FIRING LINE - WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY & E. HOWARD HUNT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00499R000200010003-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 31
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 22, 2001
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 21, 1973
• Content Type: TRANS

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4435 WISCONSIN AVE. N.W., WASHINGTON, 0. C. 20016, 244-3540
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
Firing Line
WETA TV
NET Network
January 21, 1973 10:00 p?M?CITY Washington,. D.C.
FULL TEXT
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OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON. D. C. ? LOS ANGELES ? NEW YORK ? DETROIT ? NEW ENGLAND ? CHICAGO
WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY: Last Sunday, Senator Edward Kennedy
proposed in the New York Times that President Nixon, having,
after all, gone to China and reestablished informal relations
there, there is no purpose left to be served in continuing to
ostracize Cuba. Mr. Kennedy's point struck many people as logical-
ly compelling as we see the ongoing collapse of commitments
and alliances annealed by the spirit of resistance to communism
a generation ago. Among greater and lesser casualties of that
dissolution is the Central Intelligence Agency, whose organizing
bias, if you will, was the postwar decision to let communism
move no further.
-To discuss these points we have two guests. Mr. Mario
Lazo became an American citizen only a few days ago, though
he has lived half his life here, the other half in-Cuba. He
.was among the two or three best known lawyers in Havana, the
founder of a huge firm well-known among other things for its
philanthropic activities. He left Cuba after the Bay of Pigs
and published a year or so ago a definitive account of the failure
of the move to liberate Cuba, "Dagger In The Heart."
Howard Hunt was intimately involved as an official
in the CIA in the Bay of Pigs. Indeed, the New York Times named
him as the principal CIA official directly involved in that
venture. He is a graduate of Brown University, who was a war
correspondent for Life magazine, a freelance writer who has
published forty-two books, most of them spy novels. On retirement
from the CIA after twenty years of duty, he did freelance work
as a White House consultant and last June was arrested in connect-
ion with the Watergate case. Last Monday he pleaded guilty
before federal court and the sentencing is yet to come. The
presiding judge and Mr. Hunt's own lawyer have forbidden him
to speak about Watergate. But his involvement there has not,
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presumably, diminished his knowledge of the CIA and Cuba and
his special qualifications, born of long experience, to discuss
the CIA and foreign policy.
The lawyers from Washington have only just now advised
us that we may not submit to questioning as usual by the panel,
to whom I apologize.
I should like to begin by asking Mr. Hunt whether
his public identification as a long-time CIA official confers
upon him now the right, if only in self-defense, to describe
with appropriate discretion some of the activities of the CIA,
particularly as they relate to Cuba.
E. HOWARD HUNT: I believe that it does, Mr. Buckley.
After all, it was not I who identified myself as a former employee,
officer, or official of the Central Intelligence Agency. That
information came from the government itself. And I considered
it then, and I consider it now, a unilateral abrogation by the
government of the commitment that we entered into upon my retirement
from the Central Intelligence Agency.
BUCKLEY: Your point is that -- that when you were
arrested somebody in the government...
HUNT: May I interject? I was never arrested.
BUCKLEY: When you were what? Detained? Or...
HUNT: I was -- I surrendered to U.S. authorities
at the appropriate time.
BUCKLEY: Uh-huh.
HUNT: But I was never at any time arrested.
BUCKLEY: Well, was there -- had that -- was there
at that point a warrant for your arrest?
HUNT: No warrant was ever issued for it.
BUCKLEY: No. Uh-huh.
HUNT: I was never a fugitive.
BUCKLEY: Yes. But -- but -- at that -- at that point,
as I understand it, the fact of your having been associated
with CIA was for the first time publicly ventilated?
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HUNT: That is correct, yes.
BUCKLEY: Yes. Now, does -- does this mean that you --
you can speak about yourself as having been a member of the
CIA with moral impugnity, or does it mean that you can go further
in that -- than that and describe some of the activities of
CIA in Cuba and some of the forecasts for CIA in the current
mood of detente?
HUNT: I feel that I'm able to do that, yes.
BUCKLEY: Okay. Well, then let me ask you a direct
question. The CIA is not permitted, as I understand it, to
-engage in domestic activity. Right?
HUNT: Right.
BUCKLEY: Now, does that mean that nobody has any
right to suspect that -- that the Watergate business was a CIA
operation?
HUNT: No. That -- perhaps I shouldn't have answered
your earlier question as definitively as I did. It is known,
for example, that the CIA at one time was involved in domestic
operations. And I cite the discovery, the disclosure, of...
BUCKLEY: The NSA business?
HUNT: ...CIA support of the National Student Association.
That was a domestic operation.
it?
BUCKLEY: But for purposes of foreign travel, wasn't
HUNT: Not solely, no. They recruited American students
on U.S. campuses for work in this country which led eventually
to work abroad.
BUCKLEY: Well, what -- what about the suspicion,
that has been widely ventilated, that experience, especially
lifelong experience, with the CIA teaches a person to forget
about the legal impediments that lie between him and the accomplish-
ment of a mission that he seeks to -- to achieve? In -- in
the grownup world, as I understand it, everybody recognizes
that it is illegal for a CIA operative to -- to -- to work in
Cuba and it's illegal for a Cuban operative to work in the United
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States but they both do it.
HUNT: Yes.
BUCKLEY: Now, under the circumstances, I guess the
question I'm asking is, if one spends twenty years working for
the CIA, is it likely that on returning to one's own country
one has so much absorbed the ethos of the CIA that one tends
iu yu CE, L- tzr wi-d . i i, i~ t at one wants and to consider local
legislation that stands in the way as sort of irrelevant?
HUNT: If one even were to consider local legislation.
It would not be illegal under United States law, for example,
for CIA to mount an entry operation in Ottawa or -- or Fort
Erie, Canada, the other side of the Peace Bridge. But here
we have a geographical distinction. We would not be guilty
under United States law of -- of, let's say, a second-degree
burglary charge by the United States for an operation that we
conducted in Canada, or in Mexico; we would be were it conducted
in Florida or Texas or Southern California.
BUCKLEY: Well, I -- I wish to...
HUNT: Am I answering...
