– Cuba 90 miles off the cost of Florida3. Rejection of open skies proposal- Eisenhower left for the summit conference4. Powers tried and convicted of espionage by the supreme court of the USSR- Castro seized all American-owned propertiesD. Summary of The Inspector General’s Survey of The Cuban Operation 1. Freedom of Information Act to the National Security Archives-group that publishes declassified government documents2. A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro RegimeF. What Went Wrong In The Bay of Pigs Invasion 2. The Inspector Generals conclusions- failures with the project and agencyG. The invasion at the Bay of Pigs has raised many questions and many interestingthings have come out of it. What people want to know is, why it happened, or whatcaused it, but the most important question that is not commonly asked is what was themain affect of the invasion?Some say that the affects are not many. People believedfor a while that there was no way that the united states could suffer from the invasion onCuba, they were wrong. The main affect wasthat Cuban leaders feared another directUS invasion, and so they allowed the USSR to place nuclear missiles in Cuba, aimed atthe United States, this is called the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union offeredmilitary aid to Cuba, and Cuba agreed to let the Soviet Union send missiles and materialsto build launch sites. In October 1962, the United States learned that Cuba had nuclearmissiles in place that could be launched toward American cities. President John F.
Kennedy ordered a naval blockade to halt the further shipment of arms. He demandedthat the Soviet Union remove all missiles from the island and dismantle the remainingmissile bases. For several days, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Finally, theSoviet Union removed the weapons under protest from Castro. The Soviet action cameafter Kennedy privately agreed not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also agreed to remove U.S.
nuclear missiles from Turkey, which the Soviets considered to be a threat. All because ofthe invasion on Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldvar became the dictator of Cuba in 1952. The UnitedStates had been kind to Batista. Shortly after, Fidel Castro, became the leader of anunderground antigovernment group. After leading several failed uprisings, and beingarrested for leading those revolts, Castro finally lead a successful rebellion againstBatista. In 1959, Castro became the Premier. At first, Castro was very conservative, butafter he realized how much power he had gained, he started abusing it, being very hostileto both the Cuban people, and the United States. The United States, who had been verygood to Cuba, but the U.S. started to get angry when, in 1960, Castro seized American oilrefineries, sugar mills, and electric utilities. In the early 60s, he also started to welcomecommunism and formed close ties with the USSR. In 1959, when Castro became premier, the Central Intelligence Agency, (CIA)started planning an invasion near Guantnamo Bay, a US naval base in Cuba, in the Bayof Pigs, in southern Cuba. The CIA set up a small sub-organization with the sole purposeof planning the invasion. Despite the propaganda, intelligence planning, counterintelligence planning, and paramilitary planning, the mission still failed. In February 1962, the Inspector General wrote a document called “The InspectorGeneral’s Survey of the Cuban Operation.” This was deemed top secret until 1997. Insideit tells many reasons for the failure. Why didn’t the CIA think of these problems ahead ofBefore Castro’s reign over Cuba, a man named Fulgencio Batista y Zaldvar wasthe Premier from 1952 to 1959. Castro was against Batista’s ideas, so he joined anunderground anti-Batista group. Fidel Castro went up through the ranks of the group,until he was the leader. He led several rebellions, and was arrested for them. Seven yearslater, he led a rebellion that was successful, and overthrew the Batista administration.
Since he was the leader of the group, he became the new dictator of Cuba.
At First, he was a very conservative dictator. He was liked by the Cuban people,and by other countries, including the United States of America. This did not last long,when he soon realized how much power he had. He immediately seized American-ownedproperties in Cuba. This made him lose the United States as an ally. However,Khruschev’s United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), stayed as an ally, and influencedCastro to gradually change Cuba in to a communist state. This also scared the Pentagon,because a communist country not far from the coast of Florida was created.
