THE BRIGADE'S BRAVE MEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100380022-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 7, 2000
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: January 7, 1963
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

CPYRCproved Fo
FOIAb3b
CPYRGHT
The JFK `mistake'
in the 1961 Cuban
assault is redeemed
as President and
nation cheer the
joyful return of ....
The Brigade's Brave Men
y saw
in the pink-and-gold sunset burnishing
the horizon at Homestead Air Force
Base in Florida. The crowd had gath-
ered before dawn, sipping coffee, nib-
bling sandwiches, and waiting for the
planes shuttling th ieoners--of....war
from Fidel.Castro's Cuba. Now the first
appeared, then faded into the rising
night, and finally settled in above the
silhouetted Australian pines for its land-
ing. A woman fainted; another pressed
a fist to her lips and gasped, "My God,
they are really coming now."
First up the ramp to the Pan Ameri-
can DC-6 was a blue-uniformed U.S.
Immigration Service worker, Maria
Loisa Bolivar, a piquant Puerto Rican
of 20. "Amigos cubanos," she started,
welcoming the Bay of Pigs POW's to
freedom. Her words disappeared in the
shouts: "Viva ... viva ..."
And then the prisoners-ransomed
from Castro's jails with $53 million worth
of made-in-U.S.A. drugs, medical equip-
ment, and baby food-filed out. First,
two men who had been airsick on the
flight from Havana wobbled down the
steps into the glare of blue lights. One
whispered to Miss Bolivar the first words
of the ransomed group on U.S. soil:
"I'm dizzy."
After them, the river of men spilled
out, taking the steps two at a time,
rushing down the ramp into the bear-
hugging, back-pounding abrazos with
the countrymen waiting to greet them.
One kissed the ground at the bottom
of the ramp. Another pressed a prison-
Bolivar's hands.
Shepherded into it black hangar, the
men were given baths, physical exams,
khaki uniforms--replacing the sport shirts
and slacks Castro had issued them as
they left-and $100 each. In an enlisted
men's mess hall, they bolted vegetable
soup, roast beef, mashed potatoes, and
peas. And then they piled aboard buses
for the 20-mile ride to Miami's cavern-
ous Dinner Key Auditorium, where
5,000 friends and relatives were waiting
to welcome them. The scene was tear-
ful and tumultuous; men vaulted over
police barricades, women pressed for-
ward, and all about there were hugs,
kisses, sobs, and the babble of voices:
"... Beautiful ... My beautiful, beauti-
ful little kid ... How beautiful you
look, how beautiful you look ..." There
were several rounds of "vivas." And
there were grim pledges: "We shall re-
turn," said Juan Figueras, 24, a Bahia
de Cochinos casualty who left both legs
in Cuba. ". . . We have to do it."
The 'Bonus': There were nine
more planes that night and the next,
Christmas Eve, ferrying the 1,113 sur-
viving captives to freedom-most of them
pallid and underfed but surprisingly
healthy for their twenty months in jail.
Behind them, aboard the black-hulled
freighter African Pilot (which had de-
livered the ransom down payment to
Havana), came nearly 1,000 of their
relatives. Castro had ransomed them,
too, as a "Christmas bonus," for which
most of their belongings.
Thus did the U.S. pay what its Presi-
dent regarded as a debt of honor to the
men of Brigade 2506, the Cuban emigre
attack-force that waded ashore in the
ill-starred invasion attempt of April 1961.
At the weekend, John F. Kennedy him-
self closed this unhappiest chapter of
his two years in the White House.
journeying from his Palm Beach vaca-
tion retreat to Miami, he stepped out
into the Florida sunshine bathing the
Orange Bowl to review the men of the
invasion brigade-and to receive their
battle flag in return.
A crowd of 40,000 exiles thronged
the big bowl, waving U.S. and Cuban
flags and white handkerchiefs, pouring
cascades of applause down around the
President and Mrs. Kennedy. Once they
broke into a loud chant: "Guerra!
Guerra! Guerra!" (War! War! War!).
