Editing JM/WAVE (section)

==Closure and Legacy==
JM/WAVE was officially closed in 1968, as the U.S. shifted focus from Cuba to Vietnam and domestic priorities under President Lyndon B. Johnson. The station’s infrastructure was dismantled, and personnel, including Shackley and Clines, were reassigned to Southeast Asia or other operations.

	•	Reasons for Closure:
	◦	Diminishing returns from anti-Castro operations, with Castro’s regime entrenched and U.S. attention diverted to Vietnam.
	◦	Budget constraints and political backlash from the Bay of Pigs and Mongoose failures.
	◦	Improved U.S.-Soviet relations post-Cuban Missile Crisis, reducing the urgency of covert actions in Cuba.

	•	Legacy:
	◦	Operational Impact: JM/WAVE was a high-water mark for CIA covert operations, demonstrating the agency’s capacity for large-scale paramilitary and propaganda campaigns, but also its vulnerabilities, as seen in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. It trained a generation of CIA officers, including Shackley and Clines, who shaped later operations in Laos, Chile, and Iran-Contra.
	◦	Geopolitical Influence: The station’s anti-communist mission influenced CIA interventions elsewhere, such as the 1973 Chilean coup, where JM/WAVE alumni played key roles. Its logistics model, using front companies like Wilson’s, persisted in ventures like EATSCO.
	◦	Controversies: JM/WAVE’s assassination plots and exile operations raised ethical questions, scrutinized during the 1975 Church Committee hearings. Its legacy is documented in declassified CIA records, books like David Corn’s Blond Ghost, and The Cuba Project by Peter Kornbluh.