Outline
A. Introduction
1. Topic
2. Topic question
- Give evidence
- Give examples of other ideas
3. Thesis
B. Batista/Castro Government 
1. Before Castro's reign
- conservative at first 
- turned communist
2. USSR stayed ally with Castro
C. U-2 Spy Plane Incident 
1. Francis Gary Powers
- USA's excuse
- 1958 incident
2. Note to the US government
- air space violation
- Cuba 90 miles off the cost of Florida
3. Rejection of open skies' proposal
- Eisenhower left for the summit conference
- no more U2 flights over the USSR
4. Powers tried and convicted of espionage by the supreme court of the USSR
- Castro seized all American-owned properties
- oil refineries
- sugar mills
- electric utilities
- USA very angry
D. Summary of The Inspector General's Survey of The Cuban Operation 
1. Freedom of Information Act to the National Security Archives
-group that publishes declassified government documents
-the porpoise of document
2. A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime
- Cuban exile organization
- propaganda offense
- clandestine intelligence
- paramilitary force
E. The CIA's Plan of Invasion 
1. The bay of Pigs
- Cuban exile organization
- propaganda offense
- clandestine intelligence
- paramilitary force
2. Budget approved
- Political action
- propaganda
- paramilitary
- intelligence collection
F. What Went Wrong In The Bay of Pigs Invasion 
1. The actual Plan
2. The Inspector General's conclusions
- The Central Intelligence Agency
- failures with the project and agency
G. What Actually Happened In The Bay of Pigs Invasion 
H. Conclusion
The invasion at the Bay of Pigs has raised many questions and many interesting
things have come out of it. What people want to know is, why it happened, or what
caused it, but the most important question that is not commonly asked is what was the
main affect of the invasion? Some say that the affects are not many. People believed
for a while that there was no way that the united states could suffer from the invasion on
Cuba, they were wrong. The main affect was that Cuban leaders feared another direct
US invasion, and so they allowed the USSR to place nuclear missiles in Cuba, aimed at
the United States, this is called the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union offered
military aid to Cuba, and Cuba agreed to let the Soviet Union send missiles and materials
to build launch sites. In October 1962, the United States learned that Cuba had nuclear
missiles in place that could be launched toward American cities. President John F.
Kennedy ordered a naval blockade to halt the further shipment of arms. He demanded
that the Soviet Union remove all missiles from the island and dismantle the remaining
missile bases. For several days, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Finally, the
Soviet Union removed the weapons under protest from Castro. The Soviet action came
after Kennedy privately agreed not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also agreed to remove U.S.
nuclear missiles from Turkey, which the Soviets considered to be a threat. All because of
the invasion on Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar became the dictator of Cuba in 1952. The United
States had been kind to Batista. Shortly after, Fidel Castro, became the leader of an
underground antigovernment group. After leading several failed uprisings, and being
arrested for leading those revolts, Castro finally lead a successful rebellion against
Batista. In 1959, Castro became the Premier. At first, Castro was very conservative, but
after he realized how much power he had gained, he started abusing it, being very hostile
to both the Cuban people, and the United States. The United States, who had been very
good to Cuba, but the U.S. started to get angry when, in 1960, Castro seized American oil
refineries, sugar mills, and electric utilities. In the early 60s, he also started to welcome
communism and formed close ties with the USSR. 
In 1959, when Castro became premier, the Central Intelligence Agency, (CIA)
started planning an invasion near Guantánamo Bay, a US naval base in Cuba, in the Bay
of Pigs, in southern Cuba. The CIA set up a small sub-organization with the sole purpose
of planning the invasion. Despite the propaganda, intelligence planning, counter
intelligence planning, and paramilitary planning, the mission still failed. 
In February 1962, the Inspector General wrote a document called The Inspector
General's Survey of the Cuban Operation. This was deemed top secret until 1997. Inside
it tells many reasons for the failure. Why didn't the CIA think of these problems ahead of
time?
Before Castro's reign over Cuba, a man named Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was
the Premier from 1952 to 1959. Castro was against Batista's ideas, so he joined an
underground anti-Batista group. Fidel Castro went up through the ranks of the group,
until he was the leader. He led several rebellions, and was arrested for them. Seven years
later, he led a rebellion that was successful, and overthrew the Batista administration.
Since he was the leader of the group, he became the new dictator of Cuba.
