In early 1960 Richard Bissell ordered Harvey to create an ultra-secret unit for “executive action”—assassination—known simply by its agency cryptonym, ZR/Rifle. As far as is known, ZR/Rifle had only one field agent, the obscure QJ/Win, who turned up in the Congo later that year (Justin O’Donnell, the officer sent to the Congo to help deal with Lumumba, was Harvey’s deputy). To disguise Harvey’s role, Bissell located his unit within the CIA’s in-house code-breaking staff, for which the CIA officer supposedly qualified as a result of the Berlin Tunnel affair. A sloppy dresser, Harvey nevertheless inspired awe among those who knew he sported pistols in his pockets, even at headquarters. Harvey had had guns in his desk as early as Berlin—a violation of agency regulations—but always managed to have good reasons for it, the latest being that he knew so much he could not permit himself to be taken.

  At one of General Lansdale’s sessions with Jack Kennedy, the president had marveled that he seemed to be America’s James Bond. Not so, Lansdale shot back, the real Bond was at CIA and named Bill Harvey. Kennedy asked to meet this larger-than-life figure, which led to a séance at the White House where the dapper president shook hands with the disheveled secret warrior. As Lansdale told the story, the Secret Service had to relieve Harvey of his pistols. Harvey himself denied ever carrying guns to the White House.

  Harvey had a hand in the assassination plots against Castro. Tad Szulc is not the only one with whom JFK discussed murdering Fidel. Kennedy raised the same subject with Florida Senator George Smathers in the guise of asking what he thought the reaction might be in Latin America. Smathers reacted much as had Szulc, and Kennedy’s response, also identical, was that he completely agreed. But during this same period members of CIA’s Board of National Estimates were directed to write a paper on that subject, and in early October, acting on specific instructions from Maxwell Taylor, the executive secretary of the Special Group asked Taylor’s assistant to develop a contingency plan: “what was wanted was a plan against the contingency that Castro would in some way or another be removed from the Cuban scene.”

  The Special Group official, CIA officer Thomas A. Parrott, reported back that he had told Tracy Barnes that “an up-to-date report be furnished as soon as possible on what is going on and what is being planned.” Parrott then added, “I did not tell Mr. Barnes of Presidential interest.”

  Coincidentally or not, on November 15 Bill Harvey, the ZR/Rifle chief, received orders to take over the Mafia operation that had lain dormant since January. Shortly thereafter Harvey was also asked to head the CIA’s in-house task force on Cuba. On the morning of January 18, 1962, a few hours before presenting Mongoose to the Special Group (Augmented), Lansdale sent Attorney General Kennedy a note which said: “My review does not include the sensitive work I have reported to you. I felt that you preferred informing the President privately.”

  Bill Harvey acquired more poison capsules from CIA’s Technical Services Division for Mafioso Johnny Rosselli in April 1962, two months after getting a hand-over from Sheffield Edwards. Harvey and Edwards’s deputy went to New York to see Rosselli at the Savoy Plaza Hotel, and Harvey alone went to Miami a couple of weeks later to hand over the poison. Cuban exile leader Tony Varona, the actor in this plot, asked for high-powered rifles and money, and would be given those as well. But Harvey didn’t think much of this operation, nor did Dick Helms when he looked at it. Helms told Harvey to shut down the Mafia hit squad. Harvey could halt CIA support but had no way to stop Tony Varona.

  At the Justice Department, Robert Kennedy presided over FBI investigations of organized crime in the United States. Through wiretaps, informers, and other means, veiled references to the Mafia’s CIA alliance emerged. The FBI investigation terminated in the spring of 1962, once CIA security officers objected to it. As attorney general, Robert Kennedy received a formal briefing on May 7, the first time he is on record as learning about assassination plots. Sheffield Edwards rejected Bobby’s demand for a written report—that wasn’t CIA practice for a sensitive operation. Bobby made a show of being surprised.

