AUGUST 18, 1960, Léopoldville, the Congo. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba has just made a deal with Khrushchev that will give the Congo forces Soviet military planes, which Lumumba says he needs to bring rebellious Katanga Province back under the control of the central government. Victor Hedgman, CIA station chief in Léopoldville, sends a telegram to Allen Dulles: “BELIEVE CONGO EXPERIENCING COMMUNIST EFFORT TAKEOVER GOVERNMENT. MANY FORCES AT WORK HERE: SOVIETS, COMMUNIST PARTY, ETC. ALTHOUGH DIFFICULT DETERMINE MAJOR INFLUENCING FACTORS TO PREDICT OUTCOME STRUGGLE FOR POWER, DECISIVE PERIOD NOT FAR OFF. WHETHER OR NOT LUMUMBA ACTUALLY COMMIE OR JUST PLAYING COMMIE GAME TO ASSIST HIS SOLIDIFYING POWER, ANTI-WEST FORCES RAPIDLY INCREASING POWER CONGO AND THERE MAY BE LITTLE TIME LEFT IN WHICH TAKE ACTION.”
August 26, 1960. Allen Dulles sends a cable over his own signature (a highly unusual action) to Hedgman in Léopoldville: “IN HIGH QUARTERS HERE IT IS THE CLEAR-CUT CONCLUSION THAT IF LUMUMBA CONTINUES TO HOLD HIGH OFFICE, THE INEVITABLE RESULT WILL AT BEST BE CHAOS AND AT WORST PAVE THE WAY TO COMMUNIST TAKEOVER.… CONSEQUENTLY WE CONCLUDE THAT HIS REMOVAL MUST BE AN URGENT AND PRIME OBJECTIVE AND THAT UNDER EXISTING CONDITIONS THIS SHOULD BE A HIGH PRIORITY OF OUR COVERT ACTION.”1
LUMUMBA WAS NOT THE ONLY TARGET. One of the CIA’s plots was to poison Fidel Castro’s cigars. Another was to drop a poison pill in his coffee. A third bright idea was to rig an exotic seashell with an explosive device to be placed in Castro’s favorite skin-diving area; a fourth was to dust his diving suit with a skin contaminant.
Bissell brought the Mafia in on the plot. He thought the gangsters would be efficient and would keep their mouths shut. It turned out that they blundered every attempt to kill Castro and then sang like canaries, to everyone’s embarrassment, especially after it was said that one of the Mafia leaders and John F. Kennedy shared a girl friend.2
There is no doubt, in either of these cases, that CIA Director Allen Dulles ordered Castro and Lumumba murdered. Whether he did so with Ike’s knowledge, or not, is hotly debated. Whether he did so under Ike’s orders, or not, is even more hotly debated. Eisenhower loyalists, and there are many, swear that Ike did not and could not have known about these assassination plots. In their opinion, it is inconceivable that he could have ordered the murders. Yet these same loyalists insist just as firmly, with regard to the U-2 and other CIA programs, that Ike was absolutely in charge, the man in command, and that Allen Dulles would never have dared move without the President’s orders.
IN NOVEMBER 1975, the U. S. Senate’s Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities, popularly known as the Church Committee, conducted widely publicized and highly controversial hearings into CIA activities, including the assassination plots against foreign leaders. One of the committee’s conclusions was, “The chain of events revealed by the documents and testimony is strong enough to permit a reasonable inference that the plot to assassinate Lumumba was authorized by President Eisenhower.”3
Two months later, in January 1976, a number of Eisenhower administration insiders, including Gordon Gray, Douglas Dillon, Andrew Goodpaster, and John Eisenhower, challenged this finding. In a statement to the Senate, they requested that the committee “disavow” the finding that President Eisenhower had authorized an assassination. In a reply of February 2, 1976, the committee chairman, Frank Church, and the vice chairman, John Tower, responded, “After reviewing the evidence in the Lumumba case once again, we remain convinced that the language used in the Committee’s findings was warranted.”4
The committee itself had noted in its original report, however, that “there is enough countervailing testimony … and enough ambiguity and lack of clarity in the records of high-level policy meetings to preclude the Committee from making a finding that the President intended an assassination effort against Lumumba.” The committee did state directly and clearly that “Allen Dulles authorized an assassination plot.” In explanation, it wrote, “Strong expressions of hostility toward Lumumba from the President and his national security assistant, followed immediately by CIA steps in furtherance of an assassination operation against Lumumba, are part of a sequence of events that, at the least, make it appear that Dulles believed assassination was a permissible means of complying with pressure from the President to remove Lumumba from the political scene.”5
Those close to Ike deny directly and vehemently that the President ever authorized a murder. John Eisenhower, who attended NSC meetings as Assistant White House Staff Secretary, said he had no memory of his father ever ordering an assassination at one of them, as was alleged, and pointed out that “if Ike had something as nasty as this to plot, he wouldn’t do it in front of twenty-one people,” the number present at NSC meetings.
