◆ SpookStack

At no point in his testimony was Hawkins questioned as to why the B-26's could not have operated from the Trinidad airfield. In fact, there was a 4,000 foot, hard-surfaced runway at Trinidad from as early as 1957, and in 1960, it was listed as one of the seven major civilian airfields of Cuba. Eyen more damning is the fact that both Col. Stanley Beerli, and Jake Esterline were present during Hawkins's testimony, but neither remembered that 4,000 landings were practiced by the Cuban pilots during their training at Retalhuleu, Guatemala.* The afternoon session of the CSG's second meeting also had some unusual features. The first was the presence of a volunteer witness, I (referred to in the reports of the meeting as "Pilot"l I; and the ~econd concerned the JCS evaluation of the relative merits *In the writer's opinion the failure of either WH/4 or DPD personne,l to know the details about the Trinidad airfield was inexcusable. Their belief that the runway at Trinidad could not handle a-26s provides the most valid case in support of the criticisms which were subsequently leveled by the Inspector General and the other Bay of Pigs "experts" who faulted the anti-Castro Task Force (WH/4) for failure to take advantage of the expertise which was available in its own house. A CIA publication giving the correct runway information had been issued by the Deputy Directorate for Intelligence as a part of its regular, on-going series of National Intelligence Surveys. Similarly, the Department of Defense represen- tatives can hardly 'be held blameless for their failure to pick up this error, since the publication from which some of the information used in the NIS had been derived was Airfields and Seaplane 'Stations of the World, a joint publication of the USAF and the USN. What is even more ironic is that the airstrip that was to have been used for B-26s at Playa Giron also was only 4,000 feet. During their training in Guatemala the Cuban pilot~~~ere drilled on landing their B-26s within 4,000 feet.!Y I