  Did the Kennedys know? Did John F. Kennedy order Castro’s murder? Did Robert Kennedy supervise? Did both of them cover their tracks? In 1975 the Church Committee decided it lacked evidence to conclude that Eisenhower or Kennedy (or Lyndon Johnson) had ordered an assassination. But scattered in its report, the depositions of the Rockefeller Commission, and other documents, the evidence and chronology are highly suggestive. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

  Meanwhile at Langley, Bill Harvey called his staff Task Force W—the last for William Walker, a nineteenth-century American adventurer who had cut a swath across Central America. Miami station went under the cover of Zenith Technical Enterprises, or JM/Wave by its agency designator. The walls were graced with phony charts purporting to display sales and production trends, even a certificate for contributions to charity. Theodore Shackley’s JM/Wave had 112 exiles on board from the beginning, plus 40 CIA officers at Zenith and 39 more in Opa-Locka. At any given time there were a dozen or more Special Forces with the exile commandos. Bob Moore, later Gordon Campbell, were his deputies. David Morales led the paramilitary staff, Jack Corris took charge of support, Seymour Bolton headed the political action staff. The station eventually grew larger than the one that supported the Bay of Pigs invasion. Soon Shackley had a huge operation, with an annual budget of more than $50 million, a dozen buildings at Opa-Locka alone, over a hundred leased vehicles, several thousand Cuban agents, and more than 600 American employees.

  Wary of skimping, the Mongoose planners wanted real resources: use of an air force bombing range for demolition training, three USAF transports and a pair of seaplane aircraft for air missions, several light planes for liaison work, a couple of Coast Guard cutters, half a dozen PT boats, even two large navy vessels (Landing Ship Docks) and two submarines. The navy and air force crews were to be “sheep-dipped”—in CIA practice, a cover measure separating the individuals from any official government connection, and in this case something that would have applied to hundreds of personnel. Clearly Mongoose would have had the same deniability problems as the Bay of Pigs had it ever gotten that far along.

  Instead Project Mongoose proceeded in a most haphazard fashion. Paramilitary activities occurred more or less openly, cloaked by the array of Miami Cuban groups. Conducting the operation from the United States compelled the CIA to create liaisons with federal, state, and local authorities, including police and the customs service. It also involved numerous violations of law ranging from CIA’s National Security Act charter to the Neutrality Act, to statutes on firearms possession and perjury. A frequent task for JM/Wave staff became bailing out or otherwise rescuing CIA or Cuban personnel who had run afoul of the law.

  Ted Shackley forged ahead. Beginning in March he set up the first infiltration teams, each of half a dozen Cubans. But Washington’s priorities emphasized intelligence collection. The military worried about wasting time on preliminaries, the CIA about Bobby’s micromanagement, Lansdale about putting collection ahead of action. He tried to use a March 16 meeting of the Special Group (Augmented) and the president to alter the orders. Prompted by McCone, Lansdale commented that the priorities tied CIA’s hands if sudden developments created opportunity. When the Joint Chiefs chairman added that plans for intervention were ready, President Kennedy shot them both down. Later Bill Harvey wrote Director McCone, siding with those objecting to the tight control. Typically, on March 21 Bobby told the group that the president stood ready to do whatever necessary.

  But a certain schizophrenic quality applied: the Kennedys restricted the operation to intelligence gathering, then continued to wonder why Castro still reigned. Conversely, with intelligence gathering emphasized, few operatives in the field were in fact specialized in spying. Trainees were overwhelmingly paramilitary types, with few collection experts.

  The JM/Wave people reflected the trainees: Shackley’s assistant Thomas Clines and CIA men like Rudy Enders, George French, Robert Wall, Edwin Wilson, and Harold Chipman were all paramilitary officers. French, a demolition expert, loved to blow things up. Rip Robertson and Grayston Lynch were back, leading units comprising many teams of Cubans. A CIA contract officer records that, with the word “paramilitary” declared verboten after the Bay of Pigs, they were now part of the Special Operations Division. The Miami operating base, set up under the station’s aegis, lagged on maritime capability throughout Mongoose, in spite of the efforts of Gordon Campbell and Rudy Enders. Training the commandos proved easier than finding boats to move them. Motorboats sailing from Miami and throughout the Florida Keys made up the core. The station’s maritime branch has been described as “huge,” but the Special Operations Division remained the largest element.

  On March 12, 1962, Team Cobra infiltrated Pinar del Rio province, creating a network active for some time. In June AM/Torrid went into Oriente, but most of it left in a few months. The one remaining agent and a fresh radioman set up in Santiago de Cuba as a spy mission. Mongoose’s major achievements were few.

