Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion (also known in Cuba as La Playa Girón after a beach in the Bay of Pigs where the landing took place) was a United States-planned and funded landing by armed Cuban exiles in Central Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban communist government of Fidel Castro in 1961. US-Cuban tensions had grown since Castro had overthrown the US-backed regime of General Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959. The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations had made the judgment that Castro's shift toward the Soviet Union could not be tolerated, and moved to overthrow him. However, the invasion failed miserably and proved to be a major international embarrassment for the Kennedy administration. The resulting fiasco of the invasion attempt has been studied as an ideal case of 'groupthink' and poor decision making.

Aftermath

The 1189 captured exiles were quickly tried and sentenced to thirty years in prison for treason. After 20 months of negotiation with the United States, Cuba released the exiles in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine.

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The failed Bay of Pigs invasion severely embarrassed the Kennedy administration, and made Castro wary of future US intervention in Cuba. As a result of the failure, CIA director Allen Dulles, deputy CIA director Charles Cabell, and Deputy Director of Operations Richard Bissell were all forced to resign. All three were responsible for the planning of the operation at the CIA. However, the Kennedy administration continued covert operations in Cuba, later launching the Cuban Project to "help Cuba overthrow the Communist regime". Tensions would again peak in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Related Topics:
CIA director - Allen Dulles - Deputy CIA director - Charles Cabell - Richard Bissell - The Cuban Project - Cuban Missile Crisis - 1962

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The CIA wrote a detailed internal report that laid blame for the failure squarely on internal incompetence. A number of grave errors by the CIA and other American analysts contributed to the debacle:

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• The administration believed that the troops could retreat to the mountains to lead a guerrilla war if they lost in open battle. The mountains were on the other side of the island, and the troops were deployed in swamp land, where they were easily surrounded.
• They believed that the involvement of the US in the incident could be denied.
• They believed that Cubans would be grateful to be liberated from Castro and would quickly join the battle, however Cubans greatly supported Castro and the Revolution. The CIA's near certainty that the Cuban people would rise up and join them was almost certainly based on the agency's extremely weak presence on the ground in Cuba. Because of this, almost all their information came from exiles and defectors, who turned out to be unreliable sources of information. CIA operative E. Howard Hunt had interviewed Cubans in Havana prior to the invasion; in a future interview with CNN, he said, "...all I could find was a lot of enthusiasm for Fidel Castro." http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/interviews/hunt/
• They believed that the spirits of the invasion army were high, so invasion had to take place quickly. In fact, the Cuban refugee army was not very motivated.

Many military leaders almost certainly expected the invasion to fail but thought that Kennedy would send in Marines to save the exiles. Kennedy, however, did not want a full scale war and abandoned the exiles.

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A Washington Post article, "Soviets Knew Date of Cuba Attack" (April 29, 2000), indicated that the CIA had information indicating that the Soviet Union knew the invasion was going to take place and did not inform Kennedy. Radio Moscow actually broadcasted an English-language newscast on April 13, 1961 predicting the invasion "in a plot hatched by the CIA" using paid "criminals" within a week. The invasion took place four days later.

Related Topics:
Washington Post - April 29 - 2000 - Soviet Union - Radio Moscow - April 13 - 1961

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The invasion is often criticized for making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the support for his economic policies. Following the initial B-26 bombings, he had declared the revolution "Marxist-Leninist". After the invasion, he pursued closer relations with the Soviet Union, partly for protection, which helped pave the way for the Cuban Missile Crisis a year and a half later.

Related Topics:
Marxist-Leninist - Cuban Missile Crisis

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There are still yearly nation-wide drills in Cuba during the 'Dia de la Defensa' (defense day) to prepare the entire population for an invasion.

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The term "Bay of Pigs" was also used by President Richard Nixon as a coded reference to the Kennedy assassination in White House conversations recorded on the Watergate tapes.

Related Topics:
Richard Nixon - Kennedy assassination - Watergate

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