Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (No Series) (77 page)

172
“We had a chance to throw the Communists out”: Quoted in Coffey, 391.

172
“There was virtually a coup atmosphere”: Author interview with Daniel Ellsberg.

173
“Operation Mongoose died”: CIA memo, November 5, 1962, NARA record number 1781-0004-10128.

173
“Talk about the word treason at the Bay of Pigs”: Quoted in Bohning, 125.

173
“People no longer thought that world war”: National Security Archives interview with Sorensen, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/173 it was up to Kennedy and him to stop tugging on the “knot of war”: Khrushchev, 555.

174
his military advisors had “looked at me as though I was out of my mind”: Beschloss, 523.

4: 1963

175
“Don’t go there”: O’Donnell and Powers, 277.

176
JFK went “off script”: Author interview with Goodwin.

176
“it was the worst possible gesture”: O’Donnell and Powers, 277.

176
During JFK’s Orange Bowl appearance, an assassin lurked: Mahoney, 220.

178
A secret Defense Department background sheet on [Artime]: U.S. Army memo, undated, NARA record number 198-1004-10060.

178
[Murgado] and Artime first met with Bobby at the Kennedys’ [Palm Beach mansion]: Author interview with Angelo Murgado.

179
where he came across a curious gringo named Lee Harvey Oswald: Murgado claims that he crossed paths on one other occasion with Oswald, when he and fellow Brigade veteran Bernardo De Torres spotted him while paying a visit to the Dallas apartment of Silvia Odio, a Cuban exile tied to JURE, a left-wing anti-Castro group. “She was a heck of a nice piece of ass, that’s all,” Murgado says bluntly, by way of explaining his visit.
This encounter is laden with significance, and controversy, in JFK assassination research circles. Some claim that De Torres was the infamous “Leopoldo” and Murgado the “Angel” who showed up on Odio’s doorstep on September 25, 1963. Odio told government investigators that the two exiles were accompanied by a man whom she later identified as Oswald. Shortly after the visit, according to Odio,
Leopoldo phoned her and made some chilling remarks. He told her that Oswald was an ex-Marine marksman who thought JFK should have been shot after the Bay of Pigs. “He says we should do something like that,” Leopoldo told her. Some researchers believe the Odio encounter was an attempt to frame Oswald and implicate the left wing of the anti-Castro crusade in the JFK assassination.
Did Murgado and De Torres show up on Odio’s doorstep with Oswald in tow—or was he already sitting in her apartment when the two men arrived? It is easy to understand why neither Murgado nor Odio want to be associated with the man whose name would go down in infamy. But even if Murgado is shading the Odio story for obvious self-serving reasons, there is no indication he is doing the same with his Bobby Kennedy account.

181
The Kennedys had sold out the liberation movement:
Newsweek
, April 29, 1963.

182
“there is not going to be any invasion”: Quoted in CIA memo, April 7, 1963, NARA record number 104-10233-10029.

182
Miró proudly retorted “that he could never be a traitor”: CIA telegram, April 9-10, 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy confidential file, JFK Library.

182
“a formal request for the return of the Brigade flag”: CIA memo, April 11, 1963, NARA record number104-10306-10015.

182
Nixon chided the White House for its flip-flopping Cuba policy:
Newsweek
, April 29, 1963.

182
He worked feverishly to make sure that Brigade veterans…were taken care of: RFK memo to Army Secretary Cyrus R. Vance May 8, 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy papers, JFK Library; also State Department memo, June 17, 1963, RFK confidential file, JFK Library; also RFK memo to Goodwin, March 25, 1963, JFK Library.

183
“I do think he felt a sense of guilt or obligation to them”: Author interview with Nolan.

183
The two men were attempting to “organize an exile raid”: State Department memo, July 19, 1963, RFK confidential file, JFK Library.

185
“the Russians would be immediately invited to Goldwater’s ranch”: Nathaniel Weyl,
Encounters with Communism
, 143.

186
“There are no rules in such a game”: Quoted in Max Holland, “A Luce Connection: Senator Keating, William Pawley and the Cuban Missile Crisis,”
Journal of Cold War Studies
, 1.3, 1999.

186
he blamed the disaster on President Kennedy’s “betrayal”: Thomas G. Paterson,
Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution
, 211.

186
“I think we have to drop ten thousand Marines in the environs of Havana”: Quoted in Hollan d.

187
Clare Booth Luce referred to the three-man crew…as “my young Cubans”: Quoted in Warren Hinckle and William Turner,
Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK
, 148.

