◆ SpookStack

we've always had it. It's inherent in this type of operation. At the same time, I realize that the Agency had the final responsibility for the operation••• I should have exercised more of my own judgment in pointing out clearly to the President certain of the features which have been brought out in these discussions. The President once did ask me directly whether he should go ahead on this. I said I'd give it further study. I wasn't ready to approve it then because of the difficulty we were having in obtaining naval cover. Later, this was worked out and I recommended that we go ahead; so I take full responsibility there.· For whatever reason, the DCI's performance as a witness before the CSG left much to be desired. He failed to support senior Agency personnel (including military assignees) who had * In retrospect both Richard Bissell and Dick Drain placed much stronger emphasis on this aspect of the operation than Dulles did. Bissell said that in March 1961 when it reached the point where the force had to be committed or the project cancelled. "Why didn't we of our own initiative at that point say, 'Look given the present strategic concept, the forces are not sufficient.' Why didn't we cancel? •• The answer probab1y••• essentia11y••• certainly an important element of the answer is the obvious one--that we were psychologically and every other way committed to this question." 154/ Dick Drain in commenting on the Bay of Pigs operation wrote: "The operation began to have a life of its own and that the intensity of the momentum itself became a major factor in our working positively to achieve the goal to the exclu- sion of objective examination of the li~lihood Isic] of success. We were all finally so swept up in it all that we let the op run us rather than the other way around. II 155/ 161