Squinting against the sun, Mr. Kennedy
threaded among the brigade survivors,
shaking their hands, receiving their
salutes. Characteristically, once the
speeches started, he put the men at
ease by suggesting that they sit down
on the stadium grass. They did. But
they leaped to their feet applauding
when the President unfolded the battle
flag of their ill-fated "Brigada Asalto"
and shouted to the crowd: "I can assure
you this flag will be returned to this
brigade in a free Havana!"
For Mr. Kennedy, it was a difficult
date to keep. He had approved the in-
vasion; he had deprived it of the tacti-
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(!ill support it needed, and when it
failed he took, the blame. That failure
had lingered on his conscience-and the
rations-ever since.
For all that time, the captives had
languished in prison. Few were man-
handled by their guards-"The Commu-
nists," one said, "are careful about that"
-and most seemed to have fared rea-
sonably well. But conditions were none-
theless harsh. Prisoners were jammed
into cells--as many as 175 in one two-
windowed dungeon they called "the
cave." Meals were erratic; macaroni was
the unvarying staple for some during
the last six months. "The plate of slop
they call food used to be our crystal
ball," said one prisoner, Ramon Cora,
33. "When the food would get better,
we would say they must be making
progress with negotiations."
Special treatment was reserved for
C}1P'l' e ?H1Manuel Artime, the top
Administration had been little more
than a sympathetic bystander. On the
record, the dealings with Fidel were
in the hands of the ~,. Facmilies
Committee and New York lawye_rJames
B. Donavan, who had arranged the
Francis Gary Powers-Rudolph Abel spy
swap. The President, Attorney General
Robert Kennedy, and Donovan all
maintained this polite fiction in public.
But the facts were that the Admin-
istration was deeply involved, that
Donovan was in effect its envoy without
portfolio, and that his mission could not
have succeeded without massive gov-
ernment help.
The charade was necessary-so Ad-
ministration officials argued-because
Castro might have raised the ante or
even called off the entire deal if the
U.S. Government became publicly in-
volved. For this reason, newsmen who
got wind of the unorthodox Administra-
and bothered. by his bursitis, shuttled
between Havana, Miami, and Washing-
ton and sat across the bargaining table
from the mercurial Fidel. It was Dono-
van who told Castro he would have to
settle for medical goods and baby food
and who cut the Cuban short when he
haggled about the price. ("What value
would you put on a drink when you're
out in the field all day and thirsty, and
there isn't a drop of water around?" he
asked Castro. "Let's not talk about
prices, let's talk about quantities.") And
finally, it was Donovan who, on Christ-
mas Eve, boarded the last plane carry-
ing prisoners from Havana and wired
ahead: "Operation Mercy regarded as
completed. Merry Christmas."
Tape-Sinipper: But Donovan was
far from alone. He got his non-paying
client, in fact, through Robert Kennedy,
who suggested him to the Cuban Fami-
L I i r HTI"resident Kennedy's IOU: `This flag will be returned'
civilian official o Brigade , spent
nine months naked and incommunicado
in a 6- by 9-foot cell. But few were
visibly chastened by the hardships of
prison life. Talk of going hack was com-
mon, and Artme cried to the throng of
exiles at Dinner Key: "We have come to
call you with the voices ... of our dead
to war again ...>
Natne of the Game : All of this
had been prickling President Kennedy's
conscience. Some might object to pay-
ing Castro's ransom, some might call
it blackmail. But, whatever the name,
most Americans found it hard to argue
with the result-the return of the Bay of
Pigs survivors who had paid with their
freedom for an admitted U.S. mistake.
What prompted more questions was
the way that result had been accom-
plished. Offrci,xlly, all through the long
negotiations with Castro, the Kennedy
tion role were asked to keep it quiet.
Not ul:til after the last prisoners had ar-
rived did the full story come out; when
it did, it came largely from Bobby Ken-
nedy's Justice Department in the melo-
dramatic, blow-by-blow style reminiscent
of the after-the-fact accounts of the Big
Steel, Mississippi, and Cuban crises.
