Bay of Pigs Invasion
North America
| File:Bay of Pigs Invasion.jpg | |
| Date | May 20 1961 |
|---|---|
| Location | North America |
| Description | A deliberately botched attempt to invade Cuba by the CIA, devised as a way to entrap JFK into full scale military action against Cuba. Unsuccessful, since JFK however refused to be manipulated. |
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a planned invasion of Cuba, designed to fail by the US deep state as a way to lure US President JFK into full scale military action. JFK however refused to be so easily manipulated, establishing himself as a man of greater independence than his handlers had reckoned with.
Operational details
Jacob Esterline was a key organiser. He had second thoughts about it and wanted to resign, but was persuaded not to by the CIA Deputy Director for Plans, Richard M. Bissell Jr.Template:Cn
Failure
Fletcher Prouty reports that an investigation into the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion by John F. Kennedy determined that the key operational error was a failure to destroy all of the Cuban planes, which allowed them to destroy the supply boats for the invaders. This was traced to a miscommunication by McGeorge Bundy.[1]
Exposure
CIA Director at the time of the even, Allen Dulles, left a handwritten confession that the invasion was designed to fail in his Princeton archives. Peter Grose, Dulles’ biographer, discussed this in his 1994 Gentleman Spy.[2]
Usages of the phrase "Bay of Pigs"
Since the "designed to fail" nature of the Bay of Pigs Invasion became widely known,[When?] the phrase has been used to refer to such as plot, especially invasions. For example, the 2020 Invasion of Venezuela has been termed "a Venezuelan Bay of Pigs"[3] or "Trump's Bay of Pigs".[4]
Euphemistic use
When Richard Nixon referred to the "Bay of Pigs" many historians have conjectured that he was actually using the phrase as a code to refer to the JFK Assassination plot.