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WSJ: New Battle Over the Bay of Pigs Invasion
Failed Attack
By TENNILLE TRACY
More than 50 years after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, the Central
Intelligence Agency and scholars are battling over the release of a secret
document that could challenge assumptions about who was to blame for the famous
fiasco.
A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments later this year on whether the
CIA should be forced to disclose the document, the concluding volume of an
official Bay of Pigs history written decades ago by a former CIA employee.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/142156
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Demeter
(85,373 posts)What difference would it make at this point?
Mika
(17,751 posts)
vinny9698
(1,016 posts)Castro had infiltrated their units. The Cubans under Castro, knew when, where, how many. They were contained in the area they landed. They were supposed to have made into the mountains and were going to try and duplicate what the Castro brothers had done. The invaders never stood a chance.
How did the CIA learn the number of Russians on the island? They were studying aerial photos of Cuba. Then some one noticed the number of soccer fields in those photos. The Cubans do not play soccer, the Russians do. So by counting the soccer fields they could come up with an educated guess as to the number of Russians there.
Socialistlemur
(770 posts)The Cuban government was taken by surprise. The invasion force was bottled up because they landed where bottling them up was easily accomplished. The key failure was the USA government's change of plans to suspend air cover. In modern warfare a group left in the open without air cover can't win if its outnumbered.
The idea that they could get to "mountains" when the site is surrounded by a huge swamp sure sounds silly. And of course going into mountains where Castro had hard core support was a dumb idea. Your acquaintance was fed a politically correct answer by his CIA bosses...the whole idea was stupid and the USA failed to execute the air cover plan. A book I read said Kennedy himself stopped it.
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)...but it is wrong. Dulles told JFK that the Cuban population would rise up and overthrow Castro when Dulles' anti-Castro cadre landed at the Bay of Pigs. He claimed to have intelligence to that effect. JFK permitted the clandestine operation ON THE CONDITION THAT NO U.S. TROOPS OR MILITARY FORCES could be involved. If the people of Cuba rose up, fine. But he was NOT going to invade Cuba. He was totally against committing U.S. military forces and endangering U.S. military lives for this purpose. No air support was promised; indeed it was specifically denied.
Dulles went ahead with the operation; no uprising whatever occurred, and, in the midst of the operation, Dulles tried to blackmail JFK into providing last minute air support for a failed operation. JFK refused to do so, and he then FIRED Dulles for LYING to him about the support of the Cuban people and subsequently vowed to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces."
They were LYING to him. They were lying to him and defying his orders all over the world.
For those who want to understand this, the most important conflict of the 20th century and perhaps in the history of our democracy, I recommend "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," by James Douglass.
The question was, who was going to run this country, including the commitment of U.S. military forces: the elected president or the CIA/MIC? We only have to look around us today to know who won that contest. Douglass brilliantly lays out this conflict between elected and secret government, and brilliantly nails the CIA for JFK's assassination (up to Richard Helms, the director of operations, with intimate connections to the fascist forces in Miami whom Castro and the Cuban people had ousted from power in Cuba).
After the 'Bay of Pigs' came the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which the entire Joint Chiefs Staff stood against JFK (who had only RFK on his side) demanding that JFK nuke Russia (and Cuba) in a pre-emptive strike. JFK refused and created backchannels to Krushchev (and Castro) to get around the CIA and to prevent a nuclear holocaust. He not only negotiated the removal of Russian missiles from Cuba, against the will of the CIA/MIC (who opposed his withdrawal of U.S. missiles pointed at Russia from Turkey), he then engineered the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (first effort to begin demobilization of nukes on both sides), the Russian Wheat Deal (when the Russian harvest failed), and other such peaceful measures, including signing presidential orders to start removing U.S. troops from Vietnam, and he intended to run for a second term on a platform of world peace, confident that the American people would support him.
He was right about that. When his successor, LBJ, ran on a peace platform in 1964, he won by a huge landslide. The trouble was that LBJ was lying. In the midst of that election, while he yammered about peace, LBJ was dramatically escalating the CIA-manufactured war in Vietnam. Indeed, three days after JFK was assassinated, LBJ said, "Now they can have their war." He was speaking of the CIA and Vietnam.
I remember that election well. It was my first vote for president. I bought LBJ's bullshit and voted for peace--and got 2 million dead.
