Bay Of Pigs 10 Pages Essay Research

Bay Of Pigs (10 Pages) Essay, Research Paper

B A Y O F P I G S

The story of the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of

Pigs, which is located on the south coast of Cuba about 97

miles southeast of Havanna, was one of mismanagement, poor

judgment, and stupidity (.Bay of Pigs. 378). The blame

for the failed invasion falls directly on the CIA (Central

Intelligence Agency) and a young president by the name of

John F. Kennedy. The whole intention of the invasion was to

assault communist Cuba and put an end to Fidel Castro.

Ironically, thirty-nine years after the Bay of Pigs, Fidel

Castro is still in power. First, it is necessary to look at

why the invasion happened and then why it did not work.

From the end of World War II until the mid-eighties,

most Americans could agree that communism was the enemy.

Communism wanted to destroy our way of life and corrupt the

freest country in the world. Communism is an economic

system in which one person or a group of people are in

control. The main purpose of communism is to make the

social and economic status of all individuals the same. It

abolishes the inequalities in possession of property and

distributes wealth equally to all. The main problem with

this is that one person who is very wealthy can be stripped

of most of his wealth so that another person can have more

material goods and be his equal.

The main reason for the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba was

the change to communism. On January 1, 1959, Cuban dictator

Fulgencio Batista fled the country for the safety of the

Dominican Republic (Goode, Stephen 75). Fidel Castro and

his guerrilla warriors overthrew the old government dictated

by Batista. During the next couple of weeks, Castro

established a new government and on February 16, he was

officially declared premier (Finkelstein, Norman H. 127).

The United States accepted this new regime as a relief from

the harsh, corrupt, and unpopular government of Batista.

Soon after everything settled down, Castro and his men made

a rapid move to change their political course. He announced

his transformation to Marxism-Leninism and avowed his

friendship with the Soviet Union (Goode, Stephen 75).

These events upset the United States and there were concerns

about Castro becoming too powerful. One reason was the

friendship with the Soviet Union because Cuba was receiving

armed forces to expand and improve its army. Cuba received

30,000 tons of arms a year, which included Soviet JS-2

51-ton tanks, SU-100 assault guns, T-34 35-ton tanks, 76-mm

field guns, 85-mm field guns, and 122-mm field guns (Goode,

Stephen 75&76).

Fidel Castro took great pride in the armed forces. He

expanded the ground forces from 250,000 to 400,000 troops.

These figures put one out of every thirty Cubans in the

armed forces, compared to one out of every sixty Americans

(Goode, Stephen 76). Castro and communist Cuba was

generating a military establishment ten times larger than

that of Batista.s. Castro put together the best army any

Latin American country had ever had (Goode, Stephen 76).

Analysts in Washington were frightened by this news. They

were getting scared that Cuba might try to attack the United

States with Soviet missiles and missile launchers. Also,

they were afraid that Castro might attack other Latin

American countries. Both scenarios were not welcome in the

United States, and the downfall of Castro and the Cuban

government became the top priority of the CIA (Goode,

Stephen 76).

There were many Cubans that did not like Castro. They

flocked to the United States in order to escape communism.

These people were known as Cuban exiles (Goode, Stephen

76). On March 17, 1960, the CIA and President Eisenhower

got together and discussed the situation going on in Cuba.

They decided to arm and train these Cuban exiles for

guerrilla warfare against Cuba (Goode, Stephen 76&77). In

November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president. Upon

his election, he was informed of the Cuban crisis and after

being presented with the facts, he approved the invasion.

Many plans for the invasion were recognized, but the

best one came from Richard Bissel. He describes his plan in

a book entitled, CIA.

.The plan that was finally accepted was

a more complex and larger version of the

operation seven years earlier in

Guatemala. A force of Cuban exiles was

to secure a beachhead on Cuba.s

coastline while a fleet of B-26.s, the

most powerful war fighting plane, was to

put Castro.s air force out of commission

and disrupt transportation and

communication lines (Fursenko,

Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali 95).

Once the beachhead had been secured and

a portion o

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