TOP SECRET
-3-
tion which had continued until 1965. Helms also failed to inform the Warren Commission of the plots because the precise question was not asked. FN

Helms told the Committee that he had never raised the assassination operation with McCone or Kennedy Administration officials because he had assumed that the project had been previously authorized, and that the aggressive character of the Kennedy Administration's program against the Castro regime made assassination permissible even in the absence of an express instruction. He added that he had never been convinced that the operation would succeed, and that he would have told McCone about it if he had ever believed that it would "go anyplace".

Helms' reasons for not having told his superiors about the assassination effort are unacceptable; indeed, many of them were reasons why he should have sought express authority. As Helms himself testified, assassination was of a high order of sensitivity. Administration policymakers, supported by intelligence estimates furnished by the Agency, had emphasized on several occasions that successors to Castro might be worse than Castro himself. In addition, the Special Group Augmented required that plans for covert actions against Cuba be submitted in detail for its approval. Although the Administration was exerting intense pressure on the CIA to do something about Castro and the Castro regime, it was a serious error to have u

MC CONE BULLET RE ASAP

NW 50955 DocId:32423539 Page 541