BUCKLEY: Yes, you are. And I wish to be very explicit
about it.' I want to abide by the -- the ground rules and not --
not try to -- any sneak punches. But I guess what I'm -- what
I'm asking is, is -- is it fair to say, without violating our
understanding, that in approaching the Watergate business you
and your associates approached it in the spirit of a CIA operation?
HUNT: Yes.
BUCKLEY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Now, Mr. Lazo, may I --
may I ask you this: at -- at what point did you understand the
CIA to be engaged in an operation the objective of which was
the deposition of Castro?
MARIO LAZO: At what point did I...
BUCKLEY: Yes.
LAZO: ...understand the CIA to be...
BUCKLEY: Historically at what point, yes.
LAZO: ...engaged in what?
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BUCKLEY: In an operation the objective of which was
the deposition of Castro?
of Pigs.
LAZO: Well, I would say that goes back to the Bay
BUCKLEY: Surely not -- not before then? You didn't
know the CIA wanted to oust Castro until the Bay of Pigs, until
the Marines landed?
LAZO: No, I think that was the first time that I
remember. You had something else in mind? If you ask me, I'll
be glad to answer you.
BUCKLEY: Well, you -- you -- you were living in Havana
as a Cuban citizen.
LAZO: That's right.
BUCKLEY: And.you were -- as I understand it, you
were helping out agents of a foreign country, including indirectly
Mr. Hunt, who were pursuing the orders of the President of the
United States. I'm asking you did you know what those orders
were.
LAZO: Well, Mr. Buckley, look -- we worked, my partner
and I worked, for many years with the CIA and the FBI. Anything
we could do to help them we -- we did.
BUCKLEY: Was this in violation of Cuban law?
LAZO: No. No, this...
BUCKLEY: It's okay to work with a foreign...
LAZO: And, furthermore, the -- at that time there
was no country that was closer to the United States than Cuba.
BUCKLEY: But I'm talking about post--Castro, I'm not --
I'm not talking about during pre-Castro. Were you working with
the CIA or the FBI after Castro came to power? If -- if you
don't want to answer, just say so. But -- if --- if you say
that you don't want to answer, I understand. But...
LAZO: No, no. I'm -- I want to answer. But I'm --
the -- I never worked professionally with either one. I worked
in -- we helped them in every way we could. After Castro came
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to power -- as a matter of fact, a year after Castro came to
power, in January, 1960, when the American embassy went down,
I became a self-appointed spy for the U.S.
BUCKLEY: That -- that surely was illegal, wasn't
LAZO? Sure it was illegal then. And by that time
we knew where the country was heading; Castro had shown his
colors. And what I did was to arrange with a friendly European
government to send reports once a week to the FBI in this country.
BUCKLEY: Concerning what?
LAZO: Hmm?
BUCKLEY: Reports concerning what?
LAZO: Reports of everything-that was happening in
Cuba that the United States should know. For instance, we represen-
ted the railroads of Cuba and we had about thirty-five inspectors
out and they were reporting from all over the country, and the
headquarters, the main office, of the railroads was right under
our office, and they would give us reports all the time and
we would pass them to the American embassy. My sympathies have
always been with the United States.
Now, as I was saying, when the embassy went down and
it seemed to me that the United States didn't have very good
sources of information anymore, then I would send reports once
a week by a courier, who would go from Havana to New York to
the capital of this country in Europe and he would drop off
my reports; that was to the FBI. Nobody asked me to do that.
Nobody ever thanked me for it. Nobody ever paid me for it.
I didn't expect any thanks.
BUCKLEY: You -- you were really a volunteer collecting...
LAZO: Yes, surely.
BUCKLEY: ..information. All right. All right,
now, going back to Washington, I'd like to ask this of Mr. Hunt.
It is often referred to, the Bay of Pigs, as -- as the greatest
fiasco in postwar American history. And -- and -- and reference
to it is usually used to inspire some sort of a -- a disdain
for CIA. Now, I'd like to ask you a two-part question. Number
one, was it a failure of intelligence by CIA that resulted in
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the fiasco? And number two, if it was more than that, if it
was a political failure in Washington, is it a responsibility
of CIA to make recommendations with reference to their anticipation
of the fortitude in Washington?
HUNT: Let me answer as follows. And I want to answer
as completely and responsively as I can. First, the fiasco
of the Bay of Pigs...
BUCKLEY: A little louder, please.
HUNT: The fiasco of the Bay of Pigs was not a failure
of intelligence. It was not a failure of intelligence collection
or of positive intelligence operations. The failure of the
Bay of Pigs came about because at a critical time commitments
that had been made by high officials of the United States govern-
ment to the Cubans who were fighting, to their leadership in
Miami and elsewhere, those officials backed away from those
commitments and, in effect, abandoned the brigade at the beachhead.
That was a political decision.
CIA never had any reason to believe that these-commitments
would be abandoned. We had, after all, been recruiting the
Cubans, sending them to training camps in Guatamala for many,
many months. And these were the ground rules. First of-all,
there was the United States fleet offshore. The Boxer was the
flagship. Secondly, the -- the principal things that the --
thing that the Cubans were interested in was that they not
be opposed at the beachhead by Castro airpower. And this was
a definite commitment that was made. Now, this commitment was
made by the Eisenhower administration, in which now President
Nixon served as Vice President. And I believe he chaired the
National Security Council in that capacity. So, in effect,
the commitment that was made to the Cubans, who went forward
and risked their lives, was nullified by a subsequent political
decision of the New Frontier.
BUCKLEY: Well, was there anything to lead you to
believe, between the inauguration of President Kennedy and the
Bay of Pigs, that he had second thoughts about it?
HUNT: There was this. First of all, during the campaign
President Kennedy campaigned -- then Senator Kennedy campaigned
on a promise of help to the Cuban exiles. Pres -- Vice President
Nixon, who was intimately involved with the operational planning
from his position in the National Security Council, could not
rebut or refute the Kennedy argument because his lips were sealed.
He knew what in...
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BUCKLEY: Which Kennedy argument?
HUNT: ...fact we were doing.
BUCKLEY: Which Kennedy...
HUNT: The Ken -- the Kennedy argument that the United
States should do something to help overthrow Castro.
