VICTORY HAS A HUNDRED FATHERS & DEFEAT IS AN ORPHAN

JFK+50:  Volume 5, No. 1925

THE REALITY OF THE BAY OF PIGS FIASCO SETS IN

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Fifty-five years ago today, April 20, 1961, Americans awoke to newspaper headlines throughout the country detailing the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion that had ended one day before.
  
The Miami Herald's morning edition described a rally held at Bayfront Park, the same place where an assassin had attempted to shoot president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.  The anti-Castro rally sported 15,000 Cuban exiles chanting "Ayuda! Ayuda! Ayuda! (Help! Help! Help!)---"Kennedy! Kennedy! Kennedy!"

Despite President John F. Kennedy's effort to keep America out of it, everyone now knew, writes Jim Rasenberger, that the invasion "had been an American effort and an American failure."  C.L. Sulzberger of the New York Times wrote..."We look like fools to our friends, rascals to our enemies, and incompetents to the rest."

The President found it hard, if not impossible, to explain it to himself.  He was raised to believe nothing less was acceptable but victory.  He was humiliated and so was the nation he loved.  It was not to be a very pleasant day at the White House.

JFK was, however, able to escape the "grim" atmosphere in the West Wing by going to give a long-scheduled afternoon speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors at the Statler-Hilton Hotel.  The President said...

"We intend to profit from this lesson.  We intend to reexamine and reorient our forces of all kinds...We intend to intensify our efforts for a struggle in many ways more difficult than war."

Back at the White House, JFK met with former Vice-President Richard M. Nixon in the Oval Office.  According to Mr. Nixon, the President sought his advice asking "What would you do?"   Nixon replied "I would go in."

After what he had been through, JFK might have certainly wanted to do just that, but he was convinced that if he did so, the Soviets would attack Berlin.  It was too risky.

The presidency has been called "the loneliest office in the world," and the next morning President Kennedy said to reporters...

"There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan."

SOURCE

"Brilliant Disaster:  JFK, Castro and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs," by Jim Rasenberger, Scribner, New York, 2011.

Bay of Pigs Memorial

Miami, Florida (2007)

Photo by Infrogmation

www.wikimedia.org/

MAYHEM IN MIAMI

FDR ESCAPES ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Miami, Florida (JFK+50) Eighty-two years ago today, February 15, 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt was the victim of an assassination attempt at Bayfront Park here in Miami.

The President-elect, who would be sworn-in as the 32nd President of the United States on March 4, 1933,  had just completed his speech and was seated when shots rang out.

Five shots were fired from an $8 thirty-two caliber pistol at a distance of 25 feet from Mr. Roosevelt.   While none of the shots hit the President-elect,  one seriously wounded Mayor Anton Cermak* of Chicago, who was shaking hands with FDR at the time of the shooting.

Four others in the crowd were hit by gunshots, but only one, a woman, died later from her wound.

The suspect, identified as 32 year old Giuseppe "Joe" Zangara**, fired while standing on a wobbly chair.  After the first shot, Lillian Cross reportedly hit Zangara's arm with her purse throwing off the would-be assassin's aim. 

Sheriff Dan Hardie with Zangara

FDR remained with Mayor Cermak, who had been shot in the stomach, and cradled his head on his shoulder "all the way to the hospital."  FDR stayed with him for the next four hours.

Blaise Picchi describes Mr. Roosevelt as "unfazed, calm, (and) cheerful" throughout the ordeal.

Although the Mayor's wound healed, he died on March 6, 1933 of ulcerative colitis.  

Zangara was tried, found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.  He refused appeal and was electrocuted on March 20, 1933 at the Florida State Penitentiary.  This has been described as "perhaps the swiftest execution of the 20th century." 

*Anton J. Cermack (1873-1933) was born in Kladno, Austria-Hungary but was brought by his family to the U.S. the following year.  He grew up in Braidwood, IL and was elected mayor of Chicago in 1931.  AJC Died at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, FL.

Anton Cermak Monument

Kladno, Czech Republic

Photo by Kriplozoik (2009)

**Giuseppe "Joe" Zangara (1900-1933) was born in Ferruzano, Italy and served in WWI.  He emigrated to the U.S. in 1923 and became a naturalized citizen in 1929.  He worked as a brick layer and did odd jobs, but was hampered by chronic pain in the abdomen.  GZ said that he wanted to kill FDR not because of personal dislike but because he hated capitalists and "all national leaders."

SOURCES

"Assassination Attempt on FDR," by Jennifer Rosenberg, www.history1900s.about.com/

"The Five Weeks of Giuseppe Zangara:  The Man Who Would Assassinate FDR," by Blaise Picchi, Chicago Review Press, 1998. 

www.murderpedia.org/