Origanalist
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Why can't every politician be like JFK?
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Ender
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Untold Story of the Bay of Pigs
Aug 14, 2011 8:00 AM EDT
Newly declassified CIA documents reveal new blunders and how close America came to war during the failed
From a transport ship floating in Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, CIA operative Grayston Lynch knew the U.S. mission to overthrow Fidel Castro was faltering. The Cuban exiles he had brought with him had abandoned their posts, so he grabbed the boat’s recoilless rifles and machine guns and began firing at the aircraft overhead.
On a day of chaos and infamy in April 1961, Lynch would soon understand the consequences of his shooting. He had fired on his agency’s own planes, which were trying to protect the U.S.-led Cuban exiles invading the island from being slaughtered by Castro’s forces. “We couldn’t tell them from the Castro planes,” Lynch later explained.
The Bay of Pigs is one of America’s most infamous Cold War blunders, and it has been studied, debated, and dramatized endlessly ever since. Yet, for 50 years, details like Lynch’s story were hidden away in top-secret CIA files that were finally released this month and reviewed by NEWSWEEK.
The CIA’s official history of the Bay of Pigs operation is filled with dramatic and harrowing details that not only lay bare the strategic, logistical, and political problems that doomed the invasion, but also how the still-green President John F. Kennedy scrambled to keep the U.S. from entering into a full conflict with Cuba.
The disclosure is the handiwork of the dogged researcher Peter Kornbluh and his Washington-based National Security Archive. The right-to-know group used the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits to force the CIA to release all its major documents on Kennedy’s failed efforts to overthrow Castro, who this month turned 85 and stands as a living reminder of America’s failure to repel communism on an island just 90 miles from Florida.
Written by then–CIA chief historian Jack Pfeiffer between 1974 and 1984, the five-volume history—the last volume of which remains classified—seeks to spread the blame beyond the agency to the State Department and White House, while confirming that the invasion was even more disastrously handled than previously known.
Among the details hidden from public view all these years are that a CIA official transferred funds from the invasion budget to “pay the mafia types” for an assassination plot against Castro, which was so secret that the chief of invasion planning, Jacob Esterline, was not told what the money was for. Despite repeated White House instructions to keep U.S. forces from directly participating in order to preserve plausible deniability of American involvement, the CIA ultimately gave permission for U.S. pilots to fly aircraft over the beaches. The aviators were told that, if they were shot down and captured, they should describe themselves as mercenaries and the U.S. would “deny any knowledge” of them. Sadly, four U.S. airmen lost their lives, and it wasn’t until 1976 that they were given medals in ceremonies their families were encouraged to keep secret. Before Kennedy inherited the Bay of Pigs invasion plan from the Eisenhower administration, then–vice president Richard Nixon was a forceful advocate of bringing down Castro and urged the CIA to support “goon squads and other direct action groups” operating inside and outside Cuba.
Perhaps most disturbing of all, the CIA task force in charge of the paramilitary assault did not believe it could succeed without becoming an open invasion supported by the U.S. military. The assessment was part of a brief prepared for President-elect Kennedy that he never saw. Kennedy later told one of his aides that the CIA and military did not believe he would resist their pressure to have American forces engage when the invasion was on the verge of failure.
Pfeiffer’s revelations are buried in a lengthy, comprehensive, and argumentative history. The volumes, which include 1,200 pages of narrative and documentary appendices, describe the White House, and particularly Kennedy, as responsible for the embarrassing defeat: It cost the invaders more than 100 lives, gave communists around the world a propaganda coup, and made a mockery of Kennedy’s promise of a new day in relations with Latin America.
In public, Kennedy put on a bold show of confidence, accepting that he alone was responsible. But in private, he struggled to make sense of the catastrophe: “How could I have been so stupid as to let them proceed?” he repeatedly asked his aides. He was furious at the CIA for having misled him. Waiting several months before he compelled CIA Director Allen Dulles to resign, Kennedy told him, “Under a parliamentary system of government it is I who would be leaving. But under our system it is you who must go.”
Aug 14, 2011 8:00 AM EDT
Newly declassified CIA documents reveal new blunders and how close America came to war during the failed
From a transport ship floating in Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, CIA operative Grayston Lynch knew the U.S. mission to overthrow Fidel Castro was faltering. The Cuban exiles he had brought with him had abandoned their posts, so he grabbed the boat’s recoilless rifles and machine guns and began firing at the aircraft overhead.
