278A. Memorandum from CIA Inspector General Kirkpatrick to CIA Director Dulles, November 241
SUBJECT
- Report on the Cuban Operation
1. The report on the Cuban Operation, as is true of all Inspector General reports, was prepared under my personal direction and worked on by myself and my deputy, Mr. David McLean, as well as the three officers who did the principal collecting of information and preparation of the text: Messrs. [less than 1 line not declassified], [less than 1 line not declassified] and [less than 1 line not declassified]. The final editing was done by myself personally and the report represents the views of the Inspector General.
2. In preparing the report we had access to all of the material prepared by this agency and submitted to the Taylor Committee, as well as the minutes of the Taylor Committee meetings, and a chance to see their final conclusions and recommendations. In addition to this we had all of the documentary material available in the WH Division, WH–4, and other staffs and divisions of the agency who had cognizance of or prepared material for WH–4. These particularly included ONE, OCI and Staff D of the DD/P.
3. As is noted particularly in our report, we did not go outside of the agency in any respect and tried to confine our inspection to only internal agency matters, except where reference had to be made to outside actions that affected the operation. In interviewing [Facsimile Page 2] persons connected with this operation, we talked initially to three of the top officers in the operation, commencing with Mr. Esterline and Colonel Hawkins, and having our initial lengthy discussions with them within a week of the operation. We interviewed all of the appropriate supervisors in the DD/P, starting with the DD/P himself and including the A/DDP/A, Chief, WH, Chief WH–4, and some 130 other officers and employees directly involved in the operation. We kept extensive notes and material of all of these discussions which are documented in our files.
- Inspector General’s survey of the Cuban operation. 2 pp. Top Secret. CIA, DCI Files, History Staff Files: Job 85–00664R.↩