◆ SpookStack

-TOP St!(RET increased efficiency of Castro's forces and it would appear that the operators and the estimators were not making evaluations from the same intelligence inforrnation . Despite his promotion early in the month, it was not until 23 December 1960 that Ambassador Willauer called a meeting with the Agency's principals to ex- plain both his role and some of the problems that he anticipated the President wanted him to handle. Ap- parently it was an inauspicious beginning, for accord- ing to a memorandum of the meeting: Mr. Willauer stated that his role, as explained to him by Secretary Herter, was to be that of the chairman and major shareholder of a corporate board with Mr. Tracy Barnes, the executive director for operations and minority shareholder. Col. King asked for clarification on this point, noting that Mr. Esterline is the director for operations for CIA with the chain of command going from the Director to B1ssell to Col. King to Mr. Esterline. Mr. Barnes is a coordinator with the other inberested agencies. Mr. Willauer agreed that this was the case, noting that he had used the term operations in the looser sense of overall coordination. 14/ Once having had the pecking order set straight, Ambassador Willauer then proceeded to a discussion of various problem areas, indicating his very strong bias in favor of Agency positions as opposed to - 177 - T~F' ~EeR:Ff-