Bay Of Pigs Research Paper

On April 17, 1961, 1400 CIA-backed Cuban exiles launched a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. This invasion was called The Bay of Pigs Invasion. This invasion "Was intended to provoke popularity for an uprising against Fidel Castro, who had overthrown American-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista" (Web).The goal of the unfortunately failed invasion was the overthrow of Castro and the establishment of a non-communist government friendly to the United States. Before John F. Kennedy took office, he was informed of this plan by the CIA. Developed during the Eisenhower administration, the plan was to train Cuban exiles for an invasion of their

After Truman took a hit for losing China and part of Korea, Kennedy knew it was important to take over Cuba. “It was agreed that there would be two air strikes against the Cuban air bases.” Kennedy sent off the first air strike, but it ended as a disaster. “Although the planes flew a path designed to give an impression of defection from Cuban airfields, this fooled few, especially when one of the planes had to make an emergency landing in Key West.” The planes missed nearly all of the targets.

A crisis occurred in April of 1961 when Kennedy approved the plan to send 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles in a landing at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. He intended to cause a rebellion that would overthrow the communist leader Fidel Castro. The mission would conclude with failure, with nearly all of the soldiers killed.

The Bay of Pigs was a failed invasion by the United States to overthrow the communist government in Cuba run by the infamous Fidel Castro. The CIA-operated campaign attempted to use Cuban exiles as a Guerilla army in hopes of conducting a secret invasion. The objective was to remove the Cuban leader and establish a non-communist government that would benefit the United States. President John F. Kennedy, Commander in Chief during this time, wanted to prove to China, Russia, and even pessimistic Americans that he was determined to win the Cold War. Unfortunately, the campaign was extremely underprepared, which led to a disastrous outcome with Castro’s troops having the aggressors pinned on the beach under heavy fire. Soon after, the exiles surrendered in less than a single day of fighting, making the assault widely known as the CIA’s “perfect failure”. This topic was selected because the Cold War era intrigues me greatly; there is an abundance of covert operations, heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as technological competitions such as the space race. The Bay of Pigs ties into all of this, which led to the Cuban missile crisis, causing one of the closest calls in history in regards to nuclear war. The information found for this paper is from sources including the History Chanel website, the JFK Library, the CIA website, and the United States History website.

While it may be true that Fidel Castro had a strong impact on the uprising of the crisis, it is crucial to consider John F. Kennedy as the person most at fault for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy, America's president at the time, is often been called the most to blame because he overreacted to the missiles in Cuba. The question is if it was an overreaction or just a precaution for the safety and security of the American people. After the CIA spotted the missiles in Cuba, they informed Kennedy and he immediately called for a “quarantine” on Cuba’s eastern coast, setting up a blockade of ships along the coastline. Although many perceive this as an act of safety and protection, it is also easy to say that it was in fact “an act of aggression”

November 8, 1960 was a big day for America. It was the day John F. Kennedy was elected president of the United States. However, October 16, 1962 was the day JFK and his advisers got hold of information that completely stunned them. As president, there are many issues he would need to handle, but the fact America was on the brink of nuclear war was probably something that never crossed his mind. Nuclear war was a frightening thought and JFK had to tackle it to best of his ability. This scary time in America was known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. But through JFK’s smart and fast decision making he practically saved America from nuclear war and eased the tensions between the United States, Soviet Union and Cuba.

First, the Bay of Pigs location was far from any assistance should it be required. Secondly, the air strikes that planned to hit Cuban air bases missed many of their targets, and the Cuban’s Air Force was still mission capable (JFKlibrary.org, 2017). Although President Kennedy assumed the Bay of Pigs would be a desolate landing point, it was not. The Cuban Exile Brigade immediately came under heavy fire. Additionally, because the Cuban Air Force was still mission capable they were able to stop the movement of exile troops and sink reinforcement ships. Not only did the plan fail because the Cuban Air Force was still complete, the weather played a vital role in stopping the success of the United States. “Bad weather hampered the ground force, which had to work with soggy equipment and insufficient ammunition” (JFKlibrary.org, 2017). Though President Kennedy had some foreign obstacles to overcome, his greatest legacy became what he did for the United

The CIA initiated the training process by setting up training camps in Guatemala and trained "counter-revolutionary Cubans serving as the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, known as Brigade 2506" (The Bay of Pigs Invasion and its Aftermath). Soon, by November the United States had prepared a small army to perform assault landing and guerilla warfare. If the invasion turned out to be a success a former member of Castro's government, José Miró Cardona, was going to take the presidential position of Cuba. However, the plan was already in trouble by October of 1960 when Castro found out about the guerilla training camps that were based in Guatemala. Once John F. Kennedy became president, one of his first decisions in office was authorizing the plan in February of 1961. Although Castro was aware of the United States' intentions, President Kennedy still put in effort to keep the U.S. support disguised. One of the ways he attempted to do this was by assigning The Bay of Pigs as the landing point. "The site was a remote swampy area on the southern coast of Cuba, where a night landing might bring a force ashore against little resistance and help to hide any United States involvement" (The Bay of Pigs). The down side to this was that the Bay of Pigs was 80 miles from refuge in Cuba's Escambray Mountains, giving us an excessive distance which would be a problem if we were faced with an

