Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion
Part of Cold War
Date April 15 - April 19, 1961 Location Bay of Pigs, southern Cuba Result Cuban Government victory
Belligerents
Cuban militia	Cuban exiles trained by the US
Commanders and leaders
Fidel Castro	Grayston Lynch Pepe San Roman Erneido Oliva
Strength
51,000	1,500
Casualties and losses
2,200; estimated	115 dead 1,189 captured

Cuban poster warning before invasion showing a soldier armed with an RPD machine gun.

The Bay of Pigs attemped Invasion (also known in Cuba as Playa Girón after the beach in the Bay of Pigs where the landing took place) was a United States-planned and funded attempted invasion by armed Cuban exiles in southwest Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in 1961 and marked the climax of anti-Cuban US actions. US-Cuban tensions had grown since Castro had overthrown the regime of General Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959. The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations had made the judgment that Castro's shift toward the Communist Party could not be tolerated, and moved to overthrow him. This process of thought and action was characteristic of all presidents in the post-WWII, anti-communist era, up until the early 1990s. However, the invasion attempt failed miserably and proved to be a major international embarrassment for the Kennedy administration. The resulting fiasco has been studied as an ideal case of "groupthink" decision making. Others, especially Cuban Americans, view this matter as policy decision by the Kennedy administration to rid itself of bothersome Cuban exiles. However, this event had prolonged electoral consequences resulting in the election of a number of Cuban-Americans (Cuban-American lobby) to the US Congress, and established electoral conditions that favor the Republican Party [1].

During debates in the United Nations Security Council, a Cuban attempt to condemn the US invasion failed due to a US veto. Gunboat diplomacy or direct military intervention by the US to overthrow the Cuban government would cause international protests against "interference with interior matters of foreign states" common in the atmosphere of the Cold War. A failure to justify a direct US involvement on the basis of international law risked provoking a geopolitical retaliation by the Soviet Union, especially in the Third World.

On February 17 1961 Kennedy asked his advisors whether the toppling of Castro might be related to weapon shipments and if it was possible to claim the real target were modern air fighters and rockets which endangered America's security. However, at the time Cuba possessed Soviet tanks, artillery and infantry weapons; its airforce consisted of B-26 light bombers, Hawker Sea Furies,was at the time among one of the fastest and most effective propeller driven Fighter Bomber planes ever built, and T-33 jets left over from the Batista Air Force [2]

Preparation

The CIA had begun recruiting and training Cuban exiles during the Eisenhower administration, months before diplomatic relations were severed with Cuba in January 1961, as tensions between Washington and Havana were increasing. However, it was Vice President Richard Nixon, not Eisenhower, who pushed the plan forward. Nixon afterwards always feared that his involvement and responsibility for the failure would surface. The CIA was initially confident that it was capable of overthrowing Castro, having experience assisting in the removal of other foreign governments such as those of Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954. Richard Bissell, Jr., one of Allen Dulles three aides, was made director of "Operation Zapata." (There is no direct evidence tying this to Zapata Corporation.)

The original plan had called for landing the exile brigade in the vicinity of the old colonial city of Trinidad, Cuba, located in the central province of Sancti Spiritus approximately 400 km southeast of Havana at the foothills of the Escambray mountains. The selection of the Trinidad site provided a number of options that the exile brigade could exploit to their advantage during the invasion. The population of Trinidad was generally opposed to Castro and the rugged mountains outside the city provided an area of operations where the invasion force could retreat to and establish a guerrilla campaign were the landing to falter. Throughout 1960, the growing ranks of Brigade 2506 trained at locations throughout southern Florida and in Guatemala for the beach landing and possible mountain retreat.

Under Kennedy's orders critical details were changed that removed any chance of success of the mission without US help. Kennedy was apparently influenced by some in the State Department, including old Cuban "hand" William Wieland, close friend of Sumner Welles. Wieland, who had been present during Batista's rise to power in 1933, was in Colombia when Castro was involved in the Bogotazo, and had also supported the arms embargo against Batista. These revised details including changing the landing area for Brigade 2506 to two points in Matanzas Province, 202 km southeast of Havana on the eastern edge of the Zapata peninsula at the Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs). The landings would take place on the Girón and Larga beaches. This change effectively cut off contact with the rebels in the Escambray "War Against the Bandits". The Castro government had been warned by senior KGB agents Osvaldo Sánchez Cabrera and "Aragon", who respectively died violently before and after the invasion. The US government was aware that a high casualty rate was possible.

