STATEMENT BY SENATOR GEORGE MCGOVERN (D-S.D.)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP77M00144R000500140039-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 5, 2004
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: July 30, 1975
• Content Type: PREL

 -2-
Approved For Release 2004/11/29 : CIA-RDP77M00144R000500140039-3
The Cubans accuse, former Officials at Guantanamo Naval Bass(-,
of providing a haven for v .olent anti-Castro groups and of
supply:laa:g weapons for anti--Castro attempts.
In at least two cases they suggest that attacks on Guantanamo
were selfM1nflicted, with the aim of winning support for military
action a vainst Cuba, They suggest further that the CIA collabor-.
a.ted w:Itha counterrevolutionary Cubans to plot subversive action:
against other Latin American :ountrie s, in the expectation that
Cuba would be blamed.
Weaponry supplied by the CIA, as pictured in the material,
covers the spectrum all the way from small hand uns and poison. to
high-powered rifles with telescopic lenses, machine gunss, hand
grenades, grenade launchers, TNT, plastic explosives, bazookas,
and even mortars.
Targets in addition to Castro were president Osvaldo Torrado,
Deputy Prime Minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, Defense Minister
Raul Castro, and Fo re:Iin Minister Raul Rua. The plot againt Rca,
uncovered in early 1962, was part of is broad plan to kill him
first and then attack other .leaders when they attended the funeral.
It was designated "Plan Z."
The material supplied by the Cuban authorities obviously
warrants further investigation by the appropriate committees in the
Senate and the House and by the Executive Branch. Conclusions on.
CIA involvement are apparently based on confessions and on circum-
stantial. evidence. But at the very least, Prime Minister Castro
has supplied important leads which must be pursued.
We already have substantial information about the content of
U. S. policy durin the period covered by this material. Publicly,
United States policy after the missile crisis of 1962 was to disc
courage and prevent U. S. based violence against the Castro
government.
We are forced to consider the possibility that those declara-
tions masked the exact oppposite. At some time we must also consider
the appalling prospect that the CIA was involved in assassination
attempts in Cuba entirely on its own, and perhaps in direct de-
fiance of higher authority.
If that is the case then we have suffered abuses a free
society sl.mply cannot tolerate. We roust spare no effort in learn.--
in the full truth, in identifying those responsible, and in
developing ways to assure that this can never happen again.
Approved For Release 2004/11/29 : CIA-RDP77M00144R000500140039-3
 Approved For Release 2004/11/29 CI~-RDP 1 7MOQ144RQ00140039-3
tc~crco of c~ oxrxxn 0810
0 on, as well. as
In t Me reports o the so-ca e ,r
the one headed by Senator Frank Church, for the researches on the
illegal activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), all what
we have stated above, has been undoubtedly demonstrated.
A. former agent made public statements about the participation of
this Agency in the criminal act carried out against the French
steamship "La Coubr&', where more than one hundred Cubans were
killed and about 200 were seriously injured. He offers details about
his accomplishments trying to "justify" this IdIling by blaming a
slight damage in the mechanism of the blowing equipment which was
used.
Very significant is the information given by the journalist -Jack Anderson
from "The Washington Post" about the gangster John Rosselli's
participation in various plots against Prime Minister Fidel Castro,
some of thorn by means of poisoning, with pills handed to him by the
CIA. Afterwards, according to the American press itself, Rosselli,
before the Senate Intelligence Commission, conceded having participated
with this Agency in various plots for assassinating the Cuban Prime
Mini. inter.
Gradually, officials, Senators, chiefs, officers and former CIA, agents,
as well as well-known American press journalists, have made categorical
statements, which coincide with the denounces expressed, apropos, by
the Cuban Government.
Without pretending to mention all the plots attempted, we expose some
of them the majority of which have not been publicly known. They
prove the diversity and recurrence of the CIA as well as other
subversive agencies p