◆ SpookStack

and influential elements in the White House hoped that the confrontation might be avoided completely, but that if it did come it would be with minimum risk--particularly domestic po- litical risk and negative international repercussions. W~th the collapse o£ the invasion, and the almost immediate request by President Kennedy for General Maxwell Taylor to ~nyest~gate the operation, the remaining linkage between the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations would be shattered almost completely. It was this investigation which, even more than the formal transition of administrations on 20 January li6l, ended any remaining doubts about the need for, or desirab~1ity o£, worrying about the policies of the previous incumbent. At the time. that he was asked to serve President Kennedy in Ap,t'il 19.61, Taylor was, perhaps, the most Universal Man of the 20th Century--decorated soldier and military commander "- in heroic mold, engineer, li,uist, teacher, author, diplomat, and business executive. As head of the committee to review the Cuban operation he saw himself as the impartial judge assigned to insure that the record of events was presented in'as unskewed -a manner as possible in view of the parochial interests of the other committee members: Attorney General Robert Kennedy's concern for the Oval Office; Admiral Arleigh Burke's for the welfare of the JCS and the military; and Allen Dulles's for CIA. Taylor's background should have made it possible for 't. " 7