◆ SpookStack

of the emperor's new clothes. The overt recruitment efforts in Miami by the FRO, the general inability of Cubans-- particularly the leaders of the numerous exile factions--to retain confidentiality, and persistent pursuit of leads by local and national media made a mockery of attempts to deny that training bases had been established in Guatemala and that the ~gency was the. mechanism being used by the US Government to support the anti-Castro exiles. upon assuming office, President Kennedy inherited a paramilitary contingent in training with aircraft (bomber/ . ground support and transportsl and an infantry brigade which probably had the heaviest concentration of firepower in the Caribbean basin, if not in all of Latin America. To insure the success of the planned landing on a hostile shore, US Army Special Forces trainers, USAF and Air National Guard pilot instructors and mechanics, and pilot instructors from CIA were assigned to, or volunteered for, the project. In addi- tion to CIA and the Department of State, Kennedy almost immediately ordered that the Department of Defense, under its new Secretary, Robert McNamara, become a more active - participant in CIA's paramilitary planning for the overthrow of Castro and the installation of a government which would be anti-Communist and, preferably, pro-US. c: .) : "