I will bring people in here. You can almost hear the echoes. You can hear the gavel of the chairman. The senator is engaging in a statement. Sick ofgetting being interrupted. Do i have the floor . Order. Order. This room looks better than it did when it was designed. Remodeling in the that it was highlighted that way. The room is so magnificent. It is wonderful. ,hese huge windows looking out it is a stunning room. Butonly for hearings, special receptions. For luncheons. For first ladies. Special events constantly. Was a grander to whatever event it was. 1909. Ned in they were quite sure but they knew major events would take place here. In 1912 the titanic sank. Survivors who survived were brought by boat to new york and the sinden wanted to know what happened. It was a shocking event. They thought they were going to anotherbritish crew on boat back to england before they could get interrogated. A special committee was committed. I came down here to washington. The very first major hearing was held in this room on the sinking on the titanic. A huge crowd showed up. This is a big event. So many aristocrats had gone down on the ship. I think they frightened the senators. The next hearing was in a smaller room. They didnt want to have a big show. It certainly drew in lot of people. The hearings are fascinating. They reprinted excerpts from the hearing, and it is fascinating reading. Next, researcher Peter Kornbluh discusses kennedys attempts to open up medication. Ith cuba of backe coauthor channel to cuba. He marked the beginning anniversary of the war in report war and report. This is 45 minutes. Thank you. Im here to introduce Peter Kornbluh, whom i have just met. I have just gotten a copy of his new book, coming out on october 1 on wednesday. I dont think you can buy them here. Your local bookstores will have them, and amazon i presume. Thank you. My name is brenda brody. Ive been on the board since 2005. We cant identify the exact year. That is as close as i can get. The National Security archive, it was the First Organization to be known publicly as nsa. His organization is what i call the good nsa. The other nsa is the National Security agency who was into our private phone calls and read our mail, and are a core component of our secret government that has done Everything Possible to fight and to my requests for access to their historic records. Peter kornbluh has for decades been in the forefront of filing requests and occasionally legal suit to obtain declassification and release of highly classified and hidden documents. The role of the good nsa is chasing our store records, trying to pry open the hidden hands of the bad nsa, and most of the Covert Agency is, and our National Archives that have layers of classification and secrecy. Peter kornbluh has been responsible for Major Projects at the good nsa and has extracted records. This is my definition of a hero. Vital records have been obtained of the Nixon Kissinger overthrow of the chilean government in 1973 and, and his book was entitled a declassified dossier on atrocity and accountability. They read like an outline of a novel. He has obtained documents after the u. S. Attempt to overthrow the cuban government. In 1998 he wrote a book that was a page turner for researchers entitled the bay of pigs declassified. The secret report of the invasion of cuba. Here is the sequel, brought soon to television soon. I hope. Though it took years, he has extracted four of the five volumes of the most important cuban history, politics, strategy, that led to the disaster that was the day of figs. This history was written by a cia historian who has had access to many but nowhere near all of the documents generated by key components and the groups government that they works worth. These volumes confirm the most important decisions about the development to oust fidel castro, some of the most important word made by a small group of officers within the cia working from angleton shop, from the navy and elsewhere in the pentagon. By the late 1970s i have been cramming on cuban history and came across the meant i spent more time within my husband or my children, william pauley. I have gotten to know him better than better than the women in his lives. He was a cheat, fraud, traitor, and much more, and a brilliant, man. He became ambassador to peru and brazil and uses titles to meet, greet, and squeeze the most important men everywhere. He played his connections with very top republicans, including president eisenhower to get himself up to his propellers and toplevel planning. He was involved in cia plan to overhaul the democratic election government inquiry mullah. President truman seems to pull them up short and it was held over until the brothers arrived with the eisenhower, nixon administration. Like most people, like most people here, here we go. Hold on. Like most people here i also am totally dependent on documents. It wasnt until Peter Kornbluh obtained volumes of the volumes that are historical commentaries on the bay of pigs written by cia historian but i confirm the powerful physicians pauley held and the roles he played in intelligence operations in the bay of pigs. These are gold mines for everyone with any historical interest from the end of world war ii to now. In these volumes it is clear he had materials withheld from him that he recognized simply where he was played by managers and others were you was deliberately lied to. This is why cia continues to refuse to turn over volume 52 Peter Kornbluh volume 5 to Peter Kornbluh. There are pages in the same volumes that are sam draft that have been declassified and released. What are they hiding . Another historian has attacked five that to diminish volume five in the event it is ever released. Contrary to rumors floating that it was a cia think