The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful attempt by United States-backed

Cuban exiles to overthrow the government of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Increasing friction between the U.S. government and Castro's leftist regime led
President Dwight D. Eisenhower to break off diplomatic relations with Cuba in
January 1961. Even before that, however, the Central Intelligence Agency had
been training anti-revolutionary Cuban exiles for a possible invasion of the island.
The invasion plan was approved by Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy.

On April 17, 1961 about 1300 exiles, armed with U.S. weapons, landed at the
Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the southern coast of Cuba. Hoping to find
support from the local population, they intended to cross the island to Havana. It
was evident from the first hours of fighting, however, that the exiles were likely to
lose. President Kennedy had the option of using the U.S. Air Force against the
Cubans but decided against it. Consequently, the invasion was stopped by Castro's
army. By the time the fighting ended on April 19, 90 exiles had been killed and the
rest had been taken as prisoners.

The failure of the invasion seriously embarrassed the young Kennedy

administration. Some critics blamed Kennedy for not giving it adequate support
and others for allowing it to take place at all. The captured exiles were later
ransomed by private groups in the U.S.

Additionally, the invasion made Castro wary of the U.S. He was convinced that the
Americans would try to take over the island again. From the Bay of Pigs on, Castro
had an increased fear of a U.S. incursion on Cuban soil.

The Bay of Pigs invasion took place on 17 April 1961. It was an attempt by the US government to
overthrow Fidel Castro's government in Cuba. Since the Cuban revolution in 1959, relations between
Cuba and the United States had become strained. Castro had seized many US assets and also had
strong links with the Soviet Union.

The Eisenhower administration worked in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to

train Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro's government. Vice President Richard Nixon was the main
proponent of the Bay of Pigs invasion and agreed that the invasion was to be pushed ahead. A large
number of Cuban exiles were trained in Florida and Guatemala for combat

Why Did the Bay of Pigs Invasion Fail?

With the advanced military tactics of United States many wonder why did the Bay of
Pigsinvasion fail? The United States’ attempt to overthrown the government of Fidel
Castro was a big failure. In fact, even with all the planning and the training that the
United States conducted to make the Bay of Pigs operation a success, everything still
went wrong. There are many reasons some people believe this military operation did not
go as planned.

Preparation to Overthrow Cuba

Three months after John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States of
America, plans began to invade Cuba and defeat the government of Fidel Castro.

The decision to conduct this overthrow of the Cuban government was in place
during President Eisenhower’s term. In fact, Eisenhower had the C.I.A. recruit and train
anti-Cuban exiles in the Miami area in an effort to form a group of individuals that would
be able to touch down in Cuba and begin the process of eradicating Castro’s
government.

The Cuban exiles would create the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) with the help of
the C.I.A. and the CRC would be headed by the former Prime Minister of Cuba Jose
Cardona.

Upon the eradication of Cuban government Jose Cardona was supposed to become the
leader of the new government in Cuba after the invasion. Much of the training and the
preparation for the invasion would occur in South Florida, on the island of Vieques in
Puerto Rico, Kentucky, Georgia and New Orleans. When the C.I.A. wanted to transport
supplies and goods from Florida to other locations they did so at night in an attempt to
keep their actions clandestine.

Cuban Preparation for Attack

With all the training and preparation to overthrow the Cuban government why did the
Bay of Pigs invasion fail? There are a number of reasons why the invasion failed horribly
for the United States.

One of the main reasons is that there were leaks of information in the southern
Florida/Miami area by those in the Anti-Castro exiles. Some speculate that this
information was unfortunately repeated and printed in local and foreign news
publications.
The general population of Cuba was not very well informed of the planned invasions.
However, it appears that the Cuban government was very well informed of the possibility
that there would be an invasion by the United States.

The Cuban government responded to this information with preparation by setting up a

strategic military plan. This plan involved the use of an army of 25,000 and 9,000 armed
police. Also, theSoviet Union assisted Cuba in training their forces in order to prepare the
attack from the United States. All of this preparation by Cuba was not know by the
United States who was under the impression that the entire attack was a secret.

Why Did the Bay of Pigs Fail?

There are a number of reasons why the Bay of Pigs failed. The Cuban government was
very aware of the actions of the United States government. Knowing that the U.S. was
planning to attack allowed the Cuban government to build up armies and supplies for a
counterattack.

