◆ SpookStack

they would be willing to support another invasion effort. But all made it clear that they expected the United States to play a more direct role in any future activity--their point being that the fight wa~ not just Cuban against Cuban, but 125/ that it was a fight against world communism. The seventeenth meeting of the Cuban Study Group was convened on 18 May 1961 and the principal witness was General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition to General Lemnitzer, two of the political leaders of the Cubans, Antonio Varona and Manuel Ray, also testified; but their remarks can be summed up very simply: Both Ray and Varona agreed that Cubans should have been in charge of the operation rather then the North Americans, and both agreed that there were severe inequalities in the funding of the various Cuban Groups--each, of course, emphasizing that it was his group which should have had a larger share of the money as well as a greater voice in a leadership of the Cubans. General Lemnitzer's testimony followed the pattern that had been set by the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when they appeared as witnesses before the Taylor Committee. He spoke quite freely, he disagreed with the committee members on various points, his facts were not always correct, and at . several points in his testimony on critical issues, the committee failed to ask for or seek elaboration on questions which were of major importance to the operation.* * As will be discussed in the next chapter, by the time General Lernnitzer testified the Committee had already briefed President Kennedy on its conclusions. 133