(iv) Dulles Reminded by Gray of "Top-Level Feeling" That "Vigorous Action" Was Necessary in the Congo: September 7-8, 1960

The Memorandum of Discussion from the NSC meeting of September 7, 1960-the only other meeting at which Johnson could have heard the President's statement-records only a brief, general discussion of developments in the Congo. As part of Allen Dulles' introductory intelligence briefing on world events, the Memorandum contained his remarks on the situation in the Congo following Kasavubu's dismissal of Lumumba from the government. Neither the length nor the substance of the record of this discussion indicates that Lumumba's role in the Congo received the same intense consideration as the NSC had given it on August 18.1 There is no record of any statement by the President during the September 7 discussion. (NSČ Minutes, 9/7/60, pp. 4-5)

In the course of Dulles' briefing, he expressed his continuing concern over the amount of personnel and equipment that was being sent to the Congo by the Soviet Union, primarily to aid Lumumba. Dulles concluded this part of his briefing with an observation that demonstrated that Lumumba's dismissal from the government had not lessened the extent to which he was regarded at the NSC as a potent political threat in any power struggle in the Congo:

Mr. Dulles stated that Lumumba always seemed to come out on top in each of these struggles. (NSC Minutes, 9/7/60, p. 5)

At a Special Group Meeting the next day, Gordon Gray made a pointed reminder to Allen Dulles of the President's concern about the Congo:

Mr. Gray said that he hoped that Agency people in the field are fully aware of the top-level feeling in Washington that vigorous action would not be amiss. (Special Group Minutes, 9/8/60)

(v) Dulles Tells NSC That Lumumba Remains a Grave Danger Until "Disposed of": September 21, 1960

In the course of his intelligence briefing to the NSC on September 21, 1960, Allen Dulles stressed the danger of Soviet influence in the Congo. Despite the fact that Lumumba had been deposed as Premier and was in U.N. custody, Dulles continued to regard him as a threat, especially in light of reports of an impending reconciliation between Lumumba and the post-coup Congolese government. In the presence of the President, Dulles concluded:

Mobutu appeared to be the effective power in the Congo for the moment but Lumumba was not yet disposed of and remained a grave danger as long as he was not disposed of. (NSC Minutes, 9/21/60) ·

Three days after this NSC meeting, Dulles sent a personal cable to the Station Officer in Leopoldville which included the following message:

WE WISH GIVE EVERY POSSIBLE SUPPORT IN ELIMINATING LUMUMBA FROM ANY POSSIBILITY RESUMING GOVERNMENTAL POSITION OR IF HE FAILS IN LEOP[OLDVILLE], SETTING HIMSELF IN STANLEYVILLE OR ELSEWHERE (CIA Cable, Dulles, Tweedy to Leopoldville, 9/24/60)

1 The NSC minutes of the meeting of September 7 deal with the discussion of the Congo in two pages. (NSC Minutes, 9/7/60, pp. 4-5). By comparison, the August 18 meeting required an extraordinarily lengthy (fifteen pages) summary of discussion on the Congo and related policy problems in Africa, indicating that this topic was the focal point of the meeting. (NSC Minutes, 8/18/60, pp. 1–15)

On September 26, Joseph Scheider, under assignment from CIA Headquarters, arrived in Leopoldville, provided the Station Officer with poisons, conveyed Headquarters' instruction to assassinate Lumumba, and assured him that there was Presidential authorization for this mission.1

Marion Boggs, the NSC Deputy Executive Secretary, who wrote the Memorandum of Discussion of September 21, did not interpret Dulles' remark as referring to assassination:

I have examined the memorandum (which I prepared) summarizing the discussion of the Congo at the September 21, 1960 meeting of the NSC. I recall the discussion and believe it is accurately and adequately summarized in the memorandum. I have no recollection of any discussion of a possible assassination of Lumumba at this meeting. With specific reference to the statement of the Director of Central Intelligence *** I believe this is almost a literal rendering of what Mr. Dulles said. My own interpretation of this statement * * * was that Mr. Dulles was speaking in the context of efforts being made within the Congolese government to force Lumumba from power. I did not interpret it as referring to assassination." (Boggs affidavit, 10/10/75, pp. 2–3)

