The Bay of Pigs Invasion - Research Paper Example

The Bay of Pigs invasion Introduction Bay of Pigs invasion was carried out Cuban exiles with the help of covert support of the United States to liberate Cuba from the communist dictator Fidel Castro. But the operation, handled in slipshod manner, was a failure and earned John F. Kennedy administration public humiliation, both externally and internally. As the Bay of Pigs invasion failed, hasty inquiries were instituted by Kennedy to know the causes of the debacle. A major shuffle in the bureaucratic set up followed. Though it was a humiliating experience for Kennedy in the short run, but in the longer run it gave him valuable experience in foreign policy. He learned from his mistakes and could handle a much serious affair, the ‘missile crisis’ with amazing brinkmanship in near future. Bay of Pigs Invasion Code named Zapata, the Bay of Pigs invasion was an unsuccessful attempt by US backed Cuban exiles to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. In the eventuality of the operation’s success, the USA would have given immediate recognition to the new government. The invasion of Cuba began on April 15th with the bombing of air bases of Cuba by B-26 bombers. The US B-26 bombers were disguised to carry the Cuban insignia to give the impression that they belonged to the Cuban exiles. Apparently, the air attacks on Cuban airfields were carried out with the intention of crippling the country’s small air force. Since Castro was anticipating the attack and he had made preparations much in advance, the air raids could inflict minimal damage to the Cuban fleet. Seven men lost their lives in the air attack. The actual operation began on April 17, 1961 at the Bay of Pigs or Bahía de Cochinos, lying towards the south east of capital Havana. At the break of the dawn, two groups of exiles landed on Playa Giron beach and one group landed at Playa Larga beach. The immediate motive of the attack was to occupy a portion of the island nation, incite the public, coordinate with the guerillas active in the mountains, and storm the capital Havana. However, the entire air force of Cuba was pressed into service by Castro to stop the brigade to move up further. And within a few hours the air force of Cuba had established supremacy in the air. Two ships carrying heavy equipment, Houston and Río Escondido, anchored in the Bay of Pigs were attacked and sunk. Another two ships carrying provisions and ammunition for the exiles immediately left the area to escape the attack. The three approach roads that could take the insurgents further into the island were heavily defended by the Cuban troops. Within a few hours of the invasion, it was realized that the local population would not stand by the exiles. They were firmly with Castro and his regime. Thus, the much hoped, mass defection of Cubans towards the anti-Castro forces never materialized. The men of Brigade 2506 fought a relentless battle. The fighters were pounded heavily by the Cuban tanks, artillery, and war planes. The fighting, in which the invaders were seriously outnumbered and outgunned, lasted three days. With the sea at back, swamps around them, and left with no chance to retreat or advance, the group of exiles was in a precarious position. Surrounded by the Castro’s forces, the exiles tried to retreat towards the sea. But by that time, the navy had left the bay. Consequently, 1,197 exiles were captured. Around 200 exiles were killed in the fight, though the exact number of those killed and captured is a matter of contention. Nine died due to asphyxiation in a windowless sealed truck that took them from the beach to a prison in Havana. Four airmen lost their lives in the final desperate attempt of the US air force to come to the rescue of the exiles. But even before the US planes arrived, the planes of the exiles had been shot down. Kennedy canceled a second planned strike on the Cuban air bases. San Roman, the Brigade’s commander sent a desperate message to the CIA handlers for help. But he didn’t receive any response signifying curtains on Operation Zapata. Eighteen months later, the guerillas taken captive by Castro were exchanged for $ 53 million worth of medicines, food, and agricultural equipment. After the failure, denial No sooner was the operation over, that the America’s involvement in it became an open secret. Kennedy immediately went into the denial mode and informed the American Society of Newspaper Editors, on April 19, that the operation was of Cubans fighting Cubans and the US was not involved in it. Adlai E. Stevenson, the US ambassador to the United Nations denied the charge made by the Cuban ambassador of the American involvement in the attack. As truth surfaced, Stevenson faced humiliation. With CIA’s role in the Bay of Pigs fiasco becoming public knowledge. Kennedy accepted the responsibility for it. Background General Fulgencio Batista was a puppet president of Cuba installed by the US in the 1950s. He protected the interests of the plantation owners, while neglecting the impoverished masses. In 1959, a group