Assassinating the Enemies of America

Richard Bissell, the CIA’s former Deputy Director for Plans (DDP) was called to testify in front of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities on 22 July 1975. The DDP was the Agency’s clandestine branch and the Committee was interested in exploring the CIA and Bissell’s involvement in covert operations that included the assassination of foreign officials. Bissell had taken on the role in 1959 and had played a prominent part in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. As part of the fall-out from that fiasco, he had been sacked by President John F. Kennedy.

Among the topics of the day was the CIA’s involvement in the assassination of the Dominican Republic’s ‘Generalissimo’ Rafael Trujillo in 1961. The brutal dictator had been killed by a group of dissidents in an ambush during a trip to one of his mistresses. Was the CIA involved? What was the US government’s role? Towards the end of the testimony, Committee staffer Charles Kirbow questioned Bissell about a particular telegram received by the CIA Station and the Consulate in Ciudad Trujillo, then capital of the Dominican Republic, a few days before the assassination.

Written by Richard Goodwin, Assistant Special Counsel to the President in the Kennedy White House, the cable instructed the Chief of Station, Robert Owen, and the US Consul, Henry Dearborn, to continue their support for the Dominican dissidents. But the cable also warned that ‘we must not run the risk of US association with political assassination since US as a matter of general policy cannot condone assassination’. Kirbow questioned Bissell on the cable’s meaning and purpose. ‘Mr Bissell’, he asked, ‘in the intelligence business, that’s normally referred to … as a “save your ass document”?’ Bissell replied: ‘Precisely.’ He added that those who had sent it would have done so knowing that it was too late. ‘An important purpose of the cable was for the record to minimize or to counter charges of US association with an assassination attempt.’

Season of inquiry

Much of what we know about the US government’s involvement in the assassination of foreign officials during the early Cold War builds on the investigations of the Senate Select Committee, better known as the ‘Church Committee’ after its chair, the Democratic senator Frank Church. The Church Committee played a prominent role in the so-called ‘season of inquiry’, a year-long investigation of misdeeds and illegalities perpetrated by the intelligence community. As part of these investigations, the Committee published an Interim Report on Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders. It concluded that the US government had tried to kill Fidel Castro and had been involved – with different degrees of awareness and complicity – in the assassination of other foreign leaders such as Trujillo, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963, Patrice Lumumba of Congo in 1961 and General René Schneider, Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army, in 1970.

As Bissell’s reflection suggests, both the Committee’s investigators and historians have since struggled with the partial and biased nature of the historical record that has survived. The same problem persists to this day. Almost 50 years later, many of the documents unearthed and generated by the Committee itself remain classified.

Research on Cold War assassinations shows how this already partial record can be further manipulated. In at least three cases, the US government opted to send last minute ‘save your ass’ telegrams. These telegrams generally appeared when it was clearly too late for them to make a real difference, and/or after months of US involvement in assassination plotting. They aimed at distancing the US from the reputational damage of being associated with any assassination, at massaging the historical record and at assuaging the moral qualms of the policymakers involved.

Raúl Castro’s plane

The first case uncovered takes us to Cuba and the origins of the US’ covert war against the Castro regime. The US government had failed to prevent Fidel Castro’s revolution and began to develop plans to overthrow his government as soon as he took power in 1959. But in 1960, the target of the assassination attempt was not Fidel, but his brother Raúl. Within the CIA it was understood that it would not be enough to remove Fidel: the whole Cuban leadership needed to go, including Raúl and Che Guevara.

William Murray, a CIA officer in Havana, had been cultivating a relationship with Jose Raul Martinez Nunez, who worked as a pilot for Cuba’s national airline. On 18 July 1960, Martinez requested an emergency meeting with Murray. He had been selected as the pilot for a flight taking Raúl Castro from Havana to Prague three days later on 21 July. Murray discussed the opportunities this presented with CIA Headquarters. On the morning of the flight’s departure, the station in Havana received a response: ‘Possible removal top three leaders is receiving serious consideration at HQs.’ The telegram asked whether the station felt that the asset’s motivation was sufficient for him to arrange an accident during the return trip. If that was the case, the CIA was happy to pay him $10,000 or more (within reasonable bounds) and to arrange for a rescue operation if required. No advance payment, however, could be made to avoid risks of a set-up.