On February 21st, 1998, The New York Times reported that the InspectorGeneral’s Survey of the Cuban Operation was released under the Freedom of InformationAct to the National Security Archives, a non-profit group that collects and publishesdeclassified Government documents. Inside the article, it quoted several paragraphs ofThe Inspector Generals Survey of the Cuban Operation. The Inspector Generals Survey of the Cuban Operation was the internal documentinside the Central Intelligence Agency explaining the failure. The document was writtenby the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was kept in his files inthe Agency’s building in Washington. It was released under the Freedom of InformationAct on February 21st, 1998, to an organization on the World Wide Web called theNational Security Archives. This organization is a non-profit organization that through itsweb page gives the public, such as myself, Government documents, some of which, usedAs it says in the introduction of this document, “This is the Inspector General’sreport on the Central Intelligence Agency’s ill-fated attempt to implement national policyby overthrowing the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba by means of a covert paramilitaryoperation.”1 It also says that the purpose of this document is “to describe weaknesses andfailures disclosed by the study, and to make recommendations for their correction andavoidance in the futureIt does not describe or analyze in detail the purely militaryphase of the effortIn preparing the survey the Inspector General and his representativesinterviewed about 125 Agency employees of all levels and studied a large quantity ofThe Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation states that PresidentDwight Eisenhower authorized the following by approving a paper entitled “A Programof Covert Action Against the Castro Regime”:”a. Formation of a Cuban exile organization to attract Cuban loyalties, to directopposition activities, and to provide cover for Agency operations. b. A propaganda offensive in the name of the opposition.
c. Creation inside Cuba of a clandestine intelligence collection and action apparatus to beresponsive to the direction of the exile organizationd. Development outside Cuba of a small paramilitary force to be introduced into Cuba toorganize, train and lead resistance groups.”The concept was for the Cuban exile council to serve as cover for the UnitedStates Government by acting as a group of American businessmen. When the UnitedStates Government went along to plan and doing actions making the actions themselvespublicly known, but since there was cover, “the hand of the U.S. Government would notappear”3 because of the Cuban exile group, which would later form a group called FRD.
This document states that the reason for invasion of Cuba by the United States ofAmerica was a way to stop communism from spreading to the Western Hemisphere, nearthe United States, a world power and a Democracy. The United States Government felt itwas a danger to National Security, which eventually it was during the Cuban MissileCrisis, which wouldnt of even happened if the bay of pigs hadnt happened. The history of the Bay of Pigs, or for now the Cuban Operation, began in 1959,shortly after Fulgencio Batista y Zaldvar was overthrown by Fidel Castro. The CentralIntelligence Agency needed a way to accomplish a second revolution in Cuba, this time aDemocratic revolution. The Central Intelligence Agency developed a Branch of theWestern Hemisphere Division, a division of the Central Intelligence Agency, whichhandled Intelligence efforts on the Western Hemisphere of the earth. This branch wasnamed Western Hemisphere Division Branch Four, or WH/4 as an abbreviation.
WH/4 was an expandable task force in charge of the Cuban Operation, andinvolved in all the aspects as mentioned in the previous list. Each aspect of the operationhad a different area to work from. The recruiting center for the Cuban Exile group was inMiami, with a second one in Cuba. The propaganda aspect was located in severaldifferent areas across the continent. For example, there was one powerful “gray” radiostation in Massachusetts, there was another radio station posing as a legitimatecommercial station on Swan Island. A television show in Spanish was created in Miami,and several written publications were created including a newspaper named Advance,Inside Cuba a clandestine intelligence group was created with the sole purpose ofbeing responsive to the Cuban exile group. Out side Cuba there was a small paramilitarygroup with the plan to enter Cuba when deemed necessary to organize, train, and leadThe Central Intelligence Agency decided they needed to capture the island to savethe United States of America from attacks by Communist nations. This plan was knownas The Bay of Pigs. In the internal CIA document, “The Inspector General’s Survey of theCuban Operation”, the Inspector General refers to the mission as “the Central IntelligenceAgency’s ill-fated attempt to implement national policy by overthrowing the Fidel Castroregime in Cuba by means of a covert paramilitary operation.”4The actual Bay of Pigs Invasion begins in the year 1959, and ends with the Cubanvictory on April 19, 1961. The Invasion became official on March 17, 1960, whenPresident Eisenhower authored a paper titled, “A Program of Covert Action AgencyAgainst the Castro Regime”. This authorized the Central Intelligence Agency toundertake the following (this paper affected many groups):”a. Formation of a Cuban exile organization to attract Cuban loyalties, to directopposition activities, and to provide cover for Agency operations.
