BAY OF PIGS AN AMERICAN FAILURE
Miami, Florida (JFK+50) On April 20, 1961, Americans awoke to newspaper headlines detailing the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion that had ended the previous day.
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 to explain it to himself. He was raised to believe that nothing less than victory was acceptable. He was humiliated by the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion and so was the nation he loved. It was not to be a 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.
In the speech, 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."
"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 (JFK+50) On April 20, 1961, Americans awoke to newspaper headlines detailing the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion that had ended the previous day.
The Miami Herald's morning edition described a rally held at Bayfront Park. 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 to explain it to himself. He was raised to believe that nothing less than victory was acceptable. He was humiliated by the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion and so was the nation he loved. It was not to be a 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.
In the speech, 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."
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
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