At First, he was a very conservative dictator. He was liked by the Cuban people,
and by other countries, including the United States of America. This did not last long,
when he soon realized how much power he had. He immediately seized American-owned
properties in Cuba. This made him lose the United States as an ally. However,
Khruschev's United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), stayed as an ally, and influenced
Castro to gradually change Cuba in to a communist state. This also scared the Pentagon,
because a communist country not far from the coast of Florida was created.
On February 21st, 1998, The New York Times reported that the Inspector
General's Survey of the Cuban Operation was released under the Freedom of Information
Act to the National Security Archives, a non-profit group that collects and publishes
declassified Government documents. Inside the article, it quoted several paragraphs of
The Inspector Generals Survey of the Cuban Operation. 
The Inspector Generals Survey of the Cuban Operation was the internal document
inside the Central Intelligence Agency explaining the failure. The document was written
by the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was kept in his files in
the Agency's building in Washington. It was released under the Freedom of Information
Act on February 21st, 1998, to an organization on the World Wide Web called the
National Security Archives. This organization is a non-profit organization that through its
web page gives the public, such as myself, Government documents, some of which, used
to have been top secret.
As it says in the introduction of this document, This is the Inspector General's
report on the Central Intelligence Agency's ill-fated attempt to implement national policy
by overthrowing the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba by means of a covert paramilitary
operation.1 It also says that the purpose of this document is to describe weaknesses and
failures disclosed by the study, and to make recommendations for their correction and
avoidance in the future…It does not describe or analyze in detail the purely military
phase of the effort…In preparing the survey the Inspector General and his representatives
interviewed about 125 Agency employees of all levels and studied a large quantity of
documentary material.2
The Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation states that President
Dwight Eisenhower authorized the following by approving a paper entitled A Program
of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime:
a. Formation of a Cuban exile organization to attract Cuban loyalties, to direct
opposition activities, and to provide cover for Agency operations. 
b. A propaganda offensive in the name of the opposition.
c. Creation inside Cuba of a clandestine intelligence collection and action apparatus to be
responsive to the direction of the exile organization
d. Development outside Cuba of a small paramilitary force to be introduced into Cuba to
organize, train and lead resistance groups.
The concept was for the Cuban exile council to serve as cover for the United
States Government by acting as a group of American businessmen. When the United
States Government went along to plan and doing actions making the actions themselves
publicly known, but since there was cover, the hand of the U.S. Government would not
appear3 because of the Cuban exile group, which would later form a group called FRD.
This document states that the reason for invasion of Cuba by the United States of
America was a way to stop communism from spreading to the Western Hemisphere, near
the United States, a world power and a Democracy. The United States Government felt it
was a danger to National Security, which eventually it was during the Cuban Missile
Crisis, which wouldn't of even happened if the bay of pigs hadn't happened. 
The history of the Bay of Pigs, or for now the Cuban Operation, began in 1959,
shortly after Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was overthrown by Fidel Castro. The Central
Intelligence Agency needed a way to accomplish a second revolution in Cuba, this time a
Democratic revolution. The Central Intelligence Agency developed a Branch of the
Western Hemisphere Division, a division of the Central Intelligence Agency, which
handled Intelligence efforts on the Western Hemisphere of the earth. This branch was
named Western Hemisphere Division Branch Four, or WH/4 as an abbreviation.
WH/4 was an expandable task force in charge of the Cuban Operation, and
involved in all the aspects as mentioned in the previous list. Each aspect of the operation
had a different area to work from. The recruiting center for the Cuban Exile group was in
Miami, with a second one in Cuba. The propaganda aspect was located in several
different areas across the continent. For example, there was one powerful gray radio
station in Massachusetts, there was another radio station posing as a legitimate
commercial station on Swan Island. A television show in Spanish was created in Miami,
and several written publications were created including a newspaper named Advance,
and even an Anti-Castro comic book!
Inside Cuba a clandestine intelligence group was created with the sole purpose of
being responsive to the Cuban exile group. Out side Cuba there was a small paramilitary
group with the plan to enter Cuba when deemed necessary to organize, train, and lead
resistance groups.