b. A propaganda offensive in the name of the opposition.
c. Creation inside Cuba of a clandestine intelligence collection and action apparatus to beresponsive to the direction of the exile organization.
d. Development outside Cuba of a small paramilitary force to be introduced into Cuba toorganize, train, and lead resistance groups.”5Eisenhower also approved the budget for the operation, which totaled $4, 400,000. This included “Political action, $950,000; propaganda, $1,700,000;paramilitary, $1,500,000; intelligence collection, $250,000.”6The plan was to train Cuban exiles, which would serve as a cover for action bythe Central Intelligence Agency, which became known by the public. All CentralIntelligence Agency personnel that had any contact with the Cuban public would have aseparate identity as an American businessman. This would hide all United StatesGovernment involvement. In August 1959, the Chief of the Paramilitary Group attended a meeting to discuss the creation of a paramilitary group, to be used in Latin Americancrisis situations. He setup a small, proprietary airline for future use. At this time, Cubawas only one of may possible targets. During the Bay of Pigs Invasion, there were many problems with the actual plan,and this is what caused the failure. Frankly, I feel that this plan was very good, and don’tknow where the fatal mistake was if I hadn’t read about it, because it wasn’t very obvious.
The Inspector General suggested these conclusions on page 143 of the InspectorGeneral’s Survey of the Cuban Operation: “1.The Central Intelligence Agency, after starting to build up the resistance and guerrillaforces inside Cuba, drastically concerted the project into what rapidly became an overtmilitary operation. The Agency failed to recognize that when the project advancedbeyond the stage of plausible denial it was going beyond the area of Agencyresponsibility as well as Agency capability. “2.The Agency became so wrapped up in the military operation that it failed to appraisethe blurred of blurred realistically. Furthermore, it failed to keep the nationalpolicy-makers adequately and realistically informed of the conditions consideredessential for success, and it did not burred sufficiently for prompt policy decisions in a”3.As the project grew, the Agency reduced the exiled leaders to the status of puppets, hereby losing the advantages of their active participation.
“4.The Agency failed to build up and supply a resistance organization under ratherfavorable conditions. Air and boat operations showed up poorly.
“5. The Agency failed to collect adequate information on the strengths of the Castroregime and the extent of the opposition to it; and it failed to evaluate the available”6.The project was badly organized. Command lines and blurred controls wereineffective and useless. Senior Staffs if the Agency were not utilized; air support stayedindependent of the project; the role of the large forward blurred was not clear.
“7.The project was not staffed with top-quality people, and a number of people were not”8. The Agency entered the project without adequate blurred in the way of blurred,bases, training facilities, blurredblurred, Spanish-speakers, and similar essentialingredients of a successful operation. Blurred these been already in being, such timeIn the weeks before the actual invasion, the Western Hemisphere Division BranchFour hastened their pace in the preparations. On March 12th, 1961 the LCI “Barbara J”launched and recovered a sabotage team against the Texaco refinery in Santiago, Cuba.
Beginning on March 13th, and ending on March 15th, the project chiefs worked on arevised plan that they presented to the President on March 15th. Although the planning was going along smoothly, it was taking to long for the Cubanexiles to wait, and several went AWOL. “In late March the blacked out ostensibleowner of the Swan Island radio station, thanked all the sponsored of political programsand advised them that no more tapes would be required; purpose of this action was toclear the way for a unity program during the action phase of the operation.”8 Althoughthe mission was being prepared and almost ready, the Guatemala Camp was acceptingtrainees as late as the week of April 4th. Flights over Cuba were suspended on March 28th. The Government gave tworeasons for the suspension. “(a) That the aircraft were needed to move the strike forcefrom Guatemala to Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, for embarkation on the invasion ships; (b)that the Agency wished to avoid any incident, such as a plane being downed over Cuba,which might upset the course of events during the critical pre-invasion period.”9Three Cuban airfields were raided by eight B-26s on April 15th, and resulted indestroying about half of Castro’s air force, which was estimated by post-strikeAttacks were not the only aspect of the invasion that was increasing. Propagandaefforts were increased. Before D-Day, Radio Swan as well as other propaganda outletswere broadcasting eighteen hours a day on medium wave, and sixteen hours a day onshort wave. “Immediately after D-Day, these totals were increased to 55 hours and 26hours, receptively. Fourteen frequencies were used. By the time of the invasion a total of12,000,000 pounds of leaflets had been dropped on Cuba.” 10Late on April 16th, the eve of D-Day, the air strikes planned to destroy the rest ofCastro’s air force were called off. “The invasion fleet which had assembled off the south coast of Cuba on the night of 16April included two LCIs owned by the Agency, a U.S. Navy LSD carrying three LCUsand four LCVPs, all of them pre-loaded with supplies, and even charted commercialfreighters. All these craft participated in the assault phase, except for three freighterswhich were loaded with follow-up supplies for ground and air-forces. These vessels werearmed with 50-caliber machine guns. In addition, each LCI mounted two 75-mm.
