The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [475]
Years later, when Halpern, the CIA Cuban desk officer, and Ayers, the on-scene CIA operative, were asked why this man had to die, they responded in precisely the same words: “We were at war.” And so they were, and whether the attorney general knew the details of this operation, it was Bobby’s war fought Bobby’s way.
Bobby was so much the symbol of uncompromising opposition to Castro that when Dr. Rolando Cubela Secades, a Cuban army major with access to Castro, was contemplating killing the Cuban leader and insisted on meeting with a top American official, it was the attorney general whom he wanted to see. Instead, Desmond FitzGerald, the head of the Cuban Task Force—now renamed the Special Affairs Staff (SAS)—met secretly with Cubela in Paris on October 29. FitzGerald was traveling, in the words of the agency contact plan, “as personal representative of Robert F. Kennedy.” FitzGerald insisted later that the agency had not sought Bobby’s permission to speak in his name, and that at the Paris meeting he had not talked about assassination. Cubela recalled otherwise: “He [FitzGerald] offered me on behalf of the U.S. government the support … for being able to carry out either the plot attempt against the prime minister of Cuba or any other activity that will put in danger the stability of the regime.”
Lies are most effective hidden in a bed of truth, but at the highest reaches of the CIA, lying was not dishonor but its opposite. In the end men like FitzGerald appeared to be dangerous renegades, but they were only carrying out what the Kennedys wanted them to do. The president recognized that perfectly well. “I have looked through the record very carefully, and I can find nothing to indicate that the CIA has done anything but support policy,” the president said in October 1963. “I can assure you flatly that the CIA has not carried out independent activities.”
While the CIA prepared again to attempt to kill Castro, the administration began a tentative, distanced approach to the Cuban leader by exploring the possibilities of normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations. At the president’s authorization, William Attwood, the former editor of Look and an adviser to the UN mission, met with Carlos Lechuga, the Cuban UN ambassador. The president was more optimistic about the possibility of achieving some measure of peace with Castro’s Cuba than was the State Department. Bobby, for his part, stated that “the U.S. must require some fundamental steps such as the end of subversion in Latin America and removing the Soviet troops in Cuba before any serious discussion can take place about a détente.” As for Castro, he set no conditions and was intrigued enough by the prospect that early in November he expressed a willingness to sit down for discussions with an American official.
In the next months the two sides would have to travel a treacherous pathway. Kennedy was facing reelection, and he could not melt down the swords of war as long as Castro shouted the shrill slogans of world revolution. The Cuban leader, for his part, was the leader of a young revolution, and he could hardly turn away easily from his ideals or his patrons in Moscow. Both leaders were far more realistic than their rhetoric and saw some measure of hope in these discussions. Peace is not won in a day, however, and death comes in an instant. The CIA’s FitzGerald was convinced that Castro would be dead by the end of 1963.
The president spent the weekend of October 20 in Hyannis Port. Kennedy was as restless of body and mind, and with his bad back, he rarely sat down longer than was necessary. He sat quietly with his father watching the football games on television. Kennedy was supposed to leave Sunday morning, but Joe had a cold and the president spent time sitting next to his bed, talking to