A distraught JFK openly shares his fears with Bobby. The president knows when speaking with his brother that he is safe from security leaks or attempts to undermine his authority. But even now, with Bobby at his side, John Kennedy feels the crushing loneliness of being the president of the United States. He has made this mess in Cuba, and he alone must find a way to turn a potential fiasco into a rousing victory.
But it’s not to be.
By Tuesday, April 18, Castro himself is on the beach in a T-34 tank, fighting off the invaders. Tens of thousands of Cuban militia have taken up positions to contain the rebel advance. The Cubans now control the three main roads leading in and out of Bahia de Cochinos. Most important of all, thanks to Kennedy’s cancellation of air cover, the Cuban air force and its T-33 jets easily control the skies.
At noon on April 18, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy meekly reports to the president that the “Cuban armed forces are stronger, the popular response is weaker, and our tactical position is feebler than we had hoped. Tanks have done in one beachhead, and the position is precarious at the others.”
That evening, at a White House meeting shortly after midnight, Kennedy is dressed in white tie as he listens to yet another report on the failure of the invasion. Earlier that night he was called away from a White House reception for Congress—formal duties call even in the midst of the crisis.
The Cabinet Room is decorated with a map of the Caribbean, on which tiny magnetic ships have been placed to show the location of the various vessels on station to support the invasion. Among them are the aircraft carrier
“I don’t want the United States involved in this,” snaps an incredulous JFK as he surveys the map.
Admiral Arleigh Burke, head of the U.S. Navy, takes a deep breath and speaks the truth: “Hell, Mr. President, we
In a last-ditch attempt to salvage the invasion, the president reluctantly authorizes one hour of air cover from 0630 to 0730 by six unmarked jets from the
After the midnight meeting, the president steps through that Oval Office door into the Rose Garden, the weight of the free world and the fate of more than a thousand men on his shoulders. He is alone for an hour pacing in the wet grass.
On the morning of April 19, more bad news: incredibly, the CIA and the Pentagon didn’t account for the time zone difference between Cuba and the freedom fighters’ air base in Nicaragua. Jets from carrier
Jackie has never seen her husband so upset. She has seen JFK cry only twice before and is startled when he puts his head in his hands and sobs. Bobby asks the First Lady to stay close, because the president needs comfort. On this day, Kennedy doesn’t even worry about his usually meticulous personal appearance, greeting one senator for a meeting in the Oval Office with his hair a mess and his tie twisted at an odd angle.
Bobby Kennedy rushes to his brother’s defense when Lyndon Johnson complains that he’s been kept out of the loop. Bobby paces the floor of the Cabinet Room, glaring now and again at the Caribbean map and those magnetic ships. “We’ve got to do something, we’ve got to do something,” he says again and again. When the CIA and military leaders don’t reply, he wheels around and sharply says, “All you bright fellows have gotten the president into this, and if you don’t do something now, my brother will be regarded as a paper tiger by the Russians.”
Meanwhile, the president passes the rest of the day wallowing in grief, making no attempt to hide his depression from the White House staff. “How could I have been so stupid?” he mutters to himself, often interrupting a completely different conversation to repeat those words. “How could I have been so stupid?”
By 5:30 P.M. on the night of April 19, Cuban forces have taken complete control of the Bay of Pigs. The invasion is over.
In addition to the dead and captured on the ground, Castro’s forces have sunk almost a dozen invasion vessels, including those carrying food and ammunition, and shot down nine B-26 bombers.
The defeat is a major humiliation for the United States. Kennedy is forced to give a press conference and take full blame. “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan. What matters,” he says, is that “I am the responsible officer of the government.”
One day JFK will look back and speculate that the Bay of Pigs blunder could have given the U.S. military reason to interfere with the civilian American government on the grounds that the president was unsuited for office.
Six months later, however, it is CIA director Allen Dulles who is fired. The CIA chief is extremely bitter. The slight is one that the old spymaster and his agency will not soon forget.
A week after the Bay of Pigs debacle, Kennedy calls his advisers, including Bobby, into the Cabinet Room. Bobby’s attendance at a foreign policy meeting is unusual, and at first the president’s brother holds his tongue.
The president leans back in his chair and softly taps a pencil against his teeth as Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles reads a lengthy statement that absolves the State Department from any blame concerning the Bay of Pigs.
JFK can see that Bobby is seething. The two brothers find Bowles whiny and self-righteous.
The president knows from a lifetime of observing his little brother in action that an explosion is coming soon. He has also authorized Bobby to speak for him. JFK waits, keeping his expression blank, listening, tapping that pencil against his teeth.
Finally Bobby Kennedy takes the floor. He brutally tears into Chester Bowles with words designed to humiliate.
“That’s the most meaningless, worthless thing I’ve ever heard. You people are so anxious to protect your own asses that you’re afraid to do anything. All you want to do is dump the whole thing on the president. We’d be better off if you just quit and left the foreign policy to someone else,” Bobby growls, his voice growing louder. The president watches, his face impassive, that pencil making just the slightest clicking noise on his perfect white teeth.
“I became suddenly aware,” Kennedy adviser Richard Goodwin will later write, “that Bobby’s harsh polemic reflected the president’s concealed emotions, privately communicated in some earlier, intimate conversation. I knew, even then, that there was an inner hardness, often volatile anger beneath the outwardly amiable, thoughtful, carefully controlled demeanor of John Kennedy.”
If Lyndon Johnson is the vice president, it will one day be written, then Bobby Kennedy is soon to become the assistant president—but only after the Bay of Pigs bonds the brothers and transforms the way JFK does business in the White House. From now on, when President Kennedy wants a contentious point made to his cabinet or advisers, he will rely on Bobby, who will then speak for the president and endure any subsequent criticism or argument so as not to weaken his big brother.
Amazingly, Kennedy’s approval ratings rise to 83 percent after the invasion, proving to the president that the American people firmly stand behind his actions against Castro. Behind the scenes, U.S. plots to overthrow the Cuban leader continue to be hatched, and Castro becomes openly defiant of Kennedy, further cementing the widespread belief that each man wants the other dead.
Meanwhile, even as Kennedy’s approval ratings temporarily make him one of the most popular presidents of the twentieth century, he knows that something must be done to restore America’s prestige among the international community. In an interview with James Reston of the
Vietnam.
