America and the Bay of Pigs Invasion: Causes and Failures

Introduction: A Tragic Mistake

By the time the United States found itself having to make excuses and apologies for the failed attempt at the Bay of Pigs to install a Cuban exile provisional government, the basis for invasion had long since been discussed, planned, abandoned, and reformulated. In April 1961, that reformulated plan resulted in what President Kennedy himself referred to as a "tragic mistake" (Higgins 1987). The failed attempt to land approximately 1,500 Cuban exiles on the shores of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs would, over the next several decades, be debated and argued — and has since been revealed for what it was: a combination of a U.S. president's belief that a show of force was essential to thwarting Communism in the Western Hemisphere; near-ridiculous misinformation fed to him by his CIA advisers; and a reluctance on the part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to step forward and aggressively advocate their military expertise. The Joint Chiefs privately predicted the plan's odds of failure as being far greater than its odds of success (Higgins 1987).

Historical Roots of U.S. Intervention in Cuba

Historically, U.S. support for what became the Bay of Pigs operation began long before the actual effort, and long before John F. Kennedy became president. The Platt Amendment was a document carefully constructed following Cuba's liberation from Spain, giving the United States the right to directly intervene in Cuba should American interests in the region be threatened by Cuban hostility toward the United States (Higgins 1987). This right to direct military intervention was later waived by President Roosevelt as he pursued a path steering America away from Latin American imperialism (Higgins 1987). The United States, however, maintained its right to continue occupying and operating a military Marine base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Higgins 1987).

Following Roosevelt's death, American imperialism in South America was once again resumed as a course of political direction during the Truman administration (Higgins 1987). President Truman had to take seriously the threat posed by Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, a hardline leftist now threatening American business interests in the region — most notably the United Fruit Company (Higgins 1987). Nicaragua's dictator General Anastasio Somoza also felt threatened by Guatemala and Cuba (Higgins 1987). Truman held fast to a policy of non-intervention in Latin American internal conflicts, but this did not mean that he would ignore threats to American interests there (Higgins 1987). Still, there was little that Latin American leaders could obtain in the way of arms and military support from the Truman administration.

Works Cited

Blight, James G., and Peter Kornbluh, eds. 1999. Politics of Illusion: The Bay of Pigs Invasion Reexamined. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

Chomsky, Noam. 1993. Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture. Boston: South End Press.

Higgins, Trumbull. 1987. The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs. New York: W. W. Norton.

Lawrence, Mark Atwood. 2002. "The Kennedy Tapes." Presidential Studies Quarterly 32, no. 4: 810+.