Bay of Pigs Invasion
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Cuban poster warning before invasion showing a soldier armed with an RPD machine gun. |
The 1961
Bay of Pigs Invasion (also known in Cuba as
Playa Girón after the beach in the
Bay of Pigs where the landing took place) was a
United States-planned and funded attempted invasion by armed
Cuban exiles in southwest
Cuba. An attempt to overthrow the government of
Fidel Castro, this action accelerated a rapid deterioration in
Cuban-American relations worsened by the
Cuban Missile Crisis which occurred the following year.
US-Cuban tensions had grown since the
Cuban revolution and the overthrow of ruling President, General
Fulgencio Batista on
January 1,
1959. The
Eisenhower and
Kennedy administrations had judged that Castro's policies including the
nationalization of US assets on the island and Cuba's increasing ties with the
Soviet Union could not be tolerated, and moved to overthrow him. However, the invasion attempt failed and proved to be a major international embarrassment for the Kennedy administration. The resulting fiasco has been studied as an ideal case of "
groupthink"
decision making. Others, especially
Cuban Americans, view this matter as a policy decision by the Kennedy administration to rid itself of bothersome Cuban exiles. However, this event had prolonged electoral consequences resulting in the election of a number of Cuban-Americans (
Cuban-American lobby) to the US Congress, and established electoral conditions that favor the Republican Party [
1].
During debates in the
United Nations Security Council, a Cuban attempt to condemn the US invasion failed due to a US
veto.
Gunboat diplomacy or direct military intervention by the US to overthrow the Cuban government would cause international protests against "interference with interior matters of foreign states" common in the atmosphere of the
Cold War. A failure to justify a direct US involvement on the basis of international law risked provoking a geopolitical retaliation by the
Soviet Union, especially in the
Third World.
On
February 17 1961, Kennedy asked his advisors whether the toppling of Castro might be related to weapon shipments and if it was possible to claim the real targets were modern fighter aircraft and rockets which endangered America's security. At the time, Cuba's army possessed Soviet tanks, artillery and small arms, and its air force consisted of
B-26 medium bombers,
Hawker Sea Furies (a fast and effective, though obsolete, propeller driven
fighter-bomber), and
T-33 jets left over from the Batista Air Force [
2].
The
CIA had begun recruiting and training Cuban exiles during the
Eisenhower administration, months before
diplomatic relations were severed with Cuba in January 1961, as tensions between
Washington and
Havana increased. However, it was
Vice President Richard Nixon, not Eisenhower, who pushed the plan forward. Nixon afterwards always feared that his involvement and responsibility for the failure would surface. The CIA was initially confident that it was capable of overthrowing Castro, having experience assisting in the removal of other foreign governments such as
Iranian prime minister
Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and
Guatemalan president
Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954.
Richard Mervin Bissell Jr., one of
Allen Dulles three aides, was made director of "Operation Zapata." (There is no direct evidence tying this to
Zapata Corporation.)
The original plan had called for landing the
exile brigade in the vicinity of the old colonial city of
Trinidad, Cuba, located in the central province of
Sancti Spiritus approximately 400 km southeast of Havana at the foothills of the
Escambray mountains. The selection of the Trinidad site provided a number of options that the exile brigade could exploit to their advantage during the invasion. The population of Trinidad was generally opposed to Castro and the rugged mountains outside the city provided an area of operations to which the invasion force could retreat and establish a
guerrilla campaign were the landing to falter. Throughout 1960, the growing ranks of Brigade 2506 trained at locations throughout southern
Florida and in
Guatemala for the beach landing and possible mountain retreat.
Under Kennedy's orders critical details were changed that removed any chance of success of the mission without US help. Kennedy was apparently influenced by some in the State Department, including old Cuban "hand"
William Wieland, close friend of
Sumner Welles. Wieland, who had been present during
Batista's rise to power in 1933, was in
Colombia when Castro was involved in the
Bogotazo, and had also supported the arms embargo against
Batista. These revised details including changing the landing area for Brigade 2506 to two points in
Matanzas Province, 202 km southeast of
Havana on the eastern edge of the
Zapata peninsula at the
Bahia de Cochinos (
Bay of Pigs). The landings would take place on the Girón and Playa Larga beaches. This change effectively cut off contact with the rebels in the Escambray "
War Against the Bandits". The Castro government had been warned by senior
KGB agents
Osvaldo Sánchez Cabrera and "Aragon", who respectively died violently before and after the invasion. The US government was aware that a high casualty rate was possible.
