Posted on 04/16/2022 3:42:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
They fought like Tigers," wrote a CIA officer who helped train the Cuban freedom-fighters who landed at The Bay of Pigs 61 years ago this week... "But their fight was doomed before the first man hit the beach."
That CIA man, Grayston Lynch, knew something about fighting -- and about long odds. He carried scars from Omaha Beach, The Battle of the Bulge and Korea's Heartbreak Ridge. But in those battles, Lynch and his band of brothers could count on the support of their own chief executive.
At the Bay of Pigs, Lynch and his band of Cuban brothers learned -- first in speechless shock and finally in burning rage -- that their most powerful enemies were not Castro's Soviet-armed and led soldiers massing in Santa Clara, Cuba, but the Ivy League's Best and Brightest dithering in Washington.
Lynch trained, in his own words, ''brave boys most of whom had never before fired a shot in anger." Short on battle experience, yes, but they fairly burst with what Bonaparte and George Patton valued most in a soldier -- morale. They'd seen the face of Castro/Communism point-blank: stealing, lying, jailing, poisoning minds, murdering.
They'd heard the chilling "Fuego!" as Castro and Che's firing squads murdered thousands of brave countrymen. More importantly, they heard the "Viva Cuba Libre!" from the bound and blindfolded patriots, right before the bullets ripped them apart. They set their jaws and resolved to smash this murderous barbarism that was ravaging their homeland. And they went at it with a vengeance.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Count me in. Never made the connection in 50+ years.
Kinda sorta but not really.
I recently found evidence that my grandfather was OSS in WWII. It seems he was at some level involved in Operation Paperclip. After the war he was a brewmaster, building breweries first in South America in the mid 1940’s and the later in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China. We have found evidence of families he started in these countries - I seem to have many aunts, uncles and cousins we never knew about. Over the years his activities switched from finding and/or recruiting Nazi scientists to other more political machinations. I have seen pictures of him at the fall of Saigon and on the plane when Marcos fled the Philippines.
Pretty sure grandpa wasn’t a Nazi and I am also pretty sure the groundwork for Paperclip was laid before the end of the war. Sure, we overlooked and turned a blind eye to their politics, but it was vitally important that the Russians not get a technological edge over the US.
There also seems to be pretty good indications that the more competent scientists grabbed by the USSR were either killed - by us or the communists - or they defected. Russian high end technical innovation seems to have stumbled in the 1980’s and never fully recovered. While there is a lot of bluff and bluster about Russian advances, in the past 40 to 50 years they all seem to be variations on stolen western tech.
I went a bit off course, but back to the original point…Operation Paperclip wasn’t sympathetic to, nor run by Nazis. It was about obtaining scientific expertise and keeping that expertise from the Soviets. As far as I can tell from items we have found and accounts from newly found family members, the scientists were not all that political. They worked for Germany because that was their country. Their families were there. Do you think conservative researchers in our country have stopped their work because the government has gone far left?
True words
Some say that Kennedy’s assassination was also the result of this failure.
Bttt.
5.56mm
He certainly had the firepower to do it.
He failed, and got whacked for it-
I have never heard the answer as to why JFK decided not to provide the authority to engage.
Lots of guesses about Soviet pressure, but no seemingly knowledgeable explanation.
Paperclip was not just scientists. That’s the common justification. Who can be against Von Braun building a moon rocket? It was actually chock full hard core nazis like klaus barbie. Look up the Gehlen organization. It was not just innocent tech scientists keeping that knowledge away from the Soviets.
Nazi military intel like Gehlen had a vested interest in overly dramatic warnings and predictions to save their own necks from the noose. They were full Nazi, not just wonks in a lab. And they have had a profound effect of the direction our CIA has gone.
Except the record is 100% clear that JFK told the CIA in advance, unequivocally, that it would not be a US military intervention. They thought they could roll him by backing him into a corner. Their smug cynical plan was to put a small unit on a beach knowing they would quickly be in trouble and that Kennedy would be forced to play ball.
