What Is John F Kennedy's Military Failure

It seems that the United States has been one of the most dominant, if not the most dominant, countries in the world, since the Declaration of Independence. Yet, on Monday, April 17, 1961, our government experienced incredible criticism and extreme embarrassment when Fidel Castro, dictator of Cuba, instantly stopped an invasion on the Cuban beach known as the Bay of Pigs. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, his advisors, and many Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials, made the largest error of their political careers. Once the decision was made to invade Cuba, to end Castro and his Communist government, Kennedy and his administration were never looked at in the same light nor trusted again. Russian leader Nikita

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 Cuban Missile Crisis could be known as President Kennedy’s greatest success. Due to the Cold War, tensions were high between the Russia and the United States. Kennedy discovered that the Soviet Union was constructing nuclear and long range missiles at a site in Cuba, which was dangerously close to America. Kennedy handled a difficult situation that could have had devastating effects on the U.S.

The events that took place in October of 1962 had correlated a cease of movement due to what the Americans believed that a possible missile crisis was arising amongst the Soviet Union and Cuba. All three countries had undergone a change of leadership, opposing American ideals, making matters that even more difficult to come to a compromise between the three states. Ultimately, this had led to a blockade on part of the American government a few days on retrieving evidence of the accumulation of missiles within Cuba and resulted in immediate, carefully thought out action on part of President Kennedy. It is arguable that Castro and Khrushchev had reasonable action to work together, but this cooperation of the two led to a near nuclear crisis possibly leaving the US on warzone territory. Despite the circumstances, President Kennedy was valiant in his efforts in upholding actions where matters can

Unbeknownst to Kennedy at the time, the first actions binding himself to the future operation was during the campaign of 1960. ‘JFK had stressed the Eisenhower-Nixon administration’s failure to prevent Castro’s rise, and promised if elected to take bolder action to oust the Cuban leader.’ This tough on communism campaign rhetoric, though effective for the times, trapped Kennedy into having to deal with Castro as a top priority, and failure to do so associated the administration with weakness. The problem facing the candidate was the lack of information he possessed. ‘Although the CIA had no clear policy for briefing presidential candidates, briefers often omitted highly sensitive covert actions, signal intelligence, and Human intelligence

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.

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

Khrushchev outlines the Soviet position on U.S. involvement and threatens military action if the U.S. commits any military force in support of the CEF in Cuba. Kennedy responds outlining no U.S. military involvement in Cuba and highlights the U.S. position on external aggression and the right to honor obligations in intra-American affairs. At 1200, President Kennedy is made aware of the dire situation CEF are facing in Cuba. CIA officials request use of U.S. aircraft to destroy the remaining Cuban Air Force to allow the CEF opportunity to regain momentum. (Murgado, 2009, p. Appendix

After Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista on July 26, 1959, he adopted a communist platform and instituted agrarian land reform programs to push the U.S. out of Cuba. President John F. Kennedy was alarmed that communism was close to the U.S. shores and was worried that Castro would spread his communist ideology throughout Latin America. Kennedy implemented the Bay of Pigs invasion on April 17, 1961, which was a plan to depose Castro and end the communist government in Cuba, but failed because Castro defeated the Guatemalan and Nicaraguan forces trained by the U.S.. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion exemplifies the failure of the containment policies in the 1960s because Cuba remained a communist country, and therefore shows that the U.S. was unsuccessful in curbing the spread of communism that George Kennan advocated for in his Long Telegram. Kennedy was aware that Castro was trying to spread the Domino Theory, which was the spread of communist ideology into neighbouring countries, so he established the Peace Corp and the Alliance for Progress in March 1961. These organizations were used to send aid to Latin American countries through economic development, which was supposed to reduce the attraction to communism. However, these organizations were a failure in Latin American countries like the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Chile because they turned to Castro’s communist ideology and resisted U.S. land reforms and

In response to Cuba’s new level of cooperation with the Soviet Union, the United States instigated several conflicts in an effort to remove the Soviet-sympathetic Cuban government from power. President Kennedy, who recognized how Castro's government couldn't be influenced through political means, decided to resolve the entire problem by completely overthrowing and replacing Castro and his Soviet-sympathetic government. Initially, from 1961 to 1963, Kennedy planned to overthrow the communist government by ordering the CIA to assassinate Castro. With extravagant plans ranging from exploding cigars to contaminated diving suits and painted seashells, the CIA attempted to assassinate Castro in five different attempts between 1961 and 1963 alone

Kennedy was President while the Cold War was at its height, and his anti-communist policies made him unpopular with communists and communist sympathisers. The Bay of Pigs incident, when he refused to sanction air cover, thus ensuring its failure, lost Kennedy support from both Hawks and Doves in his government. The Hawks were angry at lack of a full-scale invasion, whereas the Doves were against military operations in the first place. Not only did his own government now have motives to get rid of their seemingly 'incompetent' leader, but also did Fidel Castro.

“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

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”

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

It is evident that the US had been flagrantly deceived. Then Kennedy called for a naval blockade of Cuba. Kennedy used political negotiations with Khrushchev to come to an agreement in the removal of the weapons. Throughout negotiations, there were incidents that occurred which amplified tensions. Such as on the noon of October 27th, a U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba. In those moments, both the US and the Soviet Union assumed that it was Castro who commanded the fire of low-flying U.S. planes on October 27th. Although Castro had certainly commanded Cuban antiaircraft artillery to fire, there is no indication that he had also ordered Soviet artillery to fire. Another occurrence is Castro’s letter to Khrushchev insisting that the Soviet Union should launch a first-strike nuclear attack on the United States.