33

November 25, 1960

Son,

I’ve been holding off on writing, but then things have been quiet here at Quarters Eye since the election. In effect, we are waiting to see where we are.

Found myself in low spirits over Thanksgiving. Kept thinking of Mary, my old sweet whale of a wife, and now she’s lost to me. She is thinking of getting married to a little Japanese businessman who is probably sitting on more wealth than the state of Kansas, and here am I, old blow-spout of the other half of this beached-whale duo, feeling egregiously elegiacal. Clark Gable died last week, and I discovered to my surprise that I had always felt a large identification with the man.

Now, comprehend it. I really don’t know anything about Clark Gable, and even felt envious of him last summer. There he was, making a flick with Marilyn Monroe, lucky dog. Son, if they ever held an election in this country for the woman you would most want to bed up with for a night, how could that young lady fail to win? So, yes, I envied him. Now he’s dead. Maybe she kept his old heart running up and down too many hills. And I find that I’m mourning him although I don’t know bird-all about the fellow. All the same, actors fascinate me. Their work is in some sense near to our work, and yet they are not like us at all. While my contact with actors has been limited, I have found them disappointing. They are without our core of motivation. Lacking such point of reference, an actor can’t keep trying to be someone other than himself without having to pay for it. Such, at least, is my concept of it. All the same, I did love this guy Gable. It’s hard to tell you cynical younger dogs about the kind of identification we older fellows have with movie stars of his ilk. Sometimes, back in the Second World War, I would talk to him in my head. Particularly after I’d pulled off something good. “Would you have done as well, Clark?” I’d ask. Who knows where these conversations originate? They’re silly enough, in any case.

I suspect that part of my meandering frame of mind is still due to the Las Vegas fiasco on Oct. 31. I’ve been taking flak from it. Three questions hang over me these days. One: Was it an act of Providence? Two: Did Giancana throw sand into the gears? Or three: Is the FBI now witting? We don’t have the answers, but I am certainly paying for all three suppositions. First: Providence. My confreres are now concluding that Cal Hubbard may carry an undue share of bad luck. Secundum: Terrible judgment on Cal’s part to pick a hoodlum like G. I’m inclined to agree even if I did no more than inherit Maheu who did the picking. But then, we amputate the “yets” and “buts” in our kind of work. Just take the blame. It’s faster and neater.

Now, Three, worst of all. What if the FBI has been tracking this one from the beginning? The last contingency has frozen all activity.

Result is, I have been receiving an undeniable chill from Allen’s office, Bissell’s office, and Barnes’ bailiwick. We all recognize that if worse comes to worst, I’ll have to carry the slop pail. We must partition Allen off from this. That’s fine by me, and a reasonable exercise of duty, but it puts a pall on your best feelings when the chill comes in advance.

It’s not so bad that I can’t handle it, but, Rick, if there is such a thing as male menopause, I could converse with medical authorities about it. I feel a sense of doom, and it is infecting my natural optimism for exciting projects.

Well, let me introduce you to more interesting matters. Despite my nearness to Outer Purdah, the stories still get back to the old boy. Allen Dulles and our President-Elect John F. Kennedy had a powwow down in Palm Beach on the 17th of November. I’ll bet you picked up not a single reverberation from your slot sixty miles away in Miami, but we heard about it up here. Allen didn’t come back with a won game. As I get the story, Kennedy expressed a few doubts about the oncoming Cuban push and wanted to discuss demobilizing the Brigade. Allen responded with his Dutch uncle mode: “Are you, Mr. President-Elect, truly prepared to tell this fine group of young Cuban men that they must disband against their will? Why, all they ask, at every risk to their lives, is to have the opportunity to restore the democratic government of their country.”

Kennedy obviously has salt. He didn’t flap. Took in all that Allen could deliver and then came back with the following: Said he was prepared, in principle, to move ahead, but had to emphasize how very crucial it was that no United States involvement show. Overtly aggressive moves against Cuba could stimulate the Sovs to carry out a few threats.

Let me add this, Kennedy says: If our involvement in Cuba does show its face, we will, of course, be obliged to win.

Couldn’t agree more, replies Allen.

Well, Mr. Dulles, says Kennedy, if we want to win all that much, why begin with the Brigade? If a sizable military operation is what is really called for, why even bother with the CIA in the first place?

He had Allen painted into a corner on that one. He could come away with no more than a highly qualified go-ahead. No visible American involvement. In any event, the invasion has been put off for a few months. By the time Kennedy gets his inauguration out of the way and has an administration functioning, we’ll be in early spring of 1961.

During this interim, the Brigade is likely to get restless. I call it a toss-up. If their discipline doesn’t hold up, they will self-destruct in Guatemala. Interesting times lie ahead.

Yours,

No-Bucks Halifax