The Cuban Revolution: The Bay Of Pigs Invasion

In April 1961 about 1500 men landed on the beaches of Cuba in what would become known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. Backed by the CIA their intention was to overthrow the new Revolutionary government headed by Fidel Castro, and while the invasion was ultimately a failure the impact of it would ripple throughout the history of Cuba and the world . This paper will examine the direct aftermath of the Cuban revolution focus primarily on the military response and the political response directly after the invasion. This paper will be organized the following way. First it will give a brief rundown of the political situation of Cuba prior to the invasion, secondly it will look at the military reaction of Cuba before finally giving an account of the political outcome of the Bay of Pigs invasion. In order to understand the Bay of Pigs invasion it is important to have an understanding of the history of interventionism by Americans in Cuba, and of the Cuban revolution in general. To do this we need to go back to 1985 with one of Cuba’s many wars for independence against their colonial masters: Spain. This war eventually brought in the American forces when a US battleship was destroyed in a Cuba bay prompting the Spanish-American war which brought Cuba under America’s heel after they cleaned up

In an attempt to create a new Cuban economy the government took over many industries controlled by forging countries, but they offered compensation to the various governments involved. Most governments accepted this compensation even though it didn’t strictly follow international law, but the United States government refused, and enacted a stifling embargo of Cuba that nearly crippled Cuba’s economy. From then starting with Eisenhower it became public policy for America to overthrown the new Cuban government