Kennedy did not “pull” air support because it was never on the table with him.
As for the karma I suppose you could call the CIA getting him assassinated for not letting them set policy is karma.
Bad for those guys who landed, and I have no doubt they were told by the CIA that the US military was going to be in full support. They were lied to by CIA.
And these were not amateurs, there was plenty of WWII experience from 15 years earlier out there. Nobody seriously believed a light infantry battalion dropped on a beach would prevail alone. But that’s what they told those Cubes and JFK.
There can be an honest debate about whether or not he should have offered support when it was being planned... or maybe have canceled the whole thing. HE had WWII experience also and knew the plan would never work without US invading. But we shouldn’t pretend that he promised support and then didn’t deliver.
British historian Paul Johnson described Kennedy as “more showman than statesman”.
In a private meeting after the debacle, Eisenhower excoriated him for believing that an operation of such scale could be “plausibly denied” as anything but an overt American government action.
After the botched invasion, Castro went to his Soviet masters and said "See! I told you the United States was trying to take me out by force! I demand you give me nuclear missiles to deter any future aggression by these imperialist dogs!"
And the Russians did. That is how and why Soviet missiles ended up in Cuba. It was a response to the botched invasion with Castro demanding they put missiles in Cuba to keep America from invading him again.
Kennedy also did not back the Russians down. That is the lying news media failing to tell the whole story.
He agreed to remove our missile bases in Greece and Turkey in exchange for the Russians moving their missiles out of Cuba. This was done quietly and behind the scenes so that Kennedy could crow about backing the Russians down, but he actually traded our Missile bases for theirs.
And of course the news liars made him into the "hero" for making it appear that he backed the Russians down.
I have read a lot of theories about who killed him and why he was killed, but if he was killed for this reason, I believe it was because of Cosmic Justice and not because of a direct connection to the botched Cuban invasion.
Of course nowadays with the Federal agencies being such unleashed dogs, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that an Agency did this to him as punishment for thwarting them.
We see what they did to Trump, so it's not unreasonable to think they would have gotten revenge against Kennedy.
That contradicts what I have learned over the years. The invasion plan was designed by Eisenhower and he fully intended American air and naval support. Nixon was to carry through with the invasion plan, and I believe Eisenhower said after the corrupt election, "If I had know all my hard work would be wasted, I would have just gone fishing."
Or words to that effect.
HE had WWII experience
Idiot got his PT boat rammed by a Japanese destroyer while they were sunbathing on the deck in broad daylight. I know the movie shows darkness and fog, but that's not what I have read.
Joe Kennedy (the son) might have been a "hero" but John Kennedy was certainly not. He was a fool who should have been cashiered for the disaster his command was. His father pulled strings to flip the narrative.
His father was big time organized crime and had massive connections in high places.
But we shouldn’t pretend that he promised support and then didn’t deliver.
The men with whom I spoke said the orders to "stand down" came directly from Kennedy. So what were all those ships doing there then? Did the CIA sneak them there without Kennedy's knowledge? Sounds like the Naval command would have had something to do with those ships being there.
Same with the US Airforce. It's my understanding they flew the planes but took no action.
I've been reading Humberto Fontova for years, and he goes into details about this incident you won't see anywhere else.
Yes, the idiot didn't want the world to look at America as the aggressor, but the stupid jackass didn't grasp that was how the world was going to see it no matter what happened and if he wasn't going to go full bore, he shouldn't have done it at all.
And of course we repeat that bit of stupidity in Vietnam.
There is something about an "Ivy league" education that tends to make people stupid.
Allen Dulles at CIA had Richard Bissell take point on the operation, and his man in Miami was E. Howard Hunt, later of Watergate fame. The Cubans knew him as “Eduardo.” Hunt to his credit didn’t lie to the Cubans. He told them that they had to hold a beachhead for 24 hours minimum, preferably 48 hours. Castro’s fighters would hone in on them like antibodies on an infection. Things would be going on behind their backs in DC, but there would be a series of escalations that would permit their mission to succeed even if they were no longer alive. They could die smiling with the knowledge that Castro had but days to live.
