Let's have a look at what he said, and then see how well that holds up now that the memo is unredacted..
The Schlesinger memo is an origin story, the origins of the CIA’s role in the tragedy of November 22, 1963 as found in the last of the JFK files. CIA apologist Fred Litwin says this “famous memo” has already been made public. Yet, in the National Archives JFK collection, the memo is redacted as of the last public release in December 2022. If the Schlesinger memo has been declassified somewhere, Trump is obliged to release it immediately.
The Schlesinger memo is one of many origin stories of the tragedy of November 22, 1963, found in the new JFK files.
Schlesinger’s memo, written two and a half years before Kennedy’s assassination, cannot shed new light on what happened on November 22, 1963. But it will likely shed light on the hostility between Kennedy and the CIA that led JFK’s immediate successors to suspect Agency personnel might have had a hand in the Dallas ambush. That’s the most likely explanation for the CIA’s redaction.
That’s why the Goodwin and Schlesinger memos are censored sixty years after they were written: to protect the CIA’s impunity.
Note that, at one point, Morley thought there were two memos on the CIA, but, in fact, the Goodwin memo was simply his copy.
While the redaction seeks to conceal, the white blot of censorship is inadvertently revealing all the same. The redaction of Schlesinger’s post-Bay of Pigs memo lends credence to President Richard Nixon’s suspicion that JFK’s assassination originated in what he often referred to as “the Bay of Pigs thing.”
Nixon voiced that suspicion in October 1971 when he demanded that CIA director Richard Helms produce the Agency’s internal history of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The president needed know more about “the who shot John angle,” he said ominously.
Helms deflected Nixon’s request. But eight months later when Nixon’s chief of staff H.R. Haldeman warned Helms that his failure to help block the investigation of the Watergate burglary might “blow the Bay of Pigs thing,” Helms knew he was attempting to blackmail the CIA over JFK’s death. Helms exploded in anger.
The memo even had implications for the last election:
Consider this censored memo, written in 1961 by White House aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. when JFK was considering “reorganizing” the CIA. In it, historian Schlesinger explained the CIA’s “encroachment on policy-making functions” properly belonging to the president. In 2024, the Agency now suppresses an entire page of Schlesinger’s memo, which effectively deprives American voters of key information about presidential handling of the secretive agency that millions of Americans deeply mistrust and that a leading presidential contender — the nephew of the slain president! — often criticizes. Thus the CIA’s hidden hand limits discussion in the 2024 election, a claim no fact-checker can refute.
Once I knew the redacted section was about "Controlled American Source (CAS)," (an obscure term of art that [at least sometimes] refers to CIA officers under cover), I decided to have a look in Schlesinger's book on the Kennedy administration. And sure enough there was a large section on this issue.
The CIA’s budget now exceeded State’s by more than 50 per cent (though it was less than half that of the intelligence operations of the Defense Department). Its staff had doubled in a decade. In some areas the CIA had outstripped the State Department in the quality of its personnel, partly because it paid higher salaries and partly because Allen Dulles’s defiance of McCarthy enabled it to attract and hold abler men. It had almost as many people under official cover overseas as State; in a number of embassies CIA officers outnumbered those from State in the political sections. Often the CIA station chief had been in the country longer than the ambassador, had more money at his disposal and exerted more influence. The CIA had its own political desks and military staffs; it had in effect its own foreign service, its own air force, even, on occasion, its own combat forces. Moreover, the CIA declined to clear its clandestine intelligence operations either with the State Department in Washington or with the ambassador in the field; and, while covert political operations were cleared with State, this was sometimes done, not at the start, but after the operation had almost reached the point beyond which it could not easily be recalled.
By the way, the title of the section was initially released in 2018. The fact that Schlesinger's book covered this topic meant that it was not too sensitive to be made public.
My friend Larry Haapanen found that Washington Post journalist George Lardner had written about this in 1975:
The Controlled American Source (CAS) represents a particular aspect of CIA's encroachment on policy-making functions. CIA today has nearly as many people under official cover overseas as State -- 3900 to 3700. About 1500 of these are under State Department cover.
The Lardner article is totally bang on with regard to the number of CIA employees operating under cover -- 3,700 - and the total number of State Department employees operating overseas -- 3,900.
The Lardner article notes that "At the CIA's inception 28 years ago, according to one knowledgeable source, the use of State Department cover was supposed to be "strictly limited and temporary." The Schlesinger memo notes that "Originally the use of State Department cover for CIA personnel was supposed to be strictly limited and temporary."
The Lardner article said there were more than 125 people operating under cover in Paris, and the Schlesinger memo says there were 128 people.
The Schlesinger memo does have specifics on the Vienna embassy which is not mentioned in the Lardner article.
Tim Weiner, a former New York Times reporter and the author of a 2007 history about the C.I.A., said that the agency has nearly always followed the orders of presidents, including when Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion.
“The straw man that Schlesinger creates is of a C.I.A. that does things of its own accord,” Mr. Weiner said.
Mr. Weiner said he saw no compelling reason for the section of the memo about the State Department to have remained classified for so many years.
Keeping such things classified, he said, “pumps the paranoid fear of a deep state.”