Predictably, the squad of Justice De-
partment officials who had participated
behind the scenes emerged as the mov-
ers and shakers.
The public-led all this time to believe
that the U.S. was simply an onlooker-
was surprised and, in some quarters, ir-
ritated by the news. Donovan himself
was moved to say that for all the gov-
ernment help lie got and his "enormous
respect" for Bobby Kennedy-it was
nevertheless "absolutely and unquali-
fiedly so that the policy and negotiations
were entrusted to inc."
It was indeed Donovan who, weary
scenes was ow.iish U ibert~A. Hurwitch,
a State Department special assistant who
had helped, work oui: the! original abor-
tive tractors-for-prisoners exchange pro-
posal. His assignment:-"to provide some
guidance and cut the red tape."
The big push carne, however, after
the Cuban crisis. Castro made overtures
to keep the negotiations open; lie sent,
by special courier, a 251-page loose-leaf
book listing what he-wanted in incred-
ible: detail, from one 3--cent machine
part to 2,5 metric long tons of tran-
quilizers-enough, by one drug houses
calculation, to unjangle every nerve in
Cuba for five years. Late in Novem-
her, Donovan and Families Committee
officials visited Bobby Kennedy and
warned him that the prisoners' health
could not hold up much longer-a bit
of intelligence from Cuban exile sources
that led to some raised eyebrows when
the sturdy-looking prisoners skipped
down the ramp at Homestead.
Kennedy moved in. While Donovan
lined up a committee of lawyer friends
in Washington and New York, Ken-
nedy assigned two top aides-Dep-
uty Attorney General Nicholas DeB.
Katzenbach, his man on the scene at
Oxford, Miss., and Assistant Attorney
General Louis F. Oberdorler-to run the
government team. Room 1143 at Juseice
-Oberdorfer's conference room--became
the command post.
Working under a self-imposed dead-
line-free the men before Christmas-
the team went to work: around the
clock. The Red Cross was brought in
to pool contributions to the ransom pack-
age. Thumbing business directories and
Who's Who, Donovan's private col-
leagues used Justice Department phones
to contact manufacturers and transporta-
tion executives around the country, call-
ing them at home, sounding them out,
(Continued on Page 14)
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NATIONAL AFFAIRS
CPYRGHT Cuba Is Living a Moment of Terror'CPYRGHT
What is life in Cuba like today?
No cream for coffee, milk only for
small children, no onions, no spices,
very little meat, long food queues
outside Havana groceries, ration
cards for food and clothing, no new
shoes and few used ones. No beer
after 10 a.m., whisky at $5 a shot,
foul cigarettes, and poor matches.
Above all, informers, sudden arrests,
militia men-and women (photo)-
armed with rifles and submachine
guns at busy street corners.
This was the bleak picture of life
in Castro's Cuba etched by the 922
relatives of the Cuban prisoners, who
ganization) peeping in the window.
Parents reported that these vigilantes
tried. to eavesdrop on conversations.
Relatives of the invaders disappeared
into jails, reappeared, and unaccount-
ably were imprisoned again.
One refugee said: "We were for-
tunate to be gusanos [or worms, as
Castro called both prisoners and their
relatives]. We gusanos helped each
other out and somehow we managed
to come out a little bit ahead of
the milicianos."
Bound by ties of persecution, the
g19Fhy a few victories. When
curios: The late writer's liquor bot-
tles, half-filled as he left them. Dur-
ing the tour, recalled Prettyman,
"Fidel became much more relaxed
and began speaking English."
Later Castro showed Prettyman a
"workers' paradise" housing develop-
ment, where rent is held to one-tenth
of each resident's salary. There
crowds swarmed around the Cuban
dictator and he patted children's
heads and chatted with their parents.
But as the armed motorcade swept
past the new Soviet-built fishing port
-and past a field in which 400 Rus-
arrived ,
aboard the African Pilot from Ila-
vana last week.
"Look at my children's shoes," said
Maria Infante, whose son was among
the freed prisoners, pointing to the
torn and broken footwear her two
youngsters wore. "I had money to
buy them new shoes, but there are
none to buy. The few shoes available
in Cuba are given mainly to the
milicianos [militiamen] or to the chil-
dren who go to Communist schools.
