Pigs crisis. The failed military invasion of cuba in 1961 supported by the u. S. Government and resulted in the capture and death of over 1,000 men. The this was recorded at books and books in corals gable, florida in 2011. Its about an hour. This evening, books books is pleased to welcome Jim Rasenberger and his new book, brilliant diaster. Jfk, castro, and americas doomed invasion of cubas bay of pigs. Mr. Ras also a wrienberger has the New York Times among other mub publications. Heres the author of high steel, the men who built the worlds greatest skyline. In this book he examines the u. S. Backed military invasion of cuba in 1961, one of the most illfated blunders in American History. He draws on long hidden cia documents and delivers as never before the vivid truth and consequences of those five pivotal days in april of 61. Here to tell us more about it, please give a warm welcome to mr. Jim rasenberger. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you for that introduction. Thank you to books books for having me. This is a wonderful book store. I had not been here before i came earlier today. And it is fantastic. So, support it. I urge you to buy a book before you leave tonight. It doesnt have to be my book, if you want it to be, thats fine with me. As im sure all of you know by now, this is on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the bay of pigs invasion of cuba. And i cant think of a better place to launch my new book than here with you. I know im sure many of you have some personal history of the event, and some deep knowledge of it. And i thank you for coming. Im honored to be here. Now, this is a story i wanted to tell for a long time. I think its theres a number of reasons i wanted to tell it for a long time. The main reason is its one of the most fascinating and important stories in modern American History. I hope if you read the book youll share that opinion with me. Before i go into detail, i should probably give a brief overview of what the bay of pigs was for those of you who dont know. If there are any of you. Im suspecting anyone my age or older i was born just after the bay of pigs, is pretty familiar with it simply because we grew up hearing about it. Those of you who are younger are forgiven. Not forgiven for being younger, no forgiveness for that, but youre forgiven for not knowing much about something that happened before you were born. So, for the sake of those not familiar, let me go through a brief overview, a few basic facts. The bay of pigs was a fiveday event that occurred in april of 1961. For those of you who are madmen fans, that is just after season one, if that helps orient you. That april a group of cuban exiles trained, supplied and backed by the United States government attempted to invade cuba and overthrow fidel castro. The attack began on april 15, 1961 when a fleet of eight b26 bo bookers flown by cuban exile pilots attacked castros airfields. These planes bombed and strafed the airfields attempting to destroy Fidel Castros air force. Two days later after midnight of april 17th, the invasion itself began. About 1,400 men, again cuban exiles known collectively as brigade 2506, came ashore at the Southern Coast of cuba at an area called the bay of pigs. The plan was to establish and hold a beachhead and eventually spark an uprising against fidel castro. That was the plan, but it didnt quite work out that way. The brigade ran into trouble almost immediately. And within two days of landing, it was over. Of the 1,400 men who came ashore, over 100 were killed, the rest were sent fleeing to sea, some tried to escape in boats or in the swamps. There was a vast everglade just inland of the bay of pigs. There they were rounded up by castros soldiers and thrown into cuban jails. For fidel castro, who looked like the david who slayed the yankee go lietliath, this was a supreme victory. I was in cuba a year ago for the 49th anniversary. Its remarkable how around havana there are billboards all over the place celebrating the victory against yankee imperialism. This 50th anniversary they will mark with a parade, all sorts of celebrations. Im not expecting too many celebrations here. Thats, of course, because for the United States it was a disaster. It was a personal tragedy for the men who took part in the invasion, of course. And it was a humiliation for the Kennedy Administration which had only been in power less than three months. At first the administration tried to insist the United States had nothing to do with this. It was the exiles who had gone on their own. That charade did not last long. Very soon the whole world knew the truth, which was that the brigade had been trained by the cia, had been supplied with american equipment, and the invasion had been approved by the joint chiefs of staff, the state department and ultimately the president of the United States. In short, this had been a United States operation, and its failure was a distinctly american embarrassment. One American General said it was the worst defeat the u. S. Suffered since the war of 1812. That was about the kindest thing anybody said. Everyone agreed that it was a mistake that they would never forget, and they must never repeat. They were wrong. Not only is it largely forgotten, maybe not here, but in much of america it is. But we went