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himself had not been straight-forwardly told about the operation.*

The failure to either inform those officials or to make certain that they had been informed by Dulles was particularly reprehensible in light of the fact that there were many occasions on which Bissell should have informed them, and his failure to do so was misleading. In the first weeks of the Kennedy Administration, Bissell met with Bundy and discussed the development of an assassination capability within CIA--executive action. But Bissell did not mention that an actual assassination attempt was underway. Bissell appeared before the Taylor-Kennedy Board of Inquiry which was formed to report to the President on the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban situation, but testified that he did not inform the Commission of the assassination operation. As chief of the CIA directorate concerned with clandestine operations and the Bay of Pigs, Bissell frequently met with officials in the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations to discuss Cuban operations, and his advice was frequently sought. He did not tell them that the CIA had undertaken an effort to assassinate Castro, and did not ask if they favored proceeding with the

* Even assuming that Bissell correctly perceived that Dulles understood the nature of the operation, it was inexcusable for Bissell not to have briefed Dulles in plain language. Further, even if one accepts Bissell's assumption that Dulles told the Presidents, they would have been told too late, because Bissell "guessed" they would have been told that the operation "had been planned and was being attempted".

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