of radicals led by Fidel Castro ousted the Batista government in a coup. The US administration quickly recognized the government of Castro, but turned against it, later. Although Castro was not a communist and was hostile to the communist party in the beginning, his relations with the leftists grew better over time, and he included some members of the communist party in his government. Meanwhile, President Dwight D. Eisenhower also realized that the occurrences in Cuba were more than a mere coup. Soon after, Castro confiscated privately held property, introduced land reforms, and seized mines and oil companies owned by US nationals. As a result, the Eisenhower administration imposed a trade embargo on Cuba. The US suspended the import of Cuban sugar and halted all trade with the country. Castro developed trade ties with the Soviet Union that began the import of sugar and provided economic and military assistance to the country. Eisenhower was gripped by a fear of communist expansion in the Latin America and immediately set the government and CIA machinery into motion for the overthrow of the communist dictator. The CIA sent its agents to Guatemala for training the anti-Castro exiles for an invasion into Cuba. Amidst increasing tension the two countries suspended diplomatic ties with each other. Eisenhower gave his consent to the plan to oust Castro, on March 17, 1960, after weeks of deliberation with his security advisers. A budget of $ 13 million was approved for the plan. The plan included setting up a radio ration on Swan Island in the Caribbean to air anti-Castro propaganda. The plan also included training a militant force that was to infiltrate into Cuba. The rebels were to be trained in Guatemala by the CIA men. Initially, the CIA had planned to smuggle groups of Cuban exiles into their country to conduct sabotage and carry out propaganda, political, and guerilla activity. Each group was to be in direct communication with the US. It was planned that a small infantry force of about 200 to 300 people would augment the guerillas (Hawkins, 1996). Behind the decision to usurp power in Cuba was the success of insurgency launched in Guatemala in 1954 by the CIA. Later, the plan changed from infiltration to invasion with the air support. The rebels were to stage an insurrection and ultimately overthrow the communist regime of Fidel Castro. The plan could not be kept a secret and news of its details got leaked to the press. On Jan 10, 1961, the New York Times carried a full story about the CIA training the anti-Castro forces in Guatemala. Kennedy made Cuba, a major issue in the 1960 presidential elections accusing Eisenhower of losing a major country in the proximity of the US to communists. For Kennedy, Cuba was a high priority issue because he had promised to take action against Castro, if elected to power. As the presidential candidate, Kennedy advanced the theory that if not checked in time, Castro would fuel leftist movements in the Latin America, eventually leading to the proliferation of communism in America’s neighborhood. Kennedy’s assessment, of Castro’s clout was exaggerated. Bureaucratic shake-up There was a major shake up in the national security bureaucracy in wake of Bay of Pigs fiasco. Allan Dulles, the director of CIA was replaced by John McCone. Along with Dulles, Deputy Director of Operations, Richard Bissell, and Air Force General Charles Cabell were also fired. Richard Helms replaced Bissel as Deputy Director CIA plans. Chester Bowles was removed as under secretary and appointed ambassador to India. Kennedy instituted an enquiry to find out the reasons of the fiasco. General Maxwell Taylor was the chairman of the enquiry committee. Others included Allan Dulles, Admiral Arleigh Burke, and Robert Kennedy. The Taylor committee recommended that paramilitary roles should be done by the military in future and CIA was to be confined to covert political activities only. Consequently, Kennedy transferred responsibility for most paramilitary operations from CIA to the Defense Department. Three separate military intelligence operations were combined to form the Defense Intelligence Agency Another agency report concluded that a successful attack would have required 10,000 to 15000 men with full and open support from the US military (Drachman & Shank, 1997). Kennedy literally became his own secretary of state and he started bypassing Dean Rusk on most of the issues. One of the conclusions of the enquiry was not to embark on dangerous foreign mission, when there was an inherent tension between the political and bureaucratic set ups. Arrival of Kennedy Eisenhower had ordered CIA to remove Castro from power in 1960. Later, as Kennedy became the president, and was informed of the plans of CIA to topple Castro regime, he decided to support it. According to him, Castro was a threat to American interests in Latin America. Within three months of his inauguration, Kennedy was implementing the plans to train the brigade in Guatemala, establishing a secret air base in Nicaragua, and selecting the best invasion site on the