LPH 777 - 2024 (2008-24)
31 minutes ago
MOⒶNARCHISM
“They made us choose between people’s ability to use their mobile phones. An amenity that we provide–and our customer’s constitutional right to be able to get from point a to point b which is what we’re in business for…. [People made us] take the very tool that we put in place … the mobile phone as a safety tool.. to turn it around and use it against our customers to try to violate their constitutional right to safety...”
Our [CIA's] original concept is now seen to be unachievable in the face of the controls Castro has institutued. There will not be the internal unrest earlier believed possible, nor will the defenses permit the type strike first planned. Our second concept (1,500-3,000 man force to secure a beach with airstrip) is also now seen to be unachievable, except as a joing Agency/DOD action. Our Guatemala experience demonstrates we cannot staff nor otherwise timely create the base and lift needed.Reviewing the (still-classified) minutes decades later, Pfeffer wrote:
How, if in mid-November 1960 the concept of the 1,500-3,000 man force to secure a beachhead with an airstrip was envisioned by the senior personnel ... as "unachievable" except as a joint CIA/DOD effort, did it become "achievable" in March 1961 with only 1,200 men and as an Agency operation?Good question, and perhaps some more ammunition for Tom Ricks' contention that Kennedy was "the worst American president of the previous century."