Boggs, however, was not in a position to analyze Dulles' remark in the context of the actual planning for covert operations that took place during this period because Boggs was not privy to most such discussions. (Boggs affidavit, 10/10/75, p. 2)

Dillon, who attended this NSC meeting as Acting Secretary of State, did not recall the discussion. Dillon said that the minutes "could mean that" assassination would have been one acceptable means of "disposing of" Lumumba, although he felt that "getting him out [of the Congo] or locking him up" would have been a preferable disposition of Lumumba at that point since he was already out of office. (Dillon, 9/2/75, pp. 47-48) When reminded of the fact that Lumumba's movement and communications were not restricted by the U.N. force and that the Congolese army continued to seek his arrest after the September 21 meeting, Dillon acknowledged that during this period Lumumba continued to be viewed by the United States as a potential threat and a volatile force in the Congo:

3

* *. He had this tremendous ability to stir up a crowd or a group. And if he could have gotten out and started to talk to a battalion of the Congolese Army, he probably would have had them in the palm of his hand in five minutes. (Dillon, 9/20/75, p. 49)

Irwin, who attended the NSC meeting as Assistant Secretary of Defense, stated that although he had no recollection of the discussion, the language of these minutes, like that of the August 25 minutes, was "broad enough to cover a discussion of assassination." (Irwin affidavit, 9/22/75, p. 2)

Bissell testified that, based upon his understanding of the policy of the NSC toward Lumumba even after Lumumba was in U.N. custody, he would read the minutes of September 21 to indicate that assassination was contemplated "as one possible means" of "disposing of" Lumumba (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 70)

4

1 See Sections 4 (e)-4(f), supra.

2 NSC Executive Secretary James Lay, who was also present at the meeting of September 21, 1960, stated: "I cannot recall whether there was any discussion of assassinating Lumumba at any NSC meetings." (Lay affidavit, 9/8/75, p. 1)

3 See Section 3, supra, for discussion of CIA cable traffic indicating that Lumumba continued to be regarded as capable of taking over the government after he was deposed and that pressure to "eliminate" him did not cease until his death.

* Bissell was not present at the NSC meeting. (NSC Minutes, 9/21/60)

Bissell's opinion stands in opposition to Gordon Gray's testimony. Gray stated that he could not remember the NSC discussion, but he interpreted the reference to "disposing of" Lumumba as "in the same category as 'get rid of', 'eliminate'." (Gray, 7/9/75, p. 59) He said: "It was not my impression that we had in mind the assassination of Lumumba.") (Gray, 7/9/75, p. 60)1

(b) Testimony of Eisenhower White House Officials

Gordon Gray and Andrew Goodpaster-the two members of President Eisenhower's staff who were responsible for national security affairs—both testified that they had no knowledge of any Presidential consideration of assassination during their tenure.2

Gray served as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, in which capacity he coordinated the National Security Council and represented the President at Special Group meetings. Gray testified that, despite the prevalent attitude of hostility toward Lumumba in the Administration, he did not recall President Eisenhower "ever saying anything that contemplated killing Lumumba." (Gray, 7/9/75, p. 28) When asked to interpret phrases such as "getting rid of" or "disposing of" Lumumba, from the minutes of particular NSC and Special Group Meetings, Gray stated:

It is the intent of the user of the expression or the phrase that is controlling and there may well have been in the Central Intelligence Agency plans and/or discussions of assassinations, but *** at the level of the Forty Committee [Special Group] or a higher level than that, the National Security Council, there was no active discussion in any way planning assassination.