The stores charge $30 for a used pair
of children's shoes."
"Cuba," said Mrs. Infante, "is liv-
ing a moment of terror." On visits to
her son in jail she was stripped and
searched for concealed weapons. "My
husband was put in jail for three
months and left without food for
seven days just for being the father
of an invasion prisoner," she said.
York :uul Beans: "We got six
pounds of rice per person per month,"
reported Mrs. Elia Maceo Casanova,
wife of a liberated invader. With
ration cards (issued only if Cubans
can prove they paid their rent), the
Casanova family received a pound
of beans and a quarter of a pound
of meat apiece "every fifteen or
twenty days." "Even Russian meat
was scarce," said an ex-restaurateur
among the relatives. For his cafe,
lie could get only a pound of "bad
pork" a month.
In Cuba, toys too are scarce;
florists' shops are barren, and liquor
is in short supply. By noontime only
those saloonkeepers who are mem-
bers of the Communist Party or mili-
tiamen have anything left to sell to
thirsty customers.
But worse than the shortages was
the surveillance. Small children grew
nervous when they looked up to see
a member of the local Comite de
Barrio (neighborhood vigilante or-
Associated rres,
Havana: Woman at arms
appeared to ignore I i e s presence.
"The work we are doing," Castro told
his American guests, "is much more
popular with the rural people, the
farmers. We have not made everyone
in the city happy."
Down on the Farm: But in the
countryside, said the refugees, farm-
ers went without their traditional
roast suckling pig at Christmas. The
reason: Unauthorized slaughter of
state-owned livestock is punishable
by a three- to five-year jail sentence.
There were also reports that sugar
mills were being torn down and can-
oibalized to provide parts for other
mills. Cane-cutters were being ex-
horted to cut 12,000 arrobas (25
pounds to an arroba) during the
"People's Ilarvest"-with the promise
that the cane cutter who brought in
the most would be awarded a "Labor
Hero" medal and $100. Even with
Russian technical aid, equipment
breakdowns were reported in the
fields and factories and on bus lines.
Those Cubans lucky enough to de-
part left empty-handed. Wearing
their Sunday best, they passed
through six successive militia check
points on the Havana pier, and saw
everything they owned confiscated.
yellow shirts as symbols of shame for
their invasion, sympathizers in Cuba
wore yellow T-shirts. Others flew
strips of yellow cloth from their auto
aerials until the Cuban dictator
abruptly banned such displays.
One American who got an unusual
glimpse of Havana last week was
ransom negotiator E. Barrett Pretty-
man, a Washington lawyer. He casu-
ally asked Fidel Castro about Ernest
Ilemingway's famous home, Finca
Vigfa, and Castro took him on a per
sonal tour of the rambling house
which is now a museum. Among the
"'They took the coat off my back and
the ring off my finger," said one eld-
erly woman. "1 turned the key in the
lock of my $30,000 waterfront home,"
added Carsiliso Rey, "handed the
key to the police, and went to the
ship. I came without a penny in
my pocket."
Still, to 922 Cubans who left their
homeland, it was worth it. "Take a
good look," said Inocente Romero
Mesa to his grandson as they walked
down the gangplank, "you are on the
verge of freedom."
*Last week hundreds of Russians sailed from
Havana on a Soviet ship. But thousands of Rus-
sian "technicians" still remained.
January 7, 1963 CPYRGHT 13
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(Contianred from Page 12)
always using the polite term "exchange
goods"-aod never the taboo "ransom."
Prospects were invited to Washington,
with their inventory lists and tax ex-
perts; often, Bobby Kennedy would
none down from his fifth-floor office to
4143 to deliver it pep talk: My
brother made a mistake ..."
Most agreed to chip in. Members of
the exchange tearer-publie and private
made their pitch in measured words.
.. I'hc thing we all knew,- one team
member told Nr:w'ssweLtti's Milan 1.