The Central Intelligence Agency decided they needed to capture the island to save
the United States of America from attacks by Communist nations. This plan was known
as The Bay of Pigs. In the internal CIA document, The Inspector General's Survey of the
Cuban Operation, the Inspector General refers to the mission as the Central Intelligence
Agency's ill-fated attempt to implement national policy by overthrowing the Fidel Castro
regime in Cuba by means of a covert paramilitary operation.4
The actual Bay of Pigs Invasion begins in the year 1959, and ends with the Cuban
victory on April 19, 1961. The Invasion became official on March 17, 1960, when
President Eisenhower authored a paper titled, A Program of Covert Action Agency
Against the Castro Regime. This authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to
undertake the following (this paper affected many groups):
a. Formation of a Cuban exile organization to attract Cuban loyalties, to direct
opposition activities, and to provide cover for Agency operations.
b. A propaganda offensive in the name of the opposition.
c. Creation inside Cuba of a clandestine intelligence collection and action apparatus to be
responsive to the direction of the exile organization.
d. Development outside Cuba of a small paramilitary force to be introduced into Cuba to
organize, train, and lead resistance groups.5
Eisenhower also approved the budget for the operation, which totaled 
$4, 400,000. This included Political action, $950,000; propaganda, $1,700,000;
paramilitary, $1,500,000; intelligence collection, $250,000.6
The plan was to train Cuban exiles, which would serve as a cover for action by
the Central Intelligence Agency, which became known by the public. All Central
Intelligence Agency personnel that had any contact with the Cuban public would have a
separate identity as an American businessman. This would hide all United States
Government involvement. In August 1959, the Chief of the Paramilitary Group attended 
a meeting to discuss the creation of a paramilitary group, to be used in Latin American
crisis situations. He setup a small, proprietary airline for future use. At this time, Cuba
was only one of may possible targets. 
During the Bay of Pigs Invasion, there were many problems with the actual plan,
and this is what caused the failure. Frankly, I feel that this plan was very good, and don't
know where the fatal mistake was if I hadn't read about it, because it wasn't very obvious.
The Inspector General suggested these conclusions on page 143 of the Inspector
General's Survey of the Cuban Operation: 
1.The Central Intelligence Agency, after starting to build up the resistance and guerrilla
forces inside Cuba, drastically concerted the project into what rapidly became an overt
military operation. The Agency failed to recognize that when the project advanced
beyond the stage of plausible denial it was going beyond the area of Agency
responsibility as well as Agency capability. 
2.The Agency became so wrapped up in the military operation that it failed to appraise
the [blurred] of [blurred] realistically. Furthermore, it failed to keep the national
policy-makers adequately and realistically informed of the conditions considered
essential for success, and it did not [burred] sufficiently for prompt policy decisions in a
fast moving situation. 
3.As the project grew, the Agency reduced the exiled leaders to the status of puppets, 
hereby losing the advantages of their active participation.
4.The Agency failed to build up and supply a resistance organization under rather
favorable conditions. Air and boat operations showed up poorly.
5. The Agency failed to collect adequate information on the strengths of the Castro
regime and the extent of the opposition to it; and it failed to evaluate the available
information correctly.
6.The project was badly organized. Command lines and [blurred] controls were
ineffective and useless. Senior Staffs if the Agency were not utilized; air support stayed
independent of the project; the role of the large forward [blurred] was not clear.
7.The project was not staffed with top-quality people, and a number of people were not
used to the best advantage.
8. The Agency entered the project without adequate [blurred] in the way of [blurred],
bases, training facilities, [blurred][blurred], Spanish-speakers, and similar essential
ingredients of a successful operation. [Blurred] these been already in being, such time
and effort would have been saved.7
In the weeks before the actual invasion, the Western Hemisphere Division Branch
Four hastened their pace in the preparations. On March 12th, 1961 the LCI Barbara J
launched and recovered a sabotage team against the Texaco refinery in Santiago, Cuba.
Beginning on March 13th, and ending on March 15th, the project chiefs worked on a
revised plan that they presented to the President on March 15th. 
Although the planning was going along smoothly, it was taking to long for the Cuban
exiles to wait, and several went AWOL. In late March the [blacked out] ostensible
owner of the Swan Island radio station, thanked all the sponsored of political programs
and advised them that no more tapes would be required; purpose of this action was to
clear the way for a unity program during the action phase of the operation.8 Although
the mission was being prepared and almost ready, the Guatemala Camp was accepting
trainees as late as the week of April 4th. 
