Cuban Exiles: The Bay Of Pigs Invasion

The planning for the Bay of Pigs began under President Eisenhower’s administration. President Eisenhower approved the CIA’s Bay of Pigs plan to oust Fidel Castro and overthrow Cuba’s communist government on March 17, 1960. The planning and preparation continued throughout the rest of the year. On January 20, 1961, John F Kennedy became the President of the United States. He had learned of the Bay of Pigs plan months earlier, and now as President, after consulting with his advisors, also approved the CIA planned Bay of Pigs

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

CIA director Allen Dulles ensured to Kennedy that this was going to be the perfect invasion. On April 17, 1961, the invasion of Bay of Pigs had begun. The invasion was a total failure, since nobody in the island showed any interest of joining the coup against Castro. Castro's men captured 1189 prisoners and ransomed them for ten million dollars. It was the first major step for Kennedy during his administration, which gave him total humiliation. Later in his term, Kennedy refers to Bay of Pigs "Cuba was a hell of a time." This convinced Kennedy never to trust anyone ever again. Moreover, maybe perhaps, this was why he was successful during the Cuban missile crisis.

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.

One theory behind the Bay of Pigs Invasion failure was that the original plan from the Eisenhower administration was altered. Another of these mistakes was the belief that Cuban nationals shared the same animosity of Fidel Castro that Cuban exiles did. If the Central Intelligence Agency chose to look at all sides of the Cuban argument instead of only seeing the opinions of the Miami Cuban exiles then the design of the invasion strike would have been changed. Consequently, the Cuban exiles were angry with Fidel Castro for the downfall of President Bastia and wanted democracy. Furthermore, the Cuban population living within Cuba was agreeable with Fidel Castro’s plan of isolation. The Central Intelligence Agency did not consider that the Cuban citizens would want to keep Fidel Castro in power as President. “Castro had a sixty to seventy percent approval rating in Cuba,” stated Central Intelligence Agency hemisphere division chief Joseph C.

Kennedy lacked strong majorities in congress, so he decide to make small gains on Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Kennedy also criticized the Eisenhower administration for allowing Castro to take control of Cuba. He then set Eisenhower's secret CIA plan to overthrow Castro into motion. On April 17, 1961, an invasion force of 1400 to 1500 Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of pigs in Cuba. This invasion force had been trained by the CIA to

During the same time as Cuba and the Soviet Union's relationship, the significant events of the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis brought in the United States, Cuba, and Soviet Union into conflict. John F. Kennedy believed that Castro was becoming a threat and that he would become to powerful. So on April 16, 1961, the CIA launched the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Over 2,000 "Anti- Castrolies" stormed up the Bay of Pigs in Southern Cuba. In fact, most of the Anti- Castrolies were Cuban exiles who disagreed with Castro's ideas for Cuba. For some months prior, the CIA had gathered these people to train for an assassination attempt on Castro. This group was given the codename "Brigade 2506," and in less then 24-72 hours 100 were dead and 1,189

The aftermaths of the CIA’s failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, an operation, set in motion by the previous Dwight Eisenhower Administration, were now laid down on Kennedy. The failed operation was a major backslide for the CIA. "The Bay of Pigs fiasco broke the dike," said one report at the time and now senior military leaders wanted to take matters in their own hands. President Kennedy’s administration was accused of being soft on Fidel Castro, a then-new communist leader, who took powers during the 1959 Cuban revolution. With the Cold War

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

The failures brought upon Kennedy by the Bay of Pigs played a role in shaping way Kennedy sought future advice. The discovery of nuclear missiles provided by the Soviet Union on Cuba offered an even bigger conflict for Kennedy. Had he of used the same advice seeing methods as he used regarding operation ZAPATA nuclear exchanges were not only possible, but also likely. This can be attributed to a more sceptic approach on military intervention. Hesitant to work with the department’s how left him on a limb regarding the Bay of Pigs. An example of Kennedy learning from his mistake is the creation of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council ‘ExComm’ This group of foreign affairs specialist’s, ‘goal was, as he put later, to decide

“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

operation mongoose was put on hold during the height of the cuban missile crisis but resumed after the tensions had reseided. the operations officially ended on october 30 after tthe kennedy and kruschev agreement but went on regardless. on october 21 kennedy met with his top avisers to discuss the situation in cuba, he considered two options; an airstrike on the cuban missile silos or a naval blockade. According to international law a blockade is an act of war, but Kennedy did not think that the USSR would be provoked to attack by a mere blockade. Additionally, legal experts at the State Department and Justice Department concluded that a declaration of war could be avoided so long as another legal justification, based on the Rio Treaty for defense of the Western Hemisphere, was obtained via a resolution by a two-thirds vote from the members or the Organization of American States. since they were only quarentining weapons and not all materials, and the blockade would take place in international waters kennedy obtained the approval of the organization of american states for military action under the hemispheric defense provisions of the Rio

To begin with, if I were president during the Bay of Pigs invasion, I would have made the major militaries of America (Navy, Marines, etc.) go along with the Cuban exiles. In addition to this, I would hire a trustable friend, who would be great at thoroughly planning attacks, to be my CIA leader. Training the Cuban exiles would be a key goal and I would take the time, considering that they would be most of the army. More bombers, troops, and ammunition from the U.S. military would go for ultimate success. If the first army is defeated, I would charge with another and another and it will keep going on until either I ran out of troops or claim victory.  Unlike Kennedy, I would follow through with the plan and show that, as president, I would

Castro intended on helping Cuba’s high poverty, but Castro did not turn Cuba into a democracy like he said he would (“Cuban missile Crisis”2). In 1960 the soviet premier attempted to convince Castro to become communist, soon after this castro became communist, probably influenced by the soviet premier (“Cuban missile Crisis”3). A new american president, that could probably change the war, was coming into office around this time, President Kennedy. The new president would take on the problem of this new cuban leader (International Encyclopedia of the… 1). Before him, Eisenhower trained about 1,500 Cuban Exiles in secret to try to take over Cuba, Kennedy allowed this to go on. On april 17, the exils attempted to invade Cuba(“Cuban missile Crisis”3). Since Castro had found out about the invasion, he was ready and defeated the the incoming force easily(“Cuban missile Crisis”3-4). The failed invasion seemed to help the Cuban opinion of Castro. He was now an obvious threat and so the U.S. decided to start operation Mongoose. Operation Mongoose was a secret operation to get rid of Castro, it was an operation where the U.S. would try to sabotage Cuba, but Operation Mongoose never ended up happening. The U.S.S.R. did not want to lose Cuba so they decided to secretly send weapons into Cuba, including nuclear weapons (“Cuban missile Crisis”4). These arm shipments would lead to one of the

Cuban exiles were trained to land on the south shore of Cuba and raise the Cuban population in an overthrow of his regime, but the plan went horribly wrong (Bay of Pigs). Not only did the bombers meant to cripple the Cuban air force miss many of their targets, but also the Cuban population then failed to insurrect against their government. Castro, having already garnered intelligence of the exiles’ training camps years earlier, ordered troops to advance on the exiles at the beach, and Kennedy made the decision to cancel air support in an attempt to disguise