on to repeat some of the same mistakes that we made in cuba in other parts of the world. The bay of pigs turned out to be a curtain raiser on a whole new era of troubled swinterventions. By one count the United States engaged in two dozen force the interventions after 1961, and that the not including iraq, afghanistan and libya. Given these other interventions you may be asking yourself why should we still care about the bay of pigs . I mean, next to vietnam and iraq, it seems like a fairly minor event, an appetizer before this huge feast of troubled interventions. Add to this the fact that it lasted just five days and cost a mere 46 million. Thats about, i think, less than the average budget of a hollywood movie these days. Of course the fact it was an embarrassment the. It has everything tooblivion. Heres the thing, it changed this country in some very important ways. It changed how americans look at their government, it changed how the rest of the world looked at us. Prior to the bay of pigs, it would have been a cynical american who doubted he lived in a good and mighty nation led by competent men and engaged in worthy exploits. That was certainly a plausible view for americans 50 years ago after world war ii. The bay of pigs made that view a lot harder to hold on to. It had the distinction of making the United States look both bullying and weak. This is what kennedys aide wrote in his journal shortly after the invasion. We not only look like imperialists, we look like ineffectual imperialists, which is worse. And we look like stupid, ineffe ineffectual imperialists, which is worst of all. In many ways the 1960s began with the bay of pigs. This was a first step into the vietnam era, even before eat nam. Actually, what you may not realize, what i did not realize until i wrote the book is how much the vietnam war itself owes to the bay of pigs. If we have time, ill delve into that later on. Right now i want to go back a bit in time. Back a few years before the bay of pigs and focus on the causes of the invasion. Heres the central question and one we dont have a good answer to yet, how does Something Like this happen . My ambition of this book beyond telling what i think is a fascinating story as well as i could, was to go back once more and look at these events as clearly as possible, with no axes to grind, with no finger pointing, not trying to blame anyone, not trying to exonerate anybody, just trying to find out as best i could the truth. With that goal in mind, i begin my narrative well before the invasion. Because i think to understand it you need to know not just what happened, but the context in which it happened. So i began two years before the bombs began to fall on cuba. Exactly two years, in fact, to the day. April 15, 1959. That evening fidel castro arrived in the United States for a visit. This was his first visit to the United States since he had taken over cuba at the start of the year. Dwight eisenhower was still president. Richard nixon was Vice President. John kennedy was still a junior senator from massachusetts. Castro came to deliver a speech to some newspaper editors, but the visit was Something Like an invasion in its own right, a charm offensive. He and his bearded ent raourage arrived in washington with cuban cigars and cases of cuban rum and castro spent most of his visit hugging, smiling and saying the right things. Some americans, including some in the Eisenhower Administration, including Dwight Eisenhower himself had serious concerns about eisenhower, maybe he was a communist in the making. But many found him to be quite charming and certainly charismatic. After a few days, castro took a train to new york city. From the moment he arrived at penn station where he was greeted by 20,000 people, he had a grand oldtime. He went to the top of the empire state building, he shook hands with jackie robinson, he went down to city hall, went up to columbia university. Having less fun in new york were the policemen who were assigned to protect him because there were all these assassination plots surrounding castro, and these were reported in the press every day. None of these turned out to be real, but the police didnt know that. Castro was completely impossible to protect. He would throw himself into crowds hugging and kissing people with no concern for his safety. One afternoon, on a whim, he decided to go to the bronx zoo. The press followed, federal agents followed, new York City Police followed. And castro did what everybody does at the zoo, he ate a hot dog, fed peanuts to the elephants, rode a miniature electric train and then before anybody could stop him he climbed over a protective railing in front of the tiger catches and stuck his fingers through the cage and pet a bengal tiger on the head. Besides trying to save castro from assassins and tigers, americans spent much of his visit trying to decipher much of his politics, which meant answering the following question, was fidel castro a communist . You have to recall that in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, the battle against the socalled International Communist conspiracy was the organizing principle on which American Foreign policy was based. It wasnt just the spread of communism that was so feared, it was the fact that the communists had nuclear weapons. And