YOU RE RIGHT, CHET, YOU RE RIGHT, AND YOU RE FIRED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100260045-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 45
• Publication Date: July 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100260045-5
ARTICLE APPEARLD
ON PAGE 41 (01 -
THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY
July/August 1980
Why read about Chester Bowles? Because he was right most of
the time, and he was ignored most of the time, with tragic results
for his country-results we might avoid in the future by
understanding why he was right and why he was ignored.
by Hams Wofford
A generation later, it is difficult to recall;
what Chester Bowles represented to many
Americans. Not only had he been right';
about the Bay of Pigs, for more than a dec-
ade he had been laying foundations among
the public for a new foreign policy that
would point in the opposite direction from
the CIA's action in Cuba. Along with Jus= d
tice Douglas, Bowles had opposed the CIA '
intervention in Iran to overthrow Prime
Minister Mossadegh and bring back the
Shah. Although the Kennedys tended to
view the former governor, ambassador,
congressman, and OPA chief as a liberal
ideologue, in his talks around the country
and through his writings, Bowles had been
able to reach beyond the liberal Demo
cratic constituency to appeal to a wide
cross-section of Democrats, Republicans,
and independents. Fbr many of them, as
for me, Bowles's standing within the ad-
ministration was a test of. the. President's
intentions in foreign policy. .
The week after the defeat at the Bay of
Pigs early in 1961, Bowles attended a
meeting of the National Security Council
at the President's 'request. It was "the
grimmest gathering- in my-experience in
government," Bowles saidlafteiwards. He
found the 30 highest officials of the govern-
ment "emotional, almost savage."
Facing Fidel
The militant "get Castro" mood alarmed
Bowles, who noted that Robert Kennedy
and Lyndon Johnson, as newcomers to the
foreign field, were easy targets for the
`'military-CIA-paramilitary type answers"
that predominated in the discussion. After-
wards,"as a friend," Bowles asked to speak
to the President, who had appeared to be
the calmest man in the meeting. He urged
Kennedy to resist the pressure to retaliate
and not to let the situation "deteriorate
into a head-to-head personal contest be-
tween the President of the United States
and Fidel Castro."
At a second National Security Council
meeting three days later, Bowles argued
against proposals that the United States
move directly against Castro. Such an
invasion, he contended, would "compound
the disaster," and "even if it succeeded,
Castro would emerge as the hero in what
would surely be viewed throughout the
world as a struggle between David and
Goliath." He felt his argument was
brushed aside.
At the third meeting, however, the
invasion was dropped. The emphasis was
on clandestine harassment and -possibly
economic sanctions against nations such as
Mexico and Brazil, which had voted in the
U.N. to condemn the United,States. The
President vetoed the sanctions, saying that
we had no alternative but to live with the
humiliation our error , had created and
respect the attitudes of other nations who
had disagreed with our actions.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21
STAT
Later that day Bowles found that the
State Department cable drafted for the
guidance of all U.S. embassies misrepre-
sented the President's decision and seemed
to instruct American envoys to bring pres-
sure on their host governments to cut
relations with Castro and sever trade with
Cuba. Bowles got Secretary of State Dean
Rusk to change the wording to reflect the
President's more moderate views.
Encouraged by the President's attitude,
Bowles recommended a drastic reform: the ;
dismantling of the CIA and absorption of
its non-covert functions by offices directly
responsible to the State Department. Soon
after the inauguration, he had proposed a
more limited reorganization of the CIA,
but the Bay of Pigs experience convinced
him that a complete change was required.
The President, however, was not prepared
to take on the CIA in ?a major political
battle, and since he was no more affirma-
tive toward the State Deparjrnent than
toward the CIA, he was unlikely to see!
their combination as any gain.
The President's and the department's
leadership were on trial throughout the
spring of 1961 or?the issue of Laos, where
another Cuban situation,' or worse, was developing. Between Kennedy's election
and his inauguration, the Far Eastern
Bureau of the State Department and the
CIA helped to engineer a rightist coup
against the neutralist regime of Prince
Souvanna Phouma. In the first discussions
of Laos within the new administration'
Bowles. urged steps toward neutralization
but found a surprising consensus in favor'
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