INTELLIGENCE GAP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000500120014-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 30, 2003
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: April 5, 1963
• Content Type: NSPR

enc hra
tone of the most' Its statements yet made
ebogt the coptlnui ban. controversy came re-
cently from 'Rep, `e ,rge Mahon (D.Tex.), chair-
Mn.an of the " House military appropriations sub-
Between Sept. 18 and 21, reports told of offensive; there were no apologies. (Nor is there the slightesta
missiles near San' Cristobal, 100 miles west of official admission now that any-of the four knew';
Havana. But it was not until Oct. 14, McNamara. what they were talking about. Yet the, patterni
admitted, that a U-2 finally was gent over a "spe-' appears to be repeating itself. Congressen are
cific flight path" in the San Cristobal area and pointing to testimony by the head of the CIA, by,
revealed the sites, the assistant secretary of state for inter-Amerlean'
Far] in the fall, while the administration;,affairs, and by the army intelligence chief, to;
e Cuba more is bein turned angrily denied the existence of Soviet missiles, a pwerfulafortressoand is being used as a basetfor
number of private citizens and critics of the ad- the export of communism -something President
ministration charged that Russia was turning.Kenn@'d.y, a few short months ago,asaid the U.S.
Cuba into a camp armed with weapons even the weld, never tolerate.
administration would consider "otfensive." Sen. But again Keating even named facts and figures. But again Athe nd administration officially denies
during a speech on the Senate floor in August,'the claim. again political partisans, who,
and he repeated his charges again in October. seemingly learned nothing from the earlier Cuban,
Both times administration spokesmen discounted crisis, are accusing critics of undermining confi-
1Keating's warning, saying they preferred to trust Bence in the American. government.
U.S. intelligence.
criticism of our ,overnment's mishandling of the
Cuban situation. For it is now revealed that there
was an intelligence gap over Cuba.
IN TESTIMONY recently released by the House:
appropriations subcommittee, Secretary of De-
fense Robert McNamara admitted that for more
than three weeks last fall, Soviet missile sites in WHEN IT TURNED out that 'U.S. intelligencet
Cuba went undetected because U.S. U-2 planes had. been lax, and that .Senators Keating,,,Go1d-
were photogranhin the wrong end of the island. water,,Smathers; .and Tlwrmond had been correct l<
committee, who called on the government to stop
answering questions about Cuba. "There has been
talk of an intelligence gap," Mahon said. "There
is an intelligence gap. The gap is in the intelli-,
gence of those who are daily reve.dling the secrets
of the intelligence operations of the U.S. govern-
ment."
It is an unwritten but accepted rule of American
politics that politicians will try to halt criticism,
of their own party. Nevertheless, it would be a
mistake for this special pleading to still public'
Approved For Release 2004/01/16 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000500120014-2
STAT