given the rhetoric coming out of the kremlin, they were saying well bury you, they seemed more and more willing to use them. I emphasize this to point out the specter of a communist country 90 miles from american shores was intolerable. Not just to conservatives like barry goldwater, Richard Nixon, but really to everybody. So, fidel castro was interrogated on the subject of communism everywhere he went on his visit. By Vice President nixon, by congressional subcommittee, by scores of journalists, everybody asked him the same question. Dr. Castro, are you a communist . He answered the same every time. No, he was not a communist. Never had been, never would be. When castro finally left new york on april 25th, the police were relieved to see him go. But most new yorkers were happy he had come to visit. An editorial in the New York Times summed up the general attitude towards castro as he left. He made it quite clear that neither he nor anyone of importance in his government so far as he knew was a communist. By the same token it seems obvious that the americans feel better about castro than they did before. That changed. That changed very fast. In the book, i go into some detail regarding what happened after castro returned to cuba after his american visit, how things went sour so quickly. For the sake of time, ill jump ahead a bit. Suffice to say that castro immediately began behaving very much in a manner that seemed almost designed to provoke the american government. He started appropriating american property in cuba, delivering speeches filled with antiamerican rhetoric, cracking down on cubans who made anticommunist statements, and most worrisome of all, began accepting overtures from the soviet union. Acting exactly like the communist the Eisenhower Administration felt he was. Within months, washington decided good relations with castro would be impossible. By the end of 1959, less than a year after castro came to power in cuba, the eisenhower was taking aggressive steps against him. The great irony is devoting millions of dollars and hundreds of men to protecting him from assassins, the United States government began plotting his demise. Generating these plots was the Central Intelligence agency. With encouragement from president eisenhower. Some of the early ideas explored by the cia were quite interesting. One was to place a drug in castros food that would make him behave strangely in public. And make him appear truly insane as some people already thought he was. The drug wasnt specified, but it was probably lcd, which the cia had done quite a bit of work with in the 1950s. That sounds like something inspired by james bond, it may have been. The director of the cia was a big james bond fan as were many people in the cia, in fact at one point that march, as the cia was thinking about ideas, ian fleming happened to be visiting washington. He had bindinner at the home of kennedy and jacqueline kennedy, somebody asked him tongue and cheek if he had any ideas for aa fshf offing fidel castro, he said he would drop leaflets over Little Havana that there was radiation in the air, and the only way to get rid of the radiation was to shave their beards, so castro s minons would shave their beards. They tried to track down ian fleming while in washington, but it was too late. Another method the cia considered was assassination. One idea was to assassinate not just fiddle but his brother, raul, an assassination trifecta. The more serious cia plan was approved by Dwight Eisenhower later in the month. March 17, 1960. The plan developed by Richard Bissell the director of plans was to use some of the cubans who had been fleeing castro, mainly to florida, to return to cuba and overthrow him. Originally the idea was to infiltrate the men on to the island in small groups, but that shifted into Something Like more a world war ii style infib u usious infibbious infacvasion. It was to land on a significant piece of real estate and hold it for a length of time, maybe a week to ten days. At some point the brigade would fly in a provisional government, which the cia assembled in miami and which was being kept in a safe house at the time. The government would set up shop on the beach, declare its the rightful government of cuba, what was to happen after that was not clear. One hope is that the cuban population would rise up in support of the brigade and help overthrow castro. Another possibility was that this provisional government after establishing itself in cuba, could invite the United States to assist, much the way the rebels in libya invited the United States to assist recently, then the United States could come in overtly and legally or quasilegally and settle the matter. Not long after eisenhower approved the plan, the cia set up camp in the mountains of guatemala and built an airstrip fle nearby. In late spring the agency began recruiting cuban exiles mainly in miami to transport, assemble and train them in guatemala. They came from an array of backgrounds. Some were former soldiers who served in bautistas army, others were students, many were moderates or leftists who had even supported castro when he first came to power, but then h. Later there would be lawyers, doctors, farmers, whites, blacks, young, old, rich and poor, a fair Cross Section of the cuban population. The