"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (48 page)

Confused, Adlai perused the cover.
Casino Royale
, its title announced. Below that, the image of a menacing looking man—suave, surly, self-possessed—cradled a Baretta. This threatening character wore a perfectly tailored suit. On either side stood a beautiful woman, both in skimpy bikinis. One blonde, the other brunette. Each leggy lady assumed a stance at once regal and servile, a pair of queens conquered.

All three were situated on a beach in Bermuda or perhaps the Cayman Islands. On the cover's bottom, the author's name appeared in blood red type: Ian Fleming. Adlai flipped to the first page, where the headline read: “licensed to kill!”

JFK chuckled. “No, I don't imagine you have. Anyway, I enjoy them. I believe this, or maybe one of the others in the series—they've become extremely popular during the last year, though written some time ago—will soon become a major film.”

“From what I can see it looks a bit risqué for Hollywood.”

“My guess? What they can and can't do in movies is about to change. The thing is: this James Bond chap, in my mind, rates as the contemporary equivalent of the old-timers like Lassiter. Instead of plodding along through sagebrush on a horse, he zips across the continent in an Aston Martin. Kills not in a fair gunfight but without compunction. Or mercy. Enjoys lovely women, without feeling any need to make a serious commitment.”

My God, the president is describing
himself
. JFK gets his notion of who he is from such books. Or already had a vision of a
Playboy
President and, when he came in contact with this Fleming fellow's novels, crystallized his own self-image.

Either way, James Bond and Jack Kennedy are one and the same. And he's the most powerful man in the world ...

“Take the book with you. Read it. Tell me what you think.”

*

They had not spoken since, either in person or over the phone. But Stevenson had read the novel while waiting at the airport for his shuttle. What he encountered horrified him even as it must have earlier enthralled the president. Here was an entirely amoral saga about a nasty sadist, not only willing but eager to inflict death. And, before death, considerable pain on any enemies. These included many of the women he bedded.

“Oh, I've been meaning to read that!”

Stevenson had been drawn out of his cerebral reverie by a young stewardesses standing nearby. Pert and pretty in a fresh new uniform, the girl embodied her profession as presented in TV advertisements: “Come fly with me!” a fresh blonde sky-girl suggestively beckoned to viewers in airline commercials.

“You look too sweet,” Stevenson mumbled, knowing she had no idea who he was, “to indulge in such trash.”

“Oh, I don't know,” she winked. “I like to be a little daring, at least when I'm at home reading. Or at the movies.”

A beautiful woman is one you notice. A charmer is one who notices you. This girl is a charmer.

Doubtless she'd go see that film JFK had mentioned when released. She and millions like her. And, as movies always do to the masses, the James Bond film would condition this girl, and others in the audience, to think that operating as a reckless airborne cowboy, utterly amoral, in the early Sixties, has recently become acceptable.

“Here, you're welcome to this copy.”

He handed her the book. Might as well save her thirty-five cents. What would she say if he told her this was the very copy that our sexy young president read? Doubtless she voted for him, whatever her political allegiances. Because JFK rated as
cool.

Suddenly, Adlai Stevenson felt very old and very tired.

*

In New York City, Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, head of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (despite its title, a fervently
pro
-U.S. group) called a press conference to offer a statement. In exalted language, Cardona praised what had been referred to as a three-man-defection, the words that the Cuban who had flown from Nicaragua to Miami had employed, as a “heroic blow for Cuban freedom.” He explained that he'd known about the scheme for some time.

“The Council has been in contact with these brave pilots” daily, offering advice as to the upcoming event, he insisted.

Further, Cardona claimed, he had days earlier suggested to the flyers that if anything untoward occurred, they ought to consider Miami as their alternative destination.

This address was carried over the radio, allowing Bissell to breathe a sigh of relief and, momentarily, relax in his D.C. office, feet up on the desk, praying for more good news.

