The Bay of Pigs Invasion - Research Paper Example

Bay of Pigs (Think Quest) The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful attempt made by CIA to capture some parts of Cuba with the help of Cuban exiles. This incident was happened on April 17, 1961, immediately after the election victory of John F Kennedy in American presidential election. This invasion had the blessings and support from American government. Fidel Castro was one of the most prominent enemies of America during that period. Castro challenged America’s domination in many ways and overcame many of the assassination attempts made by CIA staff. In fact Castro caused more headaches to America than Soviet Union. Since Cuba was under communist regime, it was indigestible for America to accept the challenges raised by Fidel Castro. Moreover, America was afraid of a possible expansion of communism from Cuban territories to American soil. So they decided to try and expel communism from Cuba’s soil before it enters American soil. “Out of the 197 invaders were captured 200 of them had been soldiers in Batista's army and 14 of those were wanted for murder in Cuba. Four American pilots and over 100 Cuban invaders were killed in battle” (INVASION at Bay of Pigs). Cuban armed force took only three days to defeat the attempt made by CIA and Cuban exiles. There are many reasons cited for the immediate defeat of CIA trained Cuban exiles in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. This paper analyses how well prepared/trained were the CIA trained Cuban exiles who partook in the Bay of Pigs invasion and how did they subsequently fair against Castro's forces? Five months before the Bay of Pigs invasion, the CIA task force plotting to overthrow Fidel Castro concluded that the invasion was ‘‘unachievable’’ as a covert paramilitary operation, according to a newly discovered unclassified document. But the document, a 300-page internal CIA history, reveals for the first time that the architects themselves foresaw failure during a Nov. 15, 1960, meeting to prepare a briefing for President-elect John F. Kennedy and that they recorded it in a memo (Rosenberg). The above facts clearly show that the Bay of Pigs invasion effort was lost even before it starts. However, still nobody knows why CIA forced Kennedy to continue with this attack even though they were unsure about the possible outcomes. There are many people who believe that the preparations for this invasion were not carefully planned. It was evident before the beginning of the invasion itself that Guerilla wars may not help to expel Castro from power since he was the master of such wars. Vietnam War taught America that Guerilla wars can block even huge military powers from enjoying success in military conflicts. So they thought the lessons learned from Vietnam could be used successfully in Cuba. However, CIA failed to realize that Vietnam Guerillas were far more superior and organized than the Cuban exiles or guerillas. “It was during the administration of Eisenhower that the United States Government had, in 1954, for the first time, defined and approved the concept of "Covert Operations"” (Prouty). The Cuban mission was the brain child of this concept. As part of this policy, American administration had given full authority to CIA to organize and conduct secret missions against the enemies of America. Cuba was one among the topmost enemies of United States during that time. Moreover, the proximity of communist Cuba around democratic United Sates was indigestible to many of the American politicians. So, irrespective of Democrats or Republicans, American politicians supported any agitations against Cuba and they made use of CIA for conducting America’s missions in Cuba. The preparations for the Bay of Pigs Invasion have started by CIA well before the election victory of Kennedy in 1961. “President Eisenhower approved the program in March 1960. The CIA set up training camps in Guatemala, and by November the operation had trained a small army for an assault landing and guerilla warfare” (The Bay of Pigs). Even though, CIA tried to keep this plot as a top secret, Cuban intelligence was smarter than that of CIA and Castro came to know about this plot through reliable sources as early as October 1960. Kennedy publicly admitted even five days before the invasion that America had no intensions to interfere in Cuba. “The Cubans had presented evidence to the United Nations as early as October that the United States was hiring and training mercenaries. American involvement was not likely to remain much of a secret” (Bay of Pigs Invasion). Moreover, majority of the Cuban exiles who had nothing to do with this plot were also aware of this plot. None of the US presidents, either Eisenhower or Kennedy, were ready to conduct this plot openly. They tried to keep the involvement of US in this plot as a secret because of the fear of political problems. It should be noted that Soviet Union was as powerful as United States in 1960’s and Cuba was one of the closest allies of Soviet Union. Both Soviet Union and Cuba had communist regimes which strengthened their mutual cooperation further. So, America was never interested in declaring an open encounter with Cuba. They encouraged shadow wars to expel Castro from power. The landing area was selected as the Bay of Pigs because of its strategic importance for conducting a mission against the Cuban administration. “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 U.S. involvement” (The Bay of Pigs). Many people are of the view that CIA has had committed a serious mistake while selecting the landing area which led to the failure of their mission at Bay of Pigs. The landing area was extremely remote form the refugee camps in Cuba. The invaders expected a huge support from the Cuban exiles or refugees for this mission. However, they failed to gather any support from them because of the huge distance between Bay of Pigs and the refugee camps at Cuba's Escambray Mountains. The original invasion plan called for two air strikes against Cuban air bases. A 1,400-man invasion force would disembark under cover of darkness and launch a surprise attack. Paratroopers dropped in advance of the invasion would disrupt transportation and repel Cuban forces. Simultaneously, a smaller force would land