Having received instructions, Murray met with Martinez, who, while willing to take the risk, thought it unlikely that the operation could pass as an accident. Martinez also asked for US support for the college education of his children. This was granted. Later, with the plane piloted by Martinez and carrying Raúl Castro already departed, a second cable reached the station: ‘Do not pursue. Would like to drop matter.’ The cable had been sent just too late, but not so late that it would not cover the US government’s tracks in case the operation succeeded. In the first of a long series of failed assassination attempts against the Castro brothers, Martinez returned having been unable to cause an accident. The CIA would continue its attempts to assassinate Castro, with elaborate plans involving explosive seashells and poisoned scuba diving suits.

Trujillo and Goodwin’s cable

The assassination of Trujillo was a success. For months Henry Dearborn, US Consul and de facto CIA Chief of Station in Ciudad Trujillo, had been in contact with groups of dissidents aiming to overthrow the dictator. He had repeatedly made clear to Washington that the dissidents’ aim was to assassinate Trujillo. ‘Political assassination’, he had written, ‘is ugly and repulsive but everything must be judged in its own context.’ Robert Owen, who joined Dearborn as the official CIA Chief of Station in January 1961, was also in contact with dissidents and agreed with Dearborn’s assessment. The CIA station continued to develop contacts with dissidents and reported their requests for weapons to Washington. Some of these requests were granted, including three Smith & Wesson pistols and three M-1 Carbines.

On 29 May – a day before Trujillo was killed – Dearborn and Owen received Goodwin’s telegram:

We consider it essential that you continue to work to strengthen pro US sentiment among dissident groups. However, we must not run the risk of US association with political assassination since US as a matter of general policy cannot condone assassination. Thus, last principle is overriding and must prevail in doubtful situation.

The cable received mixed reactions. Dearborn did not interpret it as a change in US policy. He interpreted the cable as saying: ‘We don’t care if the Dominicans assassinate Trujillo, that is all right. But we don’t want anything to pin this on us, because we aren’t doing it.’ Owen, however, disagreed. He understood that the US government risked being exposed, especially since US weapons had been transferred to dissident leaders, and a few people knew about the transfer, thus undermining the age-old principle of ‘plausible deniability’. He interpreted the cable as a ‘retreat’ from previous policy and warned: ‘HQs aware extent to which US government already associated with assassination. If we are to at least cover up tracks CIA personnel directly involved in assassination preparation must be withdrawn.’ It was too late to make much of a difference. Weapons had reached the dissidents and the Agency had even reviewed some of their plans. The telegram conveyed that, while the US government did not want to be seen as engaging in assassination, it was quite happy for others to do it.

Two further things seem to confirm the ‘save your ass’ nature of the telegram. First, the telegram is one of the few surviving documents regarding the last days of the Trujillo regime. This is not surprising. After the assassination of Trujillo, the State Department cabled the CIA station ordering the destruction of all records documenting the contact with dissidents, except contingency plans – and this anti-assassination cable. The drafting history of the cable has also survived and key changes can be identified during the drafting process. ‘We must not run the risk of US association with political assassination’ had previously read ‘we must not permit the danger of disclosing US association with political assassination’. The US government’s real concern was that its involvement in the assassination not be exposed.

Diem and Nhu’s ‘most careful handling’

Richard Goodwin was not the only person trying to distance the White House from assassination. Throughout the spring and summer of 1963, the US settled on a policy of supporting regime change in South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese government had been a US ally in the ongoing conflict in Vietnam. While Ngo Dinh Diem was – officially – in charge, the US government had become concerned about his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, due to Nhu’s perceived unpredictability, his leading role in the repression of Buddhists and his (apparent) openness to a peace deal with North Vietnam.