“In addition to the personal weapons of the Cuban exile soldiers, the armament providedfor combat included sufficient numbers of Browning automatic rifles, machine guns,mortars, recoilless rifles, rocket launchers, and flame-throwers. There were also fiveM-41 tanks, 12 heavy trucks, an aviation fuel tank truck, a tractor crane, a bulldozer, twolarge water trailers, and numerous small trucks and tractors.” 11A total of 1,511 men fought in the invasion, all of them were on the invasionships, except for one airborne infantry company comprised of 177 men. The entirebrigade included five infantry companies, one heavy weapons company, onintelligence-reconnaissance company, and one tank platoon.
“These troops had been moved by air on three successive nights from the Guatemalatraining camp to the staging area in Nicaragua where they embarked in the ships whichhad been pre-loaded at New Orleans. The ships had moved on separate courses fromNicaragua, under unobtrusive Navy escort, to the rendezvous 40 miles offshore in orderto avoid the appearance of a convoy. From there they had moved in a column under coverof darkness to a point 5,000 yards to the landing area, where they met the Navy LSD.
These complicated movements were apparently accomplished in a secure manner andThree follow-up ships were scheduled to arrive in Cuba, one from Nicaragua was In conclusion, I think that the Inspector General Lymon Kirkpatrick was rightwhen he said that the Central Intelligence Agency should have done more research on theCubans’ weaknesses and strengths before invading, so that the Central IntelligenceAgency Western Hemisphere Division Branch Four could have possibly defeated theFidel Castro regime of the Republic of Cuba. I think the United States should have alsodone more to help relations with the United Soviet Socialist Republic, because they mayhave helped out, since the Republic of Cuba was an ally, rather than fight the UnitedThat was not the end of tense moments between Cuba and the United SovietSocialist Republic and the United States of America. For exactly two weeks beginning onOctober 15, the Cuban Missile Crisis existed. On October 15, a U-2 spy plane piloted byRichard Heyser revealed SS-4 nuclear missiles in Cuba all aimed at various points in theUnited States. The missile silos were disguised as trees, or at least the communists triedOn October 16, the next day, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was informed ofthis sighting during breakfast. He called a meeting of EX-COMM, his twelve mostimportant advisors. According to EX-COMM, Khruschev would retaliate no matter whataction they took. Still, Kennedy called a blockade to begin at 10 am Eastern DaylightPresident John F. Kennedy was able to talk Khruschev into disabling the missileson October 26th , but on October 27th, Khruschev demanded to renegotiate terms. OnOctober 28th, 1962, Khruschev had agreed to remove all missiles from the Republic ofCuba. If the invasion at the Bay of Pigs had not happened Castro would not of let theUSSR put the missiles in Cuba. Castro feared another invasion and that is why he didIn the next several years, the CIA still had a tense time with the USSR, and theRepublic of Cuba. In the internal memo” Views of a Cuban Official on the future ofCuban-United States Relations, it says that the United States would be able to intervenewithout any consequences if the Vietnam War escalated and all the other powersThe United States Policy was to isolate Cuba from the rest of the freeworld on December 12th, 1963. The United States’ plan was to replace the Castro regimeand replace it with an administration that would be fully compatible with the UnitedStates of America. “In the last analysis, however, there are only two courses which wouldeliminate the Castro regime at an early date: an invasion or a complete blockade. Both ofthese actions would result in a major crisis between the US and the USSR (in Cubaand/or Berlin) and would produce substantial strains in the fabric of US relations withother countries-allied as well as neutral. To a greater extent than in any of the coursesdiscussed above, OAS support would be important, if not critical, in reducing the risksand in increasing the practical and political effect of an invasion or a blockade.”13 Thisis described in Document 24, Cuba-A Status Report.