This preparation by the Cuba was a surprise for the U.S. who didn’t think they needed to
be extensively prepared for a very in depth overthrow of the Cuban government. Thus,
many of the actions that the United States were taking to overthrow the Cuban
government were repeatedly counteracted by the Cuban forces at a higher level, to the
surprise and dismay of the US government.

Another reason the invasion failed is because in general there was not much anti-Castro
sentiment in Cuba in order to help the U.S. overthrow the government. In fact, the
revolutionaryChe Guevara urged Cubans to rally together in an attempt keep the U.S.
from overthrowing the Cuban regime.

Finally, when considering why did the Bay of Pigs invasion fail one must look at the
tactical methods of the United States. Many people also contribute the invasion failure to
inadequate military equipment and supplies and ineffective military tactics.

Participants
US Government personnel
Cuban government personnel

Wars and Battles, April 14-19, 1961

The Bay of Pigs invasion was intended to provoke popularity for an uprising against Fidel
Castro, who had overthrown American-backed dictatorFulgencio Batista. Instead, it gave
Castro a military victory and a permanent symbol of Cuban resistance to American aggression.
The Bay of Pigs was not originally John F. Kennedy's idea. As the communist nature of Fidel
Castro's regime became apparent, the urge to topple his government grew. Dwight D.
Eisenhower's administration planned the invasion, which would be handled by the CIA. By the
time of Kennedy's inauguration, the order to invade was the only remaining piece of the plan to
put into place.
Planning for the invasion began in 1960, before diplomatic ties with Cuba had been broken.
The situation was delicate, since the plan was to overthrow a government with which the United
States was not at war. Various aspects, including propaganda and military strategies, were
included in the plan, along with the directive that the U.S. should not appear to be involved.
During the presidential campaign, Kennedy had accused Eisenhower of not doing enough
about Castro. In fact, Eisenhower might have launched an invasion himself, had a proper
excuse presented itself. Instead, he bequeathed an advanced plan to Kennedy, who was
strongly inclined to pursue it.
Others in the government were not convinced. The Cubans had presented evidence to
the United Nations as early as October that the United States was hiring and training
mercenaries. American involvement was not likely to remain much of a secret.
Senator J. William Fulbright told Kennedy that this sort of hypocrisy was just the sort of thing of
which the United States accused the Soviets. Under Secretary of State Chester
Bowles advised Secretary of State Dean Rusk that the plan was wrong on both moral and legal
grounds.
Those in favor of the plan also included former Vice President Richard Nixon, John's
brother Robert F. Kennedy, and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.
On April 12, 1961, Kennedy told a press conference that the United States unequivocally had
no intention of intervening in Cuban affairs. Five days later, the invasion took place.
The invasion force had been assembled in Guatemala. It departed in six ships from a port in
Nicaragua on April 14. On April 15, the American-backed Cuban exiles began to bomb airfields
near two points in the Bay of Pigs and the Zapata swamps in Cuba.
In a clumsy effort to make the attacks appear to have been made by defectors, the attacking B-
26 airplanes were disguised to look like Cuban aircraft. An actual defector named Mario Zúñiga
was presented to the press along with his airplane, but so many important details were missing
and the press had uncovered so much of the truth, that the cover-up effort had little success.
Within the first few hours of the operation, it began to appear that the invasion would fail
because it had not garnered the support from locals on which they were counting. Much
to the CIA’s surprise, locals firmly supported Castro and the Revolution.
Adlai E. Stevenson, the American ambassador to the U.N., flatly denied the Cuban
ambassador's charges about the attack and showed the official photographs to support the
defector’s story. Unfortunately, the truth came out within a few hours and Stevenson was
humiliated. He also learned that Kennedy had referred to him as “my official liar.”
The attack began shortly after midnight on April 16. Coral reefs, misidentified by U-2 spy
planes as seaweed, held up landings. Two ships were stranded 80 yards from shore and some
heavy equipment was lost. With the invasion plainly underway, Rusk announced on Monday,
April 17, that the U.S. would not intervene in Cuba nor would it in the future.
Because world opinion was against the U.S., Kennedy decided not to provide further air cover
until it could be launched from a landing strip somewhere in Cuba. This never happened, and
Cuban forces had complete control of the air. A final desperate attempt at air support resulted
in the loss of four American airmen on April 19, but the outcome was already sealed.
The invaders surrendered on the afternoon of April 19. More than 200 people been killed;
another 1,197 were taken captive. On April 20, Kennedy told the American Society of
 Newspaper Editors that the episode was Cubans fighting Cubans and that the U.S. had not
been involved.
A few months later, the three responsible for planning the invasion — Director of Central
Intelligence (DCI) Allen Dulles, Deputy Director of Operations Richard Bissell, and Air Force
General Charles Cabell — were fired.
Mass trials of the captured men were held and nearly all were sentenced to 30 years
imprisonment. After 20 months of negotiations, they were released in exchange for $53 million
in food and medicine.
The failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion set the stage for further aggressions against
Castro from his northern aggressor. President Kennedy made little effort to conceal his
continued desire to see Castro deposed. Castro’s insecurity about the future of his rule
over Cuba led to the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles there, prior to the Cuban
Missile Crisis of 1962.