on the east coast of Cuba to create confusion (The Bay of Pigs). Before the execution of the actual plan, CIA and Cuban exiles thought that this agitation may get enough support from the ordinary Cuban public. They thought that no communist governments in the world can enjoy majorities’ support and therefore any attempt liberate people from communist administrations would be welcomed by the public. However the patriotic Cuban public extended their huge support to Castro for defeating this invasion effort by a foreign force. CIA was surprised to see the huge public support enjoyed by Castro. It should be noted that the recent Libyan revolution was successful because of the huge public support it gathered from ordinary people. But the case of Cuba was entirely different from that of Libya. Gadhafi was a villain for Libyans whereas Castro is a hero still for the Cubans. More than 90% of the Cuban people support Castro and his administration in the 1960s and CIA failed to consider these statistics. CIA thought that they can easily defeat the Cuban armed forces with the help of Cuban exiles and establish a provisional government with the help of The United Revolutionary Front. However, the reluctance of ordinary people in extending their support to these invasion efforts forced CIA led mission to suffer huge defeat. CIA experimented lot of tricks and tactics for the success of this mission. They painted their war planes just like the Cuban war planes in order to mislead the Cuban forces and the international community that America has nothing to do with this invasion efforts of the Cuban exiles. However, “an actual defector named Mario Zuniga was presented to the press along with his airplane, but so many important details were missing and the press had uncovered so much of the truth, that the cover-up effort had little success” (Bay of Pigs Invasion). In short, America’s attempt to mislead international community about their involvement in this invasion suffered huge setbacks during the initial stages itself of this invasion. Even though eight bombers took part in this mission, it ended up in failure because of the off target attacks and subsequent escape of Cuban air forces. CIA’s calculations of destroying Cuba’s air force with unexpected air strikes went wrong and Cuban planes which escaped from the air strikes of the invaders have attacked the invaders severely from air and caused many casualties to them. Moreover, American involvement in the attack was immediately known to the external world which forced Kennedy to deny more support to this mission. CIA was aware of the fact that Cuban military was not much organised in the 1960s. So they expected an easy walkover their enemies. However, Castro himself appeared in the war front and led his troops from the front. CIA never thought that Castro may appear as the military leader in this encounter. In fact, Castro’s appearance as the military leader had motivated the Cuban forces and general public further to intensify their strikes against the invaders. Invaders also faced lot of problems with respect to the unexpected climatic conditions and the subsequent inefficiencies of their weapons and ammunition. Moreover, Castro used the services of around 20000 Cuban troops to defeat this invasion attempt. Since CIA’s air strikes were ineffective, Cuban troops faced little problems in defeating the invaders. At 7 a.m. on 18th April, Richard Bissell (CIA Director) told John F. Kennedy that the invasion force was trapped on the beaches and encircled by Castro’s forces. Bissell asked Kennedy to send in American forces to save the men. After the air raids Cuba was left with only eight planes and seven pilots. Kennedy replied that he still wanted “minimum visibility”. Within seventy-two hours all the invading troops had been killed, wounded or had surrendered. Kennedy admitted it was his fault that the operation had been a disaster (Bay of Pigs). Kennedy is blamed widely for the unsuccessful invasion of Bay of Pigs. Had Kennedy agreed to send more support to Cuban exiles, the results of Bay of Pigs invasion would have been different. Even though Kennedy accepted the responsibilities of this defeat, he explained this defeat in a philosophical manner. His remarks after this unsuccessful attempt were famous. In his opinion, victories may have hundreds of fathers whereas defeats are normally orphans. In fact this defeat and the subsequent developments in America’s relations with Cuba caused tremendous damage to the charismatic face of Kennedy, even though this invasion was not the brain child of Kennedy. In order to release the American soldiers captured alive by the Cuba force, America forced to pay around $53 million worth of baby food and medicine. In other words, America lost not only fame or image but also a substantial amount of its wealth because of this invasion attempt. To conclude, Bay of Pigs invasion attempts caused more harm to America than good. In fact, it helped Castro to increase his public support whereas Kennedy suffered huge setbacks as a result of it. America has lost its face in the world as the saviour of democracy and human rights as a result of this attempt. CIA failed to anticipate the public support enjoyed by Castro in 1960’s. They miscalculated that majority of the Cuban public would support and take part in their attempt to expel communism from Cuban soil. CIA’s air strikes were failed to taste success and Cuba succeeded in keeping its air force intact. Moreover, Castro’s personal appearance in the war front as the military leader motivated the people and the soldiers equally well and they succeeded in defeating CIA led invasion efforts within three days from the start of the agitation. The impacts caused by these invasions efforts caused huge a black mark on America’s face which may not be disappeared at least in the near future. Works Cited Rosenberg, Carol. 2011. “Bay Of Pigs Us Invades Cuba Failure On Many Levels”. Havana Journal of Politics. Web. 31 October 2011. “Bay of Pigs Invasion”. Web. 31 October 2011. “Bay of Pigs”. Web. 31 October 2011. “Invasion at Bay of Pigs”. 2007. Web. 31 October 2011. Prouty L. Fletcher. “The Bay Of Pigs”. Web. 31 October 2011. “The Bay of Pigs”. Web. 31 October 2011. Think Quest. “The Bay of Pigs”. Web. 31 October 2011. Read More