Despite the embarrassment and danger of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I personallythink that the United States Government should of stopped threatening Cuba and eitherdeclare war or shut-up. Instead, they almost caused a nuclear war by not backing up theirI personally think Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick said it best in TheInspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation when he wrote, “Furthermore, it isessential to keep in mind that the possibility of an invasion was doomed in advance, thatan initially successful landing by 1,500 men would eventually have been crushed byCastro’s combined military resources strengthened by Soviet Bloc-supplied military1. Kirkpatrick, Lyman. The Inspector General’s Survey of the CubanOperation(Document) Released under the Freedom of Information Act, February 21,1998 May-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident 147. Editorial Note Online Availablehttp://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_U2/frus_x1_147.htm2. Kirkpatrick, Lyman. The Inspector General’s Survey of the CubanOperation(Document) Released under the Freedom of Information Act, February 21,1998 May-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident 147. Editorial Note Online Availablehttp://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_U2/frus_x1_147.htm3. Soviet Charges of U.S. Violations of its airspace; March-June 1958 39.
Editorial Note Online Available http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_u2/frus_x1_030.htm”The CIA on the CIA: Scathing View of Invasion” The New York Times, New York,4. “The Exchange of Messages” The New York Times, New York, New York,Trumbull, Higgins, The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay ofPigs. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1987.
5. Various Internal Memos from the CIA/EDRC Search Online Availablehttp://www.foia.ucia.gov/frame3.htm 6. Kirkpatrick, Lyman. The Inspector General’s Survey of the CubanOperation(Document) Released under the Freedom of Information Act, February 21,1998 May-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident 147. Editorial Note Online Availablehttp://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_U2/frus_x1_147.htm7. Soviet Charges of U.S. Violations of its airspace; March-June 1958 39.
Editorial Note Online Available http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_u2/frus_x1_030.htm”The CIA on the CIA: Scathing View of Invasion” The New York Times, New York,http://www.accesspro.net/matchete/cuba/libre/bay.htmlhttp://www.noblesweb.org/cp4/LEGunn.htmlhttp://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/bay_of_pigs.htmlhttp://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/index.htmlhttp://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/causes.html13. Various Internal Memos from the CIA/EDRC Search Online Availablehttp://www.foia.ucia.gov/frame3.htm http://www.accesspro.net/matchete/cuba/libre/bay.htmlhttp://www.noblesweb.org/cp4/LEGunn.htmlhttp://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/bay_of_pigs.htmlhttp://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/causes.htmlCauses of the Cuban Missile Crisis Online Sound Availablehttp://hyperion.advanced.org/11046/briefing/causes_28.ram”The CIA on the CIA: Scathing View of Invasion” The New York Times, New York,Cuban Missile Crisis Online Availablehttp://hyperion.advanced.org/11046/briefing/index.html#beginsDickey, Christopher, Evan Thomas, Gregory L. Vistica, “Bay of Pigs Redux” Newsweek,New York, New York, March 23, 1998.
“The Exchange of Messages” The New York Times, New York, New York, April 19,1961 Trumbull, Higgins, The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIAat the Bay of Pigs. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1987.
Kirkpatrick, Lyman. The Inspector General’s Survey of the CubanOperation(Document) Released under the Freedom of Information Act, FebruaryMay-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident 147. Editorial Note Online Availablehttp://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_U2/frus_x1_147.htmhttp://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/index.htmlSoviet Charges of U.S. Violations of its airspace; March-June 1958 39. Editorial NoteOnline Available http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_u2/frus_x1_030.htmVarious Internal Memos from the CIA/EDRC Search Online Availablehttp://www.foia.ucia.gov/frame3.htm Bibliography:
