The Central Intelligence Agency and the Bay of Pigs Invasion :: Cuba, Fidel Castro

The story of the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs is one ofmismanagement, overconfidence, and lack of security. The blame for the loser of the operation falls directly in the lap of the CentralIntelligence Agency and a young president and his advisors. The fall outfrom the invasion caused a rise in tension between the two greatsuperpowers and ironically 34 years after the event, the person that theinvasion meant to topple, Fidel Castro, is still in power. To recognizethe origins of the invasion and its ramifications for the future it isfirst necessary to look at the invasion and its origins.Part I The Invasion and its Origins. The Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961, started a few eld before onApril 15th with the bombing of Cuba by what appeared to be defecting Cubanair force pilots. At 6 a.m. in the morning of that Saturday, three Cubanmilitary bases were bombed by B-26 bombers. The airfields at Camp Libertad,San Antonio de los Baos and Antonio Maceo airport at S antiago de Cuba werefired upon. Seven people were killed at Libertad and forty-seven peoplewere killed at another(prenominal) sites on the island. Two of the B-26s left Cuba and flew to Miami, apparently to defect tothe United States. The Cuban Revolutionary Council, the government in exile,in New York City released a statement saying that the bombings in Cuba were. . . carried out by Cubans inside Cuba who were in contact with thetop command of the Revolutionary Council . . . . The New York Timesreporter covering the story alluded to something universe wrong with the wholesituation when he wondered how the council knew the pilots were coming ifthe pilots had only decided to leave Cuba on Thursday after . . . asuspected betrayal by a fellow pilot had precipitated a plot to strike . . .. Whatever the case, the planes came down in Miami later that morning, onelanded at Key western hemisphere Naval Air Station at 700 a.m. and the other at MiamiInternational Airport at 820 a.m. Both planes were badly damaged and theirtanks were nearly empty. On the front page of The New York Times the nextday, a picture of one of the B-26s was shown along with a picture of one ofthe pilots engrossed in a baseball hat and hiding behind dark sunglasses, hisname was withheld.