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97. McCone, “Memorandum of MONGOOSE Meeting in the JCS Operations Room, October 26, 1962, at 2:30 p.m.,”” 29 October 1962 -~ nor By TE October 29, 1962 MEMORANDUM OF MONGOOSE MEETING IN THE JCS OPERATIONS ROOM, OCTOBER 26, 1962, AT 2:30p.m. Attended by: McNamara, Gilpatric, General Taylor, Johnson, Ed Martin, Don Wilson, the Attorney General, McCone, Lansdale, Harvey, and Parrott. The purpose of the meeting was to give guidance to operation MONGOOSE. It became immediately apparent that Lansdale felt him- self lacking in authority and not in channel of either operations or information with JCS or SecDef's office. There was considerable criticism by innuendo of the CIA/Lansdale relationship. McCone stated that he understood the MONGOOSE goal was to encourage the Cuban people to take Cuba away from Castro and to set up a proper form of government. He said CIA had, and would continue to support Lansdale whom we recognized as the director of this operation. He felt that any indication that CIA was not affording such support to Lansdale was completely erroneous. On the other hand, CIA by long-standing arrangements, details of which were most recently confirmed, are obligated to support the military to the extent desired by the JCS in any combat theatre, and therefore probably some CIA moves made for the purpose of meeting this objective had been misunderstood by Lansdale. Lanadale had distributed the attached paper headed "Main Points to be Considered, 10/26." 319