110 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
110 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
---
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aliases:
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- John F. Kennedy
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- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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- JFK
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- President Kennedy
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- Kennedy
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-10-05
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category: "Political Figure"
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tags:
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- KeyFigure
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- Person
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- President
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- Nuclear
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- Israel
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- Dimona
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- CIA
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- Assassination
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- Cuba
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- 1960s
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summary: "Thirty-fifth President of the United States (1961-1963) whose Dimona diplomacy, Cuban operations and assassination on November 22, 1963 are documented in FRUS volumes, the Church Committee, the Warren Commission, the HSCA and the Review Board."
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born: 1917-05-29
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died: 1963-11-22
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location: "Brookline, Massachusetts"
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relations:
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[United States]]"
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start: 1961-01-20
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end: 1963-11-22
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role: "35th President"
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fn: 1
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- type: appointed
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with: "[[John McCone]]"
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start: 1961-11-29
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role: "Director of Central Intelligence, succeeding Allen Dulles"
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fn: 4
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- type: appointed
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with: "[[Myer Feldman]]"
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role: "presidential point man for Jewish and Israeli affairs, as described by Hersh; Feldman attended the December 27, 1962 meeting with Golda Meir"
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fn: 2
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- type: subject_of
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with: "[[Warren Commission]]"
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start: 1963
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end: 1964
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role: "Commission concluded Oswald alone fired the shots and found no evidence of conspiracy"
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fn: 10
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- type: subject_of
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with: "[[House Select Committee on Assassinations]]"
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end: 1979
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role: "Committee concluded he was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy"
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fn: 11
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- type: subject_of
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with: "[[Assassination Records Review Board]]"
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start: 1994-04-11
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end: 1998
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role: "Board reviewed and released more than four million pages of assassination records"
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fn: 13
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---
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John F. Kennedy, born in Brookline, Massachusetts on May 29, 1917 and killed in Dallas on November 22, 1963, served as the 35th President of the [[United States]] from January 20, 1961.[^1] The record below covers his policy toward the Israeli nuclear program, the Cuban operations of his administration, and the successive official inquiries into his death.
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### Dimona and nonproliferation
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The journalist [[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that Kennedy was intellectually and emotionally committed to halting the spread of nuclear weapons, that the administration insisted on American inspectors having full access to [[Dimona]], and that [[David Ben-Gurion]] and [[Shimon Peres]] resisted. Hersh wrote that Kennedy angrily told his friend [[Charles L. Bartlett]] that the Israelis "lie to me constantly about their nuclear capability," that Kennedy appointed [[Myer Feldman]] as point man for Jewish and Israeli affairs, a post that created "bureaucratic chaos" because of Feldman's pro-Israel bias, and that the "surprising" appointment of [[John McCone]] as Director of Central Intelligence reflected Kennedy's view of nonproliferation, which McCone shared.[^2] McCone, as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, had been at [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]'s December 19, 1960 meeting on the reactor, where he urged IAEA safeguards, and succeeded [[Allen Dulles]] as Director on November 29, 1961.[^3][^4]
