The CIA: The Bay Of Pigs Invasion

The administration considered and carried out a number of operations against the Castro regime. A number of these operations have come to light due to the declassification of documents. A collection of such documents are housed at the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Kennedy probably did not approve of all of these operations. One ridiculous idea that was rejected outright was Operation Northwoods, a planned series of false-flag actions drawn up by the Joint Chief of Staff in 1962 that was meant to be a part of the larger Operation Mongoose (Lemnitzer, 1962, 5). The proposal called for the CIA to commit acts of terrorism in and out of the US. The terrorist acts were to be blamed on Cuba to create public support in the US. for a war against the island. The plan was drafted and signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Lyman Lemnitzer and sent to Secretary of Defense McNamara (ibid.,

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

The CIA’s involvement in the killing of JFK is one of the popular theories put forward by conspiracy theorists. President Kennedy was said to have told an official in his administration, “I want to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds” (McGovern, 2013, para. 3). Many of the individuals who disliked Kennedy believed he was the reason for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. They also believed that he would reduce the size of the military industrial complex and that he was not going after communism hard enough. The CIA was involved

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

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.

The Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Challenger Disaster, and the U.S. failure to anticipate the attack on Pearl Harbor – all notable examples of how groupthink tends to plague groups with high cohesiveness (What is Groupthink, n.d.). Oxford Dictionaries defines groupthink as “the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility” (Groupthink, n.d.). With this in mind, it is no surprise that groupthink is going to be a major problem in an organization, such as the military, that values uniformity and a strict chain of command. There is a lot of research on groupthink and evidence of groupthink is apparent in nearly every social group, no matter the size. So, how does a junior officer in the military go about minimizing groupthink among his subordinates and peers without affecting values such as uniformity and chain of command? In order to minimize groupthink, you must minimize the symptoms by encouraging honesty, accountability, and differing opinions. This paper will demonstrate how a junior officer can combat groupthink within the decision making process, standard operating procedures, and the culture of the command.

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

The Iran-Contra Affair took place during the Reagan Administration. It started with The Cold War and the clash between two different belief systems and countries that refused to work together. The U.S. being a capitalism giant, attempted to intervene and prohibit the spread of Communism. This Clash started after World War II when the US disagreed during a Conference held in the Summer of 1945. This conference discussed whether the Soviet Union could take possession of Poland. Due to this disagreement, President Truman suspended the Lend-Lease Act

The CIA were involved in the death of the troops killed in Cuba and more importantly the planning of the murder of Fidel Castro. The Organization also was known to have disagreements with JFK regarding the Bay of Pigs mission. JFK who did not support military actions, refused to allow the CIA and American troops to attack Cuba and over throw Fidel Castro. After the unsuccessful invasion and the tragic slaughter of the soldiers, JFK took the blame; however, he blamed the CIA. According to inside job this was enough to assassinate JFK. “CIA officials were reportedly deeply angered by Kennedy’s lack of support in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to oust Cuba's Fidel Castro, a debacle that cost Dulles his job in 1961. Conspiracy buffs argue that Dulles's firing incited plans for an assassination” (An Insider Job NBC newas). The Warren commissioner that was appointed to the investigation was indeed the Dulles from the

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

Before John F. Kennedy moved into the White House, President Eisenhower approved the CIA’s plan to overthrow Castro. John F. Kennedy was informed on the plan during his campaign, but recently after he was briefed on the new information, the CIA abandoned the plan. Even though Eisenhower approved of the 13 million plan, John F. Kennedy was unaware of the restrictions and requirements Eisenhower agreed on. Once elected, Kennedy was briefed in the details and plan for the invasion, already feeling the stress and pressure. If the plan for the invasion did not change so much without Kennedy’s knowledge, the process of the invasion may have been successful. Kennedy’s lack of experience with invasions made the plan get on a bad start. With his suggestion

The importance of democracy took a backseat to economics and national pride when the CIA orchestrated an elaborate coup to overthrow the government of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq. In the beginning of the Cold War, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddeq, passed the oil nationalization agreement, which nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and its holdings in Iran. The CIA, with assistance of MI6, planned, funded and implemented Operation TPAJAX, a covert CIA operation. CIA collaborated with Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and the elected government of Iran. The TPAJAX plan consisted of two components a political and a military element. The political component of TPAJAX created an artificial campaign of destabilization to accumulate, in a sanctuary, by clergy-led crowds inside the Majles enceinte where a censor motion and bribing of deputies would cause the fall of Mosaddeq through parliamentary procedures. The military component of TPAJAX was only a contingency to maintain the desired outcome against resistance by Tudeh or Mosaddeq supporters. The CIA orchestrated the 1953 Coup of Iran to overthrow Mosaddeq; primarily to maintain existing western control of Iranian oil, thus preventing the collapse of Great Britain’s economic system and alleviating the risk of an Iranian government strongly influenced by the Soviet Union.

in such a manner as to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention.” The plan went on to describe four points: 1) the creation of a responsible and unified Cuban opposition to the Castro regime located outside of Cuba; 2) the development of a means for mass communication to the Cuban people as part of a powerful propaganda offensive; 3) the creation and development of a covert intelligence and action organization within Cuba which would respond to the orders and directions of the exile opposition; and 4) the development of a paramilitary force outside of Cuba for future guerrilla action.

“Victory has a thousand fathers while defeat is an orphan,” remarked John F. Kennedy. The Bay of Pigs invasion code named operation Zapata began in March of 1960 one month and a year before the famed invasion took place. United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to begin a covert operation to bring down the pro-communist Cuban government. Nonetheless Fidel Castro’s potential pro-communist beliefs, the seizure of American owned companies and land lead to extreme concern from United States policy makers and officials. The mission, however would become possibly one of the greatest intelligence failures in the history of the United States. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion lead to a new era in the military and intelligence fields that continues to affect foreign policy

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