..
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C147.62- leod (
Approved For Release 2005/01/11 :CIA-RDP88-013158000300510128-5
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