Cuban coast. Kennedy’s interest in the Latin America was part of his overall world view of anti-communism. However, on knowing the details of the plan from CIA Director Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell, Kennedy called the plan ‘too spectacular’ and asked the CIA officials to decrease the involvement of the US in the action. President Kennedy emphasized that operations would have to be conducted in such a way that U.S. involvement could be "plausibly deniable" (Hawkins, 1996). Kennedy insisted on covert support to the expatriate guerillas. It was initially planned to use 16 B-26 bombers in the action. But on Kennedy’s intervention, the number was reduced to eight. Being the youngest president ever elected, a democrat and a catholic, President Kennedy was under tremendous pressure to perform well in the foreign policy. In the presidential elections, Richard Nixon had painted Kennedy as being too young and inexperienced, to take on the Soviet threat (Hudson, 2006). Kennedy wanted to undo this image. Causes of failure Presidential adviser Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman J. William Fulbright had advised Kennedy not to go ahead with the expedition, as it may prove disastrous for expatriate anti-Castro guerillas and humiliating for the US. Chester Bowles, the under secretary of state had also opposed the operation on moral and legal grounds. However, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara were in its favor. It was a classic case of ‘groupthink’ where the policy makers lost contact with the reality and made poor quality decisions. Kennedy did not want the United States to be publicly connected to the invasion plan; and the goal of deniability contributed to its failure. The voice of dissent at the planning stage went unheard. Despite apparent differences, no one spoke against the plan in the group meetings. Silence was construed as consent (Hudson, 2006). In the cabinet meetings, held to discuss the Cuban action, President Kennedy was insistent upon the operations being conducted in such a way that the US involvement could be ‘plausibly deniable’ (Hawkins, 1996). According to Hawkins (1996), this was the fundamental mistake, besides other errors that led to the invasion being doomed. The plan should have been carried out with proper and requisite support from America or else it should have been cancelled. CIA and Kennedy had also overestimated the fact that once the exile force landed, the Cubans would automatically rise in rebellion against Castro. Besides, there were tactical and military errors in the execution of the plan. The CIA chose to set up camps at extremely unsuitable locations of Nicaragua and Guatemala to train the exiles instead of Puerto Rico or the US. Cuba was barely in range of B-26 bombers from the airfield in Nicaragua. The distance from the air strip in Nicaragua to the Bay of Pigs was 1000 miles. This effectively meant that the B-26 bombers had only 40 minutes at their disposal to carry out strategic attacks on the Cuban defense targets. Or else, they ran the risk of running out of fuel. If landings had been made at Trinidad as recommended and with adequate air support, the objective of overthrowing communist government might well have been accomplished. The Brigade 2506 wrongly believed that they would be given support by the US marines and the air force. The beach on which the exiles were landed was surrounded by mosquito infested swamps. The exiles got stuck even before actual fighting had begun. An important assumption in the plan was that the underground would revolt against Castro. But no one informed the underground elements of the imminent invasion. On the contrary, Castro got an inkling of what was brewing through the US press reports. He acted within in time to round up dissidents (Hudson, 2006). Arrogance was characteristic of Kennedy’s early months in office as Kennedy and his aides were confident that they could succeed even with a half baked scheme like Bay of Pigs (Drachman & Shank, 1997). On being asked to provide overt support of the US air force to counter the attack, Kennedy agreed to provide only the cover to the planes flown by the exiles. As the training and preparation of exiles took a long time, it gave Soviet Union enough time to equip Cuba with arms and ammunition. Foreign policy implications Hawkins (1996) describes Bay of Pigs adventure of Kennedy as fundamentally flawed owing to diplomatic and political considerations. It was a humiliation for the president and a failure of his foreign policy. The US government came to be considered weak, irresolute, and inept. The failure of operation gave the impression that Kennedy was a weak and indecisive president. Khrushchev had little to fear, later on, as he went on with his plans to turn Cuba into an armed Soviet camp (Hawkins, 1996). The Bay of Pigs led to further straining of relations between the US and the Cuba. Kennedy came under severe criticism for not doing enough to make the operation a success. As a result, he adopted a hard line stance in future, which made him