◆ SpookStack

One startling omission, in retrospect is the failure of any of the President's advisers to warn of the danger of the T-33's. I suspect that one reason for the [President's] later decision not to launch an air strike on the morning of D-Day was that this capability of the Castro Air Force was never put forward as significant. 117/ The question seems obvious. How could the National Security Adviser contemplate winning "the air battle" unless theT-33's -- which were positively identified as available and armed well prior to D minus 2 were destroyed? If Bundy expected to give the Com- mittee a valid case for poor military judgment by JMATE and the Joint Chiefs, Rusk's testimony on the political nature of the cancellation left him high and dry. When Cabell and Bissell returned to the operations center shortly before midnight on 16 April, they passed the word on as to what had transpired at the White HQuse; and despite the efforts of Col. Hawkins, Jake Esterline, and Dick Drain, who pointed out that the cancellation of the D-Day strike against the airfields would probably mean the failure of the whole operation, Gen. Cabell reportedly replied that "the Agency had been given its marching orders" and would comply. 118/