events, i dont think so. 55 realized they knew what was held and he didnt think it was pretty. Everyone here lets give Peter Kornbluh the presence they deserve for working so hard for all of us and send letters asking why they are ignoring request that volume five should not be good classified and released. We do know this is accurate because they sent a letter to jim that says so. With nothing further. Peter is going to talk about what happened from the document viewpoint in cuba. [applause] im delighted to be known as the good nsa as opposed to the bad nsa. We realize the name of our organization when it is reduced to an acronym is confusing. Many people here National Security archive and believe that we are the library of the cia. I have to tell them we are the antithesis, the good nsa. We have a revolutionary slogan. Documents are death. That distinguishes me quickly from anybody thinking that i am undercover cia posing as an archivist. Im going to talk about the bay of pigs and the efforts to get that material declassified through a questionandanswer between me and brenda. What i wanted to talk about this morning is the chapter on kennedy in the new book. Back channel to cuba. And his back channels to cuba. You will find the book contains more be jealous that any other place on this rather fascinating history. The kennedy assassination has intrigued us all. It intrigues me as a historian of u. S. Cuban relations for many reasons. One of which is that this ministry that efforts to reject the fidel castro is so counter to the known image of him giving the green light to the bay of pigs invasion, pushing through his brother for operation mongoose. The flipside of the coin, National Security council documents for further to the suite approach has always intrigued me. Most intriguing thing about the kennedy assassination is the historical coincidence, although some dont think it is and when citizens, of the moment john f. Kennedy was killed, there was a cia officer in paris meeting with a high level mall in the cuban military attempting to pass him a poison pen to assassinate fidel castro. At that same moment kennedy had an emissary in cuba, a french journalist meeting went a french journalist, meeting with fidel castro at a safe house, having lunch with him, fresh fish. An aide says turn on the radio, the president has been shot in dallas. The mission to pass what he called a message fees from jfk to fidel castro was aborted. It is intriguing that called on us to think through what really happened. For many years, almost 30 years jean daniel story was the only one known about kennedys efforts to approach catch drove castro. He wrote about it only a few weeks after kennedy was killed. He had a frontpage story. He wrote an article in the new republic in which he detailed his role as a special envoy. Over the course of time we were able to get a Kennedy Administration file declassified, special contacts with cuban leaders revealed a set of efforts to reach out and communicate with castro about changing the contours of relations in the wake of the cuban missile crisis. Let me go back to what we remember. The Political Climate of the day. We have the bay of pigs invasion. The trade embargo and its aftermath. Robert kennedy overseeing assassination attempts and all sorts of coordinated pressures. Then there were the famous efforts to overthrow fidel castro. Out of these efforts of aggression came the first opportunities for contact and a rebuilding of the broken bridges that destroyed bridges and u. S. Cuban relations. Publicly we had an overt and covert nastiness against cuba, particularly in the aftermath of the bay of pigs. In the aftermath of the missile crisis some of kennedys aides noted that the missile crisis ended badly for fidel castro and his relationship with the soviet union. He had been willing to sacrifice his own country for the socialist bloc and their right to defend themselves. Here Nikita Khrushchev had not talked to him that he would secretly swapped them for u. S. Missiles in turkey. The issue was whether he would be so angry at the soviets, and he was very angry, that we might see that opportunity and entice him to come back to us. There was a shift in kennedys thinking. It was helped by the fact he started negotiations with the cubans to free the bay of pigs prisoners. I went to make george bundy, before he passed away, and i asked him why did kennedy reach out to the cubans . He said there was this bridge but the soviet union. Kennedy was a smart guy. He thought he could explore bringing cuba back into the western orbit and he wanted to see what could be done. We had no department of peaceful directory we only had a department of dirty tricks. The issue was how do you do this . What mechanism . It was too sensitive to have an open meeting with fidel castro. How did you do this . The answer became through the man who was negotiating the release of the bay of pigs prisoners. James donovan, a famous new york lawyer. He conducted what kissinger would call shuttle diplomacy. He kept flying backandforth meeting with castro, starting in the early fall of 1962, a break in the action during the missile crisis, and a flurry of shuttle diplomacy in 1962 which resulted in a trade of 62 million of food and medicine for the actual prisoners. At the moment that the prisoners are being loaded onto a series of planes, the cia called odonovan said we have three agents in castros jails from the Technical Services division. They are planting eavesdropping devices, in the ceiling of the new China News Agency being built in havana. Wayne smith remembers is because he was there when they were arrested. They bungled the operation. They rented an apartment above the Actual Agency and were drilling holes in the ceiling and planting these devices. The