a dogged ‘Cold Warrior’. On the other hand, the fiasco emboldened Fidel Castro and cemented his ties with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union also tried its best to capitalize on the failure of Kennedy. As the tensions escalated between Soviet Union and the US, Khrushchev and Kennedy exchanged hostile messages. Tensions between the Soviet Union and the US escalated to an extent that it resulted in the ‘missile crisis’ showdown just 18 months later. The US prestige in the Western Hemisphere took a beating as Cuba had always been considered integral to the American foreign policy in the Latin America. A communist regime came to flourish 90 miles from Florida. Even though Kennedy accepted the moral responsibility for the failure of operation, Kennedy bashers trumpeted up their voices against him. They called the expedition a dismal failure. The Cuba operation was a foreign policy failure also because the US could neither escape blame nor was it successful in liberating Cuba (Hawkins, 1996).If the Bay of Pigs operation had been handled tactically, there would not have been ‘missile crisis’ that brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. On the other hand, if it had been successful Cuba would have been a free and prosperous nation (Hawkins, 1996). The ramifications of the fiasco extended much beyond the boundaries of Cuba, as it lured the US to chase revolutionaries down a violent dead-end street in pursuit of revolutionaries throughout Latin America. Bay of Pigs fiasco also resulted in the first full scale Soviet presence in the Western Hemisphere (Lafeber, 1986). A vengeful Kennedy rallied the member of Organization of American States, except Mexico, to expel Cuba. There was a continued stream of refugees into Cuba. Of great consequence to Bay of Pigs was Kennedy’s own learning from the mistake. Kennedy presented a total contrast, when he rebuffed Khrushchev in October 1962, compelling the Soviet leader to remove the nuclear missiles that had been placed in Cuba. In the missile crisis, Kennedy displayed brinkmanship, and decisive and effective leadership, which was not evident in the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle (Drachman & Shank, 1997). Lafeber (1986) believes that by relying on the exiles and the CIA and undertaking the Cuban invasion, Kennedy had tried to revive the imperialist past of the US. Over the next few years, Kennedy unsuccessfully tried one stratagem after another to kill Castro but couldn’t succeed (Lafeber, 1986). These attacks made Castro more and more popular on the domestic front and drove him closer to the Soviets. As a consequence to failure in Cuba, Kennedy tried to resurrect his image by sending more troops to Vietnam. The escalation of the US involvement in Southeast Asia by the end of 1961 was a direct result of the Kennedy’s misreading of the lessons to be drawn from the Cuban revolution (Lafeber, 1986). US had committed itself to the Organization of American States Charter of 1948 to not use force to overthrow Latin American governments. The Cuban invasion was a violation of the pledge. Most Americans felt that the respect for law which distinguished the US foreign policy from that of Soviet Union was cast aside (Lafeber, 1986). Fidel Castro’s hold over Cuba was further strengthened after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Within a year of Bay of Pigs fiasco, Operation Mongoose was launched to overthrow Castro. The activities carried out under this operation included sabotage, espionage, and guerilla warfare plans. Robert Kennedy, himself, oversaw all the activities carried out under the Operation Mongoose. According to Janis, the lessons learnt by Kennedy from the Bay of Pigs disaster were invaluable, which prepared him for the missile crisis in which stakes were much higher (as cited in Hudson, 2006). Despite the failure of Bay of Pigs operation, the approval ratings of Kennedy improved. The reason was not far to see as an overwhelming majority of Americans wanted Castro to go. Conclusion There cannot be more appropriate conclusion of a discussion on Bay of Pigs fiasco than Kennedy’s own words: “victory has a hundred fathers, and defeat is an orphan.” It is, thus, unfair to attribute the failure totally to Kennedy. In fact, it was the entire political, bureaucratic, and military leadership that failed to design and execute the plan effectively. As far as Kennedy is concerned, he emerged much wiser, politically mature, and resolute from the fiasco. Hudson, V. (2006). Foreign policy analysis: classic and contemporary theory. Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group‎. Lanham (US) Drachman, E. and Shank, A. (1997). Presidents and foreign policy: countdown to ten controversial decisions‎. SUNY Press. New York (US) Hawkins, J. (1996). Classified disaster: The Bay of Pigs operation was doomed by presidential indecisiveness and lack of commitment. National Review, Vol. 48, December 31, 1996 Lafeber, W. (1986). Lest we forget the Bay of Pigs; the unlearned lessons. The Nation, Vol. 242, April 19, 1986. Read More