Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Cuba, Volume VI

454. Memorandum of a Conference With the President, White House, Washington, February 17, 1960, 3:17–3:55 p.m.¹

Washington, February 17, 1960, 3:17–3:55 p.m.

OTHERS PRESENT

• General Goodpaster, Gordon Gray

[Here follows discussion of matters unrelated to Cuba.]

I discussed in some detail a proposal² which was being considered with respect to Cuba and which had been discussed at the February 17 meeting of the 5412 Group.³ The President made the following points. He doubted the efficacy of the undertaking from the point of view of stopping subversive activities because of his feeling that support for the subversive activities would be forthcoming from the Soviet Union in any event.

Aside from the efficacy question, he said first he wondered why we were thinking of something on such a narrow basis. He said that he wondered why we weren’t trying to identify assets for this and other things as well across the board, including even possibly things that might be drastic. He thought it would be a good idea for the Group to talk with a man he had talked with as Government officials interested in the problem. I pointed out to him that this was only an authorization to identify assets and to see whether this even could be done. I made it clear that Allen Dulles was not prepared to go ahead with it; that he didn’t know whether he had the capability of going ahead. I suggested that we ask that the study and identification of assets go ahead on a broad basis, including this one and then upon his return from the trip he would be in a better position to sit down and consider it. He said he didn’t mind making the study of possible courses but he wanted to make it clear that this action is forbidden until the Group has fully reviewed it and if they think we should go ahead he would like to be involved. I said this would enable people to go ahead with finding out what is possible but without any authorization and this and other things could be considered at that time. He said that was fine.

Gordon Gray

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Project “Clean Up” Records, Meetings with the President. Top Secret. Prepared by Gray on February 19. The time of the meeting is taken from the President’s Appointment Book. (Ibid.) The source text, however, indicates the meeting began at 3 p.m.
2. [Handwritten notation in the source text not declassified]
3. No record of this meeting has been found. NSC 5412/1 was the NSC directive in effect at this time setting forth basic authority for covert operations. The NSC 5412 Special Group was a subcommittee of the National Security Council, comprised of Department of State and Defense officials, which was set up to review covert action proposals.