Missile Crisis Intelligence Ripped By DAVID HO .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - A secretive group of advisers to President Kennedy saw the months leading to the Cuban missile crisis as riddled with failures in intelligence gathering, contradicting the popular view that the incident was a definitive success for the United States. At a meeting on Nov. 9, 1962, less than two weeks after the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw its ballistic missiles from Cuba, members of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board groused about the lack of U.S. spy plane activity over the island nation for most of September despite suspicions by the head of the CIA that Soviet missiles were there. The insights into the pressurized period are revealed in more than 400 pages of newly declassified documents now available among the Kennedy assassination records at National Archives in College Park, Md. The records provide a glimpse inside a group of civilian experts enlisted to provide the president independent advice on intelligence matters. The group also questioned an intelligence-gathering ``paralysis'' that set in regarding Cuba in the months after the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion debacle in April 1961. ``The feeling in responsible parts of government seems to be that things turned out all right, so why bother the president,'' board member Clark Clifford is described as saying at another meeting. ``If the president thinks a good intelligence operation took place, this could have dangerous implications.'' First formed in 1956, the advisory group's impact has varied among administrations, but it was particularly influential during the Kennedy years. On Oct. 4, 1962, the group discussed the ongoing work of Operation Mongoose, a once-secret plan to cause disruptions in Cuba, including blowing up power stations and planting U.S. intelligence infiltrators. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, tapped by his brother to oversee Mongoose, attended. ``The attorney general informed the group that higher authority was concerned about the progress on the Mongoose program and felt that more priority should be given to trying to mount sabotage operations,'' minutes from the meeting said. >From other reports, it is understood that ``higher authority'' refers to President Kennedy, said Anna Nelson, a historian at American University and a member of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board, which requested release of the documents. The records say that there was some discussion of mining Cuban waters with devices ``appearing to be homemade and laid by small aircraft operated by Cubans.'' Nelson said that plan didn't become reality. ``Either they never did it or we never knew about it,'' she said. Kennedy formed his version of the advisory group in May 1961 with an executive order directing it to review intelligence work, including ``highly sensitive covert operations relating to political action, propaganda, economic warfare, sabotage, escape and evasion, subversion against hostile states.'' The document adds that ``these covert operations are to be conducted in such manner that, if uncovered, the U.S. government can plausibly disclaim responsibility for them.'' Among those on the board were Clifford, chairman of the group for most of the Kennedy years and later Lyndon Johnson's defense secretary for a time; retired Gen. James ``Jimmy'' Doolittle, who led the first bombing raid on Tokyo during World War II; and William Baker, head of research at Bell Laboratories. Steven Tilley, who runs the National Archives collection of Kennedy assassination records, said the documents don't specifically deal with the assassination but fall under a broad definition of related issues, such as conspiracy allegations and assertions that Cuba was involved. The records mention the Kennedy assassination only on Nov. 22, 1963, the day the president was killed. The advisers expressed their sorrow and decided to hold off on their latest recommendations until after Lyndon Johnson began his tenure as president. In a summary of the advisory board's work presented to Johnson, the group said Kennedy approved 125 of its 170 recommendations, mostly concerning overhaul of the CIA and the Defense Department's intelligence programs. The recommendations ranged from launching more satellites to spy on Soviet missiles to finding a new name for the CIA. President Bush will have his own version of the advisory board but as yet has not appointed members, White House spokesman Mary Ellen Countryman said Wednesday. On the Net: National Archives JFK Collection: http://www.nara.gov/research/jfk/index.html President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board: http://www.whitehouse.gov/pfiab/index.html