On a day of chaos and infamy in April 1961, Lynch would soon understand the consequences of his shooting. He had fired on his agency’s own planes, which were trying to protect the U.S.-led Cuban exiles invading the island from being slaughtered by Castro’s forces. “We couldn’t tell them from the Castro planes,” Lynch later explained.
The Bay of Pigs is one of America’s most infamous Cold War blunders, and it has been studied, debated, and dramatized endlessly ever since. Yet, for 50 years, details like Lynch’s story were hidden away in top-secret CIA files that were finally released this month and reviewed by NEWSWEEK.
The CIA’s official history of the Bay of Pigs operation is filled with dramatic and harrowing details that not only lay bare the strategic, logistical, and political problems that doomed the invasion, but also how the still-green President John F. Kennedy scrambled to keep the U.S. from entering into a full conflict with Cuba.
The disclosure is the handiwork of the dogged researcher Peter Kornbluh and his Washington-based National Security Archive. The right-to-know group used the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits to force the CIA to release all its major documents on Kennedy’s failed efforts to overthrow Castro, who this month turned 85 and stands as a living reminder of America’s failure to repel communism on an island just 90 miles from Florida.
Written by then–CIA chief historian Jack Pfeiffer between 1974 and 1984, the five-volume history—the last volume of which remains classified—seeks to spread the blame beyond the agency to the State Department and White House, while confirming that the invasion was even more disastrously handled than previously known.
Among the details hidden from public view all these years are that a CIA official transferred funds from the invasion budget to “pay the mafia types” for an assassination plot against Castro, which was so secret that the chief of invasion planning, Jacob Esterline, was not told what the money was for. Despite repeated White House instructions to keep U.S. forces from directly participating in order to preserve plausible deniability of American involvement, the CIA ultimately gave permission for U.S. pilots to fly aircraft over the beaches. The aviators were told that, if they were shot down and captured, they should describe themselves as mercenaries and the U.S. would “deny any knowledge” of them. Sadly, four U.S. airmen lost their lives, and it wasn’t until 1976 that they were given medals in ceremonies their families were encouraged to keep secret. Before Kennedy inherited the Bay of Pigs invasion plan from the Eisenhower administration, then–vice president Richard Nixon was a forceful advocate of bringing down Castro and urged the CIA to support “goon squads and other direct action groups” operating inside and outside Cuba.
Perhaps most disturbing of all, the CIA task force in charge of the paramilitary assault did not believe it could succeed without becoming an open invasion supported by the U.S. military. The assessment was part of a brief prepared for President-elect Kennedy that he never saw. Kennedy later told one of his aides that the CIA and military did not believe he would resist their pressure to have American forces engage when the invasion was on the verge of failure.
Pfeiffer’s revelations are buried in a lengthy, comprehensive, and argumentative history. The volumes, which include 1,200 pages of narrative and documentary appendices, describe the White House, and particularly Kennedy, as responsible for the embarrassing defeat: It cost the invaders more than 100 lives, gave communists around the world a propaganda coup, and made a mockery of Kennedy’s promise of a new day in relations with Latin America.
In public, Kennedy put on a bold show of confidence, accepting that he alone was responsible. But in private, he struggled to make sense of the catastrophe: “How could I have been so stupid as to let them proceed?” he repeatedly asked his aides. He was furious at the CIA for having misled him. Waiting several months before he compelled CIA Director Allen Dulles to resign, Kennedy told him, “Under a parliamentary system of government it is I who would be leaving. But under our system it is you who must go.”
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LibertyEagle
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^^^ Link, please.
Ender
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Galileo Galilei
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Really??? Do tell.
I've got two books and a movie on that specific topic.
Really??? Do tell.
Lee Harvey Oswald is in the TSBD building and right next to him in the Dal-Tex building is the only convicted criminal who was detained that day Jim Braden. Jim Braden knew Jack Ruby and he had David Ferrie's library card in his possession. Yet Braden was released. Braden was on the 2nd floor saying he wanted to use the telephone. Look up the Altgens Photo and you see on the 2nd floor fire escape at the window a rifle muzzle sticking out.