Lucien Conein, a controversial and swashbuckling CIA official, became the main point of contact between the Agency and a group of generals from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) who intended to overthrow the government. The generals had become opposed to Diem’s rule. The war was going badly. Through its repression of Buddhists and students, the government had lost the support of the people. The generals also resented that promotions in the army were based on personal loyalty rather than ability.

After one of his meetings with the generals, Conein reported to Washington that they had come up with three options for a coup: the assassination of Nhu and Diem’s other brother Ngo Dinh Can; a military encirclement of Saigon; or a direct confrontation in Saigon between the generals’ troops and units loyal to the regime.

David Smith, acting CIA Chief of Station, sent a message to the US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. He recommended that the US government should not set itself ‘irrevocably against the assassination plot’, since the two alternatives meant ‘either a bloodbath in Saigon or a prolonged struggle which would rip the Army and the country asunder’. Informed of Smith’s recommendation, CIA Director John McCone sent a cable to Saigon recommending a more hands-off approach:

Believe assassination discussions need most careful handling. In general, best line is no line … We certainly cannot be in a position of stimulating, approving, or supporting assassination, but on other hand, we are in no way responsible for stopping every such threat of which we might receive even partial knowledge. We certainly would not favour assassination of Diem … Consequently believe best approach is hands off.

The message left unsaid what the US government thought about the assassination of Nhu and Can. It also gave the impression that Washington was washing its hands of the whole endeavour.

As these messages travelled back and forth, McCone also met with President Kennedy and his brother Robert, the Attorney General. While circumlocutory language was used, the president agreed with McCone’s stand-off position. The following day, McCone sent a stronger message. He directed that Smith’s recommendation be withdrawn because the US government ‘cannot be in position actively condoning such course of action and thereby engaging our responsibility’.

Of course, while the US government could not ‘actively condone’ assassination, it did nothing to prevent the generals from killing Diem and Nhu a few weeks later on 2 November 1963. As the coup was underway, Conein stayed at the ARVN generals’ headquarters, acting as witness and advisor. He reported developments to Washington. When a plane was requested to take Diem to safety, the US government demurred, a US plane – or so the argument went – would give too much visibility to the US’ role. Diem and Nhu were shot with their hands tied behind their backs in an armoured ARVN vehicle. Throughout the ordeal, the US government had never made its support for a coup contingent on Diem’s survival. In Diem’s last hours, it preferred to leave the fate of the Vietnamese leaders in the hands of the coup plotters.

Full circle

Commenting on his telegram during his own testimony at the Church Committee, McCone took a different approach from Bissell. The telegram, he stated, confirmed his opposition to assassination. He was morally opposed to assassination as a foreign policy practice and – in the case of Vietnam – he also thought it was strategically unwise. Unwise or not, in the early stages of the Cold War political assassination was a pillar of US foreign policy in its attempts to get rid of troublesome foreign officials and foster regime change.

But this could not be done openly; it needed a screen of ‘plausible deniability’. Similarly, the president needed to be able to ‘plausibly’ deny any knowledge of – let alone support for – such a controversial practice. The telegrams distance the US government from the attempted assassinations of Raúl Castro, Trujillo and Diem. They also show how – beyond protecting its reputation and interest at the time – the US government worked to massage the historical record.

This goal was achieved through secretive committees with boring names – the ‘303 Committee’, the ‘40 Committee’ – which hid the president’s role and often managed covert operations. It was achieved through the euphemisms and circumlocutions in the language of foreign policy making. It was also achieved, as the ‘save your ass’ telegrams suggest, by creating fertile ground for assassination, but letting others pull the trigger.

Luca Trenta is Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University and author of The President’s Kill List: Assassination in US Foreign Policy since the Cold War (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).