The Perfect Failure: Bay of Pigs Operation - Essay Example

The Perfect Failure As an example of governmental failure, the Bay of Pigs Operation stands out as almost perfect. The planning was flawed from top to bottom and the implementation seriously incompetent. It was a failed policy, a failed operation, and had unrealistic expectations as its motives. In April 1961 the CIA and Cuban exiles attacked Cuba in a failed invasion in an effort to unseat Marxist dictator Fidel Castro. It would later be recognized as an operation that had gone out of control and open to several mistakes and miscalculations. After less than 3 days of fighting, the invasion was crushed leaving 100 exiles dead and 1200 invaders taken prisoner.1 The Kennedy administration was left deeply and publicly embarrassed by a plan that was ill advised, a force that was under-equipped, and officials that were incompetent to take on such a venture. The plans for the invasion were begun under President Eisenhower and continued under President Kennedy. It was hoped that exiled Cubans could form a government outside Cuba to replace Castro after a successful invasion. This is where some of the initial failings took place. The exiled Cubans were incapable of establishing a government and had no clear leadership. Ike was animate about the formation of the government and insisted that the plan could not go forward without a leadership in place.2 Yet, according to Richard Bissell who was directing the CIA operation, there never was any cooperation among the Cubans who Bissell called "hot tempered and hardheaded" and incapable of forming a government.3 By the time of the invasion there was not sufficient political unity to manage and direct the overthrow of Castro.4 One of the key ingredients for a successful invasion was to be the element of surprise. However, training a force of 1500 exiled Cubans in Guatemala was difficult to keep secret. The New York Times had run a story detailing the planned operation in October 1960, six months before the invasion.5 Though the CIA assumed that Castro was unaware of the plan, when April 1961 rolled around and the invasion was taking place, Castro was well prepared to respond and was expecting the military action.6 Castro had also thwarted CIA plans to infiltrate Cuba by detaining and arresting large numbers of his opposition.7 The original CIA plan called for small groups of exiles to infiltrate Cuba and set up pockets of resistance. However, by November of 1960, the exiles were having difficulty establishing any kind of underground network inside of Cuba. It was at this time that the CIA changed plans from an infiltration campaign of internal revolt to a large-scale invasion.8 This continual changing of plans and goals also diminished any hope of success for the operation. Shortly after the election of 1960, Kennedy was briefed on the CIA plans for the invasion. At that time, the plan was to use 600 to 750 exiles and invade Cuba at Trinidad.9 They would be aided by CIA flown air strikes flown out of Nicaragua in conjunction with a massive propaganda campaign. It was hoped that this would trigger internal resistance and defections from Castro's military and result in his overthrow. The key to the mission was dependent on the Cuban people actively supporting the uprising. In February 1961, the Joint Chiefs of Staff raised some doubts about the operation. In a report to Kennedy, they indicated that the success would be totally dependent on the uprising within Cuba and there were "...no margins for miscalculation".10 However, the invasion sight was abruptly changed from Trinidad to the Bay of Pigs, and was planned to take place at night, which presented a special logistic challenge. The Bay of Pigs was surrounded by eighty miles of barren swamp, which no one had taken into account.11 According to Bissell, Lewis, and Pudlo, "The concept that had been appropriate for a Trinidad landing was retained even though it was inapplicable to a Bay of Pigs landing".12 The CIA's inspector general would later conclude that it was unrealistic to expect the operation to "[...] prevail over a revolutionary army of some 32,000 men and a militia of some 200,000 men armed with communist bloc heavy weapons".13 Changing the tactics of the operation from a guerrilla uprising to an armed invasion heightened the need for air support, yet this aspect of the assault had been summarily discounted. Richard Bissell, CIA operative in charge of planning, recalls, "Beginning in late November 1960, I made at least two requests for air force assistance that went unanswered".14 By the middle of January the US Air Force was completely pulled off the project. Though the internal uprising had failed to develop and the landing sight was changed at the last minute to a difficult area, none of Kennedy's senior advisors raised any real objections. During a secret meeting on April 4, 1961 Kennedy's top military and Latin American advisors reviewed the plan and approved it. Though some had private misgivings, no one voiced any more that the slightest objections. Richard Helms, deputy director to Bissell, "[...] was not in favor of the operation, although he never expressed his opinion formally".15 Irving Janus labeled this mentality as an example of groupthink, a flawed decision making process. According to Janus, groupthink "[...] prevented the decision-makers from carefully analyzing and evaluating the CIA's invasion plan".16 Janus characterized the high level meeting as having the illusion of unanimity, suppressing personal doubts, and a passive attitude on the part of Kennedy. No one asked the