187
“The information they came out with was remarkably accurate”: Quoted in Holland.

187
he had tried to talk his old friend Fulgencio Batista into leaving: Hinckle and Turner, 192.

188
“The Russians would be photographed on board”: Weyl, 143.

188
[the friendship] was undisturbed even when Kennedy slept with Clare: Clarke, 97.

188
“It was a memorable moment in my life”: Henry Luce oral history, JFK Library.

189
“The Kennedy clan is fun to watch”: Quoted in Holland.

189
Clare lectured him that Cuba was an issue…“of American survival”: Hinckle and Turner, 186.

189
If his son ever “shows any signs of weakness”: Luce oral history, JFK Library.

190
“The pain is more than I can bear”: Quoted in
New York Times
, January 8, 1977.

191
its claim that Kennedy was backing a coup/invasion plan…was unconvincing: The book’s other major conclusion was even less persuasive. Waldron and Hartmann asserted that the Mafia masterminded the assassination of JFK, after infiltrating the Cuba plot, knowing that the government could not prosecute the mob for fear of exposing its top-secret coup/invasion plan. This thesis failed the basic credibility test in numerous ways. One of its biggest puzzles was why the Mafia would choose to knock off Kennedy just as he was preparing to knock off Castro, paving the way for the mob to regain its fabulously lucrative sin franchise in Havana.

191
arousing so much anticipation in his Cuban friend that he began naming Cabinet ministers: Waldron, 145.

191
he asked them to lay off “because of the increasing frequency of rumors”: CIA memo, July 17, 1963, NARA record number 104-10240-10326.

191
was scheduled to meet with them again on November 21 or 22: Army memo, December 11, 1963, NARA record number 198-10004-10011.

191
That is why he continued to believe in the Kennedys: Erneido Oliva, “Why Did the Assault Brigade 2506 Give Its Flag to President Kennedy for Safekeeping?” published on Cuban-American Military Council Web site.

192
He was “also afraid of the dentist”: Quoted in Johnson, 186.

192
RFK “could not admit to them”: Califano, 119.

192
There will be a point when “the national interests of the United States”: William Turner interview with Harry Ruiz Williams, courtesy of Turner.

193
“No, absolutely not”: Author interview with McNamara. The idea that Kennedy would have kept secret from McNamara an imminent invasion of Cuba—which was suggested by Waldron and Hartmann in their book—is exceedingly far-fetched. McNamara was not only the top civilian chief of the country’s military forces, he was the Cabinet member most respected by the president and his brother.

193
“Why would we have done it?”: Author interview with Goodwin.

193
“The phone would ring and it would be Robert Kennedy”: Croft interview with Barbara Lawrence.

194
“tying a rock to a wire”: Quoted in Fursenko and Naftali, 329.

194
[Artime’s] exotic girlfriend aroused agency suspicions: Corn, 98.

195
“My bust is bigger than yours”: Quoted in Bradlee, 147.

195
“So there I was, the ‘beard’ for Mary Meyer”: Quoted in Ralph G. Martin,
A Hero for Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years
, 398.

196
“I don’t care how many girls” Jack has slept with: Quoted in Bedell Smith, 352.

196
circumstances…forced him to learn how “to destroy”: Cord Meyer,
Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA
, 8.

198
“he became more Catholic than the Pope”: Thomas Powers,
The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA
, 63.

198
“Cord entered the agency as a fresh idealist”: Quoted in Frances Stonor Saunders,
The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters
, 342.

198
Joe Alsop found him repellent:
Washington Post
, February 7, 1978.

198
“Such a thing can either make or break a marriage”: Quoted in
New York Times Magazine
, January 7, 1973.

198
Cord “acted like a 17th century cuckold”: Quoted in Nina Burleigh,
A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer
, 151.

199
“When he was with her, the rest of the world could go to hell”: Herbert Parmet,
JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy
, 305.

199
They “were in love”: Quoted in Trento, 280.

199
“I think [Angleton] was perhaps even in love with Mary”: Author interview with Bradlee.

199
Meyer and Kennedy took one low dose of the hallucinogen: Burleigh, 212.

200
“Dr. Leary, I’ve got to talk to you”: Timothy Leary,
Flashbacks: An Autobiography
, 128.

201
“Mary was so much more outgoing [than Cord]”: Leo Damore interview with Timothy Leary, courtesy of Peter Janney.

201
“You have to live with sorrow”: Quoted in
Washington Post
, February 7, 1978.