Bay of Pigs Anniversary

The failed Bay of Pigs invasion happened many years before I was born, but I was familiar with the generalities: that exiled Cubans tried to take back their country, but were unable to do so because America didn't help them. However, until reading this series of essays at Babalu Blog, I didn't fully realize the tremendous bravery of the Cubans who fought this battle and of the disgusting way the Kennedy Administration betrayed them. Here are a few excerpts:

Fontova mentions that Brigade 2506 was outnumbered by Cuban troops by almost 40 to 1! Two-to-one, or three-to-one are staggering enough odds, but forty-to-one? Nevertheless, it took the Soviet-backed Cuban forces three entire days to defeat a group of 2,000 men, and this was only after they ran out of ammunition. [...]

Kennedy's decision not to engage angered many of the Navy trainers who worked with the Brigade before the battle. Four of the trainers decided to go anyway. Their names are Thomas "Pete" Ray, Riley Shamburger, Leo Baker and Wade Gray, and they were officers in the Alabama Air Guard. Against steep odds, they decided to stick with their fellow combatants. All four died on their first missions.

"The Republicans have allowed a communist dictatorship to flourish eight jet minutes from our borders," accused John F. Kennedy during his famous debate with Richard Nixon during the 1960 presidential campaign. "We must support anti-Castro fighters. So far these freedom fighters have received no help from our government."

Two weeks before that crucial debate in October of 1960, JFK had been briefed by the CIA (on Ike's orders) about Cuban invasion plans (what would later be known as the Bay of Pigs invasion). So JFK knew perfectly well the Republican administration was helping Cuban freedom fighters. But since the plans were secret, he knew perfectly well Nixon couldn't rebut.

Which is to say, to blindside his Republican opponent Kennedy relied on that opponent's patriotism. Let's face it, Republicans are at a woeful disadvantage here. Nixon bit his tongue. He could easily have stomped Kennedy on it. But to some candidates national security (and those freedom fighters' lives) outweighs debating points.[...]

"Where are the PLANES?" kept crackling over the invasion ships' radios. That was their commander, Pepe San Roman, roaring into his radio from the beachhead between artillery concussions. Soviet howitzers were pounding 2,000 rounds into the desperately embattled men (and boys). "Send planes or we CAN'T LAST!" San Roman yelled while watching the Russian tanks close in, his ammo deplete and his casualties pile up.

The pleas made it to Navy Chief Admiral Arleigh Burke in Washington, D.C., who conveyed them in person to his commander in chief.

JFK was in a white tux and tails that fateful night of April 18, 1961, having just emerged from an elegant Beltway ball. For the closing act of the glittering occasion Jackie and her charming beau had spun around the dance floor, to the claps, coos and titters of the delighted guests. In the new president's honor, the band had struck up the Broadway smash "Mr. Wonderful."

"Two planes, Mr. President!" Burke sputtered into his commander in chief's face. The fighting admiral was livid, pleading for permission to allow just two of his jets to blaze off the carrier deck and support those desperately embattled freedom fighters on that shrinking beachhead.

"Burke, we can't get involved in this," replied Mr. Wonderful.

"WE put those boys there, Mr. President!" the fighting admiral exploded. "By God, we ARE involved!"

Mr. Wonderful refused to help the freedom fighters. The advice from his Best and Brightest again prevailed. The election was over, you see. Now his "leadership" was on full display.[...]

"Russian tanks overrunning my position," San Roman on his radio again, "destroying my equipment." crackle ... crackle ... crackle ... "How can you people do this to us?" Finally the radio went dead.

"Tears filled my eyes," writes CIA man Grayston Lynch, who took that final message. "I broke down completely. Never in my 37 years have I been so ashamed of my country."

If JFK had not been assassinated, and therefore remembered as some sort of martyr shrouded in the carefully packaged "Camelot" mythology, I think history would have judged him far more harshly.

(Via Dean's World.)