CHAPTER 9:
KENNEDY SOUNDS A COLD WAR CALL TO ARMS
John Kennedy delivered an elegant Cold War call to arms in his inaugural address on January 21, 1961. “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace…” He asserted, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”
As he spoke in his clipped Boston accent, his right hand jabbed the air and his words vaporized into little clouds that lingered about his head in the unseasonably cold 22-degree weather. Kennedy delivered a warning to Cuba and its Soviet ally. “Let all of our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas,” he declared. “And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.”
Kennedy also pledged to accelerate the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and revitalize U.S. conventional forces. “We dare not tempt them [the Soviet Union] with weakness,” he stated. “For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”
At the same time, he expressed his desire for nuclear arms control negotiations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
“[N]either can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course—both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war,” he said. “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.”
According to White House speechwriter Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy first discussed the inaugural speech with him in November 1960. “He wanted it to focus on foreign policy,” Sorensen later wrote, “He wanted it to set a tone for the era that is about to begin.”356 Kennedy underscored his focus on foreign policy when he sent his advisers a translation of a forty-page speech by Chairman Nikita Khrushchev on January 6, 1961. “Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest,” Kennedy wrote on a cover memorandum to the speech. “Our actions, our steps should be tailored to meet these kinds of problems.”
Kennedy was alarmed by Khrushchev’s brief remarks to senior Communist Party officials about the importance of anti-colonial wars in the global strategy of the international Communist movement. In his remarks, Khrushchev had announced the Kremlin’s support for anticolonial wars of liberation, citing struggles in Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam. He called them “revolutionary wars.” Kennedy believed Khrushchev had thrown down a gauntlet to test to his leadership. He interpreted Khrushchev’s remarks on national liberation wars as a signal of a more aggressive Soviet policy in the third world.357
The U.S. intelligence community did not agree with Kennedy’s assessment of Khrushchev’s speech. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-92-62 interpreted the speech as a reaffirmation of Soviet policy and a response to Mao. NIE11-9-62 stated, “The greater stress placed by the Soviets… on ‘wars of national liberation’ is in part a response to the Chinese criticism that the Soviets were magnifying the dangers of war with the West and underplaying the role of violence.” As we have seen, Mao faulted the Soviet Union for not supporting anticolonial wars more aggressively.358 Meanwhile, President Kennedy made Cuba one of the top priorities of his new administration.
Cuba was on the agenda when President Dwight Eisenhower briefed President-elect John Kennedy on January 19, 1961. Eisenhower broke diplomatic ties with Cuba after Castro called the U.S. Embassy “a nest of spies” on January 2. Castro charged that the embassy was being used to promote counterrevolution in Cuba, which, in fact, it was.
At the briefing, Kennedy asked Eisenhower if he thought that the United States should support the counterrevolutionary rebels in Cuba. Eisenhower replied, “Yes, as we cannot let the present government there go on.” Secretary of Treasury Robert Anderson observed U.S. economic plans for all of Latin American had been adversely affected by the Cuban revolution. Anderson pointed out, “[L]arge amounts of United States capital now planned for investment in Latin America but [were] presently waiting to see whether or not the United States can cope with the Cuban situation.”359
Over the next weeks, Kennedy and his foreign-policy advisers held preliminary discussions on Cuba and the still-evolving CIA covert action plan. The CIA plan had undergone a fundamental change in strategic conception since it was originally authorized in March 1960. The plan had evolved from a guerrilla infiltration into an amphibious landing of a small army of Cuban exiles. At a January 28 meeting with President Kennedy, General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, questioned whether the CIA plan would be successful, given recent steps taken by Cuba to build up its military and security forces. “No force of 600 to 800 men is adequate for success,” Lemnitzer said, according to a memorandum on the meeting.
Meanwhile, CIA Deputy Director for Plans (DDP) Richard Bissell assessed the threat posed by the Cuban revolution in a February 1961 paper. He described Cuba as a base for Soviet operations in Latin America. Bissell wrote, “Cuba will, of course, never present a direct military threat to the United States and it is unlikely that Cuba would attempt an open invasion of any other Latin American country since the U.S. could and almost certainly would enter the conflict on the side of the invaded country.”
