◆ SpookStack

, ffl P 3 ECft r: I the Francis Gary Powers thing, he had been a member of an inter-Agency com- mittee that met with periodic regularity to discuss air matters of any sensitivity. I guess he'd had enough to do with this project so that somebody (who] had (been] reading the cable traffic told him "Well, those nuts down in Quarters Eye seem to have lost an airplane this week- end." He was going to the regular com- mittee meeting that afternoon, so he had to ask me the details ••• veryapologetic- ally. The third time that he said, "You know i have nothing to do with this project," I said, "Well Mr. Helms, I don't want to be fatuous about this, but I wish to Christ that you did have because we could use your expertise." He said, "Hahaha ••• yes, well thank you very much," and that was the end of that. He avoided the thing like the plague. One of the reasons may have been that, of course, life went oni and if Bissell was getting increasingly immersed in this one thing, somebody had to watch the whole worldwide store ••• which of course Helms was damned good at. A less attractive suggestion is that Helms figured that there was a high likelihood that this thing would screw up, and he didn't want to have the tar baby around him. I don't know. 11/ " .- Bissell, in responding to the question about, Helms' role during the course of the Bay of Pigs, com- mented as follows: I think that he [Helms] saw most all of the cable traffic and I think he was pretty well informed as to what was going on, very well informed; but he was really out of the line of command on this opera- tion. There was something of a tacit agreement between us, that he would be devoting himself to a lot of the other on - 41 -