Jeremy Gunn, staff director of the ARRB, persuaded the board to include CIA operations against Castro as "assassination records" because of the obvious, chronological connection between those operations and Kennedy's murder. Thus, records from the Church Committee on assassination as well as CIA records on its covert operations against Cuba were considered subject to disclosure. Nonetheless, the CIA didn't identify Director McCone's briefing of Lyndon Johnson about CIA Cuban operations to the ARRB, and so a key document was not made public at the National Archives.
In 1997, however, while the ARRB was wrapping up its work, State Department historians were given access to two of McCone's memoranda of what he told LBJ for the FRUS series on U.S. policy towards Cuba in 1962-63. The historians didn't make the entire memorandum public. Instead, they quoted a small part in the "editorial" comment below.
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381. Editorial Note On November 28, 1963, Director of Central Intelligence John McCone met with President Lyndon Johnson at Johnson’s residence for approximately 30 minutes. According to McCone’s memorandum for the record, November 29, the discussion on Cuba was as follows:
“The President then turned to Cuba. He asked how effective our policy was and what was the future of Cuba. He asked how effective the economic denial program was and how we planned to dispose of Castro. He said he did not wish any repetition of any fiasco of 1961, but he felt that the Cuban situation was one that we could not live with and we had to evolve more aggressive policies. He looks to us for firm recommendations. In this connection we should prepare a briefing and also we should study carefully various courses of action.” (Central Intelligence Agency, DCI/McCone Files, Job 80-B01285A, DCI Meetings with the President, 23 November-31 December 1963)
On November 30 McCone again met with President Johnson with McGeorge Bundy also present. The meeting lasted for approximately 1-1/2 hours and according to McCone’s memorandum for the record, December 2, the discussion on Cuba was as follows:
“The President again raised the question of what we were going to do in Cuba. Bundy advised that a policy meeting was scheduled for Monday, time not set, to discuss Cuban policy. I pointed out to the President the statements of President Kennedy on September 5th, September 13th, and November 20th, 1962 and then I showed the evidence that proved absolutely that arms had been imported into Venezuela from Cuba. I stated that most positive efforts should be made immediately to secure complete OAS agreement on a course of action which would involve a series of steps ranging from economic denial through blockade and even to possible invasion, but that it must be OAS action, otherwise it would involve confrontation with Khrushchev. I stated that if the action was a Hemispheric action I didn’t see that the USSR could do much about it. The President agreed but decided to await the policy meeting on Monday.”
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The memo is notable for several things. First, Lyndon Johnson said he wanted "more aggressive policies" than Kennedy's. It's hard to imagine what could be more aggressive than Kennedy's plan for a coup. What is more, in three weeks, Johnson reversed himself completely, warning the CIA on December 19, that someday it would have to answer for what it had been doing in Cuba. Second, his directive to McCone to prepare a briefing on various courses of action is undoubtedly what led FitzGerald to make oblique reference to the AMLASH operation in the document that led me to ask the CIA in 1976 for McCone's memoranda of his meetings with Johnson. Third, the first of these meetings took place at Johnson's house, The Elms, with no one else present. McGeorge Bundy was at the second, the next day. McCone apparently showed Johnson and Bundy the same Belgian FAL rifle, or at least a photo of it, that the CIA had found in an arms cache in Venezuela, a weapon Richard Helms had taken to Kennedy at the White House on November 19 as hard evidence of Castro's exporting the revolution to other Latin American countries. Since November 19 was the day the CIA decided to give Cubela the assassination weapons he had been requesting, it is inconceivable that McCone would not mention the AMLASH operation to Johnson in talking about the arms cache. Fourth, the FRUS editorial indicates that this was but one document from McCone's files on his meetings with Johnson from November 23 to December 31, 1963. Only a few were given the ARRB. State Department historians saw these two but the ARRB did not. Finally, in 1967 in a recorded phone conversation, John Connally told Johnson that reporters were telling him that Castro had Kennedy murdered in retaliation for assassination plots against him. Johnson responded that the allegations jogged his memory about "requests that were made of me back there right after I became president." He seemed to be saying that he was told about plans to assassinate Castro right after Kennedy's murder.
When I as writing Murder, Inc., I emailed State Department historians in 2014 and asked for entire copies of McCone's two memoranda. They replied: "Unfortunately, we no longer have copies of the documents associated with that editorial note as backup documents for FRUS volumes are not permanent records."
In short, some of the most significant Kennedy assassination records, McCone's memoranda of his meetings with President Johnson in the weeks after the assassination, were not given the ARRB and have not, to this day, been made public.
Here is the typed version of LBJ's daily calendar for Nov. 28. The McCone meeting is not listed, presumably because it was at Johnson's house.
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