◆ SpookStack

Question: Did you really think that this would be covert in the sense that it would not be attributed to the United States? General Shoup: I did not. 114/ If, as the record Seems to indicate, Robert Kennedy was the CSG interrogator who appeared determined to prove that General Shoup had failed to meet his responsibilities to the President, then the Attorney General failed to make his case.* The next member of the JCS to appear as a witness at the twelfth meeting of the eSG was Gen. Thomas D. White, USAF. General White was as positive as General Shoup had been about the preference that the Joint Chiefs had for the Trinidad Plan as compared to the Zapata Plan. As with the Marine Commandant, General White also noted that the JCS had agreed that of the alternative plans that had been presented, Zapata was the best of the lot. General White was even more adamant about the necessity for gaining control of the air than General Shoup had been. In his discussion with the committee, General White, too, noted instances where he was unable to respond to questions because he had not been involved in the particular discussions that led to decisions such as the D-2 strike or the cancellation of the D-Day strike. Inasmuch as Mr. Bundy of the White House Staff was one of the principals involved in the D-2 strike and * One might wonder whether Col. Jack Hawkins's failure to make General in the Marine Corps was in any way related to Shoup's set-to with Robert Kennedy and, to a lesser extent, with Maxwell Taylor during Shoup's meeting with the. eSG. Colonel Hawkins had been the personal choice of General Shoup to work with CIA on the anti-Castro project. 121