BUCKLEY: Why would he want to refute it? Oh, you
mean he couldn't say, "Yes, indeed I agree with him. And in
fact we intend to..."
HUNT: "And in fact we are so doing," yes.
BUCKLEY: Uh-huh.
HUNT: Evidently the political decision was made to
say nothing about it. So this was a plus factor in the Kennedy-
Nixon debates, a plus factor for Kennedy.
BUCKLEY: Did -- did...
doing.
Nixon.
HUNT: Kennedy actually knew, of course, what we were
BUCKLEY: But he could appear to be more hawkish.than
HUNT: Yes. That's right. And Kennedy knew perfectly
well what we were doing, because he was receiving, as the Democra-
tic candidate, daily briefings from CIA. And he was taking
advantage of that knowledge.
BUCKLEY: Not daily briefings from Drew Pearson?
HUNT: [Laughs] Quite conceivably...
BUCKLEY: Yes.
HUNT: ...too. Again, to answer perhaps mote specifical-
ly to your question, shortly after the election and it was made
known that Kennedy had -- had been elected, we were ordered
to close down all recruiting and training activities for time --
for the time being. Everything was put into suspense. During
this period, Allen Dulles, Dick Bissell, some of the other princi-
pal officers of CIA went down to the Kennedy Palm Beach compound
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and told him exactly what the situation was. In due course,
after about two or three weeks, the commitment was made: go
ahead, continue as before.
BUCKLEY: [Unintelligible under Hunt's remark]?
HUNT: Yes.
BUCKLEY: Well...
HUNT: To us that was perfectly understandable, that
an incoming President would want to review what his predecessors
had done.
BUCKLEY: Uh-huh.
HUNT: There was no intimation from them, and certainly
no inference on our -- on our part, that there would be a drawing
away from the overall commitment,"which was to overthrow Castro
and regain Cuba for the free world.
BUCKLEY: Right. Now, the -- Senator Kennedy has
said...
HUNT: Senator Edward Kennedy?
BUCKLEY: Yes. I'm sorry. Edward Kennedy has said
apropos of the situation that only -- only an armed invasion
would have pursuaded -- or, would have succeeded in causing
Castro to be overthrown. Now, I take it everybody agrees that
that was the case when Castro first took power. He -- he --
he was very popular at that point. To what extent was the intelli-
gence reckoning about -- on the Bay of Pigs dependent on a view
of a transformed attitude towards Castro by the?Cuban people?
Did you proceed -- and I'd like for Mr. Lazo also to comment
on this -- did you proceed on the assumption that people whose
mission it was to overthrow Castro would be universally welcomed?
HUNT: Not universally, no. But certainly by a majority
of the Cuban people. This is not to say that we viewed the --
the Cuban citizenry under Castro as a military asset to ourselves.
We viewed them as probably being responsive to early indications
of victory and of overwhelming force that we intended to show.
Again, I should bring out that our -- that the New Frontier
did dilute our original plans. It was to be ?-- instead of an
armed airborne envelopment of the -- of the central city in
Cuba, this was minimized, apparently by Dean Rusk.
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I bring out a number of these points in a forthcoming
book which I've written on the subject called "Give Us This
Day"; and it's subtitled "CIA and the Bay of Pigs Invasion."
BUCKLEY: And it detail -- it details these changes
HUNT: It details these chanties, yes.
BUCKLEY: In planning. Uh-huh.
HUNT: That's correct.
BUCKLEY: Well, Mr. Lazo, what -- what is your comment,
then, about the attitude of the Cuban people in April of 1962.--
'61?
LAZO: I hope that you won't think that this is a
digression, but may I go back a little bit...
.BUCKLEY: Sure. Sure.
LAZO: ...and tell you about my -- how I met Bernard
Barker, who is one of the group -- the Watergate group...
BUCKLEY: Sure.
LAZO: ...and who was very active in the Bay of Pigs?
BUCKLEY: Sure.
LAZO: May I -- may I do that?
BUCKLEY: Of course.
LAZO: It has a bearing on this. Barker was brought
to my office shortly after World War II by the military attache
of the American embassy, a fellow named Colonel Buzz Grant.
His problem was that he had done security work to protect Mrs.
Truman and Margaret Truman on a visit they had made to Cuba...
BUCKLEY: As -- as a Cuban citizen, Barker?
LAZO: He was an American citizen.
BUCKLEY: American citizen.
LAZO: But the Cuban -- the Cubans -- he spoke perfect
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Spanish; he was born in Cuba, I believe. And the Cubans asked
him if he would head a group to give the security to the --
Mrs. Truman and Margaret Truman. He was glad to do that. That's
not done in the way that you would normally think. For instance,
they didn't -- he didn't -- they don't follow 'em around in
a patrol car or anything like that. The way they do that is
that they assign Cuban secret servicemen to the various dives
and places in Havana, which was a city of a million people,
where the underworld gathered.
BUCKLEY: Uh-huh.
LAZO: These people are disguised. Sometimes they
feign intoxication, although the Cubans don't drink very much.
And they keep their eyes open and their ears open, and if they
see anything suspicious or hear anything, they follow 'em and
they do plenty of bugging of telephones. And that goes on for --
for a week or ten days.
-Barker was the head of this Cuban group, you see.
But in taking this job he had signed a police form which was
handed to him, and it turned out that this police form contained
a -- an oath of allegiance to Cuba. And somebody heard about
that, some kid in the embassy heard about it and reported it.
to Washington, and then they took away his citizenship. And
Colonel Grant, when he brought Barker to me, said, "Mario,"
he said, "this fellow has had a wonderful war record, was a
captain in the American Air Force. He was the first fellow
to volunteer from Cuba. He had something like twelve missions
over Germany. He was shot down. He was in prison there. And
I wish you'd help him. Everybody admires him." So of course
I did help him. And that was arranged.
Now, the second thing that happened was a little more
dramatic. This was in early 1960 after Castro had been in power
about a year. Barker came to me one time, distraught and nervous,
and his problem then was that he had had hiding in his house
one of his closest friends who had been doing counterrevolutionary
work and had been there a couple of weeks and finally had decided
to make a move and got caught. And under the pressure of torture
he'd confessed where he was. And Barker had wisely arranged
to call his wife every two hours from a pay station in Havana
to a grocery store near their house in the suburbs. He had
a daughter, a little girl by the name of Maria Elena, Helen,
she was about ten years old. And they had one faithful servant.
