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and if they didn't get through there, they didn't go directly to the President. Mr. Dulles: They went directly to the President at 4:30 in the morning [of D-Day], you rem~mber? Response: Yes, that one time. Mr. Dulles: But after that, they certainly had very good access to the President. The President never cut off access at any time. Question: Would you say then that the CIA leadership encountered no buffer in presenting operational requirements to the President? Mr. Dulles: No never. Dulles ended his testimony with another mea culpa for not having taken a more direct role in the project, although he indicated that he had no reluctance about imposing questions and requesting information from project personnel as these occurred to him. In the course of his excuses, the DCI suggested tbat the Agency had not had the best of advice from the Department of Defense; but Admiral Burke immediately challenged this by suggesting that the Defense people didn't have all the information that they should have had. Dulles bristled at this, and asked: "Why didn't they know, Arleigh? We didn't hold out anything. It ~ay have been by ignorance we didn't tell them everything." Dulles suggested that if 163