18: Controlling Cuban-Exile Chaos

Publicly Vice President Richard Nixon was asserting that the U.S. should take a hands-off approach to Cuba and hope for the best.1 But in fact, Nixon had been dealing with the issue of Castro since at least April 19, 1959, when he met with Castro and then “prepared a 4-page secret memorandum and sent out copies to President Eisenhower, Secretary Herter and to Allen Dulles.” Herter was serving as Secretary of State in place of an ailing John Foster Dulles who coincidentally was hospitalized at the same time as former Secretary of State George C. Marshall. Dulles died May 24, 1959, while Marshall passed October 16, 19592 leaving a hole in William and Edna Pawley’s personal lives and William’s sphere of influence.

In the 12 months since Castro ascended to power, the Cuban government had expropriated 70,000 acres of property owned by U.S. sugar companies and United Fruit. Once again, the company would call for U.S. action to overthrow a government.3 

The tsunami of Cuban exiles arriving in the U.S. made that mission seem easy if someone could vet them to determine the best future political leaders and organize an effective fighting force.

On January 3, 1960, President Eisenhower announced that the U.S. was severing diplomatic relations with Cuba. On January 13th a Special Group meeting attended by CIA Director Allen Dulles and Livingston Merchant from the State Department discussed “Anti- Castro Activities.” With these actions and Eisenhower's March 17th approval of a plan to invade Cuba, he was in essence establishing an undeclared war that would hang like an albatross around Uncle Sam’s neck.

The CIA began dealing with Fidel on a formal basis on January 8, 1960, when Director Allen Dulles asked Deputy Director of Plans Richard “Dick” Bissell to organize a special task force. Ten days later the Western Hemisphere Division “organized Branch 4 (WH/4) as an expandable task force to run the proposed Cuban Operations” manned “with 18 at Headquarters, 20 at Havana Station, and 2 at Santiago Base.”

Heading WH/4 was Jacob “Jake” D. Esterline (aka Jacob Engler) who had gained “extensive guerilla warfare experience in World War II with the OSS” and was “one of the principals in Project PBSUCCESS” in Guatemala in 1954. “Esterline was the choice of J.C. King, Chief, WH Division.” As head of the WH/4 Cuban unit during the fifteen-month run up to the Bay of Pigs invasion, Esterline took his orders from the Deputy Director Plans Richard Bissell but frequently had direct contact with J.C. King and the Miami-based Cuban expert, William Pawley. Both were to be reckoned with because they “had known Republican Party affiliations.”4

King’s full role during the period and many interactions with Pawley will never be known. His papers that once filled eight safes—then only two—disappeared, according to an official history of the period.5

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23: Presidents Come and Go; CIA Remains

In Pawley’s autobiography, he blames two individuals in the State Department for the success of Fidel Castro’s revolution. He put the primary blame on William A. Wieland (left photo) “for engineering the betrayal of Cuba into the Communist orbit.” 

Wieland’s “immediate superior, Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom” (right photo) also was to blame. Pawley saw their complicity as being deeply rooted in ignoring the significance of witnessing “the Red-inspired holocaust in Bogotá featuring Fidel Castro.” Perhaps, intentionally.

During Castro’s rise in Cuba, Pawley noted “Wieland was in charge of Mexican, Central American and Caribbean affairs under Rubottom” and “did all that was humanly possible to brush aside, ignore, short-circuit or refute warnings by experienced American diplomats that Castro was a Communist and that his movement was infested with Soviet agents.”

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24: Pig in a Poke

According to the CIA Bay of Pigs History, the new president was handed a pig in a poke by the previous administration. As early as November 15th, a CIA briefing statement regarding the Cuban situation was prepared for the newly elected president. It stated that the CIA’s “original concept is now seen to be unachievable in the face of the controls Castro has instituted. There will not be the internal unrest earlier believed possible, nor will the defenses permit the type of strike first planned.” 

The CIA then told Kennedy that its “second concept (1,500-3,000 man force to secure a beach with airstrip) is also now seen to be unachievable, except as a joint Agency/DOD action. Our Guatemala experience demonstrates we cannot staff nor otherwise timely create the base and lift needed.” Within the next half-a-year, this seemingly doomed scenario, was transformed into “the Zapata Plan and the Bay of Pigs operation.”1 During the development, Pawley's friend in State, Thomas Mann, would contemplate the use of a former Pawley
associate in China and Guatemala, Ambassador Whiting Willauer (photo), for a key role.   

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25: The Name Game

In the past, Pawley would go straight to the top to argue his position to Presidents Roosevelt, Truman or Eisenhower when he felt that his dealings with underlings were not going well. But in the new Kennedy administration, he did not have that access, so he had to take his case to Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann (photo), whom weeks earlier Pawley had praised as “brilliant” and no “nicer fellow” while chastising him for his friendship with Betancourt.1

Pawley in early March 1961 began sending Mann materials to make the case against Manuel “Manolo” Ray and for the use of others.2 Ray was a former professor of engineering at the University of Habana, who had been selected by the CIA to rally support. Pawley disliked him because he had served as Castro’s Minister of Public Works, although he quit the Castro cabinet position after his friend Huber Matos was arrested by Castro. Ray then defected to the U.S. and became the leader of the anti-Castro counterforce People’s Revolutionary Movement (MRP).3

In the letter to Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann, Pawley demonstrated his mastery of the Cuban situation while raising the possibility of a post-Castro civil war if the wrong leaders are selected. “It [is] also thought by important Cubans whom I know here that Ray and three or four of the other prominently mentioned Cubans have already made arrangements through Russian agents and that when Castro falls, Russia will still have their men in power even though they pretend to demonstrate a more friendly attitude toward the United States.” Pawley stated “that the best solution would be a ‘junta’ or ‘frente’ made up of leaders of the various political groups. At no time has this seemed more necessary than now.” He offered four names for this role: de Varona, Carillo, Artime, and Maceo.

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