*** I agree that assassination could have been on the minds of some people when they used these words 'eliminate' or 'get rid of' *** I am just trying to say it was not seriously considered as a program of action by the President or even the Forty [Special] Group. (Gray, 7/9/75, pp. 16-17)

Goodpaster, the White House Staff Secretary to President Eisenhower, said that he and Gray were the "principal channels" between the President and the CIA, outside of NSC meetings. Goodpaster was responsible for "handling with the President all matters of day-to-day operations in the general fields of international affairs and security affairs." He regularly attended NSC meetings and was listed among the participants at the NSC meetings of August 18, 1960 and September 21, 1960. (Goodpaster, 7/17/75, pp. 3, 4)

When asked if he ever heard about any assassination effort during the Eisenhower Administration, Goodpaster replied unequivocally: *** at no time and in no way did I ever know of or hear about any proposal, any mention of such an activity. *** [I]t is my belief that had such a thing been raised with the President other than in my presence, I would have known about it, and *** it would have been a matter of such significance and sensitivity that I am confident that *** I would have recalled it had such a thing happened. (Goodpaster, 7/17/75, p. 5)

1 John Eisenhower, the President's son, who attended the NSC meeting as Assistant White House Staff Secretary, said that he had no "direct recollection" of the discussion but he found the minutes of the meeting consonant with his "recollection of the atmosphere" at the time: "The U.S. position was very much anti-Lumumba." He said: "I would not conjecture that the words 'disposed of' meant an assassination, if for no other reason than if I had something as nasty as this to plot, I wouldn't do it in front of 21 people *** the number present [at] the meeting." (Eisenhower, 7/18/75, pp. 9-10) 2 For a more detailed treatment of the testimony of Gray, Goodpaster, and other Eisenhower Administration officials on the general question of discussion of assassination by the President, see Part 3, Section B(3) (a), infra.

3 At the outset of his testimony on the subject, Gordon Gray acknowledged that he did not have a clear, independent recollection of Lumumba's role in the Congo. (Gray, 7/9/75, pp. 25-26)

John Eisenhower, the President's son who served under Goodpaster as Assistant White House Staff Secretary, stated that the use of assassination was contrary to the President's philosophy that "no man is indispensable." As a participant at NSC meetings who frequently attended Oval Office discussions relating to national security affairs, John Eisenhower testified that nothing that came to his attention in his experience at the White House "can be construed in my mind in the remotest way to mean any Presidential knowledge of our concurrence in any assassination plots or plans." (Eisenhower, 7/18/75, pp. 4, 14)

Each of the other Eisenhower Administration officials who was active in the Special Group in late 1960-Assistant Secretary of Defense John N. Irwin II, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Livingston Merchant, and Deputy Secretary of Defense James Douglasstated that he did not recall any discussion about assassinating Lumumba. (Irwin affidavit, 9/22/75; Merchant affidavit, 9/8/75; Douglas affidavit, 9/5/75)1

Even if the documentary record is read to indicate that there was consideration of assassination at high-level policy meetings, there is no evidence that any officials of the Eisenhower Administration outside the CIA were aware of the specific operational details of the plot to poison Lumumba.2

(c) Bissell's Assumptions About Authorization by President Eisenhower and Allen Dulles

Richard Bissell's testimony on the question of high-level authorization for the effort to assassinate Lumumba is problematic. Bissell stated that he had no direct recollection of receiving such authorization and that all of his testimony on this subject "has to be described as inference." (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 48)

3

Bissell began his testimony on the subject by asserting that on his own initiative he instructed Michael Mulroney to plan the assassination of Lumumba. (Bissell, 6/11/75, pp. 54-55) Nevertheless, Bissell's conclusion-based on his inferences from the totality of circumstances relating to the entire assassination effort against Lumumba-was that an assassination attempt had been authorized at the highest levels of the government. (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 32-33, 47– 49, 60-62, 65)

1 Douglas Dillon testified that the subject of assassination never arose in his "direct dealings with either President Eisenhower or President Kennedy." (Dillon, 9/2/75, p. 22) He was asked by a member of the Committee, however, to speculate upon the general philosophical approach that Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy would have taken to decisionmaking on the question of using assassination as a tool of foreign policy:

"Senator HART (Colorado): I would invite your speculation at this point as a subCabinet officer under President Eisenhower, and as a Cabinet Officer under President Kennedy, I think the Committee would be interested in your view as to the attitude of each of them toward this subject, that is to say, the elimination, violent elimination of foreign leaders.