Also Officier Tippit was murdered by Oswald after Tippit stopped Oswald on the description given of a suspect from the TSBD. A 5'-9" white male 150-170 lbs. How can someone tell a person is 5'-9" from the ground looking up at the 6th floor TSBD? Search photos of BADGEMAN (a suspect on the grassy knoll). Now look at Officier Tippit.Do you see any similarities? Tippet moonlighted as a bouncer at a club who's owner knew Jack Ruby. Tippit basically was holding down 3 jobs trying to make ends meet. Do you know what the mafia does to it's hitmen after a hit sometimes? The kill them to make sure no connections to the crime.
fisharmor
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Constitutionalists hated John F. Kennedy.
Handbill, Circa 1963
So, what part of this handbill outlines a constitutional position?
Looks more like commie haters didn't like him. I'm particularly very interested in hearing how communist registration laws are in any way constitutional.
LibertyEagle
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Is that why he made a proposition to the UN that the U.S. be disarmed? Is that what "waking up" is all about?
LibertyEagle
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Start with 1 and 5.
This guy wanted to DISARM the United States. There is no getting around that.
JFK presented this proposal to the UN in 1961.
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Ender
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I believe so, as we would be free of the Federal Reserve.
Executive Order 1110 gave the US the ability to create its own money backed by silver. ...
http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/executiveorder11110.htm
On June 4, 1963, a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. Mr. Kennedy's order gave the Treasury the power "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This meant that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation. In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S. notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous.
With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Kennedy was on his way to putting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York out of business. If enough of these silver certificats were to come into circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything. Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the gevernment the ability to repay its debt without going to the Federal Reserve and being charged interest in order to create the new money. Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S. the ability to create its own money backed by silver.
http://rense.com/general44/exec.htm
Ender
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He was talking nuclear disarmament- and considering his brush with the Soviets, I can understand.
Here's the full speech:
http://www.networker.www3.50megs.com/jfk11.html
I am against the UN but I think we can all admit that nuclear weapons are a travesty. If you've got an idea how to rid the world of them I'd be most interested.
LibertyEagle
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Not that it should matter, but no, it most certainly was NOT limited to nuclear weapons.
Unless you are wanting world government, why on earth would you turn everything over to the frickin' United Nations and that was exactly what he was proposing.
LibertyEagle
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Thanks for posting this. Of course, there's much more to the story of how JFK was set up with this operation to fail, then urged to launch a full scale attack by the US military to "save the cuban exiles from slaughter".
Cuba had a few fighter jets. They were to be taken out on the airfield just before the invasion. At the last minute, someone (most probably McGeorge Bundy) called off the air strike against the Cuban jets, guaranteeing the slaughter of the invasion force.
When JFK found out he had been had, he fired Dulles (who later was appointed as one of the commissioners of the Warren Report) and vowed to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them into the wind.
JFK went up against the US Steel cartel and won.
He proposed huge tax cuts, which LBJ got passed and took credit for after they iced JFK. He was determined to get out of VietNam before his 2nd term (which he would have won by a landslide).
He and Bobby went up against the military industrial complex with the TFX fighter, the then largest single defense contract in peacetime in the history of the US.
He made no deals and couldn't be bought because he had his own stew.
He went up against the mad dog Kruschev, face to face. The 1st meeting left him embarrassed because he got his ass kicked, but not so the 2nd time, when it really mattered. The Missile Crisis is the reason he began to push for disarmament "of all weapons of mass destruction" (C'mon, LE, you don't actually believe he intended complete disarmament of the US military, do you?) because during the BOP and the CMC, both times he was surrounded by the hawks who urged a full scale attack against Cuba and the USSR.
He was intelligent with wit and charm. No press reporters or opposition pols or foreigners ever left him babbling or sweating like the succession of dolts who followed.
His wife was a FL that no one made jokes about or got pissed at for engaging in ridiculous or criminal behavior. She spoke several languages and addressed crowds in their native tongue when she visited other countries. When JFK was introduced to the podium in France, he joked that he was the guy who came over with Jackie.
No, I don't believe he or any other guy could save the world, including RP. But anyone who thinks for a second that the US would be worse off if he finished 8 years is certifiably insane, IMHO.
Galileo Galilei
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JFK pardoned almost every person who had been convicted of a federal drug crime. No other president has done this.
John F Kennedy III
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Why can't every politician be more like James Madison?
LibertyEagle
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Sorry, Bosso, but anyone who wanted to disarm our country and cede that to the United Nations, is no patriot, in my opinion.
