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.I9P SELRE I it ~~u~d be wdesirable" to break relations with Cuba prior to 20 January of 1961. At the Special Group meeting of 29 December 1960, it also .was suggested by Mr. Merchant that the Group's membership for discussions on Cuba be expanded to in- cruce ~~assaccr ~illauer, Assistant Secretary Thomas Kann, and c. Tracy Barnes. 24/ As already has been noted, in ris retrospective view of the Bay of Pigs Q9eration Jake Ester~ine was quite forceful in his Q9inion that the Agency's representatives at such high level meetiIl<Js should have been someone like either himself or Col.. Jack Hawkins who were the most ~owledgeable about the status of the operation and, indeed, the whole operational plan.* * It is the considered opinion of the author of this , history that Esterline had a valid criticism. A re- view of the records of the Bay of· Pigs Operation, indi- cates that one of the most voluminous correspondents vas C. Tracy Barnes, that a great deal of the written ~taria~ is repititious ad nauseam, and that Barnes ~eLabored iS~Jes which were common knowledge to the principals in WH/4. Illustrative of this, for example, was a 28 December 1960 memorandum which Barnes wrote to Jake Esterline. It began as follows: "It has been a Eittle whi~e since we have had an internal DDP hoe CQ~ll on your project. In the meantime, a number of : ..:nFXJrtant POL-its have been raised." 25/ The memorandum then proceeded to run through 'all of the issues which, by this time, were common knowledge (footnote continued on following page) - 188 - ~OP SECft EGf