Harry Sherman June 5, 2012 U.S.

History Bay of Pigs: An Inevitable Mistake On the 17th of April, 1961, a group of American-trained Cuban exiles landed on the shores of Cuba at Playa Girn with the intent to incite a rebellion and overthrow Fidel Castro and end his reign in Cuba. Having a communist state as close to the borders of the United States as Cuba was terrifying to the leaders of the United States, and so the force of Cuban exiles landed at a beachhead within Cuba, the name of which roughly translates to the Bay of Pigs, to overthrow Castro. The Cuban expatriates were swiftly and deftly defeated by Castros forces, and the debacle tarnished Kennedys reputation as a statesman. Retroactively, those from the United States involved in the invasion agreed that the invasion was a poor idea, so we are often left to wonder why John Kennedy gave the go-ahead order on this doomed and embarrassing venture. The answer lies in the zeitgeist of Cold War America, an understanding of the misinformation presented to the President, the internal diplomacy involved in the planning process of the invasion, and the deferential nature of civilians to the military personnel present. If these variables are understood, than it is clear why President Kennedy decided to launch an operation that was destined to become one of the largest American-sponsored military and diplomatic failures of all time. At the time of the invasion, the United States and the USSR were locked in struggle with each other, deep within the cold war. The USSR and the United States may have been allies in The Second World War, but that partnership had come to a close and the US was wary of the Soviets and of the rise of communism in the world. Furthermore, an escalating arms race was endangering both nations. The expansion of the United States nuclear program was mirrored in Russia. Many people in the United States, according to diplomat George Kennan, felt that the US only had the option of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies (History Channel). As a result, the United States monitored communism in Latin American very closely, and cautiously monitored any new developments, such as those in Cuba. As Richard M. Bissell Jr., then the co-Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, reported in his memoirs of the Cold War as experienced by the CIA, during the Eisenhower and

Kennedy years the Soviet Danger seemed real and all actions were aimed at thwarting it (Bissell 142). Here, Bissell makes an important distinction with his capitalization. The danger of Soviet expansion was an entity unto itself, a fear called expansion. The reality of this beast aside, the fear was very real for the United States. The influence of the Cold War on the legislators is best seen through Assistant Professor of Political Science at Memphis State University J. Pilipp Rosenbergs Cold War Axioms"1. As reported in Rosenbergs article, these axioms were close to the heart of American politicians. If the axioms hold true for decision makers during the Cold War, it becomes more apparent how the officials tasked with the creation of an invasion plan for Cuba could stand behind a plan as ill conceived as the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The population of the United States feared the rise of a communist state in the western hemisphere so greatly that the government of the United States faced pressures to mitigate these new enemies as quickly as possible, but didnt want to do so by threat of force. According to historian Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, the US was hesitant to fall into gunboat diplomacy; the government wanted to cripple [Cuba] through trade sanctions, but Castro was circumventing these measures by drawing closer to the Eastern bloc (Vadenbroucke 472). Cubas motion toward a stronger alliance with the Soviets put a timed countdown on the possibility of action for the United States. Every moment without action was another moment Cuba would draw closer to the Soviets, and possibly create a powerful Soviet forward base; all the while, Kennedy had been criticizing the Eisenhower administration for its lax stance on the rise of Communism in the western hemisphere. The senator had rebuked the Eisenhower administration for allowing a Communist menaceto arise only ninety miles from the shores of the United States (Gleijeses 42). Kennedys harsh words of criticism would later come to undermine Kennedy during the later months of the planning stages for the Bay of Pigs invasion; however, Kennedy was not at fault for the actual planning of the invasion. The plan for the Bay of Pigs invasion was not hatched during Kennedys presidencythe plans for the invasion were the leftovers of the Eisenhower administration. Kennedy made a couple modifications to make the operation less noisy, such as cancelling the heavy air support needed to cover the advancing forces (Bay of Pigs Declassified 2). Eisenhower approved the plan to invade Cuba; Eisenhower was more willing to use overt force and create a military spectacle in the western hemisphere. The fact that the Eisenhower administration had crafted the