Weiner is right -- the section on Controlled American Source should never have been fully redacted, however, it might certainly have been reasonable to redact some of the details.
And Morley now has a different reason why the section had been redacted:
Rather than protect sensitive national security information, he said, the redactions were “to save the C.I.A. from embarrassment and criticism.”
And, of course, the conclusion of the Schlesinger memo had not been redacted:
Certainly JFK did not accept the major recommendations above. (page 428 - 429 in the Kindle edition of A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House)
The Bay of Pigs, of course, stimulated a wide variety of proposals for the reorganization of the CIA. The State Department, for example, could not wait to separate the CIA’s overt from its clandestine functions and even change the Agency’s name. The President, consulting closely with James Killian, Clark Clifford and the other members of his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, decided not to go that far. The Agency itself suffered from doubt and gloom after Cuba, and it was feared that drastic measures would cause total demoralization. Instead, Kennedy moved quietly to cut the CIA budget in 1962 and again in 1963, aiming at a 20 per cent reduction by 1966. At the same time, anticipating the resignation of Allen Dulles, he began looking for a new director. Under Eisenhower the need had been for an authoritative interpreter of the flow of intelligence; here Allen Dulles, with his perceptive and flexible sense of the political ebb and flow, was ideal. But Kennedy, Bundy and the White House staff preferred to interpret intelligence themselves. They sought, not an intellectual oracle, but a sensible and subdued manager of the government’s intelligence business. In addition, the President thought it politically prudent to have a CIA chief conservative enough to give the Agency a margin of protection in Congress.
Many covert operations had already moved to the Defense Department.
Here is what Tim Weiner, in his book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, said about John and Robert Kennedy: (page 180)
In his wrath after the Bay of Pigs, John Kennedy first wanted to destroy the CIA. Then he took the agency's clandestine service out of its death spiral by handing the controls to his brother. It was one of the least wise decisions of his presidency. Robert F. Kennedy, thirty-five years old, famously ruthless, fascinated with secrecy, took command of the most sensitive covert operations of the United States. The two men unleashed covert action with an unprecedented intensity. Ike had undertaken 170 major CIA covert operations in eight years. The Kennedys launched 163 major covert operations in less than three.
Kennedy revamped covert action. He set up the Special Group, or the 303 Committee, to oversee the clandestine service with McGeorge Bundy as its chairman: (page 181)
The members were McCone, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and senior deputies from Defense and State. But until very late in the Kennedy administration it was left to the CIA's covert operators to decide whether to consult with the Special Group. There were more than a few operations that McCone [Director of the CIA after Dulles] and the Special Group knew little or nothing about.
In November 1961, in the greatest secrecy, John and Bobby Kennedy created a new planning cell for covert action, the Special Group (Augmented). It was RFK's outfit, and it had one mission: eliminating Castro.
The rest is history.
A big thank you to Larry Haapanen, Paul Hoch and Robert Reynolds. Larry found the George Lardner article; and Paul and Robert helped me with research.
Update
Rather than saying that Kennedy said this to friends, it would be more accurate to say that the New York Times claimed in 1966 that Kennedy had said this to a (high-ranking), (unnamed), subordinate. There is a difference.
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Morley discusses Israel with Tucker Carlson.
Morley believes that the United States can never be great unless it solves the JFK assassination.
An analysis of the 13 documents Morley wants to see.
Morley claims I am a CIA apologist and then misquotes me.
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There is no evidence that Diaz was involved in the JFK assassination.
There are clues as to what is in a redacted section of Schlesinger's memo.
Chad Nagle and Dan Storper's article on New Orleans gets everything wrong.
Believing Michael Kurtz is problematic.
Morley wrote that there are two redacted memos on CIA reorganization, but there is only one. He wrote about Goodwin's copy as if it was a different memo, rather than a copy of the Schlesinger memo.
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There are no redactions in the Operation Northwoods document.
Kilgallen had nothing to tell.
An underwhelming interview of Marina Oswald.
Morley often repeats stories and changes their meanings.
Chad Nagle claims there was an assassination plot against JFK in Chicago in November 1963. One problem: There is no evidence of such a plot.
A response to Morley's Substack post alleging that I am a CIA apologist.
A rebuttal to Morley's response to my post Was Bill Harvey in Dallas in November of 1963?
There is no credible evidence Harvey was in Dallas in November of 1963.
Morley repeats the claim that Dulles was at a CIA training center during the weekend of the JFK assassination. He wasn't.
Morley's claims about Efron are all wrong.
Morley responded to my article "The Truth about Operation Northwoods." Here is my reply.
W. Tracy Parnell is one of the best JFK assassination researchers out there. Here is his look at Jefferson Morley with several important articles.
Operation Northwoods can only be understood as part of the Kennedys' war against Cuba and Operation Mongoose.
And a response from me.
There is no evidence that Dr. West petitioned the court to examine Jack Ruby before his trial.
There is absolutely no evidence that Dr. Louis Jolyon West interfered with Jack Ruby's case.
Jefferson Morley used a fake Oswald handbill in his press conference for the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
An examination of redactions in the JFK collection of documents.