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The historian [[Marc Trachtenberg]] wrote the opposite reading: that Kennedy's policy on Israel's program was "rather lax, at least until 1963"; that the May 1961 meeting with Ben-Gurion "was relaxed and the president was friendly" although Ben-Gurion made clear Israel was keeping its nuclear option open; that the first visit to Dimona, arranged by the Israelis outside regular channels, was a guided tour by two American physicists who reported "no evidence of weapons-related activity"; that Kennedy's national security adviser [[McGeorge Bundy]] later admitted the inspections "were not as seriously and rigorously conducted as they would have had to be to get the real story"; and that the historian Avner Cohen called the period from May 1961 to March 1963 a "long slumber" before real pressure began in mid-1963.[^5]
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The Foreign Relations of the United States volumes record two exchanges. At the Palm Beach meeting of December 27, 1962, Kennedy told Foreign Minister [[Golda Meir]]: "I think it is quite clear that in case of an invasion the United States would come to the support of Israel. We have that capacity and it is growing." He added that he would hope Israel "would give consideration to our problems on this atomic reactor. We are opposed to nuclear proliferation," and the memorandum records that "Mrs. Meir reassured the President that there would not be any difficulty between us on the Israeli nuclear reactor." The same memorandum lists the Hawk missile among the sources of strain, and Kennedy referred to "our actions with respect to the Jordan waters, Hawks, and aid."[^6]
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On May 18, 1963, in a letter transmitted through the State Department to Ambassador Barbour, Kennedy wrote to Ben-Gurion: "I am sure you will agree that there is no more urgent business for the whole world than the control of nuclear weapons," recalled that "when we spoke together in May 1961 you said that we might make whatever use we wished of the information resulting from the first visit of American scientists to Dimona and that you would agree to further visits by neutrals as well," and wrote that "development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel would almost certainly lead other larger countries, that have so far refrained from such development, to feel that they must follow suit." He wrote that he saw "no present or imminent nuclear threat to Israel" from the United Arab Republic and that "we have the capacity to check" any contrary information, and pressed for "your Government's early assent to the proposal first put to you by Ambassador Barbour on April 2." Four and a half lines of the source text remain classified.[^7]
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Hersh wrote that in mid-1962 the administration authorized the sale of Hawk surface-to-air missiles to Israel, a departure from past policy, linked to Israel's agreement to allow inspection teams at Dimona, and that the inspections were "largely a whitewash." Hersh wrote that Kennedy invited Meir, one of Ben-Gurion's leading critics, to Palm Beach as "a direct move against Ben-Gurion's leadership." Hersh also wrote that a memorandum from Bundy to Kennedy dated November 22, 1963 indicated a change in policy toward the French, allowing France to use the [[Nevada]] test site for underground testing.[^2]
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### Cuba and the CIA
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The Church Committee's chronology records that Allen Dulles approved on December 11, 1959 that "thorough consideration be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro"; that in late 1960 [[Johnny Roselli]] and Robert Maheu met a CIA support chief; that in March 1961 Kennedy told Senator George Smathers he disapproved of assassination; that Roselli passed poison pills to a Cuban in Miami in April 1961; that the Bay of Pigs invasion failed on April 15 to 17, 1961; that Operation MONGOOSE was created in November 1961 and ended in November 1962; and that in April 1962 William Harvey made contact with Roselli and passed him poison pills in Miami. The Committee wrote that "United States Government personnel plotted to kill Castro from 1960 to 1965," using American underworld figures and Cuban exiles.[^4][^8] See [[Operation Mongoose]], [[Bay of Pigs]] and [[Operation NORTHWOODS]].
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The Select Committee's account of the final months states that on October 29, 1963 [[Desmond Fitzgerald]], head of the CIA's Special Affairs Staff, met the Cuban official code-named AMLASH ([[Rolando Cubela]]), told him he was the "personal representative" of Attorney General Robert Kennedy and stated that the United States would support a coup; that on November 22, 1963, at a pre-arranged meeting, a CIA case officer told AMLASH he would be provided rifles with telescopic sights and explosives and offered a poison pen device; and that the case officer referred to the President's November 18 speech in Miami as an indication of presidential support, telling AMLASH that Fitzgerald had helped write the speech. DCI McCone testified that he was not aware of the AMLASH assassination effort.[^9]
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### The Warren Commission, the Senate and the House
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The Warren Commission reported that the shots which killed Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, were fired by [[Lee Harvey Oswald]], and that it "found no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy."[^10]
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The Senate Select Committee's Book V (1976) reported that "the Warren Commission was not given information about CIA attempts to assassinate foreign leaders" and was unaware of the full extent of agency operations against Cuba; it quoted the Commission counsel David Belin that "at no time did the CIA disclose to the Warren Commission any facts which pertained to alleged assassination plans to kill Fidel Castro."[^9] The House Select Committee on Assassinations quoted the Senate committee that "why senior officials of the FBI and the CIA permitted the investigation to go forward, in light of these deficiencies, and why they permitted the Warren Commission to reach its conclusion without all relevant information is still unclear," and that "the possibility exists that senior officials in both agencies made conscious decisions not to disclose potentially important information." It found that the CIA also withheld from the Commission its information on a conversation of Luisa Calderón, a Cuban consulate employee in Mexico City, about five hours after the assassination in which she indicated possible foreknowledge.[^11]
