U.S., Cuba, and The Bay of Pigs Essay

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.

According to the educational film Fidel Castro, the Cuban Leader came into power on January 1st, 1959 when the former president of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista fled the

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 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

In 1959, Fidel Castro came into power by overthrowing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and from that moment on the United States was very skeptical about him. They felt this way because they were very much aware of Castro's relationship with the leader

Castro was gaining more power, and being so close to America, he could become threatening to the U.S. JFK thought he might try something, so the CIA got involved. Now, this all took place during the cold war and Cuba and Russia were allies in this war. An american attack on Cuba could result in a retaliation on Russia’s part and JFK did not want that, so he took Dwight D Eisenhower’s plan of training Cuban refugees that came to the U.S. to fight in Cuba

Under president Eisenhower, the CIA started to develop a plan to overthrow the Castro administration. The formulated plan was to recruit Cuban exiles living in the Miami area and train and equip the exiles to infiltrate Cuba and start a revolution to ignite an uprising across the island and overthrow the Fidel Castro administration. The invasion plan was activated shortly after newly elected President Kennedy’s inauguration, in February 1961. However, he was determined to disguise U.S. support because he felt that the last thing he wanted, he said, was a “direct, overt” intervention by the American military in Cuba due to the fact that the Soviets would likely see this as an act of war and might retaliate. However, he was told by the CIA officers

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 embargo is one of several measures taken by the U.S. president and Congress in response actions that in the eyes of policymakers went against the U.S.' strategic interests. Tension between the U.S. and Cuba began in 1959, when Fidel Castro led a rebel army that overthrew the U.S.-backed, pro-corporate dictator General Fulgencio Batista. Unlike Batista, Castro was not supported by the U.S. government, and sought to return

“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

In 1959, the leader of a revolution,Castro, overthrew the Cuban President, Fulgencio Batista. Castro hated the amount of control America had on Cuba, The mining industry, sugar cane farms, and more. After declaring himself Prime Minister, He sought to limit American influence. The U.S then started to train Cuban exiles who fled from their homeland after Castro took power. In May, of 1960

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

In January 1959, the brutal dictator of Cuba Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by the army of Fidel Castro. As a new leader he had a lot of attention and people wanted to know what political road he was going to go down. He chose to be a communist, the United States did not like this and refused to acknowledge him. With the U.S. not wanting any affiliation with him, he drew closer to the Soviet Union. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted to overthrow Castro so he raised an army of Cuban exiles and trained them in the jungle.

After it became officially globally acknowledged that Cuba was in fact a communist state and was being led through a dictatorship run by Castro, it did not take long before powerful enemies and essential allies were formed. The act of seizing all foreign land with none or very little compensation was received with great hostility amongst those who lost in their property through this process, and probably the reaction that had the biggest impact on Cuba’s economy was that of the US. Castro’s communistic policies did not of course help calm this resentment and also took part in leading to the establishment of trade embargos with Cuba from the US. This meant that Cuba would now lose a very valuable buyer of their precious sugar, [5] but they did however gain another one, a powerful nation that shared quite similar Marxist ideals and were quick to form an alliance with the Cubans, the USSR.

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.