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mean to be critical of Stan, because Stan was trying to do the right thing. But, Stan was military, and I was telling Stan -- military to military -- this cannot succeed; and I believe if he had been forceful in his presentation to Bissell, Bissell might have done it. Bissell was the type who would do something if he believed in it. But, Cabell is the one on whom the ultimate responsibility must lie, he was the man that Bissell -- and Dulles and the President -- was looking to for professional operational advice; and he didn't get it. That's my personal opinion. "133/ ' Beerli was far less harsh on Cabell than either Esterline or Gaines and pointed out that: He [Cabell] made a very special effort to see it [air operations plans] all. He was very concerned. We made visits to his office frequently to show him what plans we had. He told me, being an air officer, he said, "I feel that I should be informed at this point just what is going on. 1t 134/ Beerli apparently was less concerned about who did what -- or should have done what -- than he was about the impact that cancellation of the second strike had on operational planning; As with the other air operations planners and JMATE principals, he, too, believed that if the two attacks had gone forward as planned, Castro's Air Force would have been destroyed on the ground. But in his retrospective view of the D-Day cancellation, Col. Beerli offered another - 287 -