Instead, the voice on his radio reported that, shortly after the bombing of Havana subsided, Castro summoned Sergei M. Kudryavstsev, Soviet ambassador to Cuba, to his offices. Two armed Cuban guards arrived at Kudryavstev's residence, escorting him to a waiting military car. Once Kudryavstev, known to be a KGB member, arrived at headquarters, he and Castro jumped on the hot-line to Moscow to learn what information might already be available from that world capital. Once they listened to the Russians' report, the Beard contacted his Foreign Ministry.

Officials sent word to members of the foreign press corps stationed in Havana, as well as a handful of international reporters, to assemble. A spokesman announced that Cuba now had proof positive that, while members of the United States air force hadn't been aboard the planes which carried out those bombings, the strikes had been planned, orchestrated, “directed” (Castro's term) by the U.S. as if this were an action movie.

As millions of Americans listened, Stevenson included from his office, the radio reported Castro had as a result ordered Cuba's delegation to the United Nations to “directly accuse the U.S. government of aggression.” A sudden sickening sensation, worse than an attack of flu, overcome Adlai as he heard the words from Havana, ricocheting and echoing all over the world.

Castro insisted that his “country, on a war basis, will resist” the ongoing attempt at American imperialism.

Desperate as to what he should do and say when his turn came to speak, Adlai reached for the phone and rang the Naval Air Station at Boca Chica. An operator answered. Grasping for some means of handling this in the minutes left to him, Adlai introduced himself as a ‘reporter from a daily newspaper.' That was easy to pull off; in his youth, he had worked as one.

A five minute delay. Then, a gruff, hurried male voice answered: “Rear Admiral Rhodam Y. McElroy here.”

“Hello, Admiral. I'm calling about what took place there earlier. Of course, we also wish to know more about the flyer who landed in Miami—”

“We're playing host to a passle of pro-American Cubans today!” Admiral McElroy chuckled. “Well, God love ‘em.”

“Yes, sir. Anyway, I was hoping you'd make a definitive statement about precisely what happened in Boca Chica.”

“You can quote me: ‘One of the stolen B-26s involved in those blasts against Havana this morning landed here.'”

“You are absolutely certain, sir, the plane took off from Cuba? And, after being hit, proceeded to your post?”

A long pause, the Admiral apparently mulling Adlai's words over and over again. Then: “I don't get your drift.”

“I wanted to confirm: Are you
certain
?”

A longer pause. “Why shouldn't I be?”

“Well, with all due respect, why should you?”

Another pause, longer still, more awkward. “Because he told me so,” McElroy snarled at the faux journalist.

“That's what I was driving at, Admiral. All we have to go on is that the man said so? No collaborating evidence?”

“No,
what?
” A string of raw expletives followed. “Let's just say, this guy strikes me as a good egg. How's that?”

“Well, I was listening to Fidel Castro's speech on Radio Havana. He claims that in actuality all the planes flew in from Nicaragua, departing there with full American cooperation.”

Admiral McElroy's voice took on the quality of an angry John Wayne in some old World War II film. “Let me ask
you
a question: Who would you believe? Me, or Fidel Castro?”

With that, McElroy slammed down his phone.

*

An ugly debate, initiated by Ron Roa's spirited speech, raged throughout the United Nations that afternoon. An hour earlier, Roa had attempted to interrupt a General Assembly meeting to decry America's purported involvement. He'd been cut off by the man in charge, Ireland's Frederick H. Boland, who insisted that such a discussion couldn't proceed. The incident in Cuba did not appear on the morning's official printed agenda. Roa had to be quieted, removed if necessary by guards, so that the proper order of scheduled business might proceed.

At that point, Valerian Zorin of the Soviet Union rose, requesting a special meeting on the issue this very afternoon. Though Boland argued against this, the assembled body flipped out of control. Delegates howled that such a crisis was precisely why the U.N. had been created and that it ought to take precedence over the minutiae of everyday affairs, that Boland, visibly intimidated by the extreme response, had to agree.