The hell of it is that JFK would not have been lying, had he lived to run for a second term. And that, basically, is WHY he died. He had refused to be controlled by the CIA, which was manufacturing wars for the MIC.
Until we understand this most basic fact about our history, there is no hope that we can reverse the Forever War into which we have been plunged, in which "enemies" are constantly created out of people who are NOT our "enemies"--people who are seeking self-determination, sovereignty and economic justice. If we supported self-determination, sovereignty and economic justice, we would have almost no enemies. The world would be with us, as it was just after WW II. Instead, we now have a war machine that has been hijacked by the corporate powers and is being used, a) for private profit, and b) to perpetuate itself. JFK's presidency was the last chance we had to curtail the overweening power of this war machine. He stood against its misuse and he died for it.
We now have to deal with the consequences, which are all around us--a very, very difficult set of problems, involving democracy itself and our identity as a people. We need to beware of murky history which deliberately or inadvertently buries these realities and we need to pay attention to clear-eyed writers like Douglass who understand both the details and the moral thrust of our history and "why it matters" NOW.
Judi Lynn
(160,524 posts)You never lost it!
Thank you.
Thank you for setting the record straight. So appreciated.
Socialistlemur
(770 posts)The key event according to what I read was the denial by Kennedy to allow air support. I think even with air support they would have been defeated unless it was massive. Your writer wasn't there. Neither was I, but I don't think he really knew what he claimed. We will see when we read the CIA material.
Mika
(17,751 posts)... but it doesn't stop you from posting your BS dark fantasies about "Stalinist" Cuba and the oppressive dictatorship the Cubans endure.
From what I've read from you in this forum, you know NOTHING about the real Cuba (the one in Cuba, not in your mind).
Socialistlemur
(770 posts)As you probably know by now, I distrust government propaganda and tend to be quite paranoid when somebody tries to drive me in a given direction. But I know something called nazism emerged in Germany and the nazis carried out genocide which indeed horrible.
Thus it's possible to become convinced that something is, or is not, without being there. I have seen enough complaints and descriptions of what happened and happens in Cuba to convince me it is a dictatorship and it abuses human rights. I also happen to study very closely what happens in Venezuela for my work, and I have recruited students from their universities, quite a few of which tell me what goes on. And I see you posting propaganda about Venezuela I know is bogus. So, my friend, this means you lose credibility.
And if you lose credibility posting material about Venezuela why should I believe much you state about Cuba? Au contraire, I'd say the intensity you display makes my antennae come up.
And tell me, why should I disbelieve the UN human rights reports, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others? I know they do cover some things, but I don't think they complain inventing facts. On the other hand I've noticed the Cuban regime has for over 50 years refused to hold elections. I also heard the Mario Silva recordings in which he says Fidel Castro felt democracy and free elections were invented by the burguesie and should not be used "because the people could make mistakes". Mario Silva nailed the coffin as far as I am concerned: Fidel Castro is an anti democratic and obsolete dictator. And given what I read nowadays, I think Raul Castro is a born again fascist. Those two, each in their own way, have shown they are not worth a glass of warm spit.
Which returns me to the OP. I think the bay of pigs invasion was a dumb idea. I also read different versions about why it failed. But what comes out seems to be told by Americans who were trying to cover their behinds. Therefore I repeat we do need to see if the CIA documents can be obtained...maybe someday we may know a bit more. I even dare say it may have been the Cubans betrayed by Kennedy who shot him?
Mika
(17,751 posts)Because none of them use their own sources. They all use Cubanet's bought and paid for anti Cuba "independent journalists" who are paid for by USAID, NED, IRI, Mellon Scaife money, which doesn't make them independent at all.
Your cold war head is getting in the way of reason. Comparisons using Nazi concentration camps is beyond absurd.
You know nothing about the real Cuba. Period. Your mention of warm spit ... that's what your dark fantasizations are worth.
Socialistlemur
(770 posts)Maybe the cuban government should invite the un, amnesty internacional and Human Rights Watch to visit and inspect the country? And why should I believe you when I see so much information, including from many Cubans who have fled? After all, as I mentioned, you lost credibility with the ever glowing comments which unfailingly flatter and ne'er find fault. My friend, that's a dead giveaway for cooked information. Take me, on the other hand. I have a knack to upset just about every intelligence agency around. And my sister? She has been arrested so many times in demonstrations she hands out her mug shot to the cops when they come get her. Something I know can't happen in Cuba, of course, where everybody is oh so very happy amongst the ruins.