Between 1,500 and 1,600 Cuban exiles were deployed to Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in several ships, but Castro’s troops were ready for them and no popular uprising ever occurred. The invaders pleaded for air support, and much to the shock of the CIA, Kennedy stood his ground in his refusal, fearing a Soviet counter move against West Berlin. The entire sordid affair had a profound effect on Kennedy, who told an influential journalist friend “the first advice I’m going to give my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling their opinions on Military matters are worth a damn.” Publicly, Kennedy took full responsibility for the fiasco. Privately, however, he was furious at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calling them “sons of bitches” and those

     When the revolution in Cuba started, Dwight Eisenhower took the lead in telling his advisors what he wanted done. First off, arms were given to Batista’s militia through Eisenhower’s orders and then after Batista turned them upon his own countrymen, it was Eisenhower’s decision to place arms sanctions against them. This meant that they would not be sent anymore of the US’s artillery. The President only made decisions when there was a heightened awareness of what was going on in Cuba and it affected the US in some way. Another time this model was shown was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy took matters into his own hands when it

Kennedy defeated Nixon and became President of the United States. It was also during this time that the Soviet Union announced that it would support “wars of national liberation”. Kennedy took this announcement as a challenge. This led to the battle on Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, where a force of 1,400 was crushed by Castro’s troops. After this incident the relations between the U.S and the Soviets was deteriorating. “A perilous Cold War confrontation came next, in October 1962” (Henretta et al., 2015, p. 756). On October 22, the U.S spotted Soviet built missile bases in Cuba. The United States was concerned that this meant war, however, in on October 25, the ships carrying the Soviet missiles turned back. While Khrushchev promised to dismantle the

Although Eisenhower, Kennedy and other high ranking U.S. officials denied any plans to attack Cuba, on October 31, 1960, Cuban Foreign Minister Raul Roa, in a session at the U.N. General Assembly, provided details on the recruitment and training of the Cuban exiles, whom he referred to as mercenaries and counterrevolutionaries. It was clear to Kennedy that Cuba knew an invasion was coming. Therefore, he changed the original plan, which called for a daytime landing at Trinidad, as well as extensive air strikes to weaken Castro’s counteroffensive. Kennedy thought the plan exposed the role of the United States too openly, and favored a nighttime landing at Bay of Pigs, which offered a suitable airstrip on the beach from which bombing raids could be operated. Once the bay was secured, the provisional Cuban government-in-arms set up by the CIA would be landed and immediately recognized by the U.S. The new government would request military support and a new “intervention” would take place.

Although mentioned as a valid option, President Kennedy and several advisors were vehemently opposed to the idea of doing nothing. The political cost of doing nothing was simply too high to pay domestically and internationally. The administration was still reeling from the Bay of Pigs failure and dealing with Republican rhetoric that Kennedy was soft on security vis-à-vis the Soviets and Cuba. To those points, Kennedy had previously released a press statement in September 1962 stating, “the gravest issues would arise if the United States found evidence of Soviet ground combat troops in Cuba; Soviet bases on the island;…or any other ‘significant offensive capability’” (Fursenko and Naftali 1998, 206).

D-Day, April 17, 1960; Brigade 2506 lands in the Bay of Pigs, a small beach in southern Cuba. Backed by former president Dwight Eisenhower, endorsed by current president John F. Kennedy, and masterminded by the Central Intelligence Agency, the plan to overthrow Fidel Castro, Prime Minister of Cuba, had been months in the making (Dunne 1). By the summer of 1959, as former Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista was overtaken by Castro, charges of communist takeover in Cuba were rampant in Washington, especially in Congress (Dunne 5). With the United States embroiled in the Cold War, a largely ideological battle between the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist United States, the United

“First, I want to say that there will not be, under any conditions, an intervention in Cuba by the United States Armed Forces. This government will do everything it possibly can, I think it can meet its responsibilities, to make sure that there are no Americans involved in any actions inside Cuba… The basic issue in Cuba is not one between the United States and Cuba. It is between the Cubans themselves.” These words were spoken by President John F. Kennedy at a press conference on April 12, 1961, just five days before the Bay of Pigs invasion took place. Little did the American public know that in five short days, the United States would support an attempted invasion on the Cuban shore—unsuccessfully. The $46