On the morning of
April 17,
1961, three flights of
Douglas B-26B Invader light bomber aircraft displaying Cuban
Fuerza Aerea Revolucionaria (FAR - Revolutionary Air Force) markings bombed and strafed the Cuban airfields of
San Antonio de Los Baños, Antonio Maceo International Airport, and the airfield at
Ciudad Libertad.
Operation Puma, the code name given to the
offensive counter air attacks against the
Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, called for 48 hours of air strikes across the island to effectively eliminate the Cuban air force, ensuring Brigade 2506 complete air superiority over the island prior to the actual landing at the Bay of Pigs. This failed because the airstrikes were not continued as was originally planned - limited by decisions at the highest level of US government. Castro also had prior knowledge of the invasion and had moved the airplanes out of harm's way.
Of the Brigade 2506 aircraft that sortied on the morning of
April 15, one was tasked with establishing the CIA cover story for the invasion. The slightly modified two-seat B-26B used for this mission was piloted by
Captain Mario Zuniga. Prior to departure, the engine cowling from one of the aircraft's two engines was removed by maintenance personnel, fired upon, then re-installed to give the appearance that the aircraft had taken ground fire at some point during its flight. Captain Zuniga departed from the exile base in
Nicaragua on a solo, low-level mission that would take him over the westernmost province of
Pinar del Rio, Cuba, and then northeast toward
Key West, Florida. Once across the island, Captain Zuniga climbed steeply away from the waves of the
Florida Straits to an altitude where he would be detected by US radar installations to the north of Cuba. At altitude and a safe distance north of the island, Captain Zuniga feathered the engine with the pre-installed bullet holes in the engine cowling radioed a mayday call and requested immediate permission to land at
Boca Chica Naval Air Station a few kilometers northeast of
Key West, Florida. This account is at apparent variance with Cuban government reports that
Sea Fury fighter bombers flown by the few Cuban and perhaps some left-wing Chilean pilots loyal to Castro attacked the older slower B-26s flown by the invading force[
3].
By the time of Captain Zuniga's announcement to the world mid-morning on the 15th, all but one of the Brigade's Douglas bombers were back over the Caribbean on the three and a half hour return leg to their base in Nicaragua to re-arm and refuel. Upon landing, however, the flight crews were met with a cable from Washington ordering the indefinite stand-down of all further combat operations over Cuba.
On
April 17, four 2,400-ton chartered transports (named the
Houston,
Rio Escondido,
Caribe, and
Atlantico) transported 1,511 Cuban exiles to the Bay of Pigs on the Southern coast of Cuba. They were accompanied by two CIA-owned infantry landing crafts (LCI's), called the
Blagar and
Barbara J, containing supplies, ordnance, and equipment. The small army hoped to find support from the local population, intending to cross the island to
Havana. The CIA assumed that the invasion would spark a popular uprising against Castro. However by the time the Invasion began, Castro had already executed some who were suspected of colluding with the American campaign, and imprisoned the others (notably two former "Comandantes"
Humberto Sorí Marin [
4] and
William Morgan [
5] [
6]). The prisoners were under threat of death should the invasion succeed.
Although Cuban forces at the actual site surrendered, it soon became evident after contact with Cuban reinforcements that the exiles were not going to receive effective support at the site of the invasion and were likely to lose. Reports from both sides describe tank battles (see much detail in printed references section below) involving heavy USSR equipment [
7]. Kennedy decided against giving the faltering invasion US air support (though four US pilots were killed in Cuba during the invasion) because of his opposition to overt intervention. Kennedy also canceled several sorties of bombings (only two took place) on the grounded Cuban Airforce, which might have crippled the Cuban Airforce and given air superiority to the invaders.
U.S. Marines were not sent in, even though there were support ships off the coast ready to land at a moment's notice.
