“On Sunday night, April 16, 1961, the last thing Kennedy did before he went to bed was to call Dean Rusk and tell him to order the cancellation of a dawn attack by the entire exile force of sixteen B-26s, leaving Castro with airplanes to strafe the invading exiles, called Brigade 2506, who planned to hit the beach in the Bay of Pigs at dawn.
On Monday morning, April 17, 1961, Kennedy refused to allow U.S. jets to provide air cover by launching from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Essex ...”