The Bay Of Pigs Invasion Of Cuba

On April 17, 1961, 1400 CIA-backed Cuban exiles launched a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. This invasion was called The Bay of Pigs Invasion. This invasion "Was intended to provoke popularity for an uprising against Fidel Castro, who had overthrown American-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista" (Web).The goal of the unfortunately failed invasion was the overthrow of Castro and the establishment of a non-communist government friendly to the United States. Before John F. Kennedy took office, he was informed of this plan by the CIA. Developed during the Eisenhower administration, the plan was to train Cuban exiles for an invasion of their

In January of 1959, communist Fidel Castro became prime minister. Some people opposed Castro and in 1961, with the help of the United States, they attempted to overthrow him. This invasion was known as the Bay of Pigs, which was poorly planned and failed, which led to Castro staying in power. A year later, the Soviets started to secretly ship nuclear weapons and supplies to Cuba. The United States spy’s started to notice nuclear missile sites being built rapidly in Cuba and soon after announced a quarantine of all trade carrying weapons entering Cuban territory.

Before John F. Kennedy moved into the White House, President Eisenhower approved the CIA’s plan to overthrow Castro. John F. Kennedy was informed on the plan during his campaign, but recently after he was briefed on the new information, the CIA abandoned the plan. Even though Eisenhower approved of the 13 million plan, John F. Kennedy was unaware of the restrictions and requirements Eisenhower agreed on. Once elected, Kennedy was briefed in the details and plan for the invasion, already feeling the stress and pressure. If the plan for the invasion did not change so much without Kennedy’s knowledge, the process of the invasion may have been successful. Kennedy’s lack of experience with invasions made the plan get on a bad start. With his suggestion

From there, the initial training for the invasion began. The CIA set up training camps in Guatemala, and within a couple of months, the operation had trained a small army for an assault landing and guerilla warfare. José Miró Cardona led the anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the United States. Cardona was a former member of Castro's government. After leaving Castro’s

The CIA initiated the training process by setting up training camps in Guatemala and trained "counter-revolutionary Cubans serving as the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, known as Brigade 2506" (The Bay of Pigs Invasion and its Aftermath). Soon, by November the United States had prepared a small army to perform assault landing and guerilla warfare. If the invasion turned out to be a success a former member of Castro's government, José Miró Cardona, was going to take the presidential position of Cuba. However, the plan was already in trouble by October of 1960 when Castro found out about the guerilla training camps that were based in Guatemala. Once John F. Kennedy became president, one of his first decisions in office was authorizing the plan in February of 1961. Although Castro was aware of the United States' intentions, President Kennedy still put in effort to keep the U.S. support disguised. One of the ways he attempted to do this was by assigning The Bay of Pigs as the landing point. "The site was a remote swampy area on the southern coast of Cuba, where a night landing might bring a force ashore against little resistance and help to hide any United States involvement" (The Bay of Pigs). The down side to this was that the Bay of Pigs was 80 miles from refuge in Cuba's Escambray Mountains, giving us an excessive distance which would be a problem if we were faced with an

The primary initiative involved a 1961 CIA backed attempted large scale operation titled the Bay of Pigs invasion, that involved an the landing of 1,400 Cuban Guerilla exiles which subsequently failed. The CIA then oped for a more covert, assassination route and contacted their sources within the Mafia. The plan was to have Fidel Castro ingest a poison capsule through the help of old Mafia contacts in Cuba who opposed Fidel. Their man for the job was the prominent Chicago and Vegas Mob Boss Handsome Johnny Roselli; however, after failed attempts in both late 1961 and 1962 the program was shut down and the Mafia assets were put on notice. (Gangsterismo: The United States, Cuba, and the Mafia: 1933 to 1966, Chapter 2, Location 4871). The reasoning behind this is because the CIA began to fear that Roselli and other associates were gathering information to expose the American Government for working with criminals, using that as future information blackmail.

