never been revealed, without knowing what his mission had
been, seems inconceivable. (Davis p. 297.)
Imagine the images conjured up by this passage to a reader who
has not read the report. I had read the report and I thought I
had missed something. How did I forget about Kennedy's private
meeting with Tony Varona in the Oval office? JFK asks Varona why
he couldn't get at Castro and then pats him on the head and says
try it again. When I turned to page 124 in the report, I saw why
I didn't remember it. The meeting, as described by Davis, did not
occur. At the real meeting are Kennedy, Robert McNamara, General
Lyman Lemnitzer "and other Administration officials." Also in the
room "were several members of Cuban groups involved in the Bay of
Pigs." The report makes clear that this was the beginning of the
general review of the Bay of Pigs operation that would, within
three weeks, result in the Taylor Review Board which would then
recommend reforms in CIA control of covert operations. There is
no hint, so pregnant in Davis' phrasing, that anything about
assassination was discussed.
Womanizer and Warmonger?
One of the more startling sections of the Davis book is his
treatment of Judith Exner. From the above, one would guess that
he thoroughly buys into the 1977 Exner-Demaris book. He does and
he mentions her name quite often. What is surprising is that he
goes even further. Apparently, Davis realizes his jerry-built
apparatus of Bissell-Helms, and adulteration of the record will
not stand scrutiny. So he calls up Ovid Demaris, coauthor of
Judith Exner: My Story (p. 319). From this phone call, Davis is
informed that Exner lied in the book. She did tell Kennedy about
her affair with Sam Giancana and JFK got jealous. From this,
Davis builds another scaffolding: he now postulates that Exner
was Kennedy's conduit to the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro (Ibid
p. 324). What is b