Goodpaster testified unequivocally to the Church Committee, “At no time and in no way did I ever know of or hear about any proposal, any mention of such an activity. It is my belief that had such a thing been raised with the President other than in my presence, I would have known about it.”6
In an interview in the Superintendent’s office at West Point in 1979, Goodpaster said he recalled some assistant once making a joking reference to bumping off Lumumba. Ike reddened, the sure sign of anger in the man, and said sternly, “That is beyond the pale. We will not discuss such things. Once you start that kind of business, there is no telling where it will end.”7
Yet Robert H. Johnson, a member of the NSC staff from 1951 to 1962, told the Church Committee, “At some time during that discussion in the NSC, President Eisenhower said something—I can no longer remember his words—that came across to me as an order for the assassination of Lumumba. There was no discussion; the meeting simply moved on. I remember my sense of that moment quite clearly because the President’s statement came as a great shock to me.”8
At an August 25, 1960, meeting of the 5412 Committee, covert operations against Lumumba were discussed. Gordon Gray, after hearing about attempts to arrange a vote of no confidence against Lumumba in the Congolese Senate, commented that “his associates had expressed extremely strong feelings on the necessity for very straightforward action in this situation.”
Gray later admitted that his reference to his “associates” was a euphemism for Ike, employed to preserve “plausible deniability” by the President.
Dulles replied to Gray’s comment by saying “he had every intention of proceeding as vigorously as the situation permits or requires but added that he must necessarily put himself in a position of interpreting instructions of this kind within the bounds of necessity and capability.”
The minutes of the 5412 meeting concluded, “It was finally agreed that planning for the Congo would not necessarily rule out ‘consideration’ of any particular kind of activity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba.”9
One of the major functions of 5412, Gordon Gray declared in a 1979 interview, was to “protect the President.” In one sense, this meant its task was to carefully scrutinize policies and programs to make sure they did not get the President into trouble. The 5412 Committee also provided a forum for the discussion of operations too sensitive to be discussed before the whole NSC.10 The committee also provided a perfect device for obscuring the record, making it impossible for the historian to say that this man ordered that action, or otherwise fix responsibility.
The CIA’S record, and Ike’s, with regard to assassination, is therefore purposely ambiguous. This is true not only with regard to Lumumba but also in the cases of Chou En-lai and Fidel Castro. A review of the whole delicate subject of assassinations and the CIA is thus in order before any conclusions can be attempted.
HOWARD HUNT IS THE SOURCE for the charge that the CIA, in the mid-fifties, had an assassination unit. Hunt said that the unit, which “was set up to arrange for the assassination of suspected double agents and similar low-ranking officials,” was under the command of Colonel Boris T. Pash, a U. S. Army officer assigned to the CIA.11 Pash’s title was Chief of Program Branch 7 (PB/7), a “special operations” unit within the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), the original clandestine services organization that eventually became the Directorate of Plans.
Frank Wisner, director of OPC and thus supervisor of Program Branch 7, said that Pash’s PB/7 functions included assassinations and “kidnapping of personages behind the Iron Curtain … if they were not in sympathy with the regime, and could be spirited out of the country by our people for their own safety; or kidnapping of people whose interests were inimical to ours.” This was, Wisner explained in a memorandum, “a matter of keeping up with the Joneses. Every other power practiced assassination if need be.” The written charter of the unit read, “PB/7 will be responsible for assassinations, kidnapping, and such other functions as from time to time may be given it by higher authority.”
