President Eisenhower's Necessary Plan

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

As Kennedy viewed everything happening politically in Cuba, he began to think of what America could do to help. Former President Lyndon B. Johnson attended many of the meetings and helped advise Kennedy in these conferences. After a meeting with Kennedy in early March in 1961, Johnson told news reporters, “We don’t intend to sit here in our rocking chair with our hands folded and let the Communism set up any government in the Western Hemisphere” (If U.S. 47). U.S. Senator William Fullbright of Arkansas was concerned over newspaper stories that predicted an invasion on Cuba (Schlesinger 251). If anyone in Cuba expected an attack, it would ruin the surprise attack, and the mission would have less chance for success. Fullbright wanted to let Cuba solve their problems, as long everything was contained in only Cuba (252). William Fullbright advised Kennedy and other U.S. leaders, “The Castro regime is a thorn in the flesh; but it is not a dagger in the heart” (252). Fullbright admitted to the fact that there was a problem in Cuba, but he did not view Communism as a big problem. Meetings continued through March and April, and the American people wanted to know if anything was going to be done. On April 8, Kennedy stated in a news conference, “There will not, under any circumstances, be an intervention in Cuba by U.S. armed forces” (Flaherty 94). President Kennedy did not want the American

Eisenhower implemented many domestic policies in this great nation that had a good effect among the people and their future. He continued and picked up Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. He also continued Harry Truman’s Fair Deal programs in the United States. Eisenhower also created the Interstate Highway System that is considered to be the single largest public works in the U.S. During Eisenhower's first term, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade the violated the civil liberties of many citizens, Eisenhower refrained from publicly criticizing McCarthy, He ended McCarthyism by refusing to release notes of a meeting between him and McCarthy. Eisenhower would not allow administration personnel to testify at the McCarthy

     At first Bush, Nixon, Cabel, and Hunt decided to just go ahead with the corporate/CIA planned invasion on Cuba. Just 2 hours before the invasion General Cabel called JFK and asked for permission to provide U.S. air cover for the CIA invasion. Kennedy said no.

Before the invasion happened, the CIA had to train Cuban exiles to hate and destroy the Cuban government and economy. The reason they started training these Cuban exiles is because Fidel Castro overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista with an armed revolt. This made the CIA really mad because Batista was good allies with the US and Castro wasn’t. The CIA set up training camps in Guatemala in 1960, and in November the operation had trained a small army for an assault landing and guerilla warfare (jfklibrary.org). After a while, Kennedy confirmed the invasion plan, and was determined to disguise US support. The plan called for two airstrikes against Cuban air bases, a 1,400-man invasion, paratroopers would drop in before the invasion happened, and time after time, small forces would land on the

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

President Dwight D. Eisenhower took ogives in 1953, after Harry S. Truman's presidency. Eisenhower brought, with his vast military experience, an attitude of strict judgment. Truman had done his best to bring an end to the war. It is interesting that Eisenhower, who commanded, a presence of prestige because of his military experience, made his biggest impact in his domestic policies following WWII.

This secret operation was viewed as far less dangerous than a direct invasion by American troops.As the election of 1960 approached, the CIA had already made plans to overthrow Castro with the Cuban exiles. However, to the surprise of just about everyone, a young John F. Kennedy defeated favorite Richard Nixon by the slimmest of margins.Nonetheless, the invasion had to go on. The plan was to bomb Cuba's airfields to prevent the Cuban military from killing the invading exiles. However, two things went wrong in the invasion. First, the CIA underestimated the Cuban army, and second, the airstrips were not all taken out, allowing the Cuban airforce to retaliate.

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

I was nine years old when I first became aware that there was a President of the United States but I really didn’t understand too much about the role of the President. I only knew that at the time, Dwight Eisenhower was the President and that’s it.

On November 8th 1960 former president John F Kennedy defeated vice president Richard Nixon in a narrow, cut throat election. (History.com) In the mist of the cold war and the tension steadily rising between the US and Soviet Union, President Kennedy was destined to become a major influence on the end result of the tension between communist Russia and the United States. Shortly before Kennedy’s Victory over Nixon, Cuba fell under new leadership and with that leadership communism sat right under the tail of the United States. American’s did not like the idea of communism just 100 feet from our borders so in 1961, the CIA was given a green light to conduct a covert mission in Cuba to overthrow the communist dictatorship and remove Fidel Castro

As early as March 1960, President Eisenhower approved the CIA plan to train Cuban exiles to revolt against the government of Cuba. The plan was at first to support only Cuban guerrillas, but problems in security led to the CIA to decide on an invasion of Cuba, with the men training Cuban guerillas replaced by those preparing for a conventional attack. John F. Kennedy, the newly elected president, had limited experience in foreign affairs and a tenuous political position in the American public . As a result, he was often "divided between the sense of caution and restraint". He authorized the invasion plan in February 1961, just after his inauguration. But Kennedy's adviser, stated that "Since I understand you are favorably disposed to the idea

“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

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

On April 15, 1961 the Bay of Pigs invasion began to invade Cuba and remove Castro from the leadership. The unsuccessful invasion was stopped two days later. Now Castro needed the strong arm of the Soviets even more. With the Cold War arms race in effect, Castro knew that the Soviets could protect him from future invasions from the United States.