And he thought I could get him out because we represented a
couple of the American airlines. He's a very intelligent fellow.
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But he was, as I say, distraught; he wasn't thinking very straight.
Of course to harbor a so-called "criminal" was a capital offense,
too. So Barker was in danger of being killed.
So I told him exactly what you would have told him.
I said, "Bernard, what you do now is you call up your wife and
you tell her not to admit under any circumstances that this
follow has boen in your house in the last six months. He knows
what your house looks like, 'cause he's been there; but he hasn't
been there for six months. And tell that little girl of yours
to say the same thing and your servant to say the same thing,
and never deviate from that. And I'll do what I can to get
this boy to change his story before he dies."
So in those days they permitted one member of the
family to see somebody who was about to be executed. In this
case, it was this boy's sister. A very attractive girl, about --
Cuban girl, about twenty-five, typical Cuban girl with -- with
pale, pallid white skin, ebony black hair, flashing eyes, long
eyelashes, high spirited girl. And I went to see her and I
said, "Will you help my friend?" And she said, "Of course.
Your friend did everything he could to save my brother. Now
we have to try to save him." And I arranged for a launch to
go across the bay to Cabanios [?] Fortress to see the execution.
And as the priest was moving away and the squad was getting
ready to fire, this fellow began screaming, in Spanish of course:
he said, "One more thing. I want to say that I haven't been
in Bernard Barker's house in six months." And he kept on repeating
that until they shot him. But he was a very nice-looking fellow
and they didn't want to shoot him. As a matter of fact, only
one bullet hit him. And he slumped down. Two men went up and
lifted him and strapped him up on the post. And then the man
in charge of the squad told them that if they didn't shoot him
they would be courtmartialed, and they shot him; they killed
him.
And two days later we sprung Bernard Barker. Then
he came to my office and he said, "I want you to tell me what
I can do to help bring down the monster who murdered my best
friend." And I took him over to the American embassy and introduced
him to the CIA agent there. And that's the way he started working
for the CIA.
BUCKLEY: But let me ask you this, then...
LAZO: Yes.
BUCKLEY: ...Mr. Lazo. Aren't -- aren't you using
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a terminology that is justified by -- by a rather dangerous
use of the law?
LAZO: By what?
BUCKLEY: By a rather dangerous use of the law. I
thoroughly sympathize with your and Barker's, let alone the
dead man's, ambition to remove Castro. But I don't understand,
really, that we -- that we can. persuasively challenge the right
of a country, however tyrannical its leader, to attempt to kill
counterrevolutionaries. It's -- if -- if -- if the ambition
of -- of -- of Barker, or of Hunt, let's say, working in Cuba,
is to overthrow Castro, I should think if Castro finds out about
it he's got a right to shoot you. Now, that isn't murder.
You as a lawyer would know that. It's not murder.
LAZO: Just a second. Just a second. I'm surprised
that a man of your intelligence should be talking the way you're
talking. Fidel Castro has killed -- murdered -- twenty-five
thousand -boys and men whose only crime was that they clung to
their democratic ideals; they were against communism.
BUCKLEY: No, I -- I'm on your side, and I hope they
win; but I say if they get caught at it, they.'re going to be
executed, and this isn't...
LAZO: That's right.
BUCKLEY: ...this isn't murder under any law I know
about.
LAZO: If they get caught at it, they get executed.
BUCKLEY: If -- if King George had caught George Washing-
ton, he'd have hung him.
LAZO: Yes.
BUCKLEY: And this -- this -- this would have been
something that you and I would have regretted...
LAZO: Sure.
BUCKLEY: ...but it is not something that would have
been illegal under any known code.
LAZO: No, I'm not saying...
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HUNT: May I suggest -- may I suggest...
LAZO: Excuse me just a second. If you'd been living
in George Washington's time you would have done everthing possible
to help him escape.
HIJNT: Tsn't the distinction...
BUCKLEY: Sure.
LAZO: Well, that's what I did.
HUNT: May I suggest this? -- that -- that King --
King George was a constitutional monarch, or at least he was
a recognized monarch; he overthrew nobody to achieve his position
in Great Britain. Castro, on the other hand...
BUCKLEY: In the first place, his ancestors did.
In the second place, Castro was recognized at the time we're
talking about by every country in the world, including the United
States...
HUNT: That's correct.
BUCKLEY: ...as the legitimate leader...
HUNT: However, a large segment of the Cuban population
did not recognize him as their leader.
BUCKLEY: No, but that's -- that's their risk. You --
you can always appeal sub specie eternitatis and say, "Sic semper
tyrannis" and try to put a bullet hole in the tyrant's heart,
and I hope that the aim is sure. But I think that Mr. Lazo
is confusing people by using the terminology of "murdered,"
"so-called 'criminal'" -- he wasn't a so-called "criminal,"
he was a criminal...
LAZO: They don't consider...
BUCKLEY: ...by Cuban law.
LAZO: ...it murder. The Cubans don't consider it
BUCKLEY: I know. I know.
LAZO: Yes.
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BUCKLEY: Because...
LAZO: They have one rule of morality: anything that
advances the conquest of the world by the communist empire is
good. You can lie, you can steal, you can kill. Killing is
not murder to them; it's a good thing. It's not what we consider
murder; I go along with you on that. Anything that hinders
them is bad. That's the only...
BUCKLEY: I agree with you. But, look, if you --
if you had taken the case of the man who you saw executed to
the International Council of Jurists, you could not have made
a case that they would have heard...
LAZO: No.
BUCKLEY: ...because if -- if in fact he was engaged,
and you have volunteered the information that he was -- engaged
in counterrevolutionary activity and the crime for that was
capital and he received a capital'sentence, that -- that's...
LAZO: I'm not talking about legal technology -- tech --
details. I'm talking about the fact that Castro has murdered,
in my opinion, twenty-five thousand men and boys whose only .
crime was that they clung to their democratic ideals -- taught
by the United States, don't forget that. And if you had a --
a Castro in charge -- the head -- chief of state of this country,
relatively and in proportion to population he would have killed
five hundred and sixty-five thousand Americans. And that's
just the killing. Now, how 'bout the people in prison, the
political prisoners?