Flights over Cuba were suspended on March 28th. The Government gave two
reasons for the suspension. (a) That the aircraft were needed to move the strike force
from Guatemala to Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, for embarkation on the invasion ships; (b)
that the Agency wished to avoid any incident, such as a plane being downed over Cuba,
which might upset the course of events during the critical pre-invasion period.9
Three Cuban airfields were raided by eight B-26s on April 15th, and resulted in
destroying about half of Castro's air force, which was estimated by post-strike
photography.
Attacks were not the only aspect of the invasion that was increasing. Propaganda
efforts were increased. Before D-Day, Radio Swan as well as other propaganda outlets
were broadcasting eighteen hours a day on medium wave, and sixteen hours a day on
short wave. Immediately after D-Day, these totals were increased to 55 hours and 26
hours, receptively. Fourteen frequencies were used. By the time of the invasion a total of
12,000,000 pounds of leaflets had been dropped on Cuba. 10
Late on April 16th, the eve of D-Day, the air strikes planned to destroy the rest of
Castro's air force were called off. 
The invasion fleet which had assembled off the south coast of Cuba on the night of 16
April included two LCIs owned by the Agency, a U.S. Navy LSD carrying three LCUs
and four LCVPs, all of them pre-loaded with supplies, and even charted commercial
freighters. All these craft participated in the assault phase, except for three freighters
which were loaded with follow-up supplies for ground and air-forces. These vessels were
armed with 50-caliber machine guns. In addition, each LCI mounted two 75-mm.
Recoilless rifles.
In addition to the personal weapons of the Cuban exile soldiers, the armament provided
for combat included sufficient numbers of Browning automatic rifles, machine guns,
mortars, recoilless rifles, rocket launchers, and flame-throwers. There were also five
M-41 tanks, 12 heavy trucks, an aviation fuel tank truck, a tractor crane, a bulldozer, two
large water trailers, and numerous small trucks and tractors. 11
A total of 1,511 men fought in the invasion, all of them were on the invasion
ships, except for one airborne infantry company comprised of 177 men. The entire
brigade included five infantry companies, one heavy weapons company, on
intelligence-reconnaissance company, and one tank platoon.
These troops had been moved by air on three successive nights from the Guatemala
training camp to the staging area in Nicaragua where they embarked in the ships which
had been pre-loaded at New Orleans. The ships had moved on separate courses from
Nicaragua, under unobtrusive Navy escort, to the rendezvous 40 miles offshore in order
to avoid the appearance of a convoy. From there they had moved in a column under cover
of darkness to a point 5,000 yards to the landing area, where they met the Navy LSD.
These complicated movements were apparently accomplished in a secure manner and
without alerting the enemy. 12
Three follow-up ships were scheduled to arrive in Cuba, one from Nicaragua was 
supposed to come
In conclusion, I think that the Inspector General Lymon Kirkpatrick was right
when he said that the Central Intelligence Agency should have done more research on the
Cubans' weaknesses and strengths before invading, so that the Central Intelligence
Agency Western Hemisphere Division Branch Four could have possibly defeated the
Fidel Castro regime of the Republic of Cuba. I think the United States should have also
done more to help relations with the United Soviet Socialist Republic, because they may
have helped out, since the Republic of Cuba was an ally, rather than fight the United
States of America. 
That was not the end of tense moments between Cuba and the United Soviet
Socialist Republic and the United States of America. For exactly two weeks beginning on
October 15, the Cuban Missile Crisis existed. On October 15, a U-2 spy plane piloted by
Richard Heyser revealed SS-4 nuclear missiles in Cuba all aimed at various points in the
United States. The missile silos were disguised as trees, or at least the communists tried
to disguise them as trees. 
On October 16, the next day, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was informed of
this sighting during breakfast. He called a meeting of EX-COMM, his twelve most
important advisors. According to EX-COMM, Khruschev would retaliate no matter what
action they took. Still, Kennedy called a blockade to begin at 10 am Eastern Daylight
Time on October 24th 1962. 
President John F. Kennedy was able to talk Khruschev into disabling the missiles
on October 26th , but on October 27th, Khruschev demanded to renegotiate terms. On
October 28th, 1962, Khruschev had agreed to remove all missiles from the Republic of
Cuba. If the invasion at the Bay of Pigs had not happened Castro would not of let the
USSR put the missiles in Cuba. Castro feared another invasion and that is why he did
what he did. 
In the next several years, the CIA still had a tense time with the USSR, and the
Republic of Cuba. In the internal memo Views of a Cuban Official on the future of
Cuban-United States Relations, it says that the United States would be able to intervene
without any consequences if the Vietnam War escalated and all the other powers
concentrated on Vietnam, not Cuba. 
The United States Policy was to isolate Cuba from the rest of the free
world on December 12th, 1963. The United States' plan was to replace the Castro regime
and replace it with an administration that would be fully compatible with the United
States of America. In the last analysis, however, there are only two courses which would
eliminate the Castro regime at an early date: an invasion or a complete blockade. Both of
these actions would result in a major crisis between the US and the USSR (in Cuba
and/or Berlin) and would produce substantial strains in the fabric of US relations with
other countries-allied as well as neutral. To a greater extent than in any of the courses
discussed above, OAS support would be important, if not critical, in reducing the risks
and in increasing the practical and political effect of an invasion or a blockade.13 This
is described in Document 24, Cuba-A Status Report.
Despite the embarrassment and danger of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I personally
think that the United States Government should of stopped threatening Cuba and either
declare war or shut-up. Instead, they almost caused a nuclear war by not backing up their
word to help the exiles.
I personally think Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick said it best in The
Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation when he wrote, Furthermore, it is
essential to keep in mind that the possibility of an invasion was doomed in advance, that
an initially successful landing by 1,500 men would eventually have been crushed by
Castro's combined military resources strengthened by Soviet Bloc-supplied military
materiel.
Endnotes
1. Kirkpatrick, Lyman. The Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban
Operation(Document) Released under the Freedom of Information Act, February 21,
1998 May-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident 147. Editorial Note [Online] Available
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_U2/frus_x1_147.htm
2. Kirkpatrick, Lyman. The Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban
Operation(Document) Released under the Freedom of Information Act, February 21,
1998 May-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident 147. Editorial Note [Online] Available
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_U2/frus_x1_147.htm
3. Soviet Charges of U.S. Violations of its airspace; March-June 1958 39.
Editorial Note [Online] Available http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_u2/frus_x1_030.htm
The CIA on the CIA: Scathing View of Invasion The New York Times, New York,
New York, February 22, 1998
4. The Exchange of Messages The New York Times, New York, New York,
April 19,1961
Trumbull, Higgins, The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of
Pigs. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1987.
5. Various Internal Memos from the CIA/EDRC Search [Online] Available
http://www.foia.ucia.gov/frame3.htm 
6. Kirkpatrick, Lyman. The Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban
Operation(Document) Released under the Freedom of Information Act, February 21,
1998 May-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident 147. Editorial Note [Online] Available
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_U2/frus_x1_147.htm
7. Soviet Charges of U.S. Violations of its airspace; March-June 1958 39.
Editorial Note [Online] Available http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_u2/frus_x1_030.htm
The CIA on the CIA: Scathing View of Invasion The New York Times, New York,
New York, February 22, 1998
8. Bay of Pigs Invasion
http://www.accesspro.net/matchete/cuba/libre/bay.html
9. The Bay of Pigs by Gil Gunn
http://www.noblesweb.org/cp4/LEGunn.html
10. The Bay of Pigs
http://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/bay_of_pigs.html
11. An overview of the Crisis
http://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/index.html
12. Causes of the Crisis
http://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/causes.html
13. Various Internal Memos from the CIA/EDRC Search [Online] Available
http://www.foia.ucia.gov/frame3.htm 


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http://www.accesspro.net/matchete/cuba/libre/bay.html
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http://www.noblesweb.org/cp4/LEGunn.html
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http://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/bay_of_pigs.html
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http://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/causes.html
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Dickey, Christopher, Evan Thomas, Gregory L. Vistica, Bay of Pigs Redux Newsweek,
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Operation(Document) Released under the Freedom of Information Act, February
21, 1998
May-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident 147. Editorial Note [Online] Available
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_U2/frus_x1_147.htm
An overview of the Crisis
http://tqd.advanced.org/11046/days/index.html
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[Online] Available http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/doc_u2/frus_x1_030.htm
Various Internal Memos from the CIA/EDRC Search [Online] Available
http://www.foia.ucia.gov/frame3.htm 



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