  Use of the anti-Castro groups proved a double-edged sword. As paramilitary operations succeeded one another, many of them beyond the exiles’ capacity, cover became increasingly threadbare. Cuban groups enjoyed the cachet of their ties with the United States, but in the longer run exposure of their CIA links made it harder to claim political legitimacy. “CIA front” became a charge used to discredit many groups, not least by Castro.

  A more immediate problem was that the CIA’s relations with the exile groups precluded agency control in the covert war. Cubans striving to gain credibility with the CIA carried out some attacks. Other raids the CIA canceled were made anyway by angry exiles who felt themselves denied a chance to strike. It could be difficult to determine if CIA had ordered an action at all. Reporter Tad Szulc made a fresh appearance, accompanying Cubans on a raid—his connections ran to the exiles, not the CIA. Life magazine photographers went on another. Businessman William Pawley financed at least one raid. Others by groups like the Second Naval Guerrilla or Alpha 66 had nothing to do with CIA. But once the agency had furnished training or equipment, Castro could charge the CIA with the raids, independent or not.

  The covert action exacerbated Cold War tensions as well. Expansion of Soviet military aid to Cuba followed the Bay of Pigs, as did the attempt by Khrushchev to extend a Soviet nuclear umbrella over the Caribbean island. The Russian buildup that ended in the missile crisis had its roots in strategic considerations, but Castro might not have accepted Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba were it not for the American threat.

  Intelligence support improved from what it had been a year earlier but continued to exhibit difficulties. Ray Cline, CIA’s deputy director for intelligence after Amory, knew of every aspect of Mongoose save assassination plots. John McCone told him, and updated him too. The DCI occasionally took Cline along to meetings as well. McCone solicited his advice and permitted Cline to discuss matters with his analysts. Although the DI did not write papers for the project, knowledge enabled Cline to pose questions for analysts in such a way that their products were helpful to Mongoose planners. But the problems with the myriad exile groups were mystifying, and they overlapped boundaries between political operatives and those who were supposed to evaluate Castro’s chances.

  Diplomatic support also lagged. In June Lansdale and Bobby Kennedy maneuvered the State Department into agreeing to make action proposals. Bobby now chafed at the restrictions he had set, telling John McCone that Mongoose had lots of data but little to show. At the time, Mongoose remained mired in Phase One. Lansdale worried that the agencies were protecting their interests and that he, as a mere “chief of operations,” would be unable to knock heads together. He persuaded Bill Harvey and the CIA to prepare a revised “Alternate Course B,” then went to Bobby Kennedy to discuss “B+.” The latest plan aimed at strengthening the atmosphere of resistance in Cuba. Teams of three to five fighters would infiltrate all over Cuba, a strike force of about fifty commandos would conduct sabotage missions, and a wide variety of psychological warfare, propaganda, and other means would be used to sharpen fears. Lansdale cut back Bill Harvey’s prospectus, which had called for several times more fighters in the commando teams. The attorney general approved the plan; the Special Group did not. They were swayed by John McCone, who held out the specter of the Hungarian revolt and warned that the United States risked the same kind of slaughter. In the context of the rapid buildup of Soviet forces, already begun, McCone’s argument had merit. Lansdale disagreed. Revolt against Castro had to come from the Cuban people, he believed, and the more visible CIA’s role the less likely that would be.

  Once the exiles were mounting sabotage missions on their own, it became even more difficult to restrain Cubans working for Task Force W. President Kennedy reviewed the final version of Plan B+ and approved it on August 20. The materials given him explicitly stated that the CIA program had no possibility of overthrowing Castro. In early September the Special Group (Augmented) approved Phase Two raids against Cuba. Lansdale’s list of tasks had grown to more than fifty. But when Harvey recommended a commando strike at a power plant, the group discouraged it. Harvey erupted in a shouting match with the attorney general. The principals had long noticed Harvey’s inebriation, especially after lunchtime, and there had been quiet remarks behind his back. After this fight with Bobby, Harvey became persona non grata. Dick Helms or the Task Force W deputy chief, Bruce Cheever, had to substitute for him.