Bissell continued, “Nevertheless, as Castro further stabilizes his regime, obtains more sophisticated weapons, and further trains the militia, Cuba will provide an effective and solidly defended base for Soviet operations and expansion of influence in the Western Hemisphere.” He noted, “Arms, money, organizational and other support can be provided from Cuba to dissident leaders and groups throughout Latin America in order to create political instability, encourage Communism, weaken the prestige of the U.S., and foster the inevitable popular support that Castro’s continuance of power will engender.” Kennedy postponed making a final decision on the Cuban operation, however, until his aides had more time to study the CIA plan.360 As Kennedy pondered his options in Cuba, the CIA assessed what it would take to set up a super-secret assassination unit.
In January 1961, the White House urged the CIA to set up an “executive action” capability, according to DDP Bissell, who, in turn, instructed CIA officer William Harvey to determine whether it was feasible for the Agency to develop a secret assassination unit.
But Bissell and Harvey’s recollections became fuzzy when the Church Committee and other investigations pressed them for details about the secret CIA assassination capability with the cryptonym ZRRIFLE. Bissell initially testified that the Kennedy White House expressed strong interest in executive action. He later amended his testimony, suggesting that the CIA must have decided on its own initiative to create ZRRIFLE. He stated, “It was normal practice in the Agency, and an important mission, to create various kinds of capability long before there was any reason to be certain whether they would be used.”361 Harvey was tight-lipped, disclosing only minimal information to investigators, according to his biographer and former aide Bayard Stockton.
But Harvey did remember that he was under pressure to get ZRRIFLE up and running. He told investigators that one of his first tasks was to “discuss in theoretical terms with a few officers whom I trusted quite implicitly the whole subject of assassination, our possible assets, our posture… [how] to do it effectively and properly, securely and directly.” He consulted with Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Bissell’s special assistant, and Dr. Edward Gunn, chief of the Operations Division of the Office of Medical Services.362
On January 25, 1961, Harvey and Gottlieb discussed three potential targets for executive action: Castro, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, and Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. In February 1961, Harvey consulted with Gunn about ZRRIFLE. Colonel Sheffield Edwards also briefed Harvey on the Office of Security–run CIA-Mafia assassination operation.363
As chief of the CIA’s Foreign Intelligence/Staff D, Harvey was well placed to run the CIA’s executive action capability. Harvey hid ZRRIFLE within the institutional framework of FI/Staff D, a small, highly compartmented unit, noted for its secure handling of sensitive information. Staff D carried out code-breaking and communications intercept operations for the National Security Agency.364
When Harvey canvassed the resources available for ZRRIFLE, he learned that the CIA lacked a pool of untraceable assassins from which to draw. Harvey initiated a process to recruit assassins for ZRRIFLE, using Staff D asset QJWIN. Staff D had employed QJWIN, a European gangster, to recruit European “safecrackers to obtain foreign codes and ciphers.” But Harvey was not satisfied with the men QJWIN recommended.365
Another problem Harvey faced was that the CIA did not have trained personnel to run assassination operations. Harvey stated, “We didn’t have the staff officers… either adaptable to or capable of this kind of direct action or whom I personally would have been willing to delegate such direct action to.”366 As Harvey pressed ahead with ZRRIFLE, the CIA’s Office of Security continued to plot with the Mafia gamblers to assassinate Castro.
In mid-March 1961, Johnny Rosselli, Santo Trafficante, and Sam Giancana met in Miami Beach ostensibly to attend the Floyd Patterson—Ingemar Johansson heavyweight boxing championship fight and their pal Frank Sinatra’s opening night at the Fontainebleau Hotel.
But the real reason for the meeting at the Fontainebleau was for CIA case officer Jim O’Connell to pass three botulinum capsules to Johnny Rosselli. Rafael “Macho” Gener would coordinate the transfer of the capsules to Juan Orta, who returned to Cuba from Miami in February 1959. Orta was well placed as director general of Castro’s executive office in Havana. Before that Orta had been a top aide to Carlos Prío in Miami.