Hunt told the Church Committee that at one point in 1953 he had a meeting with Pash and his deputy to discuss “wet affairs,” i.e., liquidations, with regard to a double-agent who had penetrated the CIA’S operation in West Berlin. Hunt said that Pash “seemed a little startled at the subject. He indicated that it was something that would have to be approved by higher authority and I withdrew and never approached Colonel Pash again.”12
One attempt was almost made, in 1955, but PB/7 was not involved, the target was not a low-ranking double-agent, and Ike knew nothing about it. A station chief in East Asia sent a cable to CIA headquarters outlining a proposed media propaganda campaign. To it he added a plan to assassinate Communist China’s number two man, Chou En-lai. Chou was attending a conference of Third World countries at Bandung. The plan was to have an indigenous agent place an undetectable poison in Chou’s rice bowl at the Bandung Conference’s final banquet. Chou would die two days later, after his return to Peking.13
Allen Dulles vetoed the plan. He had CIA headquarters send out a cable that “strongly censured” the station chief for even suggesting assassination and indicating “in the strongest possible language this Agency has never and never will engage in such activities.” The cable added orders to “immediately proceed to burn all copies” of any documents relating to the plan.14
FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS, the CIA stayed away from any discussion of political assassination. The subject came up again in 1960. Patrice Lumumba was the target. A brief history of developments in the Congo during the fifties is necessary to an understanding of the Lumumba assassination attempts.
The Belgian Congo, a European colony located in central Africa, was governed by the Belgians as if it were the eighteenth century. There was no local government of any kind; not even the 100,000 Belgians employed in the Congo had any political rights. All power resided with the Governor General, who was appointed by the Belgian Government and derived his powers from it. The Belgians made no attempt to prepare the Congo for independence until 1956, when at the urging of the United Nations some local elections were held to choose African advisers to the municipal governments. These elections led to the formation of political parties in the Congo. Joseph Kasavubu, leader of the Bakongo tribe in Léopoldville, formed one party drawn mostly from his tribe. Patrice Lumumba, a post-office clerk, founded another, which, unlike Kasavubu’s, tried to attract supporters on a nationwide basis. Moise Tshombe formed a third party in the mineral-rich province of Katanga.
The coming of political parties naturally increased the pressure for independence, as no politician could hope to win votes unless he attacked the Belgians and demanded immediate independence. By the beginning of 1960 the Belgians had come to the conclusion that there was only one way they could keep the goodwill of the Congolese after independence, and thus keep possession of the mines, and that was to grant independence as early as possible and trust that the Congolese would recognize that their total inexperience made it necessary for them to rely on Belgian advisers and managers. Elections were quickly arranged, with independence promised for June 30, 1960. The elections would choose a National Assembly, which would then select a head of state and a prime minister.
Kasavubu and Tshombe urged the Belgians to create a federal state, which was natural as they had mainly local support. Lumumba demanded that the existing unitary state, with a strong central government, be continued. He argued that it was the only way to keep such a huge and disparate country together. The Belgians supported Lumumba, whose party won the most seats in the National Assembly in the ensuing election, although not enough to enable him to form a government. The Belgian Governor General gave both Lumumba and Kasavubu an opportunity to form a government. When both failed, a deal was made whereby Kasavubu became President, while Lumumba became Prime Minister.15
In early July, the army—called the Force Publique—mutinied against its Belgian officers. Kasavubu and Lumumba attempted to reason with the soldiers, but abandoned the effort when Belgian paratroopers entered the country for the purpose of protecting Belgian nationals. Lumumba charged that Belgium was preparing to restore colonial rule. On July 11 he appealed to the United Nations for help. That same day Tshombe, premier of Katanga Province, declared the independence of that province from the Congo, with himself as President. Meanwhile the Force Publique, under the nominal command of its sergeants, had been rapidly disintegrating, committing numerous atrocities against both black and white.
Katanga, the richest part of the Congo and thus the area of most concern to the Belgians, settled down under Tshombe’s rule. He was discreetly backed by the Belgian mining companies, who paid their taxes to him and not to the central government. The United Nations, meanwhile, responding to Lumumba’s plea for help, sent a peace-keeping force to the Congo.
In late July, Lumumba flew to the United States to consult with UN and State Department officials. He made a very bad impression on Under Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon. “He would never look you in the eye,” Dillon reported. “He looked up at the sky. And a tremendous flow of words came out. He spoke in French, and he spoke it very fluently. And his words didn’t have any relation to the particular things that we wanted to discuss. You had a feeling that he was a person that was gripped by this fervor that I can only characterize as messianic.… He was just not a rational being.”
