Page 219 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 219 of 237

fundamentally weakened. That is what happened in 1960, and there is no reason to think it could not
happen again.

When the public positions of candidates for President are shaped (or reversed) by secret operations which
the voters are not entitled to know about, something has happened to the American system, and something
for ill.

The Invisible Government participated in the presidential campaign of 1960. It was unseen, but there. It provided
a valuable lesson for future presidential campaigns.

_______________

* In April, 1959, after a long meeting with Castro in his office in the Capitol, Nixon drafted a confidential memo
for the White House, the CIA and the State Department. Key excerpts said: "As I have already indicated, he was
incredibly naive with regard to the Communist threat and appeared to have no fear whatever that the Communists
might eventually come to power in Cuba ...

"My own appraisal of him as a man is somewhat mixed. The one fact we can be sure of is that he has those
indefinable qualities which make him a leader of men. Whatever we may think of him he is going to be a great
factor in the development of Cuba and very possibly in Latin American affairs generally. He seems to be sincere,
he is either incredibly naive about Communism or under Communist discipline -- my guess is the former and as I
have already implied, his ideas as to how to run a government or an economy are less developed than those of
almost any world figure I have met in fifty countries. But because he has the power to lead to which I have
referred we have no choice but at least to try to orient him in the right direction."

*After the election, Attwood was named Ambassador to Guinea, and in February, 1964, he became Ambassador
to Kenya.

* Immediately after the election, Dulles went to Eisenhower and urged that the full details of the Cuban invasion
plan be laid before the President-elect. Eisenhower authorized Dulles to do so, and the CIA chief, with Bissell,
flew to Palm Beach for the November 18 meeting.