The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [318]
Henry’s enemy was dead, but there were few in Christendom who did not condemn the king. In the end he would put to death the loyal men who had done the deed, walk a gauntlet of monks who whipped their king, and see his wife and sons turn against him. The Mafia chieftains recruited by the CIA were unlikely readers of royal history, but they proceeded against Castro in such a desultory way that they might as well have read about the fate of those who served King Henry too well.
Senator Smathers of Florida recalled walking with his friend the president on the White House lawn in March, when Kennedy told him that “someone was supposed to have knocked him [Castro] off and there was supposed to be absolute pandemonium.” Smathers’s recollection is not definitive either, but there are several other reasons to suspect that Kennedy knew.
The CIA was not immune to the bureaucratic imperatives of Washington, and a bureaucrat’s highest imperative is to protect himself and his agency. This was a major long-term operation involving a number of CIA operatives, technicians, outside advisers, and mobsters; by the spring of 1961, at least twenty people knew of the Mafia plots, and many others were aware of the other plots.
As early as October 1960, Giancana openly talked about the assassination at a dinner at LaScala Restaurant in New York City with his mistress Phyllis McGuire and her sister, Christine, another of the three famous singing McGuire Sisters. The FBI learned about the discussion from Christine’s husband,
John H. Teeter, a confidential source. Teeter told the FBI that Giancana said “he had met with the ‘assassin’ on three occasions … [and] that he last met with the ‘assassin’ on a boat docked at the Fontainbleau [sic] Hotel.” Teeter told the FBI that “neither he nor his wife could vouch for the truth of the information.” Hoover religiously read FBI reports and memos, and even before Kennedy took office, he would have already suspected the mob’s involvement with the assassination plots.
Although it began during the Eisenhower administration, the assassination plotting had become part of the Kennedy administration’s policy toward Cuba. “There’s a question in my mind as to whether John F. Kennedy generated that and under no circumstances do I think he did,” said the FBI’s former deputy director Cartha DeLoach, who religiously mirrored Hoover’s opinions. “I think that Bobby Kennedy, in conjunction with the CIA, generated that and told the president about it, and the president went along with it. I think that Bobby, who was almost willing to play any game to accomplish a purpose, regardless of who it involved, went along with that very willingly and involved the president himself.” Bobby’s defenders state adamantly that he would not have countenanced employing the very Mafia figures he was attempting to put in prison; they ignore the reality that most of the assassination attempts did not involve mobsters.
Assassinating Castro was the crown jewel of the CIA’s policy toward Cuba. Would the agency have run the risk of Kennedy’s finding out about the assassination plots? And if he did so, and if this was the man the president’s admirers proclaimed him to be, what revenge would he have enacted on those who betrayed his fundamental beliefs? Beyond this, could the agency afford not to tell the skeptical president about a crucial element of their plans that made this operation so much more plausible?
That, however, is little more than knowledgeable speculation. The extent of Kennedy’s knowledge and approval of the assassination attempts are matters of endless debate and uncertainty, with no definitive proof offered or presumably available. That is the very nature of the most