Mika
(17,751 posts)Of course, little of it will conform to your dark "Stalinist Cuba" fantasies/projections.
Do some research as to the funding streams for AI, HRW, etc. Their Cuba reporting is more than questionable 2nd hand stenographing of Cubanet "reports".
The Politics of the Internet in Third World Development
http://books.google.com/books?id=BGkuP7VywCAC&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=Cubanet+funding&source=bl&ots=oZOn4YPkkN&sig=6PsAV4qOipAxDZYBGV3FAQdZuiM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=y7_lUfTAG_bK4AP3moAg&ved=0CGQQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=Cubanet%20funding&f=false
US funding debated for Cuban dissidents
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/human-rights/funding.htm
Reporters Without Borders Unmasked (funded by NED and Cuban exiles)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x128196
Human Rights Watch and Cuba
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x30583
The Discourse on Racism in Anti-Castro Publications, 2011-2013
http://www.afrocubaweb.com/racismdiscourse11.htm
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)...to him. That is why he fired the CIA Director.
You don't know your history and you write in this simplistic manner spouting rightwing views, and you're scoffing at a man who does know history, has read, and re-read, and double-checked and re-read again, ALL the relevant material from every investigation of this matter, and has conducted his own research from new sources that he developed, and writes superbly and convincingly, with voluminous sources and footnotes, and understands it all at the level of detail as well as the deeper level of the meaning of events? An historian, a philosopher, a man of great knowledge and wisdom?
YOU "don't think he really knew what he claimed"? You?
"We will see when we read the CIA material." Yeah, right. YOU are going to spend ten years of your life "reading the CIA material," as James Douglass has done. Don't make me laugh.
You don't know what you're talking about, on this, or on any other topic for which I've seen your comments. Please get educated and stop inflicting us with vague, fact-less, Tea-Partyish blather.
MinM
(2,650 posts)That and the fact that the CIA knew this plan was unworkable are the most cogent points...
...But even more essential is DiEugenio’s exposition of the Bay of Pigs subterfuge. Drawing on several newer books on this topic, along with recently released documents which more than hint at perfidy on the part of the CIA, he outlines how Jake Esterline’s Trinidad plan, originally conceived as a small-scale penetration by a group of guerrilla-trained exiles, morphed into a full-blown D-Day assault under Dick Bissell’s supervision. It was this mutation, a development that Dulles and Bissell tried to obfuscate, which Kennedy in March 1961 nevertheless saw enough of to ask that it be scaled down. Dulles clearly understood Kennedy’s reluctance to commit, and tried to use the “disposal problem” (what to do with all these exiles?) as leverage, further offering him entirely false assurances about popular support for an uprising and the ability of the brigade to regroup in the mountains should they get pinned down on the beaches, and all the while denying him vital intelligence and refusing to allow him to inspect the details of the plan. JFK appears to have committed only because he was convinced of the essentially guerrilla nature of the action. A new site, the Playa Giron, was in fact chosen because it seemed very unlikely that the landing would encounter resistance there. Kennedy also added the requirement that any air strikes on the day of the invasion were to be conducted by the Cuban brigade after a beachhead had been secured – that is, from Cuban soil. He even asked Bissell if the recommended preliminary surgical strikes against Castro’s T-33 fighters were absolutely necessary, and Bissell assured him they would be minimal. But a CIA memo released in 2005 establishes that Bissell knew from November 1960 onwards that the entire plan was unworkable without the aid of the Pentagon. That memo was never forwarded to the President’s desk [34-37; 44-45].
What happens next is a series of tactical foul-ups followed by efforts to nudge Kennedy into military intervention. Not all of Castro’s T-33’s were taken out prior to the landing because Castro, who knew the invasion was coming, had dispersed them around the island. The main forces were crippled by the sinking of two supply ships. The whole operation was very poorly planned, and Castro managed to regain two of the three landing sites by the third day. At that point Deputy Director Charles Cabell tried to get Victor Marchetti to relay to Kennedy the false story of MiGs strafing the beaches (which Marchetti never delivered). Kennedy had made clear from the outset his refusal to deploy U.S. military force, but the CIA gave orders anyway to fly bombing missions over Castro’s airfields, which did not occur only because of fog [41].
