1961

News in Review

Why would the U.S. undertake such a daring and ultimately embarrassing operation such as the Bay of Pigs?  This is the little known story behind the widely known invasion.  Everyone knows that the mission by Cuban Exiles failed, but here's a little bit more to chew on.

When Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro overthrew the US-backed Batista dictatorship in 1959, he closed down the casinos and brothels and nationalized all businesses. This deprived the Mafia and other US multinationals of a very profitable cash cow.

Vice President Nixon, who had longstanding ties with the Mob (through his best friend Bebe Rebozo), began plotting with the CIA to eliminate Castro. They did this largely behind Eisenhower's back, fully expecting that Nixon would be the next president. When JFK was elected instead, he inherited an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs about which he had serious misgivings.

While JFK was eager to get rid of Castro, he didn't want to use US forces to do it, just Cuban exiles. The CIA hoped they could provoke an incident that would force JFK to use the US military. When he held his ground and refused, the whole invasion failed.

It probably wouldn't have succeeded anyway. Security for the operation was poor along with the training that was given to the 1500 man invasion force. A planned phony attack on the US base at Guantanamo never happened, nor did the agency's assassination of Castro.

The CIA had hired the Mafia to kill Castro (something they both wanted).  The assassination was to occur at the same time as the invasion. Ironically, because of an unorganized CIA, the Mob's hit man was almost assassinated himself. He was one of eight JFK-backed exile leaders chosen to head a post-Castro government, but Nixon had them detained during the invasion. If the invasion had succeeded, all eight would have been killed, so that Nixon-backed Cubans could take over.

To shift blame from themselves, and to embarrass JFK into more militant actions, the CIA mounted a propaganda campaign that attributed the whole Bay of Pigs failure to JFK's decision to cancel a crucial air strike. In fact, the decision had been made behind JFK's back, but he took full responsibility for it.

(Shortened and re-written excerpt from "The CIA's Greatest Hits")

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