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He never spent enough time around, in my judgment, to be informed to the point that he should have been. I don't think the right person was going up to talk is what I am saying. We [Hawkins and Ester- line} were the only ones that really knew, at that point, the total details of the operation and knew what the risks were in detail and what further diminishment of capability would be. When the equity be- came so great, I don't think just because a person was a GS-18, or because he had four stars on his shoulder that he should have gone himself ••• He should have at least had one of the principal lieutenants charged with the operation -- and that would have been Hawkins or myself. I have never understood why they would pre- sume to go up when things were so critical and not have one or the other -- it didn't have to be me if I was too thorny for them. It could have been Hawkins, but somebody who knew intimately what, how soon, or how easily disaster could come should have been there. 125/* * Esterline and Hawkins apparently tried -- unsuccess- fully to resign from Project JMATE when the switch was made from TRINIDAD. The above referenced attempt is supported by Esterline's testimony on 22-23 May 1961 to the Taylor Committee when in discussing cancellation of the D-Day strike he said: "I decided the operation was lost at midnight on the 16th [of April 1961]. The next day I told Mr. [J.C.] King [Chief, WH/D] that I couldn't continue because we were lost." 126/ In a very emotiona,l phone conversation with William D. Pawley on 21 April 1961, Jake stated that he had resigned "last Sunday [16 April]" and that "I have quit the Agency." Esterline also indicated that the resignation hadn't been accepted because he was being sent to Florida for R&R. 127/ Dave Phillips has a more colorful description of the scene with Jake sit- ting "at a typewriter, a bottle of ~skey at his elbow, and wrote out his resignation several times. Bill tore them up as soon as they were typed." 128/ - 284