According to CIA records, the CIA paid Orta $400 a month as “a penetration of the top-level Castro government circles for the purpose of collecting information on government policies and attitudes.” The CIA also said that Orta received kickbacks from the Mafia gamblers and was a “contact” of Trafficante. Gener, an associate of Santo Trafficante in Miami, had been chief of customs at the Havana airport under President Prío. Gener joined Prío in exile, where he organized paramilitary raids in Cuba for Prío.
All the pieces appeared to be in place. But the CIA-Mafia poison capsule operation suddenly stalled in late March 1961. CIA Inspector General J. S. Earman reported that Orta returned the poison capsules “a couple of weeks” later when he unexpectedly “lost his position” in Castro’s office. Orta took political refuge in the Embassy of Venezuela in April 1961.
At the last minute, Antonio Varona stepped into the breach. Earman wrote, “Following the collapse of the Orta channel, Rosselli told O’Connell that Trafficante knew of a man high up in the Cuban exile movement who might do the job. He identified him as Tony Varona.” Varona had served as prime minister under President Prío.
In April 1961, Rosselli handed Varona the poison capsules and approximately $25,000 in “expense money.” Director of Security Sheffield Edwards said that Varona had an asset at one of Castro’s favorite restaurants. Edwards recalled that the poison capsules were delivered to Varona’s asset in Cuba, but the “scheme” failed when Castro stopped eating at the restaurant.367
It was no coincidence that Prío was a touchstone in the assassination operation. A January 1964 CIA cable observed, “Prío is not a neophyte in this sort of adventure. During the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado in the early thirties, Prío participated in several political assassinations. Later he planned and financed the attempt to assassinate President Batista during the attack in the presidential palace on March 13, 1957.”368 As the CIA conspired with the Mafia gamblers to kill Castro, the Kennedy Administration tried to fix the disarray in the Frente Democrático Revolucionario.
The CIA named Antonio Varona general coordinator of the Frente in June 1960 in the hope that he could unify the more than sixty Cuban exile groups in the Miami area into a coherent political front. Under the CIA covert action plan for Cuba, the FRD, a Cuban government-in-exile, would fill the vacuum on the island when the revolution was overthrown.369 But Varona was unable to unify the Frente, as Cuban exile leaders jockeyed with each other for CIA support and leadership positions in post-Castro Cuba.
The CIA financially underwrote the FRD, its member groups, and leaders, according to an FBI report from Miami. “Salaries were paid to individual members of each group,” an FBI report stated. “Money was paid for the purchase of arms, ammunition, airplanes, boats and other articles of war.” FRD member groups also received logistical support from the CIA for paramilitary operations in Cuba.370 Frente headquarters was in Miami, where the greatest number of Cuban exiles lived, but it also maintained offices in other cities. According to a CIA memorandum, FRD delegates in New Orleans, Tampa, and Mexico City gathered intelligence and coordinated Cuban exile activities.
Richard Bissell was dismayed by the Frente’s fractious nature. “Within the political and military groups a high degree of competition existed,” Bissell noted. “Each individual claimed larger followings inside and outside Cuba than the next man, each tried to belittle the potential and capabilities of the other; each proselytized the other’s assets.”371
Varona’s leadership style was the cause of much of the dissension. A February 1961 FBI report stated, “Varona has taken advantage of his position in order to build up his own group within the FRD, to place his men in key positions and push aside other valuable members of groups affiliated with the FRD.” The report added, “Varona’s lack of foresight, his partiality and the incompetence of his unconditional and personal followers, have not only increased the divisions within the FRD and among the other groups, but has also affected the faith of the men who are fighting in Cuba…”372
Cuban exiles alleged that Varona misused Frente funds. An informant told the FBI, “It is common knowledge among many Cuban exiles in New York that the CIA is paying Antonio de Varona, of the FRD, $300,000.00 a month for operation of the group.” The March 1961 FBI report stated, “It is also common knowledge among Cuban exiles that de Varona is using a good portion of this money for the personal benefit of himself and those who are close to him.”373
The competition among Cuban exile leaders spilled over into Guatemala, where the CIA was training Brigade 2506 for the CIA covert action plan for Cuba. According to Bissell, Varona was using the FRD “recruiting machinery” to stack Brigade 2506 with soldiers loyal to him. Other Frente politicians were also trying to put men loyal to them in Brigade 2506 leadership positions and to fill the ranks with their supporters.