military operation was coming together in guatemala, the president ial campaign of 1960 was heating up in america. In a close contest between Richard Nixon and john f. Kennedy. From the outset, nixon realized that fidel castro was either going to be an opportunity or a problem for him, depending on whether castro was still in power or gone by election day. By the fall of 1960, john kennedy was beating the Eisenhower Administration over the head with fidel castro. Kennedy realized that no subject roused American Voters more than the specter of a communist cuba. At every whistle stop he reminded voters that the island was a mere eight jet minutes away, and he blamed eisenhower and Company IncludingVice President nixon for letting this happen. Imagine being in the shoes of Richard Nixon. He had a pretty wellearned reputation as a communist buster, one of the premiere communist busters in america, and along comes this democrat from massachusetts suggesting that he, Richard Nixon, was not quite anticommunist enough. It was galling. Kennedy had somehow managed to outflank nixon as an anticommunist hawk. The probably the best example of this occurred in one of the Nixon Kennedy television debates. Not the first debate, the one thats most famous, but the fourth debate. This debate may have been the most important in the campaign. At the very least it offered a glimpse into the wonderful strangeness that was Richard Nixon. Kennedy had come out in the press the previous day with a statement about cuba. In his statement kennedy suggested the Eisenhower Administration was being negligent against castro and they should find Castro Cubans to take up arms against castro. The this is what the Eisenhower Administration was trying to do. When nixon saw this in the newspapers, he was outraged. Somebody in the cia, he thought, must have told kennedy about the cias plan. Now kennedy was claiming this as his own idea when, in fact, he, Richard Nixon, had been pushing for this operation for months. But nixon couldnt say that because it was a covert operation. So he just had to shut up and let kennedy pretend the whole thing was his idea. Thats probably what he should have done. Thats not, in fact, what nixon did. Instead in the fourth debate, he lashed out at kennedys statement denouncing it as irresponsible and foolish. He gave a long thoughtful argument as to why a Covert Military operation against the castro regime was a terrible idea. Dangerously irresponsible as he said in the debate. Nixon later explained that this lie of his was very painful, but that it was his uncomfortable and ironic duty. Then he added from that point on, i had the wisdom and wariness of someone who had been burned by the kennedys. I vowed i would never again enter into an election at a disadvantage by being vulnerable to them or anyone on the level of political tactics. Its a lesson that nixon learned well. A lesson that led him straight to watergate. Thats a story for another time. As we know john kennedy got what he wished for. He became the 35th president of the United States. No sooner did he enter office on january 20th that he was handed this plan that was developed under the Eisenhower Administration. Kennedy did know something about it by the time he got into office. He was briefed in detail after he won the election. He knew something, but still it came as quite a shock to discover first of all how big the operation was, and secondly that he had to deal with it immediately. The cia told him the cubans were about to get a large arms shipment from the soviets, including mig fighter jets, which would make it difficult to get rid of castro in the future. From day one, the pressure was on kennedy to decide what he wanted to do and decide quickly. Its fair to say john kennedy was not thrilled by the cias plan. His main concern was that the government of the United States would not be hidden enough. If it were not, it could very well provoke castros new friends, the soviet union to take retaliatory action, most likely in west berlin, a city that was threatened to be cut off from the west. Kennedy did not want to get into a game of titfortat with the soviets because that could escalate to nuclear war. But he wanted castro gone. Since he had one for president criticizing eisenhower about castro, he needed to do something. If he canceled the plan, he would lookhypocrite. Worst he would look soft on communi communism. Conventional wisdom has it that the cia misled kennedy about the essentials of the operation. That they really tricked him into going ahead by misleading him, for example, about the chances of the cuban population rising up against castro. I dont think the cia was totally up front, in fact Richard Bissell later admitted they sold too hard. I dont believe kennedy was fooled either. I think he knew more or less what he was getting into. He got into it any way because he didnt know into it anyway b didnt know how not to get into it. He painted himself into a corner during the campaign. And by the way, most americans are in that same corner with him. Everybody wanted castro gone. Well, the operation moved forward almost inexorably. And for reasons mentioned i dont think there was a good chance that he would have, and so, thats where we begin. April 15th, in the opening attack on the cuban air