difficult probing questions and everyone assumed all the others were in favor of the plan. Senior officials would later reflect that the fact that they did not offer any negative views on the landing was the "most single identifiable error that we can be accused of".17 With this air of misplaced confidence in the practicality of the CIA's plan, the stage was set to begin the military operations. These would be no less flawed than the months of planning had been. On April 14, 1961 Kennedy approved air strikes on three Cuban airfields to be carried out on April 15.18 Six B-26 bombers with Cuban markings were to make the initial raid. The flights flown out of Nicaragua returned after the raid and gave an over optimistic assessment of the damage inflicted. In fact, most of Castro's Air Force has escaped any damage and suffered minimal harm. Kennedy then postponed any subsequent air strikes until the invasion could secure a beachhead at the Bay of Pigs. On April 17, 1961 when the invasion began, Castro's intelligence network had already alerted him as to what was happening. He had successfully quelled any chance of an internal uprising and was holding over 200,000 members of his opposition in makeshift jails.19 Meanwhile, the invasion force was running into a myriad of unplanned complications. The coral reefs were tearing and sinking the landing craft. Castro, with ample warning, had met the invasion force with bright lights and a force of tanks. The Cuban's were able to sink the supply ship carrying the ammunition. On April 18, 1961 Kennedy authorized a second air strike inside Cuba. This was meant to protect the brigade while they evacuated the beach area. There were to be six fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Essex to support the B-26 bombers flying out of Nicaragua. Once again the incompetent planning and operational errors would result in failure. A miscalculation about time zone differences had the bombers arriving an hour before the jet fighter escorts. Castro's T-33 fighters shot down 4 bombers and killed 4 Americans.20 Yet, even in the face of these tragic errors, the Kennedy administration was still attempting to maintain deniability. One of the requirements Kennedy had placed on the operation was that there was to be no evidence of direct US involvement and that it must be perceived as a Cuban led revolt. This was the only way that it could be successful in the eyes of the public and the world. This had been made nearly impossible by the news reports from the New York Times and Latin newspapers prior to the invasion. The continued attempt to maintain deniability was another fatal error. If the American public and foreign governments were convinced that this was to be a US controlled invasion, then the absence of hard evidence of their involvement would have little bearing on their belief. In fact, had the US owned up to their involvement in the operation, the invaders could have been trained in the US, better aircraft could have been used, and US forces could have supplemented the Cubans in direct combat or support.21 The need to be able to disown the operation would place some of the final nails into the operational coffin of failure. On the morning of April 15, 1961 during the ongoing invasion, a bullet riddled B-26 with Cuban markings landed at Miami International Airport. "The Cuban pilot claims that he and three of his comrades have defected from Castro's air force in stolen planes. They claim to have carried out the attack against Castro's airfields...".22 However, reporters at the scene quickly noticed that the machine guns had not been fired and were in fact repainted US planes, not the type that Castro had. Castro would later comment that "[...] even Hollywood would not try to film such a story".23 With the hopes of denying any involvement gone, the charade became the ultimate public and foreign affairs disaster. The Bay of Pigs failed due to government officials' reluctance to question the CIA and the President on important matters. This would not be the first or last time that weak officials were taken down the road of deception for political gain. Had any of Kennedy's top advisors openly expressed their personal misgivings about the chances of success, Kennedy may have delayed or canceled the operation. The military errors were to a large degree the result of the CIA's ineptness at planning what was essentially a military exercise. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, viewing it as a CIA operation, offered little guidance or assistance in the planning. The air of secrecy that surrounded the landing and the need to make it look like a Cuban uprising made the task impossible. There was enough blame to go around, and the failure was the failure of all involved. Bibliography Ambrose, Stephen E., and Richard Immerman. Ike's spies : Eisenhower and the espionage establishment . Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. Bissell, Richard M., Jonathan E. Lewis, and Frances Pudlo. Reflections of a cold warrior. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996. Drachman, Edward R., Alan Shank, Edward Kannyo, and Richard M. Pious. Presidents and foreign policy : Countdown to ten controversial decisions. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1997. George Washington University. "Bay of Pigs." National Security Archive. (12 November 2006). Hosmer, Stephen T. Operations against enemy leaders . Santa Monica, Cal.: Rand, 2001. Knight, Peter. Conspiracy theories in American history : An encyclopedia . Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC-Clio, 2003. Read More