Bissell believed that the Cuban exile leaders’ interference with Brigade 2506 was undermining the military effectiveness of the combat force. Bissell later wrote, “The Agency intervened actively to prevent visits by the political leaders to the training camps in December [1960] and January [1961]… this was deeply resented by the political leaders.”
Bissell also complained that Cuban exile leaders failed to step up to their responsibilities in the CIA covert action plan for Cuba. “Radio broadcasts had to be organized, publications arranged, and propaganda material prepared,” he wrote. “Paramilitary personnel had to be recruited, screened, and trained. Boats had to be procured, crewed, and maintained. Air crews had likewise to be selected and trained and air operations mounted… The FRD never came close to achieving the capability to take the major initiative in planning, directing, or conducting these activities.”374
In the meantime, the CIA created the Consejo Revolucionario Cubano (CRC) (Cuban Revolutionary Council) to compensate for the incoherence of the Frente. With the blessing of the Kennedy Administration, José Miró Cardona was appointed president of the Consejo in March 1961. Varona was named general coordinator, and Manuel Artime was chosen as the CRC’s political representative to Brigade 2506.375
Behind the scenes, Ambassador Philip Bonsal was a booster of Miró Cardona, who was prime minister in the revolutionary Cabinet in 1959. “José Miró Cardona is a man of very considerable ability,” Bonsal wrote in a letter to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Roy Rubottom in July 1960. “What distinguishes him from the rest is his personal integrity.”
Miró Cardona, a law professor at the University of Havana, was president of the Havana Bar Association in the 1950s. He was also a leader of the Civic Resistance Movement, the moderate wing of the anti-Batista opposition. As an attorney, many of his clients were U.S. corporations in Cuba. U.S. intelligence officers described him as a “strong leader and moderating influence.”
Miró Cardona broke with the Cuban revolution in July 1960. He took refuge in the Embassy of Argentina in Miramar, a suburb of Havana. In October, Bonsal met with Miró Cardona, and wrote on Cardona’s behalf to Thomas Mann, who replaced Rubottom as assistant secretary of state.
“He [Miró Cardona] is full of vigor and enthusiasm for the role which I hope he will play in the task of overthrowing the Castro regime.” Bonsal stated, “He believes that the various leaders in Miami will accept him in a role of ‘coordinator’ which he played quite successfully in the fight against Batista.” He urged Mann to use “the friendly interest of our government” to find a means of financial support for Miró Cardona.376
Mann thanked Bonsal in an October 1960 note for bringing Miró Cardona’s “financial problems” to his attention. Mann said “another agency,” which shared the view that Miró Cardona could play a “useful role” in exile, “has already taken steps to arrange some financial accommodation on behalf of Miró Cardona.”
Miró Cardona went into exile in October 1960, first to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then the United States. An October 27 memorandum from Jacob Esterline, Chief of the CIA’s Cuba Task Force, reported that Miró Cardona “has been in contact” with Cuba Project in Florida.377 In the meantime, the Kennedy Administration would find another ally in Manuel Ray, who was exfiltrated from Cuba to the United States by the CIA in November 1960.
When Manuel Ray left Cuba, he was leader of the Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo (MRP) (Revolutionary Movement of the People). Ray was also minister of public works in the revolutionary Cabinet in 1959. A CIA assessment of Ray concluded, “He has qualities of leadership ability and integrity.” Kennedy Administration officials believed that Ray could activate the MRP’s underground network in Cuba from exile.