The timeline of the events coupled with the fact that the assets were in place but pulled back and/or not used supports the theory that there may not have been universal knowledge of the planned operation against Cuba at the highest levels. Circumstantially, it is plausible that the military option being set up was intended to be supported by the President when presented with the current "crisis" and then a pre-manufactured solution. President Kennedy chose not toexercise this option, which suggests that he may have just become aware of the advanced logistics planning that had preceded these events.
By the time fighting ended on
April 21, 68 exiles were dead and the rest were captured. Estimates of Cuban forces killed vary with the source but are generally far higher.
The 1,209 captured exiles were quickly tried, a few executed and the rest sentenced to thirty years in prison for
treason. After 20 months of negotiation with the United States, Cuba released the exiles in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine.
It is generally presumed by some that during the Bay of Pigs Invasion Cuba's losses were high. Triay (2001 p. 110) mentions 4,000 casualties; Lynch (p. 148 50X or about 5,000). Other sources indicate over 2,200 casualties. 7 infantry battalions were eliminated.
In one air attack alone Cuban forces suffered an estimated 1,800 casualties caught on an open causeway in civilian buses and hit by napalm.[
8][
9] [
10].
The Cuban government initially reported their losses as 87 dead with many more wounded. The number of dead or killed in action of Castro's army eventually ran to 140, and then to 161. Thus in the most accepted calculations, a total of around 2,000 Cuban soldiers fighting for Castro may have been killed, wounded, and missing in action.
The total casualties for the brigade were 104 members, out of them 10 died trying to evade Cuba in a boat (Celia), 9 died of asphyxia in a sealed truck in the way to Havana, 5 were executed after the invasion and 5 executed while captured infiltrated in Cuba, 5 died in training and two died while prisoners. Esteban Bovo Bay of Pigs Museum Curator and Bay of Pigs B26 pilot.
The failed Bay of Pigs invasion severely embarrassed the Kennedy administration, and made Castro wary of future US intervention in Cuba. As a result of the failure,
CIA director Allen Dulles,
deputy CIA director Charles Cabell, and Deputy Director of Operations
Richard Bissell were all forced to resign. All three were held responsible for the planning of the operation at the CIA. Responsibility of the Kennedy Administration and the US State Department for modifications of the plans were not apparent until later.
However, the Kennedy administration continued curiously incompetent covert operations in Cuba, later launching
the Cuban Project to "help Cuba overthrow the Communist regime". Tensions would again peak in the
Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
The CIA wrote a detailed internal report that laid blame for the failure squarely on internal incompetence. A number of grave errors by the CIA and other American analysts contributed to the debacle:
*The administration believed that the troops could retreat to the mountains to lead a guerrilla war if they lost in open battle. The mountains were too far to reach on foot, and the troops were deployed in swamp land, where they were easily surrounded.
*They believed that the involvement of the US in the incident could be denied.
*They believed that Cubans would be grateful to be liberated from Fidel Castro and would quickly join the battle. This support failed to materialize; many hundreds of thousands of others were arrested, and some executed, prior to the landings. (see also Priestland 2003; Grayston, 2000).
The CIA's near certainty that the Cuban people would rise up and join them was based on the agency's extremely weak presence on the ground in Cuba. Castro's counterintelligence, trained by Soviet Bloc specialists including
Enrique Lister [
11], had infiltrated most resistance groups. Because of this, almost all the information that came from exiles and defectors was "contaminated." CIA operative
E. Howard Hunt had interviewed Cubans in Havana prior to the invasion; in a future interview with
CNN, he said, "...all I could find was a lot of enthusiasm for Fidel Castro." [
12]
Many military leaders almost certainly expected the invasion to fail but thought that Kennedy would send in
Marines to save the exiles. Kennedy, however, did not want a full scale war and abandoned the exiles.
An
April 29 2000 Washington Post article, "Soviets Knew Date of Cuba Attack", reported that the CIA had information indicating that the
Soviet Union knew the invasion was going to take place and did not inform Kennedy.
Radio Moscow actually broadcast an English-language newscast on
April 13,
1961 predicting the invasion "in a plot hatched by the CIA" using paid "criminals" within a week. The invasion took place four days later.
