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49. Richard Helms, Memorandum for the Record, “MONGOOSE Meeting with the Auorney General,” 16 October 1962 16 October 1962 MEMORANDOM FOR THE RECORD SUBJECT: MONCCOSE Meeting with the Attorney Gaeral 1. At 2:30 this afternoon, the Attorney General convened in his office a meeting on Operation KONOOOSE consisting of General Lansdale and Colonel Patcbell, General Johnson of the Joint Staff, Robert Hurwitch of State (vice Ed Martin who was unable to attend), Hewson Ryan of USIA, and the undersigned. 2. The Attorney General opened the meeting by expressing the general dissatisfaction of the President" with Operation MONGOOSE. He pointed out that the Operation had been under way for a year, that the results were discouraging, that there had been no acts of sabotage, and that even the one which had been attempted had failed twice. He indicated that there had been noticeable improvement during the year in the collection of intelligence but that other actions had failed to influence significantly the course of events in Cuba. He spoke of the weekly meetings of top officials on this problem and again noted the small accomplishments despite the fact that Secretaries Rusk and McNamara, General Taylor, McGeorge Bundy, and he personally had all been charged by the President with finding a solution. He traced the history of General Lansdale's personal appointment by the President a year ago. The Attorney General then stated that in view of this lack of progress, he was going to give Operation MONGOOSE more personal attention. In order to do this, he will hold a meet~ dng every morning at 0930 with the MONGOOSE operational respresente- tives from the various agencies (Iansdale, Harvay, Hurwitch, Ryan, and General Johnson). 3. The Attorney General spoke favorably of the sabotage paper which had been presented by General Carter this morning to the meet- 4ng of the Special Group (Augnented). He obviously did not like the earlier memorandm, since he felt it showed no "push" in getting on vith the acte of sabotage. i. When asked for my coments, I stated that we were prepared to get on with the new action prograx and that ve would execute it aggressively. I pointed out, however, that the objective of Operation YONGOOSE would have to be detemmied at some point since the Cubans 153