◆ SpookStack

The failure of the Taylor Committee to calIon the above, and others, to testify cannot be justified for lack of time-- even within the time frame set by the President. In the period between 22 April 1961 whe!1 the committee held its first meeting and 16 May when General Taylor gave the President the pre- liminary briefing he had requested, more than forty witnesses had completed testimony. In the period between 17 May and the final meeting to take testimony (30 May 1960) only a dozen witnesses would appear; and most of those were Cubans whose testimony was quite brief. Between 31 May and 13 June, the four memoranda which make up the Taylor Committee Report were prepared, but considering that significant portions of two of these memoranda were taken from the preliminary briefing paper, it should have been possible to have interviewed many, if not most, of those identified above. In its haste to complete the report by the President's deadline, it appears that the committee put its priorities in reverse order. The narrative portion of the final report (Memorandum No.1) traces the history of the operation from its inception under President Eisenhower's 17 March 1960 authorization of an anti-Castro program through the collapse of the invasion at Playa Giron on 19 April 1961. This story is told on the basis of the testimony of the witnesses and the more than thirty "Annexes" which the committee requested as a result of the 238