The FBI reported the MRP cause was promoted by Adolph A. Berle, Chairman of the Task Force to Coordinate Policies on Latin America. Governor Muñoz Marín of Puerto Rico; Arturo Carrión, Under Secretary of State for Latin America; Special Assistant to the President Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.; and White House aide Richard Goodwin were also supporters of Manuel Ray and the MRP.378
For liberal Democrats, Ray was a diamond in the rough: he was progressive but anti-communist. Schlesinger had a low opinion of the Frente leaders. “They were characteristically identified with the old Cuba of traditional parties, of progressive intent and ineffectual performance,” Schlesinger later wrote. “Some were decent men; others were racketeers who had found politics a lucrative way of life. They wanted the restoration of political ‘democracy’ as they had known it before Batista, but they saw no need for far-reaching social change. Their objectives were compatible with the interests of North American investors and with the prejudices of the Eisenhower Administration.”379
From the beginning, there was tension between the CIA and Ray. In summer 1960, the CIA came away from its first meeting with Ray and other MRP leaders impressed with them as “men of integrity and principle.” But conservative elements of the Cuban exile movement and the CIA scornfully dismissed the MRP as “Fidelismo sin Fidel” (Fidel’s politics without Fidel).380
Garry Drecher, a member of the CIA’s Cuba Project, outlined for Ray the CIA covert action plan for Cuba in December 1960. But Ray turned down the CIA’s invitation to join the FRD, and opposed the CIA strategy of forming a CIA-led Cuban exile movement in the United States to invade Cuba. To the MRP, FRD leader Antonio Varona was a symbol of the corrupt Auténtico presidency of Carlos Prío Socarrás. A November 1960 cable reported, “MRP feels an invasion absolutely fatal from overall ODYOKE [U. S. government] interest in hemisphere and equally disastrous from Cuban viewpoint: Unless revolution starts inside, is supported by people and is in process of succeeding before open outside help arrived, unrepresentative will of people and doomed to fail sooner or later.” Ray told the CIA that the MRP could build a movement inside Cuba capable of sparking a popular uprising to topple the revolution. But he believed a U.S.-backed exile invasion would be considered illegitimate by most Cubans.381
Ray wanted U.S. financial assistance for MRP paramilitary operations with no strings attached. Drecher and Ray worked out a funding arrangement. The CIA would pass money through the Frente Revolucionario Democrático to finance MRP commando operations in Cuba.382 Many in the CIA were put off by what they considered the MRP’s “socialistic” solutions for post-Castro Cuba. A CIA biographical sketch of Ray stated, “Reports indicate that he would like to continue the work of the revolution, eliminating only the international communist ties; also that he is almost as violently nationalistic as Castro.”
In early 1961, Ray moderated the MRP’s stance on U.S.-owned properties in Cuba. He told the FBI that the MRP would only nationalize foreign-owned public utilities in post-Castro Cuba. He specifically stated that the King Ranch and Esso oil would not be nationalized. Ray also said that he wanted “good relations” with the United States. There would be an “appropriate restitution of property taken from Americans” and “guarantees” for the protection of foreign investments.383
The CIA intended to use U.S. aid to persuade the MRP to abide by the CIA’s covert action for Cuba. In a memorandum for the record, Drecher wrote, “This could be done by us controlling the funds given to the MRP, by controlling the amount of military support rendered and the timing of it by even withholding some support and exerting our influence over its leaders.” The Agency insisted that the MRP work within the FRD and the CIA-founded Consejo Revolucionario Cubano. As Drecher summed up, “[T]he political viewpoint of the FRD as a whole was much more compatible to ours.”
Regular monthly CIA payments to the MRP began on November 1, 1960.384 On March 21, 1961, Ray reluctantly agreed to join the Consejo. But serious differences remained between Ray and the CIA and other Cuban exile leaders.385 As the CIA worked to unify the Cuban exile movement, the Agency briefed President Kennedy on its still-evolving plan to land an expeditionary force of Cuban exiles in Cuba.
In March 1961, DDP Richard Bissell briefed President Kennedy on the CIA covert action plan for Cuba. This was the first comprehensive briefing on the CIA covert action plan Kennedy had received since November 1960.386 Bissell presented the latest version of the CIA covert action plan to Kennedy in the Cabinet Room of the White House on March 11, 1961. The plan was predicated on an amphibious landing of a Cuban exile combat force near Trinidad on Cuba’s south coast. The immediate objective was to establish a beachhead from which to launch subsequent guerrilla operations against the Cuban revolution. The Trinidad plan bore no resemblance to the guerrilla infiltration proposed by the CIA in March 1960.