Kohi(, was that, win or fail, the whole
operation would eventually be dissected
ill the press ... There were no pressure
tactics whatever." Bobby himself, in his
standard ta.llc, said lie was speaking as
a private citizen.
G)p's C-misin : But, intentionally
or not, an Attorney General playing such
It role is ituwitably cousin to the cop
selling ticket, to the policemen's hall
and just as hard to tuna down. Lf
.Instice promised nothing, a drug corn-
pamy still could not help hat remember
the K-efauver investigation of drug pric-
ing or the uproar over thalidomide One
trade association official told manafac-
torers-so one recalled--that "it is in our
best interests to comply."
For those Who wait along, the major
fringe benefit was the tax write-off.
With the hrterual Revenue Service's
Mitchell Rogovin on the team, tax rul-
ings were (-ranked out within hours
instead of (Li-vs or weeks. The kcv an-
swer: Gifts ill kind were deductible-at
wholesale prices rather than cost--up to
per cent of taxable corporate income.
The :5 per cent figure for charitable
contributions was fixed in law; there
was also precede.it for writing oil dona-
tions at their market valuea 1917 court
decision on a gift of wheat to the Free-
dom Train. In conrhination, the rulings
meant that all item that cost $1 to pro-
duce and that had a wholesale cata-
logue price old $5 could be subtracted
at the higher figcne Iron taxable iir-
coutc. The tax saving for most compa-
nies at the standard corporate rate of
52 per cent would be about $2.50. The
ultimate cost to U.S. taxpayers, by vari-
ous IRS estimates, will rani between
812 million and $20 million.
To awert profiteering, donors swore
asked-and they agreed-to pledge to
keep their deductions just high euouglt
to cover the cost of donations. The sur-
plus, under this ad hoc arrangement,
was to he distributed among donors in
low-markup industries (such as food)
and prospects whose donations entailed
it loss they could not afford. HIS was
stc;rn. Our baby-food urtmrfacturer, for
example, had already decided to phase
canned food out of the market aod cut
the U.S. wholesale price to $1.01., coin-
pared with $1.16 for jars of identical
size The coropa l\- wanted to deduct
a big cauued-food donation at the
higher price for food packed in jars.
Burt IRS said no. and the company.
went along anywa'-taking the reduced
$80,000 loss.
\Vhatever the inducements, the food,
drugs, and medical gear were rounded
up, and the down payment-$ I 1 million
worth-was shipped to Havana. There
were maddening last-minute delays.
Near the close, Castro demanded pay-
ment of' the $2.9 rnillion ransom he had
set on 60 wounded prisoners released
A Ipr't3weidtFd1 Refcaket2000/Oe/1t81is ICila OP75-000
CPYRGHT
)1 R000100380022-2
last April. Within 24 hours, the full
amount was tU-isecl-$1 rnillion of it in a
single telephone call Iroirn Bobby Ken-
nedv to an unnamed friend.
Even with this cash and a $53 million
letter of credit bade d by several finan-
cial institutions as a glaauautee, Castro
was suspicious. He held up the prisoner
airlift until the first ransom shipments ar-
rived. At one point, he eflectively tied
rep the I lava has a.i -pot with all acrobatic
show by his MIG jets. Gwen then, the
bone-tired Donovan managed one last
wisp of dry wit; when the fighters
roared low overhead, he said, ''Its the
invasion!" Castro laughed heartily.
Unfintadted Business: Even with
prisoners and families in Florida, 8(1 per
cent of the ransom package remains un-
delivered. Thos Donovan, who is still
negotiating for the release of more than
twenty U.S, prisoners Castro is holding,
must soon go back to Havana and bar-
gain with the fickle Fidel.
With its all-otrt effort, the I)ouovan
team had rounded rep $51 million worth
of pledges and a reservoir of trust ill
Havana. But much of the available
material did not jibe with Castro's
shopping list, and that meant hard bar-
gaining ahead. Fidel, for instance, de-
manded $14.5 million worth of baby-
food-far more thatt Donovan can coma
up with, by the Duly 1, 1963, deadline
for delivery. He will try to persuade
Castro to let hire make up the difference
with, other foods. L)onovan's pledge list
irrchules substantial doses of norr-
prescription drugs; Castro has insisted on
the prescription kind.
