Operation Mongoose
The Cuban Project, also known as Operation Mongoose, was an extensive campaign of terrorist attacks against civilians, and covert operations, carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba. It was officially authorized on November 30, 1961, by U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The name "Operation Mongoose" was agreed to at a White House meeting on November 4, 1961.
The operation was run out of JMWAVE, a major secret United States covert operations and intelligence gathering station on the campus of the University of Miami. The operation was led by United States Air Force General Edward Lansdale on the military side and William King Harvey at the CIA and went into effect after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Operation Mongoose was a secret program against Cuba that aimed to remove the Cuban government from power, and to force the Cuban government to introduce intrusive civil measures and divert precious resources to protect its citizens from the attacks. The removal of the Castro government was a prime focus of the Kennedy administration. The terrorist activities carried out by agents armed, organized and funded by the CIA were a further source of tension between the U.S. and Cuban governments. They were a major factor contributing to the Soviet decision to place missiles in Cuba, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Origins
's ascent to power had been watched by the CIA since 1948. As he rose to power, the CIA became increasingly concerned with his actions and political views. In the late 1950s, the CIA began gathering more intelligence on Castro, suspecting that he was a communist. The organization could not initially discover hard evidence that Castro was a communist. However, the CIA remained concerned with how Castro's government took pro-communist stances. CIA intelligence concluded that Castro's close confidants, Ernesto Che Guevara and Raúl Castro Ruz, both had communist tendencies.In November 1959, General C. P. Cabell said that Castro was not a communist, but he allowed free opportunity for the communist party in Cuba to grow and spread its message. By December, plans were already being tossed around between high-ranking U.S. foreign policy officials that called for overthrowing the Castro government. An official report from the CIA states that, by March 1960, the United States had already decided that Fidel Castro must be displaced. Due to the United States' fear of repercussions from the United Nations, the plan was kept at the highest level of secrecy, and thus "plausible deniability" was made a key focal point in American clandestine service policy.
Formal authorization for action
The government formally authorized the operation on March 17, 1960, when President Dwight Eisenhower signed off on a CIA paper titled "A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime. A declassified report by the Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick details the history of the operation, and states that the presidential order gave the agency authorization to create an organization of exiled Cubans to manage opposition programs, begin a "propaganda offensive" to draw support for the movement, create an intelligence gathering network inside Cuba, and to "develop a paramilitary force to be introduced into Cuba to organize, train and lead resistance groups against the Castro regime." The propaganda offensive employed the use of radio broadcasts and leaflets to be passed around. This measure was solely aimed at propagating support for the provisional government.The CIA's budget estimation for this covert operation was approximately $4.4 million. The paper signed by Eisenhower was also the sole report issued by the government throughout the entire project. This highlights the U.S. government's secrecy in carrying out the operation as well as its policy of plausible deniability. The program required the agency to work around the clock and collect a large amount of detail-specific information, as well as to cooperate with other agencies. To secure the necessary financial backing, the "Bender Group" was developed as an organization that would provide American businessmen a secret avenue through which to trade with Cuban groups. On May 11, 1960, the Bender Group came to an agreement with a group called Frente Revolucionario Democratico.
Propaganda activities included using print and radio mediums to broadcast anti-Castro messages. These programs were launched all over Latin America. Large amounts of real estate were purchased by the agency for use in this operation. A base of operations was established in Miami on May 25, by using a "New York career and development firm" and "a Department of Defense contract" as covers. A communications station was also established on June 15 by using an Army operation as a cover. The agency also obtained safe houses all over Miami for different "operational purposes." The CIA also acquired properties in different US cities and abroad for various reasons.
From March through August 1960, the CIA had plans aimed at undermining Castro and his appeal to the public by sabotaging his speeches. The schemes thought up were aimed at discrediting Castro by influencing his behavior and by changing his appearance. One plan discussed was to spray his broadcast studio with a chemical compound similar to LSD. It was scrapped because the chemical was unreliable. Another plot was to lace a box of Castro's cigars with a chemical known to cause temporary disorientation. The CIA's plans to undermine Castro's public image included a plan to line his shoes with thallium salts which would cause his beard to fall out, while he was on a trip outside Cuba. He was expected to leave his shoes outside his hotel room to be polished, at which point the salts would be administered. The plan was abandoned because Castro canceled the trip.