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The House Select Committee's finding was that "President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy." It also found, on the evidence available to it, that the Soviet and Cuban governments were not involved; that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, and the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, were not involved, though the evidence did not preclude the involvement of individual members; and that the Secret Service, FBI and CIA were not involved.[^11]
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### Joannides and the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil
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In 2003 the journalist [[Jefferson Morley]] filed a Freedom of Information Act request for CIA records on George E. Joannides, the CIA case officer for the anti-Castro [[Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil]] in 1963, a group whose members had contact with Oswald in the months before the assassination, and for records on Joannides's selection as the agency's liaison to the House Select Committee in May 1978. The CIA answered that it could "neither confirm nor deny" the existence of records on his participation in covert operations; the D.C. Circuit in 2007 reversed summary judgment for the CIA and in 2013 remanded a fee dispute, and in December 2004 the CIA released three documents in full and 112 with redactions.[^12]
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### The Assassination Records Review Board
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Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which President Bush signed on October 26, 1992; the Review Board's members were sworn in on April 11, 1994. The Board's final report states that Congress, "frustrated by the lack of access and disturbed by the conclusions of [[Oliver Stone]]'s JFK," passed the Act, and that its legacy is "more than four million pages of records" in the National Archives. Its list of accomplishments includes opening previously redacted CIA Directorate of Operations records, releasing 99 percent of the "Hardway/Lopez Report" on CIA records of Oswald's trip to Mexico City, arranging the first known authenticity study of the Zapruder film, and acquiring original notes of Oswald's Dallas Police interrogation.[^13] See [[Assassination Records Review Board]] and [[Church Committee]].
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Miller Center, University of Virginia, "John F. Kennedy" (born May 29, 1917, Brookline, Massachusetts; inaugurated January 20, 1961; term ended November 22, 1963). https://millercenter.org/president/kennedy
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[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991, chs. 8 and 9.
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[^3]: "The U.S. Discovery of Israel's Secret Nuclear Project," Wilson Center and National Security Archive, record of the meeting of December 19, 1960, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-us-discovery-israels-secret-nuclear-project
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[^4]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies*, Book V, S. Rept. 94-755, 1976, chronology of the Castro plots ("November 29, John McCone succeeds Allen Dulles as Director, CIA"). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf
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[^5]: Trachtenberg, Marc. "Appendix Eight (Chapter Nine, Note 134): Kennedy and the Israeli Nuclear Program," to *A Constructed Peace*. https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/trachtenberg/appendices/appendixVIII.html
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[^6]: Memorandum of conversation, Palm Beach, December 27, 1962 (participants: the President, Foreign Minister Golda Meir, Ambassador Harman, Myer Feldman, Phillips Talbot, Robert Komer), *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963*, Volume XVIII, Near East, 1962-1963 (Washington: GPO, 2000); text as reproduced at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/FRUS12_27_62-2.html
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[^7]: Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Israel transmitting the President's letter to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, May 18, 1963, *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963*, Volume XVIII, Document 258; text as reproduced at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/FRUS5_18_63.html and listed at https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v18/d258
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[^8]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report*, 1975, summary of findings on Fidel Castro. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit
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[^9]: Senate Select Committee, Book V (1976), sections on AMLASH and the Warren Commission's information (pp. 99 and following of the chronology; Belin quotation). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_V.pdf
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[^10]: *Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy* (Warren Commission), 1964, ch. 1, "Summary and Conclusions." https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-1
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[^11]: U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on Assassinations, *Report*, 1979, findings and sections on the CIA and the Warren Commission. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1c and /part-1d
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[^12]: *Morley v. Central Intelligence Agency*, 508 F.3d 1108 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 7, 2007) (Rogers, J.); *Morley v. Central Intelligence Agency*, 719 F.3d 689 (D.C. Cir. June 18, 2013) (per curiam, Kavanaugh, J., concurring). https://static.case.law/f3d/508/cases/1108-01.json ; https://static.case.law/f3d/719/cases/0689-01.json
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[^13]: Assassination Records Review Board, *Final Report*, September 30, 1998, Introduction, "Executive Summary" and accomplishments list. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/report/arrb-final-report.txt
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