BUCKLEY: Yes, if you -- look, let's not waste any
time in your trying to persuade me that Castro is an evil man,
because I agree with you. I think he's probably as thorough
a tyrant as the twentieth century has -- has produced, as --
as thorough in his own scale. But we're talking about something
else. We're talking about the United States, its intelligence
arm, the risks it takes, the bearing of an experience in that
kind of affair on domestic life. And it may very well be that
somebody like Barker -- it's easier to talk about Barker than
about Howard Hunt because we're talking about somebody who isn't
here -- it may be that Barker is totally seized, as the. result
of his experience in Cuba...
LAZO: Totally what?
BUCKLEY: Totally seized -- with a single objective.
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And that single objective is to do what he can for liberty as
he understands it.
LAZO: And for the United States...
BUCKLEY: Right.
LAZO. And against the communists, yes.
BUCKLEY: Right. Yes, but in -- but in the course of
applying that kind of license to activities he tripped against
an American law and as a result of that has pleaded guilty.
Now, what is your attitude towards Barker...
LAZO: Well, let's say -- you're coming to -- to Water-
gate now, right? You want me to speak about the...
BUCKLEY: Well, can he and I speak about Watergate
without violating our code?
HUNT: I would think so. But may I just go back...
BUCKLEY: Sure.
HUNT: ...a step before you do that?
BUCKLEY: Sure.
HUNT: You had asked me about the failure of intelligence
and whether or not CIA had expected a popular uprising, in effect.
BUCKLEY: Yes.
HUNT: Or whether the administration had. I have
a list here of four recommendations that I made well before
I joined the project, based on my personal assessment of the
situation in Cuba. Now, I made this in 1959, and I will list
them.
The first recommendation I made was [inaudible due
to network technical difficulty] to destroy the Cuban radio
and television transmitters before or coincident with the Cuban.
The third was to destroy the island's microwave relay system
just before the invasion begins. And the fourth: discard any
thought of a popular uprising against Castro until the issue
has already been militarily decided.
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BUCKLEY: And your point is -- what? That history
bears you out?
HUNT: My point is simply that we did not at any time
expect a popular uprising. We expected acceptance of our troops.
wasn't he?
'61.
BUCKLEY: Well, this was 1959. Castro was still popular,
HUNT: He was still popular, yes.
BUCKLEY: But he was dramatically less popular in
HUNT: In '61, yes.
LAZO: May I speak about...
BUCKLEY: Yes.
LAZO: ...the Watergate and Bernard Barker, and my
Miami friends and -- to understand Watergate, you've got to
understand, in the first place, the Bay of Pigs. We've been
talking about that. And you've got to understand the conditions
in Cuba at the time of the election here in order to understand
why these people went into the -- went into Watergate. And
I want to just -- let me go back to the Bay of Pigs just for
a second.
The Bay of Pigs was a struggle that took place in
Washington, not in Cuba. It was a struggle between the liberal
presidential advisers on the one hand and the conservative CIA
and the Pentagon on the other. In between these two groups
was the new President, who had never been accused of lacking
either intelligence or courage, but he sided with his liberal
advisers. And the key point in this invasion was the destruction
of Castro's tiny air force on the ground before the invaders
hit the beaches. This was to be done by three air strikes of
sixteen planes each coming from Nicaragua to the south coast
of Cuba. Forty-eight sorties minimum. They knew where Castro's
planes were. These were being watched by American reconnaissance,
by the U-2.
What happened was this. The first strike of sixteen
.planes was cut in half by orders from the White House. The
second strike was cancelled entirely. The third strike, after
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it was too late to call off the invasion, was cancelled entirely.
So that instead of having forty-eight sorties minimum, you had
eight. And they destroyed almost all of Castro's air force
on the ground, but Castro was left with three jets, two Sea
Furies, and they commanded the skies. The Cuban freedom fighters
were flying from Nicaragua three and half hours to the beachhead
and they had twenty minutes or thirty minutes over the target.
and then three and a half hours back. I thought of that yesterday
when I flew from Hartford here-. Seven hours to be over the
target for thirty minutes at the most. And Castro's jets, which
were fueling nearby, flew in -- two -- two at the same time
and -- and -- and slaughtered them.
BUCKLEY: What does this have to do with Barker?
LAZO: It has a great deal to do with Barker, because
Barker was one of the high-level men in the invasion, and he
saw this thing happen by orders, decisions for disaster, taken
in Washington, and he was -- I don't know what the word is --
absolutel?y humiliated by what happened. He can never forget
this. Barker is a great patriot from the point of view of the
United States, but he loves Cuba too. And he saw that Cuba
had been betrayed; I use the word deliberately. The Cuban brigade
on the beach was betrayed. They had been told that they would
have continuing supplies to the beach. They never got any supplies.
The Castro jets sank two of the five.ships. They -- they destroy-
ed half of the Cuban' planes, the free...
BUCKLEY: But what -- what -- we're not here to talk
about the Bay of Pigs, really, except insofar as it bears on
current proceedings. After all, we can talk about Waterloo
or we can...
LAZO: All right.
BUCKLEY: ...talk about Gettysburg...
LAZO: May I -- may I just say...
BUCKLEY: ...and dissect the military and the state.
LAZO: Yes. All right. But...
BUCKLEY: But go on and tell me what all this has
to do -- let's simply accept that the military handling of the
Bay of Pigs was catastrophic; everybody knows that. Now, what
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does this...
HUNT: Military?
BUCKLEY: ...have to do with Barker?
HUNT: Political handling.
BUCKLEY: Military and political, right. Yes. They
often go hand in hand. Now, what does it have to do with --
with Barker, since we've been licensed to disc:uss...
LAZO: Yes. I'll tell you what it has...
BUCKLEY: ...his relationship to Watergate?
LAZO: Here's what it has to do with Barker. But
let's -- let's come now to November of last year, at the time
of the election. Now we know about the Bay of Pigs and we know
how Barker felt about that. We also have to know something
about conditions in Cuba last November. You don't know much
about that, because the attention of the Americans was -- is
focussed on Southeast Asia. Cuba's not in the news. But Castro
is now facing the greatest crisis that he's ever faced. And
everything's going against him. His regime is coming to an
end.