The Trinidad plan was designed for a well-armed Cuban exile combat force supported by tactical air power and naval amphibious transport vessels. Control of the air space and sea around the landing site was essential. Otherwise the exile force would be vulnerable to a potentially crippling attack by the Cuban revolutionary armed forces as it landed.
According to the Trinidad plan, “the Cuban government-in-exile would land as soon as a beachhead had been secured. If initial military operations were successful and especially if there were evidence of spreading disaffection against the Castro regime, the provisional government could be recognized and a legal basis provided for at least non-governmental logistical support.”
The size of the combat force was still in flux as Cuban exiles continued to stream into Guatemala, where the CIA was training Brigade 2506 for the Cuba operation. The Trinidad plan was based on 1,000 brigadistas, and included an air component of sixteen B-26 light bombers, ten C-54s and five C-46s. The B-26 bombers would neutralize the Cuban air force and establish U.S. control of the air around Trinidad during the amphibious landing. A naval force of two 100-ton ships, five 1,500-ton ships, two Landing Craft, Infantry (LCIs), three Landing Craft, Utility (LCUs), and four Landing Craft, Vehicles and Personnel (LCVPs) would transport Brigade 2506 to the landing site.
Bissell emphasized that the Trinidad plan included a guerrilla option if the amphibious assault did not trigger an internal uprising in Cuba. Brigade 2506 could retreat into the nearby Escambray Mountains to reorganize as a guerrilla force.387
The Trinidad plan made Kennedy uneasy. “This is too much like a World War II invasion,” he remarked, calling it “too spectacular.” Kennedy gave Bissell four days to revise the plan. Bissell recalled that Kennedy wanted a “quiet” nighttime landing. “He could not support a plan that he felt exposed the role of the United States so openly.”
Meanwhile, Dulles was anxious that Kennedy might be tempted to call off the CIA plan for Cuba. He warned about a “disposal problem” if the CIA plan were canceled. The CIA was blunt about the impact of the demobilization of Brigade 2506. A CIA analysis stated, “There is no doubt that dissolution… will be a blow to U.S. prestige as it will be interpreted in many Latin American countries and elsewhere as evidence of the U.S. inability to take decisive action with regard to Castro. David will again have defeated Goliath.”388
Kennedy had little political wiggle room on the covert Cuba operation. Candidate Kennedy took political advantage of Dulles’ briefing on the CIA covert action plan for Cuba in the 1960 presidential campaign. As president, Kennedy would not be able to terminate the covert action plan without facing charges of political opportunism. He had dug himself into a political hole. As the director of the Department of State’s intelligence arm the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) Roger Hilsman recalled, “Kennedy realized that Nixon knew all about the plan, and that if he turned it down out of hand, Nixon would use it against him on everything else he tried to do.”389
Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell returned to the Oval Office with a revised CIA covert action plan on March 15. The CIA men went over the modifications with Kennedy, who wanted a more “quiet” landing, one less likely to reveal the involvement of the United States.
According to the revised CIA plan, the amphibious landing would take place at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), 100 miles west of Trinidad. The coastal area around the Bay of Pigs was an isolated swampy area known as the Ciénaga de Zapata (Zapata Marsh). Bissell recalled the Bay of Pigs was selected as the landing site “because its distance from a major population center eased the President’s concern about noise and attracting undue attention.”
But Kennedy was still not satisfied with the Bay of Pigs plan, referred to as the “Zapata plan” in CIA documents. Kennedy was uneasy about the CIA plan’s air operations. Bissell later wrote, “He [Kennedy] asked repeatedly whether the air strikes were necessary.”390
On March 16, Kennedy gave conditional approval for the CIA to go ahead with the Bay of Pigs plan with the caveat that he reserved the option to cancel the operation up to twenty-four hours before D-Day. In his memoir, Bissell expressed misgivings about the conditions Kennedy attached to the Bay of Pigs plan. Bissell wrote, “The landing would now take place at night, even though a nighttime amphibious landing had only been accomplished once in World War II.” He worried that limitations on air attacks would put the amphibious landing at risk. He did not, however, share his doubts with Kennedy.391
On April 4, Kennedy gathered his aides together to discuss the Bay of Pigs plan in a conference room in Foggy Bottom near Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s office. Kennedy asked, “What do you think?” As the president tapped his fingers on the table impatiently, his principal deputies—Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy—had little to say. Rusk had expressed his doubts about the CIA plan to Kennedy in private but refused to do so in the meeting. General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not address the Bay of Pigs plan itself but focused, instead, on the fact it was a CIA—not a Pentagon—operation.