All but shrieking, Roa called what had happened a “cowardly surprise attack” on his homeland, carried out by Cuban-born “mercenaries,” assembled by the American government, trained in Miami “and Guatemala by experts working at the Pentagon and by members of the Central Intelligence Agency.” Though Roa had to be considered an enemy of the United States, Adlai, listening in, sensed the absolute sincerity in this man's voice.

Roa then explained that the U.S. had added insult to injury by not only launching an attack but “cynically” offering a bold-faced lie that those bombs had been dropped by defectors. Roa tore into a fury about Dr. Cardona, insisting that he knowingly dissembled when claiming to have earlier been in contact with the defectors by phone. Roa added that even if Cardona told the truth here, his very speech violated U.S. neutrality laws.

At that moment, a brief recess was called to allow Adlai Stevenson time to reach the meeting hall. His long legs nearly failing him, the U.N. ambassador nervously headed down the corridor.

My moment of truth has arrived. And I still don't know what I will say, or not say. I won't, until I begin speaking ...

Honest Adlai. Even Republicans who opposed all the liberal values Stevenson and Kennedy stood for agreed that there was no question the former always spoke the truth as he saw it.

Do I serve the good of the country or my own reputation?

Listening intently in his own D.C. office, Bissell noted a hesitancy in Stevenson's voice he'd never noticed there before. Yes, two aircraft did land at Florida airports earlier, Adlai began, his phrasing uncharacteristically awkward.

“These pilots, and other crew members, have apparently defected from Cuba in defiance of Fidel Castro.”

Damn it! Why stick 'apparently' in there? Either they did or they didn't. Come on, Adlai. You promised!

Hands waved all across the hall. Ambassadors shouted out questions until hoarse. Stevenson addressed them one by one.

“No United States personnel participated. No United States Government airplanes of any kind participated.”

Better. ‘No' means no, at least when Stevenson says so. Whatever, of course, the truth may be. But if people believe that Adlai speaks only the truth, now this is ‘true.'

Even if happens to be the opposite of what had actually occurred.

“These two planes, to the best of our knowledge, were Castro's own air force planes. According to the pilots, they took off from Castro's own air-force fields.”

“To the best of our knowledge?' But that leaves room for doubt. ‘According to the pilots'? You're giving them just what we did
not
want them to hear—that we still only have their word to go on as to the escalating situation ... Fuck it, Adlai!

Apparently, as all listening gathered close to see, Adlai raised a photograph high for members of the Assembly. “I have here a picture of one of these planes. It has the markings of the Castro air force on its tail, which everyone can see for himself. The Cuban star and initials FAR are clearly visible.”

Proof positive; seeing is believing. Okay, okay. We might just survive this God-forsaken ordeal. Stick to your guns ...

“Steps have been taken to impound the Cuban planes and they will not be permitted to take off.”

With that, Stevenson waved off all further questions and, appearing faint, retired from the podium.

*

By the end of the third week in April, 1961, everyone in the world who followed the news was well aware not only that Honest Adlai had lied bold-faced but that everything Fidel Castro claimed was absolutely true. There had been no organic, spontaneous attempt at revolution in Cuba. All that occurred—the bombing of the country's airports, the invasion from sea—had been carried out, as Rosa had announced in the U.N., by the United States.

The most observant journalists, including some in the U.S., pointed out that the nine planes which had composed the squadron were not precisely the same model and make as those currently owned and operated by Cubans. Small details such as windshield shape and tail-size attested that these were similar but not identical. No question, the CIA had overseen everything.

The big issue now:
How high up did all of this reach?

Previous to the pro-American Cubans landing, only to be massacred on the beaches before they could move up off the sand and into bushes on the rim, a new organization
had been formed in the most clandestine quarters of Washington by men who knew they would shortly be held
responsible for this fiasco. It would be known, in secret, as ‘The 54/12 Group.' The ‘club' cut across all pre-existing lines and venues; they hailed from the key information gathering communities, the military, and politics.