Secret Journey to Planet Serpo by Len Kasten Page A

Session of Congress, demonstrating, once more, his strong commitment to American triumphs in space. Kennedy’s confidence that we could put a man on the moon by the end of the decade was based on von Braun’s analysis, which had been solicited by Vice President Johnson. In von Braun’s April 29 response to Vice President Johnson’s inquiry he said, “We have an excellent chance of beating the Soviets to the first landing of a crew on the moon (including return capability, of course) . . . With an all-out crash program I think we could accomplish this objective in 1967/68.”

    Metaphoric illustration of the Kennedy fallout over the Bay of Pigs debacle

    President Kennedy and Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Fligh
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Center at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama, 196
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    In his memo, von Braun also discussed funding the development of a nuclear rocket as a long-term goal for going beyond the moon to the exploration of space. In his speech to Congress, Kennedy asked for approval for development of the Rover nuclear rocket. He said, “This gives promise of some day providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon, perhaps to the very ends of the solar system itself.”
    THE DIA INVOLVEMENT
    The turf wars between intelligence agencies in the early 1960s was intense. Even before the Defense Intelligence Agency was created, the other agencies were highly protective of their sources and information, and reluctant to share power and influence with the other organizations. In 1947, Truman had created Majestic 12 (MJ-12), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council (NSC). Then, in 1952 just before leaving office, Truman formed the National Security Agency (NSA) as a division of the Department of Defense. By the time President Kennedy took office in January 1961, the various agencies had staked out their own territories and resented intrusion into their affairs. In addition, each branch of the military had its own intelligence capability. The venerable Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), founded in 1882, was supremely influential and powerful, and probably trumped the youthful CIA in that decade, as did the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
    Further complicating this alphabet stew was the practice of compartmentalization. Secret information was kept contained at the various agencies as well as at different levels within each organization. Consequently, the likelihood that any single high-ranking individual knew what other high-ranking individuals knew was remote. All the intelligence paths met only at the level of MJ-12, and it was this above-top-secret and untouchable committee that pulled all the strings.
    In mid-1961, the CIA blamed the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation on Kennedy because he refused to send in air support. U.S. Air Force General Charles Cabell, the deputy director of the CIA at the time, was the most outspoken in placing this blame, although the resentment was also shared by the CIA “foot soldier” participants in the raid. Kennedy, on the other hand, blamed the CIA for the botched operation, and then fired Allen Dulles, the longtime director of the CIA, as well as Cabell, and promised to break the CIA up into a thousand pieces. This resulted in unvarnished hatred of Kennedy by the CIA, and was most likely the principal motivating factor in prompting Kennedy to create the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in October 1961. On one level, Kennedy hoped to eliminate military intelligence agency rivalries by combining them. However, in view of his feud with the CIA, it appears likely, in retrospect, that he hoped to have the DIA replace the CIA over time. Ironically, he achieved just the opposite result, as yet another intelligence agency rivalry was spawned. The CIA, it seems, was not so easily deposed. Just as with J. Edgar Hoover, they “knew where all the bodies were