surmised that the reasons he and Dulles did not tell Kennedy at
that initial meeting were that they had 'apparently thought it
was not an important matter'." (p. 120.) When Frank Church asked
Bissell if that was not rather strange, Bissell replied, "I think
that in hindsight it could be regarded as peculiar, yes." (Ibid,
p. 121.) Davis leaves these last two Bissell quotes out, probably
because they would vitiate his "conclusion" that Dulles and
Bissell informed JFK of the plots. Incredibly, Davis builds on
this foundation of sand by postulating that the reason Kennedy
decided to go ahead with the Bay of Pigs was that he knew the CIA
would kill Castro by then and it would therefore be an easy
victory! (Davis, p. 292.)
Davis must know he's on shaky ground, because he fishes for
substantiation outside of the Church Committee report. Davis
states that his quest for this led him to the home of none other
than Richard Helms (Ibid, p. 289). Helms told Davis, "that he
believed Bissell was correct, that, knowing him, he would not
commit perjury before a Senate committee." (Ibid). Davis leaves
out the fact that perjury is precisely what Helms committed
before a Senate committee in 1973 about CIA involvement in Chile.
He also fails to tell the reader anything about the Helms-Bissell
relation