The State Department had hoped that it would be able to work with Lumumba, but those hopes vanished after his meeting with Dillon, who concluded that “this was an individual whom it was impossible to deal with.”16
Rebuffed, Lumumba returned to the Congo. Unable to obtain arms and support in the United States, he turned to the Soviet Union. Khrushchev had already been shaking his fist at the West in general and the Belgians in particular, warning them not to attempt to reassert colonial control in the Congo. The Russian leader responded positively to Lumumba’s request for military planes.
On August 18, 1960, Dillon reported on developments in the Congo to a meeting of the NSC, at which Ike was present. Both Lumumba and Khrushchev were demanding that the UN peace-keeping force get out of the Congo. Dillon, according to the minutes, said that “the elimination of the U.N. would be a disaster which … we should do everything we could to prevent.” If the UN were forced out, he warned, the Soviets would come in. The minutes went on, “Secretary Dillon said that Lumumba was working to serve the purposes of the Soviets and Mr. Dulles pointed out that Lumumba was in Soviet pay.”17
Ike then said it was “simply inconceivable” that the United States could allow the UN to be forced out of the Congo. “We should keep the U.N. in the Congo,” the President said, “even if such action was used by the Soviets as the basis for starting a fight.” Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Ambassador to the UN, said he doubted that the UN force could stay in the Congo if the government of the Congo was determined to kick it out. The President responded, the minutes record, by stating “that Mr. Lodge was wrong to this extent—we were talking of one man forcing us out of the Congo; of Lumumba supported by the Soviets.” The Congolese people wanted the UN force there, Ike declared.18
THE FIRST DIRECT REFERENCE to assassination as a solution came from Hedgman, the station chief in Léopoldville who had sent the alarmist telegram of August 18. On August 24 he reported that anti-Lumumba leaders in the Congo had approached Kasavubu with a plan to assassinate Lumumba, but Kasavubu had refused to endorse it because he was reluctant to resort to violence and in any case there was no other leader of sufficient stature to replace Lumumba.19
The next day, August 25, the 5412 Committee met to discuss CIA plans for political actions against Lumumba. It was at this meeting that Gordon Gray, Ike’s personal representative on 5412, reported that the President “had expressed extremely strong feelings on the necessity for very straightforward action in this situation, and he wondered whether the plans as outlined were sufficient to accomplish this.” The minutes state that the committee “finally agreed that planning for the Congo would not necessarily rule out ‘consideration’ of any particular kind of activity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba.”20
The following morning, Allen Dulles sent his own cable to Hedgman in Léopoldville telling him that the “removal” of Lumumba was an “urgent” objective.
Before Hedgman could act, the swirling events inside the Congo intervened. On September 5, President Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba from the government. He evidently was afraid that Lumumba would make the Congo into a Cold War battleground. Lumumba’s dismissal should have solved the problem, but Hedgman wired Dulles, “LUMUMBA IN OPPOSITION IS ALMOST AS DANGEROUS AS IN OFFICE.”
In response, Dulles told Hedgman that the United States was apprehensive about Lumumba’s ability to influence events in the Congo by virtue of his personality, irrespective of his official position. A week later, on September 14, General Joseph Mobutu seized power via a military coup. Lumumba then placed himself in UN custody.
Hedgman thought that by turning to the UN peace-keeping force for protection, Lumumba had strengthened his position (at least he was temporarily safe from Hedgman and the CIA). Hedgman wired Dulles, “ONLY SOLUTION IS REMOVE HIM [Lumumba] FROM SCENE SOONEST.”21
At this stage Richard Bissell asked a CIA scientist, Joseph Scheider, to make preparations to assassinate or incapacitate an unspecified “African leader.” Bissell told Scheider that the assignment had the “highest authority” behind it. Scheider procured toxic biological materials and reported that he was ready.22
On September 19, 1960, Bissell cabled Hedgman, telling him to expect a messenger from Washington in the near future. Two days later, at an NSC meeting, Allen Dulles stated that Lumumba “would remain a grave danger as long as he was not yet disposed of.” On September 26, Scheider flew to Léopoldville with the lethal substances, which he gave to Hedgman. Scheider told Hedgman that President Eisenhower personally had ordered the assassination of Lumumba.23
The substance was never used. Lumumba remained under UN protection until November 27, when he decided to go to Stanleyville to engage in political activity. Hedgman found out about Lumumba’s plans and reported them to Mobutu. In addition, he cooperated with Mobutu in setting up roadblocks to help capture Lumumba.
