John F. Kennedy's Invasion Of The Bay Of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs affair was an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba on April 17 1961, at Playa Giron by close to two thousand Cubans who were in Exile after the 1959 revolution. President Kennedy had inherited the secret plan by the CIA to topple Fidel Castro. The large community of exile Cubans in the United States encouraged by members of the CIA who trained, equipped and financed them believed they would have air and naval support from the United States and that the invasion would cause the people of Cuba to rise up and overthrow the regime of communist Fidel Castro. Neither expectation materialized, Cuban army troops pinned down the exiles and forced them to surrender within seventy-two hours.

The Bay of Pigs invasion was a CIA plan during Dwight

Jose Miro Cardona was the head of the Cuban exiles, and the American government wanted him to become Cuba's next president if the invasion plans were to be successful. President Kennedy agreed to the plans but wanted to make some minor changes because he felt the need to keep American support of the invasion a secret was of the utmost importance. To attract less attention, John F. Kennedy proposed moving the landing site for the exiles to a place called the Bay of Pigs. There were many aspects to the planned invasion that were meant to ensure success, as Kennedy's administration informed him. The largest and most important aspect of the plan was the landing of the fourteen hundred Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs and moving towards the Cuban capital and government. The day of attack was April 17, 1961. One problem the exiles faced was the outcome of events leading up to the day of the invasion. An American airstrike was sent to destroy Cuba's air force but failed to eliminate all the planes. There was evidence that the planes that flew over and attempted to remove Cuba's air force were American. Due to

One setback that led to the defeat of the exiles was America's failure to destroy the Cuban planes in the air strike they instigated. The planes left functioning were the very ones later used to shoot down the transports full of exiles trying to land on the beach of the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy was trying to keep the United States' involvement in the attack and invasion a secret, but that was to be highly unlikely since Fidel Castro knew of President Kennedy's disapproval of him. It was unrealistic to think that Cuba would not know it was the United States who implemented the air strike or the invasion. Part of the blame can be placed on the Kennedy administration for not educating themselves of Castro's strength and capability of defending himself and his country. The Kennedy administration overestimated the exiles or underestimated the Cuban army. The estimate of Cuba's capability to fight back was misjudged. This could be explained by failure to have destroyed Cuba's air force. Cuba, still having planes to attack the exiles landing was detrimental to the plan, leaving the invaders with no choice but to surrender quickly after landing.6 A third mistake made by the politicians who constructed this plan was their prediction that the Cuban civilians would step up to the fight and help the exiles try to overthrow Castro. The Americans had no intelligence pointing to the idea that the Cubans would