To understand this you must remember that when he
came to power the Cubans were among the better-fed people of
the world. That's not Lazo speaking; that's the Department
of Agriculture in Washington. And today everything is rationed --
butter, bread, sugar, tobacco, everything is rationed except
"Hate America" propaganda, "Hate Nixon" propaganda; that's the
only thing that's not rationed. Every hour of the day the control-
led radio pours out hatred for the United States.
Now, Castro knows -- I must mention the sugar crop.
Two or three years ago he promised the Cubans a ten million
dollar -- a ten million ton crop. Actually, the crop last year
was four million, which is what Cuba made fifty years ago, and
four million in spite of the fact that he used the entire country
to -- to harvest it. We used to harvest...
BUCKLEY: He confessed his failure. As a matter of
.fact, he offered to resign. From time to time, he does. You
remember, a summer of so ago? I mean he confessed his own failure.
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So go ahead. We know about the failure of Castroism...
LAZO: Yes.
BUCKLEY: But go ahead now and relate that, please,
to American policy.
LAZO: Yes. Well, the point is that this year he'll
probably make about three and a half million tons. And that's
their money crop. That's the way they get their-money to import
things.
So Castro knows that his only hope is to be recognized
by the United States.
BUCKLEY: Why?
LAZO: And...
BUCKLEY: Because we would give foreign aid, you mean?
LAZO: No. Because the United States would then supply
all the spare parts, the equipment and everything else that
the Soviet bloc has been unable to supply.
BUCKLEY: Why has the Soviet bloc been unable to supply
it? Can't they get'it from us?
LAZO: For one reason, it's too far away. They get
their petroleum from the Black Sea.
BUCKLEY: Why is that too far?
LAZO: Hmm?
BUCKLEY: Why is that too far? You just go on a couple
days extra on a steamer.
LAZO: You mean why is the Black Sea too far?
BUCKLEY: Yes.
LAZO: Well, it's pretty far compared to Venezuela.
BUCKLEY: I mean if the Soviet Union desires to supply
Cuba, it can.
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LAZO: Well, it's not doing it very well.
BUCKLEY: Well, then it decided it doesn't want to.
It's a political point, right?
[Confusion of voices.]
LAZO: The Soviets don't do anything very well. And
they're not doing this very well.
ly.
BUCKLEY: They manage their propaganda pretty effective-
LAZO: Except the propaganda. They do that very well.
However, here is Castro in November, 1972, knowing
that he's through, that he has to die. And his one chance of
surviving is to get recognition and help from the United States.
He can't get that from the Republicans. His one chance was
to get it-from the Democrats, from McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Fulbright,
all these fellows that are in favor of doing business with Castro.
BUCKLEY: Why couldn't he count on Nixon? After all,
who would have thought that the Red Chinese could count on Nixon?
LAZO: Why couldn't he count on Nixon?
BUCKLEY: Sure. If Nixon turned around and recognized
Cuba tomorrow, it would hardly begin to occupy as much acreage
of the front page as what he did to China last year, which made
him a hero.
LAZO: Mr. Buckley, let me say that I may disagree
with you on one thing. I consider Nixon to be a genuine anti-
communist. And the fact that he has travelled to Moscow and
Peking has simply nothing to do with Cuba.
BUCKLEY: Why shouldn't he travel to Havana?
LAZO: Hmm?
BUCKLEY: Why shouldn't he travel to Havana?
LAZO.: This is a different thing entirely.
BUCKLEY: Why?
LAZO: Because these are -- because the other countries
are great countries. Russia has your population. The Soviets
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have a quarter [sic]...
BUCKLEY: Our population.
LAZO: Well, the size -- two hundred million...
BUCKLEY: Now that you're an American citizen.
LAZO: And the Chinese have a quarter of the population
of the world.
BUCKLEY: In other words, he's afraid of Russia, and,
therefore, he has to be courteous and gallant towards it...
it.
LAZO: That's true...
BUCKLEY: But Cuba's a small country, so we can bully
-LAZO: ...and that's right. Cuba's a small enough
dictator, who is a tiny little country of eight million people,
the size of the state of Pennsylvania. There's no reason to
think of treating Castro the way you would the rulers of Russia
and China. I don't go along with that.
BUCKLEY: Excuse me.
LAZO: It's all right.
BUCKLEY: So you can enter into this, Mr. Hunt, since
we're not talking about Watergate. Is it your point that because
Cuba -- and how would this sound inside the inner councils of
CIA -- that because Cuba is vulnerable to American pressure
in a sense that the Soviet Union is not, therefore it makes
sense to take a hard line with Cuba even while we're taking
a soft line towards the Soviet Union?
HUNT: Yes, that makes sense to me. Castro Cuba,
of course, is a client state of the Soviet Union. And I think
it's a matter of record among people who study Latin American
affairs that Castro has been a somewhat less than satisfactory
client of the Soviet Union...
BUCKLEY: Insufficient servility?
HUNT: Insufficient servility. Following the Cuban
missile crisis there were a great many problems. He felt himself
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in a sense abandoned by the loss of his Russian military advisers.
The Soviet Union itself, of course, is undergoing a time of
tremendous economic stress. The mere fact that they signed
a wheat and corn deal with the United States would indicate
that they are having trouble not only fulfilling their internal
needs, but this means less for their client states, such as
the Arab world, Egypt in particular -- the United Arab Republic --
and Cuba. Cuba is very small potatoes as far as the Kremlin
is concerned...
LAZO: Of course it is.
HUNT: The death of Che Guevara in effect put an end
to the type of guerrilla activity that Castro had been promising
and promulgating throughout the hemisphere.
BUCKLEY: But now wait a minute. Isn't this different
from what both of you have been really maintaining over the
years? You wrote a book called "Dagger at the Heart"...
LAZO: That's right.
BUCKLEY: Well, how can a country be small potatoes
that is a dagger aimed at our heart? If, in fact, the ambition
of the Soviet Union is to rule the world, as both of us think
it to be, how can you say that they consider Cuba to be small
potatoes?