Invasion

On the morning of April 17, 1961, three flights of Douglas B-26B Invader light bomber aircraft displaying Cuban Fuerza Aerea Revolucionaria (FAR - Revolutionary Air Force) markings bombed and strafed the Cuban airfields of San Antonio de Los Baños, Antonio Maceo International Airport, and the airfield at Ciudad Libertad. Operation Puma, the code name given to the offensive counter air attacks against the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, called for 48 hours of air strikes across the island to effectively eliminate the Cuban air force, ensuring Brigade 2506 complete air superiority over the island prior to the actual landing at the Bay of Pigs. This failed because the airstrikes were not continued as was originally planned - limited by decisions at the highest level of US government. Castro also had prior knowledge of the invasion and had moved the airplanes out of harm's way.

Of the Brigade 2506 aircraft sortied on the morning of April 15, one was tasked with establishing the CIA cover story for the invasion. The slightly modified two-seat B-26B used for this mission was piloted by Captain Mario Zuniga. Prior to departure, the engine cowling from one of the aircraft's two engines was removed by maintenance personnel, fired upon, then re-installed to give the appearance that the aircraft had taken ground fire at some point during its flight. Captain Zuniga departed from the exile base in Nicaragua on a solo, low-level mission that would take him over the westernmost province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, and then northeast toward Key West, Florida. Once across the island, Captain Zuniga climbed steeply away from the waves of the Florida Straits to an altitude where he would be detected by US radar installations to the north of Cuba. At altitude and a safe distance north of the island, Captain Zuniga feathered the engine with the pre-installed bullet holes in the engine cowling then radioed a mayday call and requested immediate permission to land at Boca Chica Naval Air Station a few kilometers northeast of Key West, Florida. This account is at apparent variance with Cuban government reports that Sea Fury fighter bombers flown by the few Cuban and perhaps some left-wing Chilean pilots loyal to Castro attacked the older slower B-26s flown by the invading force[3].

By the time of Captain Zuniga's announcement to the world mid-morning on the 15th, all but one of the Brigade's Douglas bombers were back over the Caribbean on the three and a half hour return leg to their base in Nicaragua to re-arm and refuel. Upon landing, however, the flight crews were met with a cable from Washington ordering the indefinite stand-down of all further combat operations over Cuba.

On April 17, about 1,500 exiles armed with US weapons landed on the southern coast of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. They hoped to find support from the local population, intending to cross the island to Havana. The CIA assumed that the invasion would spark a popular uprising against Castro. By the time the Invasion began, Castro had already executed some who were suspected of colluding with the American campaign, and imprisoned the others (notably two former "Comandantes" Humberto Sorí Marin [4] and William Morgan [5] [6]). The prisoners were under threat of death should the invasion succeed.

Although Cuban forces at the actual site surrendered, it soon became evident after contact with Cuban reinforcements that the exiles were not going to receive effective support at the site of the invasion and were likely to lose. Reports from both sides describe tank battles (see much detail in printed references section below) involving heavy USSR equipment [7]. Kennedy decided against giving the faltering invasion US air support (though four US pilots were killed in Cuba during the invasion) because of his opposition to overt intervention. Kennedy also canceled several sorties of bombings (only two took place) on the grounded Cuban Airforce, which might have crippled the Cuban Airforce and given air superiority to the invaders. U.S. Marines were not sent in, even though there were support ships off the coast ready to land at a moment's notice.

Casualties

By the time fighting ended on April 21, 91 exiles were dead and the rest were captured. Estimates of Cuban forces killed vary with the source but are generally far higher.

The 1,209 captured exiles were quickly tried, a few executed and the rest 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.

It is generally presumed by some that during the Bay of Pigs Invasion Cuba's losses were high. Triay (2001 p. 110) mentions 4,000 casualties; Lynch (p. 148 50X or about 5,000). Other sources indicate over 2,200 casualties.

In one air attack alone Cuban forces suffered an estimated 1,800 casualties caught on an open causeway in civilian buses and hit by napalm.[8][9] [10].

The Cuban goverment initally reported their losses as 87 dead with many more wounded. The number of dead or killed in action of Castro's army eventually ran to 140, and then to 168. Thus in the most accepted calculations, over 2,000 Cuban soldiers fighting for Castro may have been killed, wounded, and missing in action.

US Reactions and re-evaluations

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 held responsible for the planning of the operation at the CIA. Responsibility of the Kennedy Administration and the US State Department for modifications of the plans were not apparent until later.