fields. The attack that was meant to destroy Fidel Castros air force. I cover the invasion in the aftermath in the great detail in the book. But its hard to do it justice in a few minutes. So, im afraid youre going to have to read the book if you want to find the full story. But for the moment, ill just say that the important thing about the air attacks on april 15th is that they did not completely take out castros air force. They left about half a dozen intact. Half a dozen of his planes. The following evening, president kennedy cancelled the second round of air strikes scheduled in the morning for april 17th. The strikes were meant to complete the job of destroying castros air force. Now, why kennedy cancelled them is a mystery. The most common explanation is that hed become very concerned about the public and International Reaction that had been stirred up by the first round of air strikes. Among other things it had become clear to the whole world, that the whole world realized that the United States was behind the air strikes almost from the time the first bomb fell on the 15th. And kennedy was always very concerned about provoking something big. About lighting a match that would lead to a Great Nuclear confrontation. So with the advice of his secretary of state dee rusk, he called off the air strikes. They were horrified. Always understood for the invasion to have a chance, castros air force had to be taken occupy. And it was axiomatic. The brigade was duped. This was confirmed the following morning before the brigade had even completed its landing. Castros planes showed up over the bay of pigs and very quickly sunk two supply ships. The four other brigade ships also under air attack, fight for international waters, but down with those two sunken ships and away with those other four ships went the brigades ammunition, much of its food and medical supplies. Much of its communications equipment. And virtually any fighting chance the brigade had. Now, this is not to suggest that if the second air strikes had not been cancelled, the invasion would have ultimately achieved what either the cia or the brigade wanted to achieve. Theres no question that at the moment the air strikes were cancelled it was over. Which is buy, to this day, many cuban exiles who fought at the bay of pigs held a deep animosity for john kennedy, even 15 years later. The brigade was essentially stranded there on the beaches, running out of ammunition and under constant bombardment as castro set his army in column after army. By the 18th, the brigade was withering and by the 19th, it came to an end, castros troops swept in and the brigade scrambled to the swamp but not before one last tragedy. The final morning, april 19th, four pilots from the Alabama Air National guard who had been brought in to help train the brigade pilots flew from the air base from nicaragua to cuba. They did this because the brigade pilots had been flying nonstop and suffered casualties. But that morning, the planes were shot down over cuba and all four were killed including a 30yearold pilot named thomas pete ray. Thomas rays daughter janet ray is here with us tonight and was a big help to me when i was writing this book as were veterans of the brigade, when i visited them two years ago over the 48th anniversary over the bay of pigs invasion. So, im grateful for your help and their help. And im grateful for all of you coming and listening to me tonight. And what i want to do now is give you a chance to ask any questions that you might have. Or make any brief comments. Weve got cspan here with us, so, please wait for the microphone to come over, before you speak. And please, because there are so many of us here tonight, try to keep it brief, so that everybody gets a chance who wants to say something, will get a chance to do so, okay . Thank you very much. [ applause ] okay. Thank you. Thank you. Im going to start since the boom is already there, with this gentleman right here. Go ahead. Your book is the first one of old minudominion and i read t both, on the instance of january 28th, when it was the first time, at the end cant hear the question at the end of the memo the question will come in a moment. At the end of the memo that was prepared by bissell. It comes out that the end of the operation would be for the u. S. To come in after the start. The question to you is, i know, because ive read it, that wasnt the first plan in that plan. Were you able to find that anywhere else . And were you able to find mention of that anywhere else after that . What do you mean, specifically . The fact that the u. S. Was going to come in after the yeah, that was that was always part of the original plan. Again, the idea was never that the 1400 men were going to take over cuba. Some people seem to think that, but that wasnt the plan. The plan was they would set up this beach head and they would call for help. And thats why, i hadnt mentioned this, but there was a comple fleet of american aircraft just over the horizon in the brigade. An Aircraft Carrier of seven destroyers. They were help out when called upon. None of those had 30,000 life ho lifeholds. There were tanks on those ships, there were trucks on those ships, they were setting waiting to go from the word go to bring this equipment in and help this brigade out. Yes. Good enough. I