◆ SpookStack

..:FOP 3ECRE ( suddenly the President emerged as one of the principal decision ma~ers in the period prior to the take-over by the Kennedy administration. wben asked for an explanation of this sudden resurgence, Jake Esterline, then Chief, WH/4 stated: I can't explain it ... but I will say this, it probably had a political basis. They (the Republican administration] realized that they had lost, and they realized that they were going to have to brief a new administration along with the British on the things that had been going on. I suspect that they didn 1 t want to brief on something that would emerge that they hadn't been giving anything other than their full support. Iam guessing, but I would think that was a pretty good guess. 1/ On 29 November of 1960, the President had a meet- ing which included Messrs. Dillon and Merchant of State; Gates and Douglas of Defense; Gray and Goodpaster of his own Staf£; and Dulles and Bissell of CIA. In his report on the session with the President, Mr. Bissell, the DDP mentioned among other things the following two points of particular interest: The President made it clear he wanted all done that could be done with all possible urgency and nothing less on the part of any department, ... and the Presi- dent l~d a discussion as to how best to orga~ize the total US effort against the target. There was some feeling that an - 166 - ;rap SEER:er