FREEDOM FIGHTERS LAND AT THE BAY OF PIGS
Bahia de Conchinos, Cuba (JFK+50) On April 17, 1961, a force of 1400 freedom fighters landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba. The exile force, Brigade 2506, was led by Jose Miro Cardona*, head of the anti-Castro Cuban Revolutionary Council.
On the eve of the invasion, Jose Cardona said...
"To arms Cubans! We must conquer or we shall die choked by slavery."
The brigade came under heavy fire from Fidel Castro's army as they hit the beach. The invasion, intended to overthrow Castro's communist regime, was hampered by bad weather and a shortage of ammunition.
President John F. Kennedy, fearing his country's involvement in the invasion would become publicly known and possibly escalate into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, cancelled a second planned air strike.
In regard to the CIA's view going in, Jim Rasenberger writes that the CIA "almost certainly" expected the President to eventually make US military support available to the brigade.
And what if the invasion had succeeded? Clayton Fritchey believes the United States "would have been an occupying force in Cuba faced with...house to house" fighting in Havana which would have brought resentment of the United States in Latin America.
Rasenberger concludes....
"The peculiar truth may be that the result Kennedy got was the VERY BEST he could have desired. If he achieved this result accidentally, then he was lucky. If he achieved it intentionally...then he deserves a place as one of the most coldly calculating presidents in history."
Despite Mr. Rasenberger's conclusion, the decision to approve the invasion has been listed as one of the Top Ten presidential mistakes of all time.
*Jose Miro Cardona (1902-1974) was born in Havana, Cuba & graduated from the Havana University Law School. JMC became one of the island's best criminal lawyers before moving to Miami 8 months before Castro came to power.
SOURCES
"Jose Miro Cardona", www.historyofcuba.com/
"The Brilliant Disaster, JFK, Castro and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs," Jim Rasenberger, Scribner, New York, 2011.
Map of Cuba
Bahia de Conchinos, Cuba (JFK+50) On April 17, 1961, a force of 1400 freedom fighters landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba. The exile force, Brigade 2506, was led by Jose Miro Cardona*, head of the anti-Castro Cuban Revolutionary Council.
On the eve of the invasion, Jose Cardona said...
"To arms Cubans! We must conquer or we shall die choked by slavery."
The brigade came under heavy fire from Fidel Castro's army as they hit the beach. The invasion, intended to overthrow Castro's communist regime, was hampered by bad weather and a shortage of ammunition.
President John F. Kennedy, fearing his country's involvement in the invasion would become publicly known and possibly escalate into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, cancelled a second planned air strike.
In regard to the CIA's view going in, Jim Rasenberger writes that the CIA "almost certainly" expected the President to eventually make US military support available to the brigade.
And what if the invasion had succeeded? Clayton Fritchey believes the United States "would have been an occupying force in Cuba faced with...house to house" fighting in Havana which would have brought resentment of the United States in Latin America.
Rasenberger concludes....
"The peculiar truth may be that the result Kennedy got was the VERY BEST he could have desired. If he achieved this result accidentally, then he was lucky. If he achieved it intentionally...then he deserves a place as one of the most coldly calculating presidents in history."
Despite Mr. Rasenberger's conclusion, the decision to approve the invasion has been listed as one of the Top Ten presidential mistakes of all time.
*Jose Miro Cardona (1902-1974) was born in Havana, Cuba & graduated from the Havana University Law School. JMC became one of the island's best criminal lawyers before moving to Miami 8 months before Castro came to power.
SOURCES
"Jose Miro Cardona", www.historyofcuba.com/
"The Brilliant Disaster, JFK, Castro and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs," Jim Rasenberger, Scribner, New York, 2011.
Map of Cuba
Showing Bay of Pigs
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