ADVISERS ON CUBA

Press, Volume C, Issue 29501, 1 May 1961, Page 10

ADVISERS ON CUBA

“Sad Men In Washington” (N.Z. press Assn.—Coovrtght) NEW YORK, April 28. The saddest men in Washington at present were the intellectuals on the White House staff who had helped to deal with the Cuban issue, according to the “New York Times.” The newspaper's chief Washington correspondent, James Reston, named them as the former dean of the faculty at Harvard, Mr McGeorge Bundy, Mr Walt Whitman Rostow, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Harvard historian, Mr Arthur Schlesinger jun. These highly intelligent and sensitive men, said Reston, did not, of course, tell the President of the United States what to do, but Messrs Bundy and Rostow in particular had been influential in the planning stages, and were now even more controversial in Washington than when they first arrived. Oddly, part of the policy miscalculation was due to a Tack of precisely those qualities which the intellectuals were expected to bring to bear on major policy decisions, he said. The theory was that these men. above everything else, would be extremely thorough in their staff work and bring to the highest counsels of the executive a sense of history. “Yet they have left the impression that the Cuban decision was reached without adequate staff preparation, and without the larger perspective of history which places specific decisions in proper relation to the commitments and objectives of the nation. “For example, even after the adventure had failed, another White House staff officer said that the possibilities and consequences of failure had never been considered.” Reston said. The Secretary of State. Mr Dean Rusk, had not brought his own department’s intelligence unit into the staff work. The State Department’s policy planning staff had not been consulted, nor had Mr Adlai Stevenson, the United States ehief delegate to the United Nation*, until the very end. when Mr Bundy had gone to New York and told him. Reston said. “Most of the Cabinet members of the National Security Council met in these meetings from time to time, but of the data presented in these

meetings and little effort made to bring into the discussions top officials who werj known to be opposed to the whole exercise."