◆ SpookStack

should be prepared to brief in TIDE on 4 April, with 5 April being reserved for coordination of air/ground and maritime operations. The briefings were to be completed by the night of 5 April at the latest. 84/ The briefing team was delayed, however, because in the period from 4-6 April, the President and his White House staff were still discussing the merits of a pre-D-Day air strike with representatives of the Agency, the JCS, and State.* By the morning of 6 April the pre-D-Day defection and deception strike had been approved, and Barnes clearly should have included this information in his briefing for Ambassador Stevenson. Inasmuch as Barnes did not depart Washington until Saturday 8 April -- the day he briefed Stevenson -- there is no way that Barnes could have been ignorant of the decision to make the D-2 air strike and follow on with the D-Day air attack.~* * Lt. Col. Gaines and the other members of the brief- ing team for the D-2 and D-Day strikes began their briefings at TIDE at 1300 hours (local time) on 10 April. They probably departed the Headquarters area at 0800 hours (local tima pn 9 April. The target folders and briefing aids would have been completed at least by 1 April in all probability. 'S4a/ ** On 8 April 1961, Barnes departed Washington on North~ east Airlines Flight 106 at 0745; and he returned on a Northeast flight departing New York at 2215 on that same day. 85/