As a result of the U.S. failure at Bay of Pigs and the diplomatic embarrassment that ensued, President Kennedy fired long-time CIA Director Allen W. Dulles, Deputy Director Charles P. Cabell, and the one principally responsible for the operation, Deputy Director Richard Bissell. Kennedy assumed full responsibility for the failure, although he secretly blamed the CIA and ordered a full investigation of the operation. The report on this investigation, written by CIA inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick, upset the new CIA director John McCone (who replaced Allen W. Dulles) so much that all but one of the 20 copies produced was destroyed, and the report stayed classified until February of 1998. The controversial inspector general’s report concluded that ignorance, incompetence, and arrogance on the part of the CIA was responsible for the fiasco. It criticized nearly every aspect of the CIA’s handling of the invasion: misinforming Kennedy administration officials, planning poorly, using faulty intelligence and conducting an overt military operation beyond “agency responsibility as well as agency capability.” The report added, “The agency reduced the exile leaders to the status of puppets.” Aside from being at once a major victory for the Cuban Revolution and a major embarrassment for Kennedy and the CIA, the attack at the Bay of Pigs set the stage for the major confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union: the missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. In the meantime, perhaps as a result of the Bay of Pigs embarrassment, Kennedy’s obsession with eliminating Castro grew. A plan code-named “Operation Mongoose” spurred by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, attempted to eliminate Castro by any means necessary. Bissell writes, “To understand the Kennedy administration’s obsession with Cuba, it is important to understand the Kennedys, especially Robert. From their perspective, Castro won the first round at the Bay of Pigs. He had defeated the Kennedy team; they were bitter and they could not tolerate his getting away with it. The president and his brother were ready to avenge their personal embarrassment by overthrowing their enemy at any cost. I don’t believe there was any significant policy debate in the executive branch on the desirability of getting rid of Castro. Robert Kennedy’s involvement in organizing and directing Mongoose became so intense that he might as well have been deputy director for plans for the operation.” An Army memorandum from March 1, 1962 titled, “Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba,” outlines a number of ideas, including Operation Bingo, a plan to fake an attack on the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba that would provide cover for a devastating military assault on Havana. Operation Dirty Trick, in which Castro would be blamed if the 1962 Mercury manned space flight carrying John Glenn crashed, and Operation Good Times, involving faked photos of “an obese Castro” with two voluptuous women in a lavishly furnished room “and a table brimming over with the most delectable Cuban food.” The caption would read, “My ration is different.” According to U.S. News & World Report (10/26/98) an estimated 10,000 pages of previously secret documents were quietly declassified. Other CIA plots included hiring Mafia hit men and devising a poisoned scuba suit as a gift for Castro. There is talk in many of the newly released CIA documents of a “Remember the Maine incident” that would facilitate military intervention. The head of Operation Mongoose, Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for their views on these and other top-secret plans to eliminate Castro and/or concoct a pretext for a military invasion of Cuba. Records show that on March 13, 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed these ideas as “suitable for planning purposes.” There’s no evidence that any of them were carried out. |