In bargaining out the differences. the
leverage ~.vill be on Castro's side. The
Maximum Iul der has made it clear to
Ihmovau that the 1'iroguess of negotia-
tions for the American prisoners will
hinge on delivery of the ransom goods.
This could also affect tht, hopes of more
relatives of prisoners to eutigrate hour
('uha to the U.S. 1lonos all said Castro
had agreed to let 2,500 more leave
when more ransom ships come ill
(though repor.'s front other sources were
that the Cuba I dictator had reneged oil
this part of the agreement).
Means and Ends: After last week's
triumph, a few nagging postinortem
questions remained-the secrecy sur-
rounding the ggoverument's invohemernt,
the way it "vent about getting what it
wanted, svhelher the ransom should
have been paid it all. The means to tlrc
end had been thoroughly New Frontier
-pragmatic, flexible, impatient, unortho-
dox--and effective: ,vhether the Admiii-
istra.tion's methods w, ere justified as well
was left to some future uccoutntiug bs
the historians.
But the defense seas, in essence, that
1lRR?e1!003900;2-2eeess. Castro
 CPYRGHT
CRX49titTri For ReIease 9nnn/nI/13 ? r. -I
CPYRG A AhF
SS-11, an anti-tank missile (above), is guided from carrier
had little to show aside from a ransom
package that might help heal Cuba's
sick and feed its young but could
hardly sustain its desperate economy.
For its part, the U.S. inevitably would
quarrel about the means, but the story
had a happy ending. The prisoners had
come back in time for Christmas, and
Americans had at least partly erased a
Not on the national conscience.
THE ARMY:
Rolling
Vor the U.S. Army, the cold-war years
often have seemed cold and warring.
Stripped bare and politically orphaned
in the postwar demobilization, the Army
doggedly tried to regain status and stat-
ure. But at budget time, the Army
invariably lost out to the other services.
To many old soldiers it appeared the
Army's most crucial task was simple
self-preservation.
Now, thanks to new strategic empha-
sis on non-nuclear response to agres-
sion, the Army has been dramatically
upgraded. Inside the Pentagon, Army
stars are shining brightly. Gen. Max-
well D. Taylor, who was eclipsed as
Army Chief of Staff under President
Eisenhower, is now chairman of the
Joint Chiefs and the most influential
military adviser to the President and
Defense Secretary Robert S. Mc-
Namara. Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, Army
Chief of Staff, is high in McNamara's
esteem; and Army Secretary Cyrus
Vance was handpicked by the defense
chief to rejuvenate the ground forces.
From a post-World War II low of ten
ender-strength divisions and 440,000
men in 1948, the Army has been beefed
up to sixteen battle-ready divisions and
Mauler is fired from
a tank-like vehicle
(above) , protects troops
from supersonic planes
Redeye missile-launcher
(right) is a compact,
easily handled weapon
with a wicked wallop
"New rifles, better personnel carriers,
and improved tanks and jeeps are
now in arms rooms and motor pools
around the world," General Wheeler
said last week. Out to the troops are
going 7.6-mm. (the standard NATO
size) small arms, including the M-14
rifle and the M-60 machine gun. The
Davy Crockett atomic mortar is on order
in quantity, and numerous new weapons
are in the works. Among them:
-A 15-ton, aluminum-armored Sheridan
tank equipped to fire either Shillelagh
missiles or artillery shells. Status: Oper-
ational in about five years.
-The M-60 tank, powered by a 750-
horsepower diesel engine and equipped
with a 105-mm. gum, a potent answer to
the Soviet's T-54 tank, with its 100-mm.
gun. Status: In service.
-Mauler, an air defense missile mounted
on a tank-like vehicle to protect the
Army in the field against supersonic
aircraft and short-range missiles. Status:
Operational in 1966 or 1967.