Since Fidel Castro came to power, he and his government have exhibited many traits of personalist
rule commonly attributed to a cult of personality, despite attempts to discourage it. In contrast to
many of the world's modern strongmen, Castro has only twice been personally featured on a
Cuban stamp. In 1974 he appeared on a stamp to commemorate the visit of Leonid Brezhnev, and
in 1999 he appeared on a stamp commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Revolution. There
has been a strong tendency to encourage reverence for other Cuban figures such as José MartÃ,
Che Guevara, and the "martyrs" of t ...

Fidel Alejandro Vittore Castro Ruz was born on a sugar plantation in Birán, near Mayarí, in the
modern-dayprovince of Holguín – then a part of the now-defunct Oriente province. He was the third
child born to Ángel Castro y Argiz, a Galician immigrant from the impoverished northwest
of Spain who became relatively prosperous through work in the sugar industry and successful
investing.[15]

Fidel Castro - Bay of Pigs

On April 15, 1961, the day after Castro described his revolution as
socialist, four Cuban airfields were bombed by A-26s bearing false
Cuban markings. These bombing runs were the beginning stages of
the Bay of Pigs invasion. The United States staged an unsuccessful
attack on Cuba on 17 April 1961. Assault Brigade 2506, a force of
about 1,400 Cuban exiles, financed and trained by
the CentralIntelligence Agency, and commanded by Cuban Manuel
Artime and CIA operatives Grayston Lynch and William Robertson,
landed perhaps a hundred miles south-east of Havana, at Playa Girón
on the Bay of Pigs. The CIA assumed that the invasion would spark a
popular uprising against Castro; the operation itself was expected by
Castro, however, and in anticipation the government rounded up
perhaps 100,000 (Lynch reports 250,000) anti-Castro Cubans -at least
20,000 in Havana alone (Priestland, 2003), executed some and
imprisoned the others under threat of death should the invasion
succeed. Led by Black Cuban Erneido Oliva, most of the 1,200 men
invasion force made it ashore; however, reserve ammunition in two
US supplied support ships, the Houston and the RÃo Escondido, sunk
by Castro Airforce Seafury propeller-driven aircraft and T-33 Jets,
was lost. President Kennedy was influenced by some State
Department officials including Roy Rubottom and especially his
assistant William Weiland who had been involved in Castro related
matters since the Bogotazo and in Cuban matters 1933 as assistant to
Sumner Welles. Kennedy withdrew support for the invasion at the last
minute, by cancelling several bombing sorties that could have
crippled the entire Cuban airforce. The cancellation also prevented US
Marines waiting off the coast from landing in support of the Cuban
exiles. After three days of ferocious fighting in which about 100
invaders and perhaps 2,000 militia, perhaps 5000 according to Lynch,
more died (most trapped in buses on the courseways), the rest of the
invaders were captured [24]. At least nine invadors were formally
executed in connection with this action, however, a number died of
suffocation in an unventilated truck trailor, while Castro attributed the
defeat of the invasion to his leadership.
In a nationally broadcast speech on 1961-12-02, Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that
Cuba was going to adopt Communism. On February 7, 1962, the US imposed an embargo against Cuba,
which included a general travel ban for American tourists.