Most decisive in its analysis of this episode is a fact which the book makes unequivocal – that Kennedy never withdrew air support, because the so-called D-Day strikes had never been authorized to begin with; they were not part of the revised plan. McGeorge Bundy reiterated Kennedy’s restriction on them to Cabell the night before the landing, and the next day, he and Bissell tried to argue the point with Dean Rusk. But when Rusk gave the CIA the chance to phone the White House and request such strikes the morning of the invasion, the CIA declined the invitation. On the third day, Cabell and the CIA similarly refused to request a naval escort to resupply the brigade with ammunition. In a conversation with Rusk and Adlai Stevenson the day of the invasion, Kennedy again said he had not approved any such strikes from Nicaragua [44, 46].
After ordering the Taylor inquiry (during which the Joint Chiefs basically tried to hang all the blame on the CIA) and consulting with Robert Lovett, co-author of the Lovett-Bruce report, who laid bare the true nature of the CIA, convincing him to fire Dulles, along with Bissell and Cabell, it became obvious to Kennedy that he had been snookered. Today we may reasonably share his opinion that the operation was a planned failure aimed at backing him into a corner and coercing him into an all-out invasion...
http://destinybetrayed.com/Reviews.html
In fact, as Destiny Betrayed reveals, the myth about calling off air support was originated in a story planted by Allen Dulles with a buddy of his at Fortune magazine.
It's no wonder the CIA has been reticent in handing over additional documents. Just from what can be pieced together so far the evidence is pretty damning.
Judi Lynn
(160,524 posts)MinM
(2,650 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 11, 2013, 12:50 AM - Edit history (1)
No problem, Judi Lynn. Here's one that may be a little off topic.. but interesting nonetheless..
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF-TPH-17B-1.aspx
Exclusive: Peace Corps, Fulbright Scholar Asked to 'Spy' on Cubans, Venezuelans
Judi Lynn
(160,524 posts)part of the original design. After so many years of sneaky, dishonest abuse of what may have otherwise been great intentions, throwing all policy into question, it really is good to get the idea that making ideas like the Peace Corps into actual Trojan Horses was not part of the original plan. It's so good to think again that JFK was well-intentioned on this issue.
Had heard the news on the Peace Corps worker in Bolivia. I noted that the end of the article pointed out that three other workers, and a supervisor all indicated they were themselves very aware of this, too, even naming the guy who brought it up to them. Very important. If they had gone along with it there would have been 30 Peace Corps workers, pushed to become instant spies turned loose as agents, spying on unsuspecting people who were clearly none of their business. A real Two-fer.
I would guess since it happened in Bolivia, we should expect it to have been tried elsewhere, of course. So glad that young Peace Corps worker was courageous, and patriotic enough to speak out when things got dirty. This country needs so many MORE like him.
Thank you.
MinM
(2,650 posts)So, JFK has told them he's not going to send in U.S. forces, and they know before going in that they are not going to receive help from U.S. forces. At a press conference on April 12, 1961 President Kennedy was asked, "How far would the U.S. go to help an uprising against Castro? JFK replied, "First, I want to say that there will not be, under any conditions, an intervention in Cuba by the United States Armed Forces. (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 258) Now, the Cuban Study Group consisted of four people, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Allen Dulles, Admiral Arliegh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, and Robert Kennedy. They created a document [ See FRUS 1961-1963 Vol X, Cuba, 1961-1962 p - Document 232 Memorandum No. 2 From the Cuba Study Group to President Kennedy . Available online at - http://research.archives.gov/description/193275] titled "Immediate Causes of Failure of the Operation Zapata." Section 8 is crucial. "8. These causes for the ammunition shortage rested in turn on others which lay deeper in the plans and organization of this operation and the attitude toward it on the part of Government officials. The effectiveness of the Castro Air Force over the beach resulted from a failure to destroy the airplanes on the ground (particularly the T-33's whose importance was not fully appreciated in advance) before or concurrently with the landing. This failure was a consequence of the restraints put on the anti-Castro Air Force in planning and executing its strikes, primarily for the purpose of protecting the covert character of the operation. These restraints included: the decision to use only the B-26 as a combat aircraft because it had been distributed widely to foreign countries; the limitation of pre-landing strikes to those which could be flown from non-U.S. controlled airfields under the guise of coming from Cuban strips, thus eliminating the possibility of using jet fighters or even T-33 trainers; the inability to use any non-Cuban base within short turn-around distance from the target area (about nine hours were required to turn around a B-26 for a second mission over the target from Nicaragua); prohibition of use of American contract pilots for tactical air operations; restriction on munitions, notably napalm; and the cancellation of the strikes planned at dawn on D-Day. The last mentioned was probably the most serious as it eliminated the last favorable opportunity to destroy the Castro Air Force on the ground. The cancellation seems to have resulted partly from the failure to make the air strike plan entirely clear in advance to the President and the Secretary of State, but, more importantly, by misgivings as to the effect of the air strikes on the position of the United States in the current UN debate on Cuba. Finally, there was the failure to carry the issue to the President when the opportunity was presented and explain to him with proper force the probable military consequences of a last-minute cancellation."