LAZO: I'll tell you how, because Cuba is an unsinkable
aircraft carrier positioned ninety miles from your shores...
BUCKLEY: Well, they're not small potatoes then.
LAZO: Not in that respect. Small potatoes as far
as getting rid of the sawed off dictator, of course. He doesn't
mean that. Cuba is a dagger pointed at the heart. It's...
BUCKLEY: Well, then, why wo.uldn't the Soviet Union
be prepared to make maximum sacrifices, as indeed it has done?
I've seen the estimate of a million dollars per day. Is that
unreasonable?
HUNT: Not unreasonable, no.
BUCKLEY: Okay. A million dollars a day is not something
that you afford as a subsidy for a small potato client state.
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LAZO: Well, there...
BUCKLEY: If it were situated in mid Africa, or something
like that, they probably wouldn't pay a million dollars; they
wouldn't be worth it. But situated where they are now, it is
an important lesion in the Caribbean basin, isn't it?
HUNT: It's quiescent. It's quiescent at the time.
On the other hand, we have no reason to believe that there are
not Soviet military emplacements in Cuba in a state of readiness.
We don't know. There have been no American or international
observers who have ever gone there.
BUCKLEY: Why doesn't the CIA know?
HUNT: I would say because of post Bay of Pigs restrict-
ions on the degree, the parameters of intelligence activity
directed at the island republic.
'BUCKLEY: In other words, an American citizen is not
entitled to rest confident that the CIA knows whether there
are, or there are not, massive Soviet offensive weapons buried
in Cuba?
HUNT: No, he's not.
LAZO: What was your answer to that?
HUNT: No, he is not.
BUCKLEY: Now, is that -- are you making a technical
aspersion on CIA?
HUNT: No, I am simply saying that as in any government
agency, funds are allocated for certain areas of activity.
Obviously Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the entire southeast Asian
picture has monopolized most of the American military and intelli-
gence budget for a number of years.
BUCKLEY: All the people who could predict things
were in South Vietnam last year?
HUNT: And the men and the resources available for
focusing on Latin American problems accordingly were reduced.
CIA hasn't been hiring very much in recent years. It's been
cut back. They have had to absorb within their own ranks budget
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deficiencies. Whenever a new line of activity, support activity,
develops in another part of the world -- and again I go back
to Southeast Asia -- the funds have to come from somewhere.
They come, generally speaking, from Latin American activities.
Certainly U-2 overflights of the island republic have been cut
back. They were, in any case, after the Bay of Pigs turned
over to the Air Force. The U-2, which CIA developed and utilized
so successfully for so many years, was taken out of the agency's
hands and put in the hands of the Air Force.
There has been a tendency I think within the entire
government to do nothing, or if anything is done at all it is
to provide the appearance rather than the substantive action.
And accordingly, I answer your initial question in that sense,
Bill.
BUCKLEY: So that it isn't that it couldn't be done...
HUNT: Right.
BUCKLEY: It's that we haven't given it that kind
of priority.
HUNT: We may not, to my knowledge. And, after all,
I retired two years ago, two and a half years ago, from CIA.
.At that time, I myself was not confident that there
were not missiles or other offensive weapons in Cuba, placed
there by the Soviet Union.
BUCKLEY: Well, is it -- when Senator Kennedy says,
"Look, let's, for God sakes, go ahead and recognize Cuba, having
first engineered the consent of the Organization of American
States, on the grounds that not to do so, given our current
attitude towards China and the Soviet Union, is anomalous."
I understand you to be saying, don't give in to Kennedy's advice
because Cuba is having very, very serious difficulties, and
if we continue to let natural pressures work against Cuba, it
might result in the overthrowing of a despotic government.
LAZO: Not only "might result," it would certainly
result, without any question.
BUCKLEY: By when? By when?
LAZO: By when?
BUCKLEY: Uh-huh.
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LAZO: Well, that's a guess, of course, but very soon,
in my opinion. I think he's very close to the end. The people
are ready to take to the streets. All they need is some kind
of a little sign from the United States that we'd like to see
them do it, some voice on the Voice of America, or something
of that kind.
But Mr. Buckley, let me -- let me go back just a second
to Watergate. May I do that?
BUCKLEY: Sure.
LAZO: And mention my friend, Barker?
BUCKLEY: Sure.
LAZO: I've told you about the Bay of Pigs...
BUCKLEY: You have, yes.
LAZO: ...and I told you how humiliated Barker felt
about that, having worked at it and having been blamed for it,
being part of the organization. I've told you about conditions
in Cuba. Then we come to the election. And-there were reports
before the election. We got many reports that money was coming
from Cuba into the McGovern campaign?fund....
BUCKLEY: You had reports from whom?
LAZO: From where?
BUCKLEY: From whom? Yes.
LAZO: From Cuba. Communist money.
BUCKLEY: From what people in Cuba? You mean from
friends of yours or what?
LAZO: Well, I have many sources...
BUCKLEY: Of information.
LAZO: Many sources. We didn't have proof, of course.
We just had these reports. If we had proof, it wouldn't have
had to be investigated. You know that.
So there were these reports. And this group conducted,
in my opinion, a patriotic, honorable counter-intelligence operat-
ion. I asked a friend of mine in Norfolk where I live the other
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day if he knew what counter-intelligence meant. And he said,
"No, what is it?" This guy is a Harvard graduate.
BUCKLEY: No wonder, huh?
[Laughter.]
LAZO: Well, I said it's a very risky operation, very
secret, and it's designed to uncover men, women and activities
working against the United States. And, of course, every country
in the world does it.
BUCKLEY: Well, if that's true, then the Watergate
people were direct instruments of the government -- if what
you say is true. I mean, you don't conduct counter-intelligence
operations, sui sponde, do you?
LAZO: Sui what?
.BUCKLEY: Sui sponde, of your own decisions.
LAZO: These were very highly trained men. And this
question of finding if communist money is coming to the United
States is a very difficult thing. They wash the money about.
six times. You know what that means, don't you?
BUCKLEY: Laundered, yes.
LAZO: They put it through accounts in foreign countri-
es, and so forth. You've got to have very good men to check
on that.
They had that report. And that's one thing...
