JFK Documents Highlight Talks On Clandestine Anti-Cuba Ops

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It was the late summer of 1962.

The previous year, the U.S. invasion of the Bay of Pigs, meant to topple the communist regime of Fidel Castro, had been an embarrassing failure.

The administration of President John F. Kennedy had turned instead to a Plan B to destabilize Cuba and hopefully take down Castro: Operation Mongoose.

A National Security Council memo released Thursday as part of the JFK assassination documents details a meeting to discuss possible clandestine operations aimed at sabotaging and destabilizing the Cuban regime.

Among those present at the meeting, which took place on Sept. 6, 1962 — just six weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis – included National Security Advisor McGeorge "Mac" Bundy; Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; Air Force Gen. Edward Lansdale, who led clandestine operations against Cuba; and Edward R. Murrow, the famous broadcast reporter who was serving at the time as the director of the U.S. Information Agency, and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Gen. Marshall Carter.

Here are some of the possible operations against Cuba. Some are only alluded to, others given a bit more detail. It is not known which, if any, were actually put into practice: