Salutations to all posters and readers!

I am posting this message in regards to anyone else out there who may find this point in history as interesting as myself. I am on endless searches for information on many,many subjects, and I stumbled across this site from the National Archives, loaded with info regarding the Bay of Pigs Operation. Tons of de-classified documents from the very early planning stages on up. I'm still searching the site as I write this post. Check it out if interested. Here's the address:
www.gwv.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/chron.html

Gunny

gunny,

im not familiar with this operation, can you give a brief explanation of events?

regards

joe

Joe:

To be very brief, during the Eisenhower Administration, the CIA organized and trained groups of guerillas to overthrow the newly formed Castro Administration of Cuba, as well as using our military to bomb and burn cane plantations and key targets in Cuba. Check it out...

Gunny

Joe-- to pile onto Gunny's note, the Kennedy Administration wanted to remove the communist threat from Latin and Southern America. They were frustrated in numerous attempts to remove Castro. The half baked idea of the Eisenhower Administration to invade Cuba using Cuban nationals then located outside Cuba was seen as an expeditious means to achieve this end. The force trained in El Salvador and Nicaragua among other places. They loaded into some derelict transports and sailed for Cuba with high hopes of US support. Once ashore, they were systematically massacred by Castro's forces. Not wishing to expand the conflict, Kennedy wisely did not send US force then in close proximatey to the fight into the battle. We did, however, have several Korean War era B-26s aid the fighters. Several were shot down and the crews lost. The survivors surrendered to Castro. They were treated horribly, as one might expect, and incarcerated on the Isle of Pines, as I recall. Well, negotiations for their release continued for sometime and were finally resolved by a swap of medicine and clothing for the prisoners. There is probably much that I have failed to address, but I think this covers most of the salient points. Anyone else feel free to modify and add.
DJ

DJ;
Great synapse...I couldn't quite pull myself away from that site I posted to say much more than I did.

Thanks,
Gunny

i wonder how things in cuba would be now if that operation didnt fail miserably, did the kennedy administration even have a plan for after the invasion, if it worked of course. i think they definetley underestimated castros men, although not the best in the world, they've got an island, and they know it like the back of their hand.

Mech-- I think we have this naive view that other people wish to be the carbon copy of us. Now, if that is correct, then we anticipate that any military operation will conclude like the August 1944 liberation of Paris. People will flood the streets, love us as liberators and restore a government reflective of our democratic ideals. Doesn't always work that way. I would imagine that the Kennedy Administration wanted to get rid of the communist influence in Latin America. What happened after that was hoped to be another Paris event.
DJ

Mech...A little about the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs Invasion...

Mass Trials were held for the 1,189 men that were captured, and each was sentenced to 30 years in prison. After 20 months of negotiation, most were released in exchange for 53 million dollars in food and medicine. As a result of the U.S. failure, Kennedy fired long time director Allen Dulles, Deputy Director Charles Cabell, and the one most responsible for the operation, Deputy Director Richard Bissell. Kennedy assumed full responsibility for the failure, although he secretly blamed the CIA and he ordered a full investigation(which stayed classified until 1998 February).
Besides being a major embarrassment for the Administration, the attack set the stage for the major confrontation between the U.S. an the Soviet Union:
the missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. In the meantime, Kennedy's obsession with eliminating Castro grew. A plan code named "Operation Mongoose" spurred by then Attorney General Robert F.Kennedy, attempted to eliminate Castro by any means necessary. Other CIA plots included hiring Mafia hit men and devising a poisoned scuba suit as a gift for Castro.(Pretty wild, how about it?).
The head of Operation Mongoose, Brig. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale aked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for their views on these and other top secret plans to eliminate Castro, and records show that 1962, 13 March they endorsed these ideas but there is no evidence that any were ever carried out. Gunny

Mark-- once again some amazing stuff. What always floors me is that we went to such extremes to eliminate someone rather than attempt to either marginalize or neutralize him as we did with Tito in Yugoslavia. We had this view that communism was monolithic and all commies were the same. Bad enough that we did so poorly a job with Cuba but there is always that lingering thought in my mind that we got involved in Vietnam to show that "world" communism was not going to swallow another country.
DJ