have a question. The decision that john f. Kennedy made at the pay bay of , do you think that resulted in his assassination, or played a part in that decision . I think probably Lee Harvey Oswalds mind it did. Theres a question whether fidel castro ordered it. And there swas Something Like castro wanted to hill him so kennedy killed him. We do know that castro visited the Cuban Embassy in mexico city shortly before the assassination. And perhaps got some sort of signal or communication there. But what we know for sure is that oswald, he was in the soviet union when the bay of pigs happened. And was infuriated by it. And thought he was doing fidel castro a favor by going after john kennedy. So, indirectly, yes, i do think the bay of pigs definitely leads to the assassination of kennedy. It may have had a more direct link, but thats very difficult, maybe impossible torsion prov,. Over here, please. Ill come to you in a second. Yes. Whats confusing to me is if after the first day of the invasion it became very clear that the u. S. Was behind it, and then if it was known without the secondary air strikes on the 17th the invasion was doomed, are you basically saying that because kennedy was afraid of lighting the match against the soviet union, that he was willing to sacrifice the 1400 men for the good of the Bigger Picture . Its a haunting question. How do you portray this, whether were in favor or not in favor of war. Or in favor or not in favor of getting rid of castro, by putting the plan in place, were committed. And anything short of that, you said, theres no guarantee of work and anything short that would be a disaster. So, its hard to imagine that 14th of july would be sacrificed for whatever the Bigger Picture. Im sure, john kennedy never thought it those chilling terms. Im sure he never thought ill just sacrifice those 1400 lives. I think what he wanted was to have his cake and eat it, too. He wanted to have an immaculate invasion. He wanted to get castro out, but he didnt want to start anything with the soviet union. Did he sit there on the evening of the 16th saying to himself, too bad for those guys . You know, im cancel, the followup air strikes. I dont think so. But i think the conflict with himself that he had from the very beginning came to haunt this operation that evening. In many ways it had been set up long in advance because he was always conflicted about it. But thats what he did. He did essentially the cia knew thats what hed done, he had basically set them up to fail. But i guess i dont ive never seen anything that makes me think that he was cold hearted enough to do it intentionally, and we do know he did really feel very, truly, depressed tab afterwardabout it. He went into a deep depression. And im sure it was because he knew hed done pretty terrible. I think he did it in his own mind for the right reasons. But, clearly, he knew that he set these guys up to fail. Im going to come to this side of the room, please. I am told that there were American Warships that were ready to assist in the invasion. There were tanks coming off carrier ships. There were, honestly, sophisticated weaponry that was brought into cuba, and a largescale invasion, how could anybody talk to an otherwise intelligence president of the United States to say we can deny even if we had won the war, the invasion, how could anybody talk him into that . Yeah, this gets into the oddness of plausible denial in the wolcold war. The idea of plausible denial was not total denial, it was that you could hide behind this covert front. And it lowered the heat. It lowered the stakes. For example, the u2, the u2, the famous spy plane america flew, we were flying a u2 over the soviet union. The soviets knew we were flying a u2 over the soviet union, and we knew they knew. But nobody said anything. Because nobody wanted to admit weakness. So, to go back to your question, i dont think anyone thought, oh, well be able to completely deny this. But the hope was, we can plausibly deny it. We can say, we were there to help out, if we asked them to help them. We were there was a friend. We were in no way behind it. We werent the ones insta gaiting it and we werent the ones funding it. So they could deny a few parts of it while accepting the other parts of it. Does that answer the question . This gentleman here, then ill come to you. Yes. Aside from the lack of air power and air cover, wasnt there did you find any information regarding infiltrations of the brigade by castro Intelligence Officers that they gave up the plan before they even landed . I did not. But its not thats not because its not out there. Its commonly assumed that he did know. Its hard to believe certainly, he knew what was going on between the cuban exiles. By the way, he just had to pick up the newspaper if you wanted to know what was going on because there were newspaper reports about the Training Camps in guatemala. On january 10th, the New York Times ran a story which said that these Training Camps in guatemala it ended up not being that bad for the cia because the New York Times reporter was kind of fooled. And thought that the soldiers were god mauatemalans. Not cuban exiles. And when john kennedy in a press conference, april 12th, right before the invasion said that should there be an invasion of cuba, there would