However, the Kennedy administration continued curiously incompetent 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.

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:

• 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 too far to reach on foot, 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 Fidel Castro and would quickly join the battle. This support failed to materialize; many hundreds of thousands of others were arrested, and some executed, prior to the landings. (see also Priestland 2003; Grayston, 2000).

The CIA's near certainty that the Cuban people would rise up and join them was based on the agency's extremely weak presence on the ground in Cuba. Castro's counterintelligence, trained by Soviet Block specialists including Enrique Lister [11], had infiltrated most resistance groups. Because of this, almost all the information that came from exiles and defectors, was often "contaminated." 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." [12]

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.

An April 29 2000 Washington Post article, "Soviets Knew Date of Cuba Attack", reported 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 broadcast 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.

The invasion is often criticized as 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.

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.

Bay of Pigs in Conspiracy Theories

For more details on this topic, see Kennedy assassination theories and Operation Northwoods.

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.[13]

Violent opposition to Fidel Castro continued in the general area until at least 1965 in actions termed by Cuban government as War Against the Bandits.

In 1962, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lyman Lemnitzer, endorsed Operation Northwoods, a plot to garner public support for military intervention in Cuba. The plot called for acts of terrorism against the United States, including the development of a "terror campaign".

According to Body of Secrets by James Bamford (Doubleday 2001), General Lemnitzer was the driving force behind Operation Northwoods (see Chapter Four, "Fists", [14]). The recently published Ultimate Sacrifice by Lamar Waldron (Carroll & Graf 2005, [15]) attempts to place greater responsibility on John and Robert Kennedy, leading directly to the ensuing tragedy of the Kennedy Assassination, but the evidence presented by Bamford clearly places the genesis and modus operandi of the whole fiasco in the Eisenhower Administration, carried over by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then head of the CIA to the Kennedy Administration, since the principals involved both in strategy and tactics were Eisenhower appointees.

Waldron, however, traces important links in the involvement of the CIA and Mafia to what emerged as a Mafia hit on Kennedy, in an effort to stop Attorney General Robert Kennedy's pursuit of the Mafia. Three Mafia dons, Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante and Johnny Roselli, apparently found out about the plan for a coup in Cuba and then, in essence, entrapped U.S. Government agencies into helping prevent the full discovery of how and why the Kennedy Assassination happened so as to prevent revelations about their own complicity in what appeared to be treason against the United States intended to sway public opinion in support of a Cuba invasion.

As an important consideration, the Mafia's involvement was directly the consequence of the Mafia business interests that the Cuban Revolution disrupted. Pre-Revolution Cuba was the center of Mafia business activities throughout the Caribbean. See, for instance, Mafia in Havana by Enrique Cirules (Ocean Press 2003).

Printed references

This is an incomplete list.

• Anderson, Jon L. 1998 Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. Grove/Atlantic ISBN 0802135587
• Grayston, Lynch L. 2000 Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs. Potomac Books Dulles Virginia ISBN 1574882376
• Johnson, Haynes 1964 The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders' Story of Brigade 2506. W. W. Norton & Co Inc. New York. 1974 edition ISBN 0393042634
• Lagas, Jacques 1964 Memorias de un capitán rebelde. Editorial del Pácifico. Santiago, Chile.
• Lazo, Mario 1968, 1970 Dagger in the heart: American policy failures in Cuba. Twin Circle. New York. I968 edition Library of Congress number 6831632, 1970 edition, ASIN B0007DPNJS
• Lynch L. Grayston (see Grayston, Lynch L)
• Priestland, Jane (editor) 2003 British Archives on Cuba: Cuba under Castro 1959-1962. Archival Publications International Limited, 2003, London ISBN 1903008204
• Thomas, Hugh 1998 Cuba or The Pursuit of Freedom. Da Capo Press, New York Updated Ed. ISBN 0-306-80827-7
• Triay, Victor 2001 Andres Bay of Pigs. University Press of Florida, Gainesville ISBN 0813020905
• Welch, David A and James G Blight (editors) 1998 Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Frank Cass Publishers, London and Portland Oregon ISBN 0714648833 ISBN 0714644358
• Wyden, Peter 1979 Bay of Pigs Simon. and Schuster New York ISBN 06871240064 ISBN 0671254138

External links

• Detail Information on the Bay of Pigs Invasion — Includes maps of the Invasion and Documents.
• History of Cuba — Bay of Pigs Invasion.
• very useful chronology