JFK : The Cloak and Dagger Mutiny by Col. Davies - Australia

              VOLUME II NUMBER 4 APRIL 22, 1977
JFK; THE CLOAK AND DAaCF.R MUTINY by Col. Davies - Australia
"AND PRINCES OR MAGISTRATES WHO WISH TO DESTROY
SUCH EVILS MUST WATCH ALL POINTS, AND MUST BE
CAREFUL IN ATTACKING THEM NOT TO INCREASE INSTEAD
OF DIMINISHING THEM, FOR THEY MUST NOT BELIEVE
THAT A FIRE CAN BE EXTINGUISHED BY BLOWING UPON
IT."
( - Niccolo Machiavelli, 1520)
The Bay of Pigs confirmed some earlier suspicions that Kennedy had nurtured about
the CIA. "It is a hell of a way to learn things but I have learned one thing from
this business - that is, I WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH CIA. McNamara has dealt with
Defence, Rusk has done a lot with State but nobody has dealt with CIA." (1) In
a moment of deep anger Kennedy privately told friends that "he would like to
splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the winds" (2).
Kennedy realised that any attempts to make CIA genuinely submissive to White
House directives would be difficult, if not impossible because of the tremendous
amount of Congressional and public support CIA enjoyed. It was not- until after
Watergate that Congressional support for CIA seriously waned, enabling Congress
to set up special committees to investigate genuinely CIA operations and acti­vities.
Kennedy's first need was to obtain as much accurate information as possible about
the real workings of the CIA. This task was assigned quietly to the State Depart­ment,
almost immediately Kennedy took office (3). After the Bay of Pigs Kennedy
instituted three more studies into the operations of the CIA.
(1) THE TAYLOR INVESTIGATION
Two days after the Bay of Pigs, General Maxwell Taylor was called back from re­tirement
to head an investigation committee into the whole affair. The remainder
of the committee was made up by Allen Dulles, General Arleigh Burke and Robert
Kennedy.
The committee only concerned itself with the Bay of Pigs and did not involve it­self
with the general problem of the CIA. However the committee did make one
extremely important recommendation - that the CIA be prohibited from undertaking
any further para military operations and be solely restricted to small operations
that would be plausibly deniable (h). Much debate centered around the meaning of
"small operations" which were defined as operations in which all weapons could
be carried by hand or individually. (5)
Kennedy acted on this advice,•resulting in National Security Action Memorandum
No. ^^. Retired Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty who was the man responsible
for CIA liason with Defence during the Kennedy years, argues that NSAM 55 signi­fied
the opening round of Kennedy's unsuccessful attempt to control the CIA (6).
Prouty maintains that NSAM ^^, of all the directives ever signed by the President,
"was perhaps the most important" (7).
According to Prouty, Kennedy did not allow the matter to rest with NSAM ^'^. In
NSAM ^^7 Kennedy spelled it out, that from now on all clandestine operations will
be SMALL, APPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT AND ASSIGNED ON THE BASIS OF NEED AND NOT ON