Senator William J. Fulbright, a Democrat from Arkansas, invited to the meeting by Kennedy, spoke against the Bay of Pigs plan. A few days earlier Fulbright had written Kennedy, “Remember always… the Castro regime is a thorn in the flesh; but it is not a dagger in the heart.” Kennedy’s advisers were united in opposition to Fulbright.
Kennedy solicited the opinion of Adolf Berle, head of his Task Force on Latin America. “Well, Adolf, you haven’t voted,” Kennedy said. Berle replied, “Mr. President, there has to be a confrontation with Castro sooner or later, so… I say let ’er rip!” Kennedy adjourned the meeting.392
At a news conference on April 12, reporters asked Kennedy about Cuba. He stated, “First, I want to say that there will not be, under any circumstances, an intervention by the United States armed forces.” He stressed, “This government will do everything it possibly can… to make sure there are no Americans involved in any actions in Cuba.”
Kennedy elaborated, “The basic issue in Cuba is not one between the United States and Cuba; it is between the Cubans themselves.” He added, “I intend to see that we adhere to that principle.” A reporter asked if a Cuban exile invasion of Cuba launched from the United States were likely. Kennedy replied, “I would be opposed to mounting an offensive.”393
In private, Kennedy worried that the U.S. role in the Bay of Pigs operation was too large to be plausibly denied. He stressed the need to reduce the visibility of the U.S. role at the Bay of Pigs in a meeting with Bissell on April 14. Kennedy wanted to scale back the number of air strikes on the Cuban air force planned for two days before the amphibious landing. He also wanted to limit tactical air operations on D-Day as Brigade 2506 landed on the beaches of the Bay of Pigs.
In response, Bissell cut the number of pre-invasion B-26 bombing missions from sixteen to eight. On April 15, eight B-26s swooped down out of the sky over Cuba and bombed air bases near Havana, San Antonio de los Baños, and Santiago de Cuba. Bissell later wrote, “The post-strike photography of that day revealed that the runways were damaged but not entirely out of commission, so that Castro’s few remaining planes could still take to the air and become an unexpected threat to the invasion forces.” He stressed, “The second air strike, scheduled for April 17, D-Day, became even more critical.”394
On April 15, Cuban Revolutionary Council President José Miró Cardona stuck to the script of the CIA’s cover story for the air strikes on air bases in Cuba. Miró Cardona assured reporters that the bombing raids grew out of a revolt in the Cuban air force. As part of the CIA deception, an alleged Cuban air force defector flew his B-26 to Miami. In a written statement, the pilot claimed that he and another Cuban air force defector had flown “strafing runs” before escaping from Cuba.395
At the United Nations, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson held up a photograph of one of the B-26s. Stevenson declared, “It has the markings of Castro’s air force on the tail, which everyone can see for himself. The Cuban star and initials FAR, Fuerza Aérea Revolucionaria [Revolutionary Air Force], are clearly visible.” Stevenson denied U.S. involvement in the bombing, adding that the United States will “make sure that no American participates in any actions against Cuba.”396 On April 15 at the United Nations, Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa denied that Cuban air force defectors had flown the bombing raids in Cuba. Roa told the Political Committee of the UN General Assembly that the air attacks were flown by “mercenaries.” He called them a “prologue” to a “large-scale” U.S. invasion of Cuba.