majority of the plan for the Bay of Pigs invasion and that it had already gained momentum in the upper echelons of the CIA was one of the major reasons that Kennedy agreed to continue work on this doomed venture of the CIA. The option presented to Kennedy, according to Vandenbroucke, was to decide for or against an invasion project to which considerable resources had already been committed, and a powerful agency vigorously promoted (Vandenbroucke 473). As Vandenbroucke explains, the CIA had created the plan to overthrow Castro during the Eisenhower administration, during which time Eisenhower had very little hands-on time with the plan and left all but the most major decisions to the vision and sense of the CIA agents involved in conducting the aforementioned invasion, and urged Kennedy to act according to the CIA plan for action (Vandenbroucke 474, Gleijeses 13). The momentum that the plan had gained previous to Kennedys eyes ever laying sight to the briefings that would be presented to him proved to be a major factor in his decision to accept the plans for invasion. Additionally, President Kennedy received information preceding the invasion, that while not false, may have led him to accept the plans with a false expectation that certain actions taken by the CIA, notably their propaganda campaign, would have a greater efficacy than actually occurred in Cuba, and created a number of false expectations for the state of Cuba. One of first tasks undertaken by the CIA was to create a propaganda program in Cuba that would induce defections from the army and bolster support for the newly invading exiles. The plan proposed and then undertaken promised
Strategically: To maintain morals of anti-Castro fighting forces. To instruct pro-patriot forces, and tell them how to join the fight. To intimidate pro-Castro forces; to make them defect or become panic-stricken, confused, and uncertain. To present the desired picture of the internal fighting to world opinion. (Minimizing U.S. participation)" (Kornbluh Doc 1?)

The propaganda program did not have the desired effects, so the United States must have not fully grasped the importance of running a successful psychological warfare program in tandem with the more conventional methods of warfare employed; this, however, is not the case. David Atlee Phillips, a member of the CIA, reports, that [the two postmortem reports on propaganda]

give the idea that the propaganda effort was much smaller than it was (Kornbluh Doc 2?). Agents on the ground in Cuba actually reported a number of fallacies and gave the staff charged with planning the operation in Washington false intelligence. A representative example lies in the misinformation given to the group in Washington. As Bissell recounts in his memoir, Washington was told that Cubans were disillusioned with Castro, and an intelligence unit reported approximately 75 to 80 percent of the militia units will defect when it becomes evident that the real fight against Castro had begun (Bissell 180). Mass defection, nor significant defection on any scale occurred in the Cuban militia. Not only that, but as Bissell recalled in his memoir, Gorden Cray, another member of the CIA, when briefing Kennedy described the trainees as the best army in Latin America (Bissell 161). Crays briefing is a clear case of the soldiers being described as far more capable then they actually were. Even the information was not false was covered by a rose film. As stated in the CIAs postmortem report:
Interpretation of intelligence affecting the strike force aspect of the operation was thus entrusted to officers who were so deeply engaged in preparations for the invasion that their judgments could not have been expected to be altogether objective (Bay of Pigs Declassified 65).

The CIA was too invested in the operation and repeatedly distorted data when informing the President. This gross misrepresentation of information undoubtedly gave Kennedy false expectations for the results of the Cuban operation. Misrepresentations aside, Kennedy still ordered an increase of the propaganda and political action campaign, so it can be inferred that Kennedy expected to see a result from the increased and enlarged propaganda campaign (Gleijeses 20). It remains that Kennedy was informed of a sizeable propaganda effort that promised a particular result in Cuba, and was delivered faulty intelligence by agents on the ground. In addition to the supposed propaganda program which would deliver massive defections from the Cuban forces, the options other than invasion presented to Kennedy were quite simply unacceptable. The CIA issued Kennedy three options for a course of action. Kennedy was told he could either act immediately, act at later date, or disband the operation altogether, but only the first option was really acceptable to the Commander in Chief. The CIA told Kennedy, according to Vandenbroucke, that the first alternative would jeopardize the plan since Cuba could receive massive military aid from the Soviets, including jet fighters, and thus, one course of action was

