corpus, and even though the January 12 massacre was reported in the
On that same trip to America, the Cuban leader met with Vice President Richard Nixon, who was immediately impressed by Castro. In fact, Nixon wrote in a four-page secret memo to Eisenhower that “the one fact we can be sure of, is that he has those indefinable qualities which makes him a leader of men.”
John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator still months away from beginning his campaign for the presidency, knew that Batista was a ruthless despot who had murdered more than twenty thousand of his own people. Kennedy saw nothing wrong with Castro’s rise to power. And, like Hemingway, he was also fond of a daiquiri from time to time.
In 1959, Kennedy and Castro were on the verge of becoming two of the twentieth century’s greatest rivals. Both were charismatic, idealistic young men beloved by their fanatical followers. Both enjoyed a good cigar and had had long political winning streaks that resulted in each man ruling his nation. But each had a setback during his rise to power—Castro was imprisoned in the early years of his revolution; Kennedy’s painful back condition and a potentially deadly adrenal gland condition known as Addison’s disease each nearly killed him. Perhaps the most striking similarity between the two men is that Kennedy and Castro were the sort of highly competitive alpha males who never accept losing, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how high the cost.
In Cuba the costs of revolution are very high. With blood running in the streets of Havana, it was only a matter of time before America comprehended the truth. In February 1960, thirteen months after Castro seized power, a CIA briefing to the National Security Council warned of the Soviet Union’s “active support” for Castro, while also lamenting the disorganization of anti-Castro forces. The Eisenhower administration quietly began making plans to overthrow Castro’s regime, authorizing the CIA to begin paramilitary training of Cuban exiles at a secret base in Guatemala.
Castro became a hot-button issue of the 1960 presidential campaign. Kennedy vigorously attacked the Eisenhower administration, using the situation in Cuba to illustrate its weakness against communism. “In 1952 the Republicans ran on a program of rolling back the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe,” Kennedy warned the nation. “Today the Iron Curtain is 90 miles off the coast of the United States.”
The question of a Cuban invasion became not a matter of if, but when. In a speech on December 31, 1960, Castro warned America that any landing force would suffer far greater losses than on D-Day. “If they want to invade us and destroy the resistance they will not succeed … because as long as a single man or woman with honor remains[,] there will be resistance,” he railed. A few days later, on January 3, 1961, Castro inflamed the cold war fears of every American by announcing that “Cuba has the right to encourage revolution in Latin America.”
As John Kennedy prepared to take office, roughly one in every nineteen Cubans was a political prisoner. America had severed diplomatic relations with Havana. On January 10, the
Inside the Washington Beltway, the CIA and its longtime director, Allen Dulles, have become obsessed with killing Fidel Castro. It will one day be estimated that they concocted more than six hundred plans to assassinate him, including such unorthodox methods as a Mafia-style hit and exploding cigars. On March 11, a year after Dwight Eisenhower authorized the training of rebel forces, President Kennedy was formally presented with CIA plans for a landing. The invasion would take place in daylight, and the location would be a beach code-named Trinidad.
The operation presented Kennedy with a major dilemma. On the one hand, he had run for president on a platform of change, promising the nation a new start after the cold war policies of Dwight Eisenhower. On the other hand, he had fanatically ridiculed Eisenhower about Castro and knew he would look soft on communism if he did nothing to deter the brutal dictator. On April 7 the
On April 12 the Communist Party in Guatemala reported to Moscow that the anti-Castro American-sponsored guerrillas would launch their invasion within a matter of days. The Soviets, however, were unsure of the intelligence and didn’t pass along the news to Castro. That very same day, President Kennedy attempted to disavow any American involvement in an invasion, explaining, “There will not be, under any conditions, any intervention in Cuba by United States forces.” Kennedy carefully left out any mention of U.S. financing, training, and planning of a rebel- led assault.
The young American president was attempting a deft diplomatic maneuver, hoping to confront a very real threat by not allowing U.S. military personnel actually to take part. His remarks stretched the truth, but the subtext couldn’t have been clearer: the invasion had become personal. It was no longer about the United States versus Cuba, but about John F. Kennedy versus Fidel Castro, two extremely competitive men battling for ideological control over the Western Hemisphere. In the days to come, each would take the actions of the other as a personal affront. And each man would remain determined to win at all costs.
In Moscow, another brutal dictator, Nikita Khrushchev, who murdered his way up the ladder of Soviet Union politics, was confused: “Why should an elephant be afraid of a mouse?” he wondered. Castro’s ongoing defiance of the United States was keeping his popularity in Cuba very high. Khrushchev understood that even if the Cuban invasion succeeded, the Cuban people would be hard-pressed to accept an American puppet as their new leader. An ensuing guerrilla war against the United States by Castro’s supporters might benefit the Soviet Union by allowing it to establish a military presence in the Western Hemisphere to aid the Cuban dictator.
The bottom line for Khrushchev, of course, had little to do with Castro or Cuba. His goal was world domination. Anything that distracted or in any way diminished the United States was good for the Soviet Union.
In the days leading up to the scheduled invasion, President Kennedy soured on the CIA’s plan. The Trinidad beach was too much like the Normandy landing zones. The president wanted the invasion to seem as if it had been generated solely by Cuban exiles, thereby masking American involvement. Kennedy wanted an out-of-the-way location where men and supplies could come ashore quietly, then slip into the countryside unnoticed.
The CIA response was to offer a new location, known as Bahia de Cochinos—loosely translated as the “Bay of Pigs.” The landing would take place at night. Unlike the broad beachheads of Trinidad or even Normandy, miles of impenetrable swamp bordered the Bay of Pigs, and few roads led in or out.
Yet, while the United States has a history of successful large-scale amphibious invasions, very few of them have taken place in darkness. There are only two ways the mission can succeed. First, the invasion force will have to get off the beach immediately and take control of the access roads. Second, rebel planes need to take control of the skies, wipe out Castro’s air force, and then gun down Castro’s troops and tanks as they race toward the Bay of Pigs. Without overwhelming airpower, the mission will fail.
Kennedy is a man fond of spy novels—James Bond is a personal favorite—and enchanted by the cloak-and- dagger world of undercover agents. CIA director Alan Dulles, an urbane and wealthy gentleman in his late sixties, epitomizes that aura of secrecy and covert intrigue. He assured Kennedy that the plan would succeed.
The president initially believed him. On April 14, just two days after giving a press conference in which he promised there would be no intervention by U.S. forces in Cuba, Kennedy gave Operation Zapata, as the Bay of Pigs invasion was known, the official go-ahead.
April 14 was a Friday. After launching the invasion, there was nothing for the president to do but wait. So he flew to Glen Ora to be with Jackie and the kids, where he endured a gut-wrenching weekend waiting for news from Cuba. When word finally came, almost none of it was good.
It started on Saturday morning, when eight B-26 bombers piloted by Cuban freedom fighters attacked three Cuban air bases. The original plan called for sixteen planes, but Kennedy had gotten cold feet and ordered the number cut in half.
As a result, the bombings were ineffectual, barely damaging the Cuban air force at all. But Fidel Castro was furious. He immediately turned up the heat on the Kennedy administration by launching public accusations of U.S. involvement in the attack.