"DILLON: Well, that is a difficult thing to speculate on in a totally different atmosphere. But I think probably both of them would have approached it in a very pragmatic way, most likely, simply weighed the process and consequence rather than in a way that was primarily of a moral principle. That is what would probably have been their attitude in a few cases. Certainly the idea that this was going to be a policy of the U.S., generally both of them were very much opposed to it." (Dillon, 9/2/75, pp. 22-23)

Dillon served as Undersecretary of State in the Eisenhower Administration and as Secretary of the Treasury under Kennedy.

2 Although several CIA officers involved in the PROP operation to poison Lumumba testified that the operation was within the scope of actions authorized by the NSC and Special Group, there is no testimony that any official of the Eisenhower Administration outside the CIA had specific knowledge of the operational planning and progress.

3 See Sections 5(a) (i) and 5(a) (ii), supra.

As discussed above, Bissell testified that the minutes of meetings of the Special Group on August 25, 1960 and the NSC on September 21, 1960 indicate that assassination was contemplated at the Presidential level as one acceptable means of "getting rid of Lumumba." i There was "no question," according to Bissell, that the cable from Allen Dulles to the Station Officer in Leopoldville on August 26— which called for Lumumba's "removal" and authorized Hedgman to take action without consulting Headquarters if time did not permit was a direct outgrowth of the Special Group meeting Dulles had attended the previous day. (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 31-32) Bissell was "almost certain" that he had been informed about the Dulles cable shortly after its transmission. (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 12) Bissell said that he assumed that assassination was one of the means of removing Lumumba from the scene that was contemplated by Dulles' cable, despite the fact that it was not explicitly mentioned. (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 32):

It is my belief on the basis of the cable drafted by Allen Dulles that he regarded the action of the Special Group as authorizing implementation [of an assassination] if favorable circumstances presented themselves, if it could be done covertly. (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 64–65)2

Dulles' cable signaled to Bissell that there was Presidential authorization for him to order action to assassinate Lumumba. (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 61–62) :

Q: Did Mr. Dulles tell you that President Eisenhower wanted Lumumba killed? Mr. BISSELL: I am sure he didn't.

Q: Did he ever tell you even circumlocutiously through this kind of cable? Mr. BISSELL: Yes, I think his cable says it in effect. (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 33) As for discussions with Dulles about the source of authorization for an assassination effort against Lumumba, Bissell stated:

I think it is probably unlikely that Allen Dulles would have said either the President or President Eisenhower even to me. I think he would have said, this is authorized in the highest quarters, and I would have known what he meant. (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 48)

When asked if he had sufficient authority to move beyond the consideration or planning of assassination to order implementation of a plan, Bissell said, "I probably did think I had [such] authority." (Bissell, 9/10/75, pp. 61-62)

When informed of the Station Officer's testimony about the instructions he received from Scheider, Bissell said that despite his absence of a specific recollection:

I would strongly infer in this case that such an authorization did pass through me, as it were, if Joe Scheider gave that firm instruction to the Station Officer. (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 40)3

Bissell said that the DCI would have been the source of this authorization. (Bissell, 9/10/75, p. 40)

1 See Sections 7(a) (iii) and 7(a) (v).

Joseph Scheider also testified that, in the context of the Dulles cable, "removal" would signify to someone familiar with "intelligence terminology" a "range of things, from just getting him out of office to killing him. (Scheider, 10/9/75, pp. 45-48)

See Section 7(d), infra, for Scheider's testimony on his impression that Bissell had authorized his assignment to the Congo.