So, the State Dept was concerned about air strikes into Cuba. The military knew if Castro gets his planes in the air the men are sitting ducks. The CIA came up with a plan to use the B-26s to hit as many things on the ground as they can two days in advance. The planes would then land in Miami. One of the pilots would claim to have been a defector from Cuba who blew up as much as he could before he left. The B-26 planes were disguised to look like Castro's planes. But, Castro goes to the U.N. and has a field day with pictures saying my planes look like this, and not what landed in Miami. Adlai Stevenson looked like an idiot because he was not briefed on the invasion. So, its Stevenson who pleads with his boss Secretary of State Dean Rusk to call off any second air strike meant to take out the rest of Castro's planes while they are on the ground on the planned day of the invasion. Rusk calls McGeorge Bundy about this. Bundy calls Charles Cabell and tells him to cancel the air strikes. Cabell resists this idea. Bundy says then you have to take it up with Rusk. He does so. Cabell and Richard Bissell meet at Dean Rusk's office. Did the president cancel the D-Day airstrikes? No. Document 231, Memorandum No. 1 from the Cuban Study Group to President Kennedy [ See FRUS 1961-1963 Vol X, Cuba, 1961-1962 p. 588] section 43 tells us "At about 9:30 P.M. on 16 April, Mr. McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President, telephoned General C.P. Cabell of CIA to inform him that the dawn air strikes the following morning should not be launched until they could be conducted from a strip within the beachhead. Mr. Bundy indicated that any further consultation with regard to this matter should be with the Secretary of State." Section 44 tells us "General Cabell, accompanied by Mr. Bissell, went at once to Secretary Rusk's office, arriving there about 10:15 P.M./15/ (See Annex 21) There they received a telephone call from Colonel Jack Hawkins who, having learned of the cancellation of the D-Day strikes, called to present his view of the gravity of the decision. General Cabell and Mr. Bissell then tried to persuade the Secretary of State to permit the dawn D-Day strikes. The Secretary indicated that there were policy considerations against air strikes before the beachhead airfield was in the hands of the landing force and completely operational, capable of supporting the raids. The two CIA representatives pointed out the risk of loss to the shipping if the Castro Air Force were not neutralized by the dawn strikes. They also stressed the difficulty which the B-26 airplanes would have in isolating the battlefield after the landing, as well as the heavier scale of air attack to which the disembarked forces would be exposed. The Secretary of State indicated subsequently that their presentation led him to feel that while the air strikes were indeed important, they were not vital. However, he offered them the privilege of telephoning the President in order to present their views to him. They saw no point in speaking personally to the President and so informed the Secretary of State. The order cancelling the D-Day strikes was dispatched to the departure field in Nicaragua, arriving when the pilots were in their cockpits ready for take-off. The Joint Chiefs of Staff learned of the cancellation at varying hours the following morning."
So, no one, not Rusk, not Bissell, not Cabell, not Bundy, no one, no one called President Kennedy and said we want you to cancel the air strike set for D-Day. Nor, did President Kennedy call anyone late at night on April 16, 1961 and say, about the airstrikes set for D-Day, forget about it. IT DID NOT HAPPEN. Yet, the lie is everywhere, the Bay of Pigs was a failure because JFK cancelled the air strikes...
http://justiceforkennedy.blogspot.com/2013/12/greg-burnhams-copa-presentation-proves.html?zx=e47a8d8cfc157bc3
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)He had been quite a hawk when running for president, but bay of pigs and the cuban missile crises (specifically, the Generals wanting all out war) made him realize that the military-industrial complex was always up to no good and was never telling the truth.
I agree with you that is why he was killed.