eliminated for Kennedy. The President was only left with two options: invade or disband the brigade. However, the option of disbandment posed several inherent issues as well. As Vandenbroucke further details, the CIA had claimed that disbanding the brigade posed a disposal problemKennedy would appear weak, and the Communist world could be counted on to create trouble (Vandenbrouke 476). The stance of the CIA pressured Kennedy to act, Bissell even reported that A commitment to action was the only viable course, and time was running out (Bissell 163). Kennedy was urged to act by the CIA and had an exceedingly limited palate of options to choose from. The first two courses of action swiftly eliminated by the possible consequences that would follow, the only course of action that left Kennedy without the possibility of a well-armed Soviet state in close proximity to the United States and without numerous Cubans dissidents causing trouble for the United States was the option of invasion. The false information presented to the Head of State may have been an important factor in Kennedys decision making process and his eventual decision to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Also extremely likely is that Kennedy may have been swayed by the CIAs accomplishments in Operation PBSUCCESS. In 1954, the CIA ran Operation PBSUCCESS, which was the successful operation that overthrew President Arbenz in Guatemala. Many similarities lingered between Operation PBSUCCESS and Operation Zapata, the codename for the Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA intended to employ the same strategy and create a native resistance movement to overthrow the presiding government. Richard Bissell of the CIA masterminded both operations. The tactics had a trial run in Guatemala, and in the words of Vadenbroucke, supplied the familiar precedent. The CIA frequently cited the success in Guatemala; Kennedy was assured that he was taking the tried-and-true approach (Vandenbroucke 474). The CIAs success in Guatemala proved to be a hamartia of sorts, as it only added the momentum the plan had gained by the time it reached Kennedy. The agents and statesmen became too involved in the planning process. As Bissell recalls, the planning became so absorbing that I managed to ignore or suppress relevant facts, although I sincerely believed that, even with the plans faultsthe brigade would still win (Bissell 173). The overinvestment of time and energy exhibited by Bissell was compounded by the unfortunate, but somewhat predictable hubris of those planning the invasion due to the CIAs past successes and the view of the United States as the protector of democracy and freedom in the western hemisphere. Retroactively, Jacob Jack Esterline, the CIA Station Chief of Caracas

who was appropriated from his regular duties to advise and guide the Cuba program, stated that the victory in Guatemala was a fluke and It reinforced the feeling that anything the US did would succeed (Gleijeses 41). The chance success of the Guatemala operation led to the implementation of a plan that should have been deemed infeasible as soon as it was presented. Due to the internal politics of the CIA and the upper echelons of governmental bureaucracy no one acted and called out the improbability of the plan to invade Cuba with an elite exile force. One must wonder why no one spoke up and rebuked the highly unrealistic plan that was Operation Zapata. The answer lies in the internal politics of the CIA. Thomas Mann, the Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs at the time of the invasion, who agreed with the proposal for the plan solely on the basis of a desire to conform so as to not stick out to the other members of the committee, particularly the president and pigeonhole himself as a naysayer. Mann reported that, as everybody expressed support, I did the same. I did thisbecause I did not wish to leave the impression that I would not support whatever the president decided to do; Mann failed to voice his concerns and oppositions to the proposed program because he did not want Kennedy to feel as if there were opponents within Kennedys own administration (Gleijeses 32). Mann endorsed a risky military operation because of a desire to create an image as a supporter and trusty aide of President Kennedy. ). Operation Zapata had been promoted internally to the point of no return, and the civilians present in the meeting only lent themselves to the problem of an agency free of proper checks inside the pentagon. According to Bissell, the Joint Chiefs didnt comment on the plan very harshly to the president (Bissell 198). The Joint Chiefs were not running the operation, nor did they want to step on the Agencys toes, and so they tread lightly and spoke softly, which in the end, only contributed to the failure of the invasion. The Joint Chiefs hesitance to comment is understandable; the Joint Chiefs were civilians meddling in military affairs. However, the Joint Chiefs shot Kennedy in the foot by not critiquing the plans harshly when Kennedy demanded a careful evaluation of the operation conducted by the Joint Chiefs (Gleijeses 20). Any further action taken by Kennedy would be with the assumption that his advisors had considered the plans, thoroughly critiqued, voiced their concerns, and dealt with any residual issues with the plan that would be a source of failure. In fact, neither the failure of the operation nor the decision to go ahead with the invasion can be blamed entirely on Kennedy; the President was pressured into a decision.

The CIA imposed the decision on President Kennedy, and the alternate options were suitably unfavorable that the invasion would be the only feasible option. As Vandenbroucke argues in his paper, Bureaucracies have their own goals, in particular; the promotion of their institutional interests. Given a forum to further the goals of their organization, Vandenbroucke explains, the CIA originated the plan and pressed it on the president (Vadenbroucke 474). Not only did the CIA insist that Kennedy make a decision, but the CIA was too emotionally attached to the operation. As Bissell stated, Those of us in the CIA who were advocating the operation[were] deeply committed to it emotionally, but how can the Agency be expected to make objective decisions if they are emotionally attached to the Presidents choice of the CIAs favored operation (Gleijeses 38). Kennedy was face to face with arguably one of the top intelligence agencies in the world whonot arguablytold Kennedy repeatedly that time was of limited supply, and that Kennedy had to make the decision to invade as quickly as possible. Kennedy was forced to either acquiesce to or argue against a government agency whose job it was to brief and guide the president on the path that would be most beneficial to the United States and its allies. However, the agency was acting in the in the interests of the organization, and not of the president: as an agency, the CIA wanted to go through with the invasion even though the Agency believed, as reported in the postmortem report that success had become dubious. Indeed, the CIA recalled that the strike preparations, under the powerful influence of the projects paramilitary chief to which there was no effective counter balance, had gained such momentum that the operation had surged far ahead of policy (Bay of Pigs 53-4). Operation Zapata had been promoted internally to the point of no return, and the civilians present in the meeting only lent themselves to the problem of an agency free of proper checks inside the pentagon. That is not to say that Kennedy is entirely exempt from responsibility for the Bay of Pigs debacle. In fact, Kennedys own campaign rhetoric backed Kennedy against the edge of cliff from which there was no return. During the Presidential Elections of 1960, Kennedy publicly took a stance that criticized the Eisenhower administration for their relaxed stance on Cuba. As Rebecca Friedman states in her article in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Kennedy charged that Eisenhower had neglected the plight of the Cuban people, failing to entice Castro into the American sphere and thereby transforming Cuba into a hostile militant Communist satellite (Friedman). Friedman describes Kennedys actions in strong terms, which is fitting due to their strong contribution to the failure