In Havana, Fidel Castro was defiant. “If this air attack is a prelude to an invasion, the country, on a war basis, will resist and destroy with an iron hand any force which attempts to disembark upon our land,” Castro declared. “¡Patria o Muerte!” (“Homeland or Death!”)397
In Washington, Kennedy made a fateful decision. He canceled the planned second wave of air strikes on D-Day to take out the Cuban air force planes that had survived the April 15 bombing attacks. According to Bissell, Kennedy insisted there would be no more air strikes against the Cuban air force “until the landing had been completed, the airstrip [near the Bay of Pigs] seized, and B-26s were operating from Cuban soil.”398 Meanwhile, Brigade 2506 set out for Cuba full of confidence.
In an April 13 cable, Colonel Jack Hawkins assured CIA headquarters that Brigade 2506 was ready to seize a beachhead at the Bay of Pigs. Hawkins was paramilitary chief of the CIA’s Cuba Task Force (WH/4). “These officers are young, vigorous, intelligent and motivated with a fanatical urge to begin the battle for which most of them have been preparing for almost a year,” Hawkins reported. “Without exception, they have the utmost confidence in their ability to win. They say they know their own people and believe after they have inflicted one serious defeat upon opposing forces, the latter will melt away from Castro, who they have no wish to support.”
Hawkins added, “The brigade officers do not expect help from the U.S. armed forces.”399 The next day Nicaraguan dictator Luis Somoza addressed Brigade 2506 on Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, the staging area for the CIA’s amphibious invasion of Cuba. On the docks of Puerto Cabezas, Somoza told the brigadistas “Bring me a couple of hairs from Castro’s beard.”
The 1,500 soldiers of Brigade 2506 assembled in Nicaragua after their military training in CIA camps in Guatemala, Florida, and Louisiana.400 In Havana, Castro prepared for a CIA-backed invasion by Cuban exiles. He had been monitoring news reports of Cuban exile activities in Guatemala and Miami, especially the pronouncements of the Cuban Revolutionary Council. Castro later told Newsweek correspondent Peter Wyden that he was convinced an “indirect” U.S. invasion was imminent after the April 15 air strikes in Cuba.
Castro’s objective was to prevent the invaders from establishing a beachhead in Cuba. His strategy was to overwhelm Brigade 2506 with Cuban army and militia forces, backed up by FAR attack planes, which survived the April 15 air attacks. But he did not know where the counterrevolutionaries would land.
Wyden wrote, “Castro ordered platoon-sized militia posts set up at every conceivable invasion point.” The Cuban army included 25,000 well-trained and equipped troops. There were also 200,000 less-well-trained militia available for deployment throughout the island.401
In the meantime, Higinio Díaz’s planned diversionary attack on the coast of Oriente province went awry. Díaz’s attack was designed to divert Havana’s attention from the amphibious landing of Brigade 2506 at the Bay of Pigs. Díaz’s commandos had trained at an abandoned ammunition dump near New Orleans.
“Nino” Díaz and his 160 commandos arrived in the waters off Oriente on the CIA-supplied freighter Santa Ana with a CIA adviser on board on the night of April 14, thirty miles from Guantánamo Bay. A team on an inflatable raft was launched from the Santa Ana on a reconnaissance mission to select a landing site. The team got to within 500 feet of the mouth of the Mocambo River, where it spotted two trucks and a jeep on the shore. The team concluded that the vehicles were part of a local militia patrol.
A 1963 CIA memorandum explained what happened next. “Subject [Higinio Díaz] reached the assigned landing area, but refused to do so and instead, ordered the Santa Ana to head for Key West, Florida.” Díaz rejected what he thought was a suicide mission.
Historian Robert Quirk takes note of the CIA’s poor preparation for the diversionary landing. Quirk writes, “The CIA man who came with the group spoke no Spanish and had no knowledge of the intended landing site. He told them to go into the mountains if they had trouble. But he did not know which mountains. He brought neither maps nor charts—only the name of a small port.”402
The cancellation of Díaz’s diversionary attack was a setback for the Bay of Pigs plan, according to General Lemnitzer. “This was a very important part of the Cuba plan,” Lemnitzer asserted. “When you have only one diversionary attack to attract the enemy’s attention to another area and it doesn’t get in, this is very detrimental to the overall success of the plan.”403 As Brigade 2506 landed on the beaches of the Bay of Pigs, the situation quickly became perilous.