◆ SpookStack

suggested that the Agency and the Department of Defense should have made an effort to get everything together for one single briefing of President Kennedy who, with all the factors then available, would have been in a better position to make decisions. This, of course, overlooked the point that when the Agency briefed tbe President on the Trinidad Plan on 11 March 19.61, they hoped that would have been the single briefi~~eeded for an O.K. Another of Secretary Rusk's opinions concerned the handling of the 1,20Q man brigade, suggesting that there had been undue conce.rn about aborting the plan and returning the 1,200 Cubans to civilian life. This probably was the most valid point in the. Secretary of State's testimony, but this was a political problem which was of primary concern to the Kennedy administration and not to the Agency per see Also with reference to the brigade, Secretary Rusk said that "if you are not prepared to go all the way, you shouldn't put 1,200 men ashore." This piece of testimony raises the question of why, since the brigade was going to be committed, did Secretary Rusk support the one action which was most certain to eliminate all possibilities of victory for the brigade--the cancellation of the D-Day air strike? If he believed in what he was saying, Secretary Rusk, who said that his had been the only dissent concerning the invasion plan, should have tried harder to obtain a cancellation of the invasion or, to insure success, siven up on deniability, supported the D-Day strike, and 105 I