The possible escalations would include Air Force support, long range naval gunnery, intervention by the 82nd and 101st Airborne along with the 1st Marine divisions, and then an all out invasion. Dulles thought the final escalation would not be necessary, but he understood the key boundary condition: A great power cannot afford to lose face. You go in to win, or you don’t go in at all. Dulles understood that he would have no problem with Nixon as president, but he thought that this would be a good opportunity for Kennedy to “make his bones” and prove that the Democrats weren’t soft on the Cold War.
As the operation unfolded, the first escalation came up in the Situation Room. There were thumbs up all around the table. MacNamara? Yes. Rusk? Yes. Bobby? Yes. Adlai Stevenson? “Mr. President, I object! Isn’t this just one more example of the United States beating up on a smaller and poorer nation in this hemisphere?”
Everyone expected Jack Kennedy to turn to Stevenson and say, “Godammit Adlai, shut the hell up!” But Kennedy sat there like Buddha while the discussion turned into a college bull session, much to Dulles’ horror. Stevenson had introduced a new boundary condition: The US must not be seen to be a bully to its neighbors.
As the bull session went on and on, men were dying in Cuba. Then Dulles made the critical error: He looked at his watch. “Mr. President, there are military forces that may need to be placed on alert. We need to make a decision on Air Force support now.” There was a deadly hush in the room. Then Bobby Kennedy said, “Director Dulles, is the CIA attempting to get the President of the United States to do something he doesn’t want to do?” He cat was out of the bag.
The bull session continued. Then Stevenson played his ace: “Mr. President, suppose the Soviets see this provocation as the beginning of World War III and march their army through the Fulda Gap. Suppose this is the event that starts a nuclear war.” Stevenson’s premise was absurd, but his was the boundary condition that carried the day.
After the debacle, Kennedy should have resigned or been impeached and removed, but his wit saved him.
Yes, I am old enough to remember all of it.
I sent my mail-in ballot for Nixon from the hospital, where I had just given birth to my fourth child.
“Idiot got his PT boat rammed by a Japanese destroyer while they were sunbathing on the deck in broad daylight. I know the movie shows darkness and fog, but that’s not what I have read.”
The excellent book “Japanese Destroyer Captain” by Tameiichi Hara includes a description of the incident. He was exec on one of the destroyers accompanying the Amagiri when it struck PT109, and while the incident did happen at night, per him Kennedy blundered his boat right into their path.
“The men with whom I spoke said the orders to “stand down” came directly from Kennedy. So what were all those ships doing there then? Did the CIA sneak them there without Kennedy’s knowledge? Sounds like the Naval command would have had something to do with those ships being there.”
Kennedy knew full well. He was at an official event that night when he was interrupted by high Pentagon officials as to the situation, and seeking permission to at least evacuate the Brigade forces. Kennedy answered “we can’t get involved”, whereupon one of the officials (maybe the Secretary of Defense himself?) answered “Goddamnit, Mr. President, we ARE involved!!!”
“Same with the US Airforce. It’s my understanding they flew the planes but took no action.”
Several of the Alabama Air National Guard pilots that had instructed the Brigade on their B-26 Invader bombers took off without authorization to lend what support they could, and four of them were killed, including at least one on the ground following a crash landing.
Wasn’t that also what led to Khruschchev’s undoing as Soviet premier?
The Soviets backed Castro to the hilt because of his strategic importance, but privately considered him a major PITA for his constantly stirring up trouble on the world stage.
I sent my mail-in ballot for Nixon from the hospital, where I had just given birth to my fourth child.
+1.
Thanks for that extra information. Somewhere I had read that it occurred in broad daylight, but if a Japanese officer says it happened at night, that’s pretty good proof that that’s what happened.
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