cubans threw them in jail. There were 25 other americans within rounded up after the revolution for subversion activities. They were in cuban jails also. The cia said get these guys out. Donovan said will you release these prisoners along with the bay of pigs prisoners and castro said no but if you come back in january we can start to talk about that. That was the beginning of talks between cuba and the United States under the Kennedy Administration. Donovan came back in january and march, in april, to negotiate the release of these americans. Castro thought they were all cia. Three of them actually were bona fide cia agent. Eventually donovan arranged a prisoner swap for cubans arrested in the United States, including one who had shot a nineyearold girl in the back and killed her and had been convicted and put in jail. For 27 americans. In these talks castro said how would we restore normal relations with the United States of america . Donovan said, mr. Premier, do you know how porcupines make love . [speaking spanish] what is that . The answer was no common he didnt know. Donovan said very carefully. That is how you and the United States will begin to discuss restoring relations. I will help and do the best i can with that. Donovan came back with this message that kennedy was interested. That castro was interested in better relations. Curiously, the bureaucracy went into overdrive for instructions for him. They wanted him to go back to cuba until castro if he severed his relations with the soviet union and made it clear he was pulling his asians out of west agents out of western america we could talk. This proposal were brought to the president of United States. This document is the key document. When i found this in the Kennedy Library i felt that it was the most Important Documents of the Kennedy Administration. The president overruling his aides on these restrictive instructions and saying we want to have better relations with the diaper he dont give him preconditions he is not going to meet. Lets be more flexible. Im interested in making this happen during lets go forward. It is quite an interesting document. There was an eight in the National Security council who deserves tremendous credit. He personally wanted to see better relations with cuba and cap peppering bundy with these wonderful memos. Bundy was passed these on in meetings with the president. Basically bundy concluded as he told the president that castro is not inconceivable. Castro is high in the regime and may find advantage in a shift away from the dependence on moscow. The United States and cuba are on strictly economic terms and have much to gain from reestablishment of relations. At the highest level, even though 90 of the National Security bureaucracy was against this. Some feelers started to go forward. This is the pivotal memo koran chase wrote where he basically said we havent really looked we have explored the nastiness and the pressures, but we havent explored the suite approach that may entice castro back to us. It wont be a headline that u. S. Accommodates. It will be castro ejects soviet union from western hemispheric. U. S. Brings cuba back into western orbit. This was the then he put on it. He cast the baton being an intermediary to extraordinary reporters from abc news. It was a woman named lisa howard. Anybody remember seeing her . She was the most famous female journalist of her time. She was the first female correspondent for abc news. The first to have her own new show. She has been called the first barbara walters. Her whole scheme was to find powerful World Leaders and interview them, and make headlines with that. Her first was with Nikita Khrushchev when he came to the u. N. Then she set her sights on fidel castro and pepper the Human Mission in new york to let her go to cuba the camera to camera crew. He had not given any major interview since 1959. She finally got permission to go in april of 1963. As wayne smith will tell you, it is hard to get to him. After being there and waiting for three weeks, she went to donovan who was there and said please broker an introduction. He went to castro and said, there is a beautiful lawn dish of a reporter, i highly recommend that you spend some time with her. Castro gave for this interview before he flew off to mask all moscow. He spent some time talking to her privately. When she came back, she shared what he said privately with the cia. They were waiting for her at the airport when she landed. They debriefed her. They immediately sent a memo to the president s, if you look in the corner to your right, that was the mark that kennedys secretary wrote. In the original document is in blue ink. It is striking. This is the debriefing report from lisa howard. She made it clear, fidel castro feels we could have better relations with United States. We need an intermediary. I will volunteer to do this. He is willing to work on this. That was his first. How many have seen this before . This is fodder for some of the issues of motivation when it comes to the cia and kennedy. The cia oppose this idea. John mccone made his feelings felt immediately. The memo went the day before this on may 1. He called his office and issued an edict, sent everybody in the white house this one paragraph letter saying we dont like this idea because if it ever lead it would undermine everything we have been working towards. All the exiles would accuse us of the trail. They would call us epocrates, the whole kit and caboodle. Dont go there. Key officials, William Atwood, a deputy u. S. Ambassador, lisa howard, worked with the cuban ambassador at the u. N. To start passing messages backandforth. Lisa howard got impatient and organized the First Episode of cocktail diplomacy between cuba and the United States. It was interesting for me in my res