BUCKLEY: If this is embarrassing, you ought to stop
it. According to the...
HUNT: It's not embarrassing to me, because it doesn't
affect me one way or another. I pleaded guilty to six counts.
LAZO: Now, another reason they had for going in there
-- there'd been, as everybody knows, security leaks, classified
information. Incidentally, I'm not saying for a second, that
McGovern was in on this, or O'Brien. Of course not. Nobody
thinks that they are -- they consider themselves to be patriots,
and I think everybody can agree with that. I'm not saying that.
BUCKLEY: You're saying somebody was in on it, right?
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LAZO: Hmm?
BUCKLEY: You're saying somebody was in on it. Look,
you received reports saying that communist money is going into
the Democratic organization...
LAZO: Which had a nine million dollar deficit and
which needed the money. Yes.
BUCKLEY: Yes. Right. Right. Now, what you -- now
you're saying, however, O'Brien and McGovern didn't know about
it. But all of a sudden you are crediting those sources. You're
saying, I accept the fact that there was communist money in
the Democrat operation, but I'm exonerating the top guys of
any knowledge of it.
of thing.
LAZO: Yes, I am exonerating the top guys.
BUCKLEY: But what makes you accept that allegation?
LAZO: Well, because I think they're above that sort
BUCKLEY: No, no, no, no, no, no. What makes you
accept the allegation that, in fact, there was communist money
in the Democratic operation?
LAZO: Because, as I say, Castro's regime is growing
to an end. And he knows that the only way he can survive...
BUCKLEY: No, no, no, no. That makes...
LAZO: ...is to have McGovern as President of the
United States.
BUCKLEY: ...That makes it plausible. But it does
not validate any...
LAZO: It makes it logical.
BUCKLEY: Yes.
LAZO: Well, a lawyer deals in logic.
BUCKLEY: Yes, but it's also logical that Nixon shouldn't
have gone to China, but he did.
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[Laughter.]
Well, anyway, go ahead. This is a hypothesis of yours.
LAZO: A hypothesis? No, it's a conviction from every--
thing I know. And I have, as I say, many sources of information.
So counter-intelligence. Secondly, trying to find
out about the security leaks. And then, of course, as you know,
there were rumors that there were going to be riots at the Repub-
lican convention. They would have liked to have known about
that, too.
So there're very good reasons for this. And politics
is a dirty business. You know that. The Americans all know
that. McGovern in his campaign accused -- he compared Nixon
to Hitler on three occasions publicly, the Nixon government
to the Hitler henchmen. And that's the communist line. In
Cuba today whenever Nixon's name is printed in the government
papers, the way they print it is N-I -- the swastika -- 0-N.
That's the communist line. McGovern was doing that. And this
kind of thing is not a parlor game. It's not tiddly-winks.
It's...
BUCKLEY: No, but here's what I'm trying to say, Mr.
Lazo. Assuming that we accept your hypothesis, then aren't
we required to accept that the people who crashed Watergate
were doing so at the direction of a responsible official of
the United States government?
LAZO: Not necessarily.
BUCKLEY: Why not?
LAZO: Because they could have been doing it with
anti-Castro Cuban money. That's possible.
BUCKLEY: But counter-intelligence operations are
usually done in behalf of a government, aren't they?
LAZO: I don't know, and you don't know where the
money was coming from.
BUCKLEY: You mean it could have been -- according
to this hypothesis, it could have been a completely spontaneous
thing?
HUNT: That's right.
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honorable...
BUCKLEY: In the same sense that he spontaneously
acted as a spy for CIA in Cuba?
HUNT: That's right. And certainly before the Bay
of Pigs, a couple of years before, even the pro-Castro partisans
conducted their own counter-intelligence operations against
Castro -- against Batista. So you don't need necessarily to
link...
BUCKLEY: I thought they were working for the New
York Times.
HUNT: ...the phrase counter-intelligence with employment
by a government, per se, ipso facto.
BUCKLEY: It could be just spontaneously organized.
HUNT: By people who know what they're doing. Yes.
LAZO: May I say one more thing...
BUCKLEY: Yes.
LAZO: ...because I think our time is ending.
BUCKLEY: Yes.
LAZO: I consider that this group are men of honor;
they're patriots. I think that instead of being prosecuted
they should be decorated.
BUCKLEY: Now wait a minute. You can't decorate somebody
for breaking the law, can you?
LAZO: Yes, you can.
BUCKLEY: Well, give me a recent example.
LAZO: Well, I'll give you this example, that when
we get our country back, get Cuba back, I can assure you that
the first government of a free Cuba will decorate this group.
I consider that I'm...
BUCKLEY: No, I can understand that. I can understand
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that.
LAZO: Yes.
BUCKLEY: Just as, say, de Gaulle undoubtedly decorated
a lot of Frenchmen who shot people, other Frenchmen, who were
collaborating with the Nazis. I can understand that. But I
don't understand your taking the position that the American
Justice Department is acting perversely in prosecuting people
who plead guilty to breaking American laws.
LAZO: There are some things which rise beyond --
above that: love of country. Let me put it this way. I feel
that I'm in the presence of a great man sitting here, one of
the great men of our time. You know, when we left Cuba, my
wife and I, we left with two dollars. To lose everything that
you've made your entire life, at the end of a long life, is
very bad. To lose a friend, the way Barker lost his friend,
the way this gentleman recently lost his wife, is much worse.
But when you lose honor, you lose everything. And he hasn't
lost -- and these men have not lost their honor, as far as we
believe. And I can assure you that the six hundred and fifty
thousand Cubans in this country have the highest regard for
them. Don't you be concerned. We're going to help you in every
way we can. And you still have your honor. That's the important
thing.
BUCKLEY: Well, but it's only important I. think for
you, Mr. Lazo, to acknowledge that, paradoxical though it may
sound, the pursuit of honor can require temporal punishment.
LAZO: Yes, it can.
BUCKLEY: But you must disparage necessarily the people
who mete out that punishment, because, in fact, the two do not
contradict each other, philosophically, and certainly not histori-
cally.
In any case, the time is up. Thank you very much,
Mr. Lazo. Thank you, Mr. Hunt.
HUNT: Thank you.
BUCKLEY: Ladies and gentlemen.
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