Over 1400 exiles from Cuba trained in the US were sent back home to the country’s coast of Bahia de Cochinos (the Bay of Pigs), to overthrow Fidel Castro, from office. Additionally, over 1400 military personnel had assembled in Guatemala to strategize before setting out for the invasion in 13th April (JFK n.p).According to (Central Intelligence Agency) Once the troops arrived at the destination they received training in weapons, infantry tactics, land navigation, assault tactics, and Para trooping. They were instructed by Army Special Forces, Air Force, Air National Guard, and the CIA. Thirty nine of the recruits were pilots who had flown in Cuba’s military or as commercial pilots. The pilots were trained at an air training base in Guatemala. Initially, the plan was to use Cuban exiles during Castro’s revolution to hit back at him (Central Intelligence Agency).

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 planning for the Bay of Pigs began under President Eisenhower’s administration. President Eisenhower approved the CIA’s Bay of Pigs plan to oust Fidel Castro and overthrow Cuba’s communist government on March 17, 1960. The planning and preparation continued throughout the rest of the year. On January 20, 1961, John F Kennedy became the President of the United States. He had learned of the Bay of Pigs plan months earlier, and now as President, after consulting with his advisors, also approved the CIA planned Bay of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs invasion into Cuba can be seen as one of the most important political decisions in the history of the United States. Four months after John F. Kennedy took office as the thirty fifth President of the United States, he was blamed for the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs. The failure was due to the lack of bad advice he received and then used to put into making his decision to invade. The decisions he made showed that the United States President and his Joint Chiefs were far from perfect. Bay of Pigs was a secretly organized coup in Cuba that resulted in many consequences that Kennedy would be forced to face. Politically, Kennedy decided to pursue the foreign policy decision to invade in order to stop the spread of

On January 1, 1959, a Cuban nationalist, Fidel Castro took his army into Havana and overthrew General Fulgencio Batista, the country’s American-backed president. For the next two years, the CIA attempted to take Castro down from his reign of power. Finally, in 1961, the CIA launched what they thought would be the strike, an invasion of Cuba by about 1,400 American trained Cubans who had left their homes when Castro took over. But, the invasion did not go well. The attackers were very outnumbered by Castro’s troops, and they surrendered.

The United States planned the Bay of Pigs invasion which was an attempt to overthrow Castro. The plan was to arm Cuban exiles living in Florida and once they had made an appearance in Cuba, unhappy Cubans would want to join them and help take down Castro. The Bay of Pigs was a failure, because Castro’s forces had stopped the plan. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13 day confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet Union. Castro has a target on his back after the Bay of Pigs

Figure 1The above image is a primary source image of Fidel Castro (right) an infamous Cuban dictator, and Che Guevara who played a number of key roles within the Cuban government. This photo was taken in 1961, during which the Bay of Pigs Invasion took place. The photo was taken by Alberto Korda, a Cuban photographer. This photo allows us to peer into the past and see Castro presumably leading Cuban troops. There is a large possibility of bias when considering that the photographer that took this image, Alberto Korda, was not only Cuban but also a personal photographer and close friend of Castro.

Among the multiple steps taken by the CIA to remove Castro, a squad of approximately 1,400 Cuban exiles were hired to create a large-scale invasion on the island, with the help of its own air force. The assumed result of such actions would trigger mass rising to overthrow Castro's regime. Despite this, Eisenhower, who had been Supreme Allied Commander at D-Day, recognised the risks it posed.

“Victory has a thousand fathers while defeat is an orphan,” remarked John F. Kennedy. The Bay of Pigs invasion code named operation Zapata began in March of 1960 one month and a year before the famed invasion took place. United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to begin a covert operation to bring down the pro-communist Cuban government. Nonetheless Fidel Castro’s potential pro-communist beliefs, the seizure of American owned companies and land lead to extreme concern from United States policy makers and officials. The mission, however would become possibly one of the greatest intelligence failures in the history of the United States. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion lead to a new era in the military and intelligence fields that continues to affect foreign policy