A few days later, Lumumba was captured. Mobutu held him in prison until January 17, 1961, just three days before Ike left office, when he put Lumumba aboard an airplane that took him to Elisabethville in Katanga Province. So many of Lumumba’s followers had been butchered at the Elisabethville airport that the place was known as the “slaughterhouse.”
At the slaughterhouse, Lumumba was murdered. Eyewitnesses to his appearance as he was dragged off the plane testified later that he might well not have survived the beatings to which he had already been subjected anyway.24
So, in the end, the CIA was not directly involved in Lumumba’s murder, although it had been in on his capture. That begs the question as to whether Ike ordered the man killed, however, or if Allen Dulles took it upon himself to put out the contract. It is simply one man’s word against another’s. John Eisenhower pointed out to the Church Committee that assassination was contrary to his father’s philosophy that “no man is indispensable,” and as noted Andrew Goodpaster was unequivocal in denying that Ike ever gave any order to assassinate anyone, and positive in his belief that he would have known about it had such orders been given.
Gordon Gray, who was present at all the crucial meetings, testified that “I agree that assassination could have been on the minds of some people when they used these words ‘eliminate’ or ‘get rid of.’ I am just trying to say it was not seriously considered as a program of action by the President or even the 5412 Committee.” Gray also said that “there may well have been in the CIA plans and/or discussions of assassinations, but at the level of 5412 or a higher level than that, the NSC, there was no active discussion in any way planning assassinations.”25
But to Richard Bissell, who was after all the number two man in the CIA, Dulles’ cable to Léopoldville was a clear signal that the President had authorized the CIA to kill Lumumba. At the Church Committee, this exchange occurred:
“Q: Did Mr. Dulles tell you that President Eisenhower wanted Lumumba killed?
Mr. Bissell: I am sure he didn’t.
Q: Did he ever tell you even circumlocutiously through this kind of cable?
Mr. Bissell: Yes, I think his cable says it in effect.”
Bissell went on to say, “I think it is probably unlikely that Allen Dulles would have said either the President or President Eisenhower even to me. I think he would have said, this is authorized in the highest quarters, and I would have known what he meant.”26
FIDEL CASTRO WAS THE NEXT CIA TARGET and the object of numerous assassination attempts. Some of the operations against Fidel crossed the border into pure lunacy. A part of the explanation as to how things got so completely out of hand is that the CIA was, by the end of the Eisenhower administration, at the peak of its power, prestige, influence, and cockiness. Another part is that having a Communist regime so close to the States, literally thumbing its nose at Uncle Sam, and this on an island that owed its independence to the United States and that had always had a special relationship with Washington, infuriated American policy-makers. Quite simply, it drove them mad. The result was lunatic actions.
Item: The CIA’S Office of Medical Services treated a box of Fidel’s favorite cigars with a botulinus toxin so potent that Castro would die the instant he put one in his mouth. The cigars were given to an agent who claimed he could get them into Cuba and into Fidel’s hands.27
Item: Richard Bissell enlisted the Mafia in a plot to kill Castro. Bissell liked the idea of bringing the Mafia in on it because the gangsters would be highly motivated, having been cut out of their very lucrative gambling operation in Havana. Thus they had “their own reasons for hostility.” Further, the Mafia provided “the ultimate cover” because “there was very little chance that anything the syndicate would try to do would be traced back to the CIA.” Bissell thought the Mafia was extremely efficient and it had an unquestioned record of successful “hits.”
Contacts were made with Johnny Rosselli, who had learned his trade under Al Capone, and Salvatore Giancana (also known as “Sam Gold”), who was on the FBI’S list of ten-most-wanted criminals. The CIA wanted a “gangland-style killing” in which Castro would be gunned down. Giancana opposed the idea because it would be difficult to recruit a hit man for such a dangerous operation, and Rosselli said he wanted something “nice and clean, without getting into any kind of out-and-out ambushing.” Giancana suggested a poison that would disappear without a trace. The CIA then prepared a botulinus toxin pill that “did the job expected of it” when tested on monkeys. Pills were given to a Cuban for delivery to the island. Obviously, none were ever dropped into Fidel’s coffee.28
The various CIA plots to destroy Castro’s public image were even more ridiculous. One scheme was to spray Castro’s broadcasting studio with a chemical similar to LSD, thus undermining his charismatic appeal by sabotaging his speeches. That idea was discarded because the chemical was unreliable. Next the Technical Services Division of the CIA impregnated a box of cigars with a chemical that produced temporary disorientation, hoping to induce Fidel to smoke one of the cigars before delivering a major speech.
Another plan involved a trip out of Cuba that Castro was scheduled to take. The Technical Services Division prepared some thallium salts that could be dusted onto Castro’s shoes when he left them outside his hotel room to be shined. The salts were a strong depilatant that would cause Fidel’s beard to fall out, thus destroying his machismo image.29
HOW MUCH IKE KNEW about this nonsense is unclear. Dulles was certainly informed. In December 1959, J. C. King, the former FBI agent who was head of the CIA’S Western Hemisphere Division, sent a memorandum to Dulles recommending that “thorough consideration be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro.” King said that neither Raúl Castro nor Che Guevara had “the same mesmeric appeal to the masses” and that Fidel’s elimination “would greatly accelerate the fall of the present Government.” Dulles gave the recommendation his approval.30
Whether Dulles told Ike or not is the point at issue. Richard Bissell testified before the Church Committee that he did not inform either the 5412 Committee or President Eisenhower of the Castro assassination operation. Bissell added that to his knowledge, neither did Dulles tell Ike. However, Bissell said he believed that Dulles would have advised the President (but not the 5412 people or the NSC) in a “circumlocutious” or “oblique” way. Bissell admitted that his observation was “pure personal opinion” based on his understanding of Dulles’ standard operation procedure in sensitive covert operations. But Bissell also said that Dulles never told him that he had so advised Eisenhower, although he ordinarily did let Bissell know when he had used the “circumlocutious” approach with the President.31
Other testimony before the Church Committee strongly denied that the President had any knowledge of a CIA connection with the Mafia or any assassination plots against Castro. Gordon Gray said that he had direct orders from the President to the effect that “all covert actions impinging on the sovereignty of other countries must be deliberated by the Special Group (the 5412 Committee).” Like Bissell, Gray said that the 5412 people never discussed any assassination plans for Castro. “I find it very difficult to believe,” Gray testified, “and I do not believe, that Mr. Dulles would have gone independently to President Eisenhower with such a proposition without my knowing about it from Mr. Dulles.”32
As to the possibility that Ike and Dulles conferred privately about the plot, General Goodpaster—who ordinarily was the first person to see the President in the morning—testified, “That was simply not the President’s way of doing business. He had made it very clear to us how he wanted to handle matters of this kind, and we had set up procedures to see that they were then handled that way.” SOP was to clear everything with 5412, then get the President’s direct approval, as in the U-2 program. Bissell’s assumption of a “circumlocutious” personal conversation between Ike and Dulles was to Goodpaster “completely unlikely.”33
Thomas Parrott, Secretary for the 5412 Committee, said, “I just cannot conceive that President Eisenhower would have gone off and mounted some kind of covert operation on his own. This certainly would not have been consistent with President Eisenhower’s staff method of doing business.”34
John Eisenhower, who was Goodpaster’s assistant, testified that his father had confided secret matters to him “to a very large extent.” As examples, John said Ike had told him about the atomic bomb a month before Hiroshima. He then said that his father “never told him of any CIA activity involving an assassination plan or attempt concerning Castro and it was his opinion that President Eisenhower would have told him if the President had known about such activity.” John also said that his father “did not discuss important subjects circumlocutiously.” He added that his father believed “that no leader was indispensable, and thus assassination was not an alternative in the conduct of foreign policy.”35
Finally, Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, told the Church Committee, “It is my firm conviction, based on five years of close association with President Eisenhower … that he would never have tolerated such a discussion, or have permitted anyone to propose assassination, nor would he have ever authorized, condoned, or permitted an assassination attempt.”36
All of which is strong testimony to Ike’s innocence. The fact remains, however, that Dulles did approve at least two assassination plots, and the CIA did do its best to carry them out. It is highly unlikely, almost unbelievable, that Dulles would have done so unless he was certain he was acting in accord with the President’s wishes. It may be that Dulles was too zealous or liberal in his interpretation of what the President wanted done. With both Eisenhower and Dulles dead, we will never know.