-Redeye, a compact, shoulder-fired
ground soldier's anti-aircraft weapon.
Status: Operational by 1967.
-Flashlight radar, a hand-held detection
device which, even through thickest fog
and rain, pinpoints enemy vehicular or
personnel movement while remaining
unaffected by fixed terrain. Status: Op-
erational about 1965.
-Lance, or Missile B, a ruggedly de-
eral hours to set up-compared with 34
minutes for Sergeant. Status: Currently
being distributed to field units.
A major aspect of the Army revamp-
ing seems headed for controversy.
This involves a still-secret report call-
ing for a five-year, $5.5 billion program
to increase the airborne mobility of the
ground forces. Under the plan, proposed
by a special board set up by Secretary
McNamara, airborne assault divisions
would have more than 300 aircraft each
-triple the present division allowance-
and special air cavalry brigades would
be equipped with 140 planes each.
The plan has engendered much re-
sentment among Air Force partisans who
-privately, so far-view it as an Army
attempt to create a rival air arm. The
airmen are always ready to fight for
that wild blue yonder.
Nevertheless, as non-nuclear weapons
regain lost glamour, the U.S. Army looks
forward to a glittering future of regain-
ing its old-time 1 million-man strength
and possibly adding its seventeenth and
eighteenth divisions in later years-plus
its own tactical air force and battlefield
missiles. Only McNamara's concern
about the bloated defense budget
might stand in the Army's way-but the
Army was anything but gloomy. As one
officer said: "Only the Army seems happy
with the budget these days."
signed battlefield missile with a range TRIALS:
of 47 miles for support of Army combat
divisions. Status: Early development, op- 'Toward a Gun'
erational in four to five years.
-SS-11 missile, a French-designed anti- Jimmy Hoffa appears to lead a
tank missile with fins, fired from a per- charmed legal life. Four times during
sonnel carrier and capable of being his five-year tenure as president of the
guided horizontally and vertically by brawny Teamsters union he has been
the firing unit toward target. Status: brought into court. Three times before
In the hands of troops. he has walked out a free man. In Nash-
-Sergeant, a mobile solid-fueled missile ville last week he escaped again.
to
rreplace the old Nine weeks in court on charges that
At a quickening pace, the new unan- with a 75
mile range
-
~
y
power is A' t' yedf Releasl&t 00106/ $o:a\.rItC 5-OOO?1'RQ1OO 8 2212yoff from
January 7, 1963 15
 CPYRGHT
Approved For Relea g / /13 : CIA-RDP75-
__` `- -- - -
NATIONAL AFFAIRS?
labor peace, ended in a mistrial when
the jury deadlocked seven to five (for
acquittal). Durir.ig the trial, a former
mental patient tried to kill Hoffa in the
pistol. Hoffa, who was unhurt, slugged
the man. Asked later why he rushed at
a man with it gun, Hoffa told intimates:
l''oin always run away from a man with
:r knife ... and toward a man with a
gun." Further, two jurors and an alter-
cate were dismissed after charges that
Teamsters officials had tried to tamper
with the jury.
The jury deliberated seventeen hours
before the mistrial was declared, and
Kennedy's work.
at Mr. Kennedy's side. this one to Fl(
is Mrs. Lincoln that the President hi
she isn't around-on weekends in \
hears one of the most delicate yet littl
known responsibilities of any of the pe
)le around the President. It is she u
the fifteen-year-old, black alliga
and over weekends.''
with the trial a Merry Christmas." But
the stocky Teamsters head has more
courtroom appointments. On Tan. 4 he is
scheduled. to appear in Miami to seek a
change in venue, to Tampa, of another
Federal case charging him with mail
fraud involving a plan to use $500,000
of Teamsters money to finance a retire-
ment community in Florida. While the
Florida action is heard and a special
grand jury investigates the jury-tamper-
ing charges in Nashville, the Justice
whether to retry the "payoff" case.
