◆ SpookStack

accepted only if they did not impair the chance of success. As it was, the leaders of the operation were obliged to fit their plan inside changing ground rules laid down for non-military considerations, which often had serious operational disadvantages. On the few occassions when this subject was broached during the hearings, it was dismissed without discussion or disputed by the Attorney General. DCI Dulles declined to become involved in the dispute. 3. The leaders of the operation did not always present their case with sufficient force and clarity to the senior officials of the government to allow the latter to appreciate the consequences of some of their decisions. This remark applies in particular to the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of the D-Day strike. The "leaders of the operation" against whom this particular charge was directed were General Cabell and Mr. Bissell. Based on review of both the testimony at the hearings and of Memorandun No.1, this conclusion appears to have had the purely poli~ical motive of protecting President Kennedy--and automatically Secretary Rusk--from any direct responsibility for the failure of the operation. In a memorandum he wrote prior to completion of the Taylor Committee Report (but after he had seen "a pre- liminary draft of the conclusions"), Bissell may have had the above conclusion in mind. He wrote that decisions on the military operation had been made by qualified military professionals who 209