The invasion is often criticized as making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the support for his economic policies. Following the initial B-26 bombings, he had declared the revolution "
Marxist-Leninist". After the invasion, he pursued closer relations with the Soviet Union, partly for protection, which helped pave the way for the
Cuban Missile Crisis a year and a half later.
There are still yearly nation-wide drills in Cuba during the 'Dia de la Defensa' (defense day) to prepare the entire population for an invasion.
For more details on this topic, see Kennedy assassination theories and Operation Northwoods.In 1962, the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Lyman Lemnitzer, endorsed
Operation Northwoods, a plot to gather public support for military intervention in Cuba. The plot called for acts of terrorism against the United States, including the development of a "terror campaign". Violent opposition to Fidel Castro continued in the general area until at least 1965 in actions termed by Cuban government as
War Against the Bandits.According to
Body of Secrets by James Bamford (Doubleday 2001), General Lemnitzer was the driving force behind Operation Northwoods (see Chapter Four, "Fists", [
13]). The evidence presented by Bamford clearly places the genesis and modus operandi of the whole fiasco in the Eisenhower Administration, carried over by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then head of the CIA to the Kennedy Administration, since the principals involved both in strategy and tactics were Eisenhower appointees. The recently published
Ultimate Sacrifice by Lamar Waldron (Carroll & Graf 2005, [
14]) supports the view that the military was behind Northwoods, and that JFK did not endorse or pursue the plans. However, it does show that the Kennedys pursued their own operations toward toppling Castro, both those documented by many researchers in 1962, and a new operationin the summer and fall of 1963, which involved several veterans of the Bay of Pigs.
Waldron, however, traces important links in the involvement of the CIA and
Mafia to what emerged as a Mafia hit on Kennedy, in an effort to stop Attorney General
Robert Kennedy's pursuit of the Mafia. Three Mafia dons,
Carlos Marcello,
Santo Trafficante and
Johnny Roselli, apparently found out about the plan for a coup in Cuba and then by using parts of it in their assassination of JFK, prevented a thorough investigation by key officials in the US government, in order to protect the coup plan/AMWORLD.
As an important consideration, the Mafia's involvement in AMWORLD the result of their working for the CIA on the earlier CIA-Mafia plots to assassinate Castro, which in turn was directly the consequence of the Mafia business interests that the Cuban Revolution disrupted. Pre-Revolution Cuba was the center of Mafia business activities throughout the Caribbean. See, for instance,
Mafia in Havana by Enrique Cirules (Ocean Press 2003).
Cuba-United States relationsThis is an incomplete list.
*Anderson, Jon L. 1998 Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. Grove/Atlantic ISBN 0802135587
*Grayston, Lynch L. 2000 Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs. Potomac Books Dulles Virginia ISBN 1574882376
*Johnson, Haynes 1964 The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders' Story of Brigade 2506. W. W. Norton & Co Inc. New York. 1974 edition ISBN 0393042634
*Lagas, Jacques 1964 Memorias de un capitán rebelde. Editorial del Pácifico. Santiago, Chile.
*Lazo, Mario 1968, 1970 Dagger in the heart: American policy failures in Cuba. Twin Circle. New York. I968 edition Library of Congress number 6831632, 1970 edition, ASIN B0007DPNJS
*Lynch L. Grayston (see Grayston, Lynch L)
*Priestland, Jane (editor) 2003 British Archives on Cuba: Cuba under Castro 1959-1962. Archival Publications International Limited, 2003, London ISBN 1903008204
*Thomas, Hugh 1998 Cuba or The Pursuit of Freedom. Da Capo Press, New York Updated Ed. ISBN 0-306-80827-7
*Triay, Victor 2001 Andres Bay of Pigs. University Press of Florida, Gainesville ISBN 0813020905
*Welch, David A and James G Blight (editors) 1998 Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Frank Cass Publishers, London and Portland Oregon ISBN 0714648833 ISBN 0714644358
*Wyden, Peter 1979 Bay of Pigs Simon. and Schuster New York ISBN 06871240064 ISBN 0671254138
*
Detail Information on the Bay of Pigs Invasion — Includes maps of the Invasion and Documents.
*
History of Cuba — Bay of Pigs Invasion.
*
very useful chronology