As Hoffa staved off the latest Justice
Department action, Teamsters attorney
William Bufalino crowed: "In 1962,
Santa Claus just refused to put Timmy
Dtick.s Liz a. Row
The borrowed Palm Beach "White
I louse" was a hub in a hubbub last
week. Children, toys, and pets were
often underfoot. And into Mr. Kennedy's
vacation retreat poured a ready stream
of VIP's: Secretary of the Treasury
Dillon, Secretary of Defense McNamara,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Kermit Gordon,
the new Budget Director, Walter W.
Heller, chairman of the Council of Eco-
nomic Advisers, and a clutch of aides
to thrash out the budget.
But when the President, his family,
headed for an afternoon aboard the
yacht Honey Fitz, Mr. Kennedy's dark-
haired personal secretary, Evelyn Nor-
the departure meant a welcome "chance
'T'hroughout the morning, the work-
ing part of the President's holiday, Mrs.
I ,incoln, dressed in summery gray-and-
white striped cotton, had been typing,
answering the phone, and sorting vital
papers in her temporary, cramped,
except for i IrtiirK R1Yri"Muu~l1lnd''
Mrs. Lincoln: 'Little black bag'
that black bag. One says: "What go
into that briefcase on any given wee
end may affect the course of history
As the custodian of the briefcas
Evelyn Lincoln is wooed by officio
great and small on the eve of a Pres
dential departure. "When does his hel
copter take off?" asks it Cabinet office
"How much time do I have to get som
thing there in time for the briefcase
M
in t i4imC?. Mulfclsn AA-tyhb
100380021&PYRGHT
wants to see everything," she says. "Ile
even rummages around my desk looking
for things that may have been left out."
i?nohlrnsive: In the White House
office, Mrs. Lincoln demonstrates an un-
erring instinct about whom the President
really ,vants to see or talk to on the
phone. But her nethods are quiet and
unobtrusive. "She may be talking to
Peter Lawford one minute, arranging
tickets for him, or to Prime Minister
Macmillan the next, telling him the
President will be available in a fey
minutes." recalls a colleague. "She has
no consciousness of rank-theirs or hers--
and treats them all alit e."
From her green-carpeted office, Mfrs.
Lincoln can see the Presidlent at his
desk. When he needs her, he presses a
buzzer or walks into her office. She
never buzzes him. If there's it tele-
phone call for Mr. Kennedy and lie is
chatting with a visitor, she discreetly
jots the caller's name on a slip of paper
and takes it to his desk. He may then
punch one of the eighteen buttons on
his desk phone to take the call. (Only
VIP's can get through the \''hite flousc
switchboard to Mrs. Lincoln's desk.)
if the President's door is closed, Mrs.
Lincoln can peep in through a tiny hole
in the door. "Thai way," she explained.
"I can tell at all times whom he is talk-
ing to [most visitors enter through the
office of Appointments Secretary Ken-
neth O'Donnell] and how near the con-
ference is to breaking up." For the
unwary, though, the peephole can be
dangerous. Once Special Assistant Ar-
thur Schlesinger Jr. put his eve to it, but
the weight of his head pushed the door
open, leaving the prize-winning histo-
rian red-faced in the open doorwa}.
Going Piaees: Mrs. Lincoln became
Mr. Kennedy'.-; girl Friday almost by ac-
cident She was working for a Georgia
representative when Congressman Ken-
nedy caught her eye. "I just thought lie
looked as if lie was going places," she
recalls, and so she enhsted as an iii -
paid volunteer in Mr. Kennedy's first
Senate campaign. When he was sworn
in as senator in 1953, she becanie his
personal secretary.
Mrs. Lincoln works from '1 :30 a.m. to
8 p.m., first laying out the President's
daily schedule and +a pile of papers re-
quiring immediate action. ":Chen comes
the daily procession of _;reai: and small,
including Caroline Kennedy, who some-
times hides under her desk to escape a
Secret Service bodyguard.
For hunch, Mrs. Lincoln has it tray
sent up from the Navy mess downstairs
("It's restful here at noontime"). She's
always last to leave at night, having
made sure that no papers remain on
the President's desk, because of secu-
rity-and because Mr. Kennedy likes a