◆ SpookStack

* During the discussions of the ammunition shortage and the failure to resupply the beach from the LCUs and LCls that were standing by or from USAF C-130s, one of the CSG members commented that if the President had known how bad the ammunition situation on the beach was, he would have authorized air cover for the ships. Esterline's re- joinder to this remark was that he couldn't imagine how the President could have been ignorant of the critical situation from 16 April until the collapse of the beachhead--particularly considering that Richard Bissell and General Cabell had been in constant contact with the White House.* Along this same line, Esterline also told the committee: "As long as decisions by professionals can be set aside by people who know not whereof they speak, you won't succeed [in operations such as 146/** the one under study]." - About a week. after Esterline's testimony Robert Kennedy wrote that: "Jack on the first day [17 April 1961] realized there was going to be difficulty." Assuming the Attorney General had made the comment to the Committee about the President's lack of knowledge of the situati~n at the beach this sentence indicates the possibility that the record was being skewed to protect the President. 145/ ** This comment by Esterline made a strong negative impression on Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. In his 1978 book on Robert Kennedy, Schlesinger commented about the CIA-FBI as self-appointed guardians of the Republic saying: Let others interfere at their peril. J.D. Esterline, the CIA'S supervisor of planning for the Bay of Pigs, bitterly told the board of inquiry [e.g., the Taylor Committee], "a$ long as decisions by professionals can be set aside by people who know not whereof they speak, you won't succeed." 147/ Mr. Schlesinger apparently was so upset that his source citation for Esterline's quotation is incorrectly given as "Cuba Study Group, May 19, 1961, RFK papers." The correct citation should be Cuba Study Group, 19th Meeting, 22 - 23 May 1961, p. 22. On the subject of Schle~inger's error in his volume on Robert Kennedy, he also identified E. Howard Hunt as "the original chief of political action for the [BOP) project." 148/ In fact, Hunt's role was limited principally to hand holding with the Cuban political leaders; and he had no command responsibilities. 153