◆ SpookStack

TOP 31!CRE I plan, the overall budget for the remainder of FY '60, and FY '61 of $4.4 million was approved with the caveat that should there be cost overruns, these could be drawn up from the Agency's reserve for contingen- cies.* * A copy of the approved Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime is given as Appendix B. (Appendix B, page 300). The reader is also urged to examine Appendix C, a set of correspondence between the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Arleigh Burke, and Livingston Merchant, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. (Appendix C page 311.) Admiral Burke apparently had become ex- tremely agitated about the rise of Castro to power in Cub~; 'and on 26 February of 1960, he had forwarded a paper on US action in Cuba, to both Secretary Merchant and also to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Irwin, in which the Navy's senior officer took it upon himself to examine the various options available to the United States to reassert itself in the Western Hemisphere vis-a-vis the growth of Communist power represented by Castro. Admiral Burke outlined a series of options that were available to the United States, such as multilateral action through the OAS, unilateral overt action by the US, or covert unilateral action by the us. ' Leaning heavily on both the Monroe Doctrine and Article 5 of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio de Janeiro Treaty of 1947) Burke made a series of recommendations covering the same ground -- propaganda, organization of the anti-Castro exiles who were in the US, or direct US military inter- vention -- which had already been considered at high levels and were already familiar to both Secretaries Merchant and Irwin. On 10 March 1960, Merchant replied to Burke's memorandum noting "a marked degree of simi- larity in the suggestions of the Navy and of our people here concerning the need to reverse the trend in Cuba and the methods which are best calculated to achieve (footnote continued on following page) - 76 - Tap SEC~FT