of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Piero Gleijeses reports, Given [Kennedys] campaign rhetoric, it would have been politically costly for Kennedy to have aborted the operation (Gleijeses 2). Gliejeses continues, stating that Kennedys actions during the campaign limited his options by raising the political cost of scuttling the operation once he was in office (Gliejeses 25). In addition to Kennedys inability to back down from the operation due to Kennedys campaign promises, Kennedy felt that it would be politically beneficial to take action in the LatinAmerican hemisphere. As Gliejeses discussed, Kennedy wanted to demonstrate in concrete ways to the Latin Americans that Kennedys administration stands squarely for reform and progress in the Americas (Gliejeses 22). Kennedy found himself backed into a corner by his own rhetoric, but the failure was a culmination of a series of problems converging from almost every angle into the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Annex 1. Cold War Axioms

a. "Every nation that falls to communism increases the power of the Communist bloc in its struggle with the Free World. Peace is indivisiblethus any expansion of Communist influence must be resisted. Concessions made under pressure constitute appeasement which only whets the appetite of aggressors. The preeminent feature of international politics is conflict between Communism and the Free World. Russian intentions toward Western Europe are essentially expansionist. So, too, are the Chinese intentions in Asia. The main sources of unrest, disorder, subversion, and civil war in underdeveloped areas is [sic] Communist influence and support. Communism is monolithic. The Third World really matters, because it is the battleground between Communism and the Free World. The United States has an obligation to aid any Free People resisting Communism at home or abroad. The surest simple guide to U.S. interests in foreign policy is opposition to Communism. Military strength is the primary route to national security." (Philipp Rosenberg 735)

Works Cited Bissell Jr., Richard M. Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Print. "Document 1: Propaganda Action Plan in Support of Military Forces, Undated." George Washington University. Ed. Peter Kornbluh. George Washington University, 3 May 2000. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. "Document 8: Mr. Phillips [Interview of David Atlee Phillips][Excerpt], Undated." George Washington University. Ed. Peter Kornbluh. George Washington University, 3 May 2000. Web. 13 Friedman, Rebecca R. "Crisis Management at the Dead Center: The 1960-1961 Presidential Transition and the Bay of Pigs Fiasco." Presidential Studies Quarterly 41.2 (2011): 30733. Print. Gleijeses, Piero. "Ships in the Night: The CIA, the White House and the Bay of Pigs." Journal of Latin American Studies 27.1 (1995): 1-42. JSTOR. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. History Channel. "Cold War." History.com. History Channel, 1996. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. Kornbluh, Peter, ed. Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret Report on the Invasion of Cuba (National Security Archive Documents). New York: New, 1998. Print. Philipp Rosenberg, J. "Presidential Beliefs and Foreign Policy Decision-Making: Continuity During the Cold War Era." Political Psychology 7.4 (1986): 733-51. JSTOR. Web. 9 Apr. 2012. "The ULTRASENSATIVE Bay of Pigs: Newly Released Portions of Taylor Commission Report Provide Critical New Details on Operation Zapata." Gwu.edu. Ed. Peter Kornbluh. George Washington University, 3 May 2000. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. Vandenbroucke, Lucien S. "Anatomy of a Failure: The Decision to Land at the Bay of Pigs." Political Science Quarterly 99.3 (1984): 471-91. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2012.

Anatomy of a Failure Bay of Pigs Declassified Reflections of a Cold Warrior

Ships in the Night History Channel 2 Kornbluh Primary sources J. Philipp Rosenberg