Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, American Republics; Cuba 1961–1962; Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, Volumes X/XI/XII, Microfiche Supplement

278H. Memorandum from the staff officers of the CIA Office of the Inspector General to CIA Inspector General Kirkpatrick, January 26¹

January 26, 1962

SUBJECT

• The IG’s Cuban Survey and the DD/P’s Analysis of the Cuban Operation

1. The scope of the IG Survey is briefly and clearly stated in the Introduction. The Survey’s intent was to identify and describe weaknesses within the Agency which contributed to the final result and to make recommendations for their future avoidance. The IG had no authority to conduct a survey of the machinery for making decisions and policy at other levels of government. This field was covered by the group headed by Gen. Taylor. The Survey expressly avoided detailed analysis of the purely military phase of the operation.

2. Much of the DD/P’s Analysis is devoted, however, to a discussion of governmental decision-making and to a rehash of the military operation. It criticizes the Survey for insufficient attention to these matters, putting the major blame for the operation’s failure on factors beyond the control of the Agency.

3. The Analysis attempts to refute most of the weaknesses described by the Survey. The few which it admits were, it contends, not significant to the final result. It rejects the Survey’s statements that intelligence was inadequate and misused and that staffing was inadequate. It blames the failure of the air drops on the Cuban reception crews and air crews. It states that small boat operations could not well have been handled in any other way. And it states that other weaknesses were not important because they were not the decisive reason for failure.

4. There is a fundamental difference of approach between the two documents. While the Analysis is preoccupied with interdepartmental policy-making and military strategy, the Survey is mainly concerned with the failure to build up internal resistance in Cuba through clandestine operations. The Analysis fails to shed any further significant light on this fundamental issue.

5. The Analysis shows a poorer grasp of what was going on at the case-officer level than of events in policy-making circles. This is apparent in a number of inaccuracies in the Analysis. For example, the discussion of activities in Miami is inaccurate and misleading. Conduct of training in Miami is defended although it was not criticized by the Survey. The 178 trainees alluded to in the Analysis as trained in Miami were in fact trained in Guatemala. The PM section in Miami was being built up beginning in November 1960, rather than being de-emphasized. These and other inaccuracies suggest that the Analysis should be read with caution where it deals with events on the working level of the project.

6. The IG investigators centered their inquiry on certain phases which are significant to the success or failure of any operation and of the Agency’s over-all mission itself. They cannot be ignored or argued away just because of policy decisions made outside the Agency.

[names not declassified]

1. Kirkpatrick’s Cuban survey and the Deputy Directory of Plans analysis of the Cuban operation. 2 pp. Secret. CIA, DCI Files, History Staff Files: Job 85–00664R.