  Around this time Ted Shackley got his chance to meet John F. Kennedy. At Langley for a day to review the September infiltration schedule, Director McCone took Shackley along to see the president. McCone figured the station chief could provide a view from the trenches. Kennedy asked a few questions—about espionage, not paramilitary raids.

  The project peaked in the months separating the Bay of Pigs from the Cuban Missile Crisis. The numerous attempts to infiltrate agents were mostly failures. Several more assassination schemes were all abortive. Cargoes of Cuban sugar were contaminated with chemicals in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and other ports. Shipments of machinery and spare parts en route to Cuba were sabotaged. Infiltration became the bread and butter of the effort—exile Felix Rodriguez claims to have personally landed ten tons of equipment in Cuba during the year before the missile crisis. There were commando strikes on Cuban railroads, oil and sugar refineries, and factories. Photographic intelligence expert Dino Brugioni recalls Bill Harvey almost as an enemy, believing that the analysts spied on him. But Harvey lied about results—as evident from the overhead photography. Confronted with pictures that showed no damage to a building supposedly bombed, Harvey retorted the photos did not show the inside of the structure, and he demanded that photo interpreters be sent to Miami to brief. Brugioni recounts that this sort of thing happened again and again. Harvey finally thundered, “What in the hell does a bunch of quacks know about covert operations?”

  Bobby Kennedy’s enthusiasm won the support of many who were disgruntled by the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Rip Robertson was one. Robertson thought little of politicians but met RFK during the Taylor Committee investigation and returned to tell the exiles that Bobby was all right. At one point Robertson led a mission where the team was to sabotage the Matahambre mine, Cuba’s largest, by setting explosive charges on conveyors and key equipment. The mission came off, but nothing happened. Cuban security found the devices and disarmed them. Ted Shackley decided the Cuban who had set the timers botched the job. Another time Robertson offered money if a raider returned with the ear of an enemy. The man brought back two. Robertson served throughout the secret war against Cuba.

  In a way the exile groups forced Kennedy’s hand with one of their freelance strikes. Acting on information that Czech and Soviet officers partied on Friday nights at Havana’s Blanquita Hotel, exiles decided to make a raid; six Cubans crammed a speedboat with two .50-caliber machine guns, a 20-millimeter cannon, and a recoilless rifle. On August 24 they entered the suburban harbor of Miramar, sailed close enough to the Blanquita to see the lights in the ballroom and the uniforms, and shelled the place. The group involved, the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), continued on CIA’s payroll. One of the raiders, Jose Basulto, would continue to lead similarly independent forays against Cuba for decades.

  Meanwhile Washington’s belly-thumping culminated in a series of meetings, in the JCS Operations Room on August 8 or 9, and at the State Department on August 10. At the last of these, John McCone recollected in 1967, when CIA Inspector General John Earman looked into the matter, someone talked about the need to “liquidate” top Cuban officials including Castro. McCone insists he protested instantly, that he went to Bob McNamara’s office right afterward* and reiterated the protest (McNamara reportedly in full agreement), and that no such suggestion ever received serious consideration at the Special Group (Augmented). But—and here assassination rears its ugly head again—the paper General Lansdale sent his agency managers after the August 10 meeting assigned Bill Harvey to write a paper on CIA’s role, listing under the rubric of “Political” the aspect of “splitting the regime, including liquidation of leaders.” Bill Harvey went ballistic, calling Lansdale’s office. The field marshal not there, Harvey screamed at Frank Hand, Lansdale’s deputy, denouncing the stupidity of putting this in a document. The next day He protested to Richard Helms. Harvey made clear that Robert McNamara had himself brought up the question of assassination in Rusk’s office on August 10. Staff took the Lansdale memo and whited out the offending phrase, but it survived in Harvey’s note to Helms.

  In Lansdale’s deposition for Rockefeller Commission investigators in 1975, lawyer David W. Belin asked if he remembered those words. Lansdale did not, and doubted his memory would be refreshed. “I just don’t recall anything at all on liquidation of leaders,” Lansdale said. Nor did he remember Frank Hand telling him about Harvey’s phone call, or calling the CIA man to say the correction had been made. “It might have happened,” Lansdale added, “but I don’t recall.” His recollection improved before the Church Committee, where Lansdale testified that the idea had been shot down on August 10 but that he had included it in instructions to Harvey because “it might be a possibility someplace down the road.”