The United States' opposition to Castro was based on the U.S. government's position that coercion inside Cuba was severe and that the government was serving as a model for radical-nationalist movements elsewhere in the Americas. A month after the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the CIA proposed a program of sabotage and terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets in Cuba. In November 1961, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and White House aide Richard Goodwin suggested to President Kennedy that the U.S. government begin this campaign, and it was authorized by the President. They believed that a centralized effort led by senior officials from the White House and other government agencies to remove Fidel Castro and overthrow the Cuban government was the best course of action. They also aimed to induce the Cuban government to introduce intrusive civil measures to try to prevent the attacks and the concomitant civilian deaths, as well as forcing the diversion of resources to this end. Following a meeting in the White House on November 3, 1961, this initiative became known as Operation Mongoose and would be led by Air Force Brigadier General Edward Lansdale on the military side and William King Harvey at the CIA.
Other agencies were brought in to assist with the planning and execution of Operation Mongoose. After Eisenhower's decision, it is noted in an official history of the invasion of the Bay of Pigs that "immediately following the Eisenhower decision to promote the anti-Castro program, there was a considerable degree of cooperation between the CIA and other of the concerned agencies – the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and others. Representatives from the State Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA were assigned larger roles in implementing the operation's activities, while representatives from the US Information Agency and the Department of Justice were also called on occasionally to assist with the operation. As the operation's leader, Brigadier General Lansdale received briefings and updates from these agencies and reported directly to a group of high-ranking government officials, known as Special Group-Augmented. The SG-A, chaired by Robert F. Kennedy, included John McCone, McGeorge Bundy, Alexis Johnson, Roswell Gilpatric, General Lyman Lemnitzer and General Maxwell Taylor. Although not officially members, Dean Rusk and Robert S. McNamara also attending meetings.
Under Eisenhower, four major forms of action were to be taken to aid anti-communist opposition in Cuba at the time. These were to: provide a powerful propaganda offensive against the regime, perfect a covert intelligence network within Cuba, develop paramilitary forces outside of Cuba and get the necessary logistical support for covert military operations on the island. At this stage, it was still not clear that these efforts would end up leading to the Bay of Pigs invasion. A document from the United States Department of State confirms that the project aimed to "help Cuba overthrow the Communist regime", including its leader Fidel Castro, and it aimed "for a revolt which can take place in Cuba by October 1962". U.S. policymakers also wanted to see "a new government with which the United States can live in peace".
Some of the outlined goals of the operations included intelligence collection and the generation of a nucleus for a popular Cuban movement, along with exploiting the potential of the underworld in Cuban cities and enlisting the cooperation of the Church to bring the women of Cuba into actions that would undermine the Communist control system. The Departments of State, Defense, and Justice were responsible for a combination of these objectives. Kennedy and the rest of SG-A hoped to dispose of the Castro regime and bring change to Cuba's political system.
The Kennedy administration, including President Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, CIA director John McCone, Richard Goodwin, and Brigadier General Lansdale met on November 21, 1961, to discuss plans for Operation Mongoose. Robert Kennedy stressed the importance of immediate dynamic action to discredit the Castro regime in Cuba. He remained disappointed from the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion just a few months prior. By the end of November, President Kennedy had finalized details for Operation Mongoose. Lansdale remained in charge of the operation, and access to knowledge of Operation Mongoose remained strictly confidential and limited. As was common throughout the Kennedy presidency, decision making would be centralized and housed within the secret Special Group. At this time, Operation Mongoose was underway.
In a testimony given during the Taylor Committee investigation of the Bay of Pigs invasion, Marine General David Shoup admitted that no operation like the Bay of Pigs could have been covert in nature. This was admitted after a lengthy question and answer dialogue where Attorney General Robert Kennedy attempted to establish that General Shoup failed to meet his responsibilities during the Invasion. Most of the content of his, General Shoup's, answers related to transporting men and supplies to the beaches during the Bay of Pigs Invasion.