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TLS as president, two pages, 6.75 x 8.75, White House letterhead, April 22, 1961. Stamped “Top Secret,” a letter to General Maxwell Taylor, in full: “I am delighted that you have consented to serve as my advisor on a series of important problems, and I send this letter to indicate the range of the matters which I hope you will consider. It is apparent that we need to take a close look at all our practices and programs in the areas of military and paramilitary, guerrilla and anti-guerrilla activity which fall short of outright war. I believe that we need to strengthen our work in this area. In the course of your study, I hope that you will give special attention to the lessons which can be learned from recent events in Cuba.
Since advice of the kind I am seeking relates to many parts of the Executive Branch, I hope that you will associate with yourself, as appropriate, senior officials from different areas. I have asked the following to be available to you in this fashion: Attorney General Robert Kennedy from the Cabinet, Admiral Arleigh Burke from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Director Allen Dulles from the Central Intelligence Agency. I hope that each of them will have an opportunity to review and comment on your conclusions. But in the end what I want is your own report, drawing from past experience, to chart a path toward the future. I hope I may have a preliminary report by May 15th.
I hereby authorize you to obtain from all officials of the Government any information or records which you may find pertinent to your work. While your appointment will be as a Consultant to me, on the White House staff, the Department of Defense will provide travel, funds and administrative support that you may require.” The first page bears a ‘Declassified’ stamp dated 2012. In fine condition, with staple holes to the upper left corner.
The letter dates to three days after the collapse of the Bay of Pigs invasion (April 17–19, 1961) and served as the founding charter of what became known as the Cuba Study Group, or Taylor Board of Inquiry. State Department records show that the committee was established following a 10 a.m. meeting between Kennedy and Taylor that same morning, with the group's first formal session following from 2 to 6 p.m. at a CIA facility known as Quarters Eye, attended by Taylor, Robert Kennedy, Burke, and Dulles. Its language is echoed almost verbatim in Taylor's June 13 letter transmitting the group's final report to Kennedy, which opens by referencing “your letter of April 22, 1961” and recites the same assignment and the same three associates named here. Among the panel members was Dulles, who as CIA director was being asked to help investigate the failure of an operation conducted by his own agency; he would be succeeded as director by John McCone later that year.
The preliminary report deadline Kennedy set, May 15th, was missed by only a day: on May 16th, the group met with the president at luncheon to deliver an oral interim report on its conclusions to date. Taylor's involvement here also marked the beginning of his return to government service. Kennedy appointed him to the newly created position of Military Representative to the President on June 26, 1961, outlining his functions, including review of planning for Vietnam among other critical areas, in a letter of the same date; Taylor began exercising the role on July 1, the start of a working relationship between the two men that would extend directly into Southeast Asian policy over the following years.
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