be no american involvement in it. Well, for castro that said it all. Clearly, these guys are coming any second. Now, theres also, you may know, a story that somebody leaked to soviet intelligence, the fact that, the actual invasion date. Thats probably true. There seems a lot of evidence to that. I dont know if it really made much of a difference. Because castro through anyway. Castro had been on high alert, all winter, he didnt sleep. He stayed up Smoking Cigars waiting night after night for this to happen. When it did happen he sprang into action. The only thing he didnt know is where it was going to happen. Once he found that out, he was readied to go. This young woman right here. Im the godmother of Ellen Douglas great grandson and my husband is cuban. When i found out that my friends last name was actually dulles, and she knew my husband was cuban, she asked me can we still be friends. So, what im asking you is how liable is ellen dulles . Well, dulles i dont think that cubans cuban exiles would be upset. Dulles was on their side. He very much wanted this to go through. He also very much wanted president kennedy to rescue them when it was clear they were failing. To go back to the point made earlier. There was an enormous amount of american fire power just offshores, including an Aircraft Carrier with a4 fighter jets. Bissell kept saying let us have this for a little bit of time . Others are saying to give air coverage to the brigade. You have to remember, the brigade is there, pinned down, begging for help. If you read the intercepts coming in from the beaches, theyre heartwrenching. Please help us. Please come. Were dying here. Rescue us. Just send in one plane. Send in some planes, please. Kennedy never did. But the cia pushed for it. Some people some people think dissident push played hard enough but certainly dulles wanted that. I think, certainly, you and this woman could be friends. Here, please. I just saw the series on television, the kennedy series. And one of the segments they covered in detail is this invasion. Two parts. My first part is how accurate, if you saw that series i didnt see it. Oh, okay, sorry. One of the things they brought out in that series, and again, i dont know its true, but they said it was, but its shocking. I lived through that invasion. And one of the things they said was that, to the present day, they acknowledge that the mistake, one of the mistakes they made was there was a full moon on the night. Thats true. On the night of the invasion. That made no sense to me, how could they have done that . No, the moon was a pendulum. That obviously was they made a big point of that in the one of the other that on the morning of the 15th, the cuban ambassador to the United Nations also made the point that there were sun spots that day. And somehow the cia was so diabolical that they had arranged the invasion while there were sun spots to screw up radio equipment or Something Like that. I dont know that much about meteorology, but it was intentionally done on a moonless night. Thank you. Anybody else . Standing back here in the yellow shirt. Does your book go into how kennedy changed the invasion plan from trinidad, to the bay of pigs . Yes. Because that was pivotal. That was pivotal, yes. And as far as leaks, they rounded up 150,000 people right before the invasion. Right. Who were supposed to take part in all kinds of antigovernment activities. They filled stadiums in havana and throughout cuba. And that would have been pivotal. But that was leaked to the castro government. Do you cover that also . I certainly cover the fact that these people were rounded up. And it goes to the problem of it hoping for a populist uprising against castro or cuba. Because anybody against cuba were either in miami or jail. There. Arent many people left. Seven members of our family goes to bay of pigs. Is that right . Yes. They didnt send us, she was 5, and i was 5 1 2. Otherwise, we would have gone, too. Yes. [ inaudible ] 1200 to 1400, i understand landed. My uncle was part of the team that was supposed to go ahead of the invasion, to help the resistance, you know, prepare. And he never went in. They found out about the invasion later. There were many other units. There were false invasions. There were infiltrations. There were a number of things going on at the same time. The actual brigade that landed was about 1400. But, yes, there were hundreds of others who were involved in operations against cuba at the time. Ive heard that the on the attack were painted in cuban colors to make it seem it was tour cuba itself, is that true . That is true, the whole plan was to try to make the air attacks look as if they had been carried out by castros own pilots. Part of that plan was you have eight b26 bombers fly through the cuban air field. You also a 926 who through directly from miami. Landed in the b26 talking about he was part of the cuban correspondents who that morning had bombed their own airfield and was now coming to the United States. That fell apart very quickly, though, for a number of reasons. For one thing, his b26 was different than the b26s in castros airport. And some enterprising jire inin journalists figured that out quickly. For example, he had machine guns in the nose cone, castros machine guns were mounted in the wings. Thats why they ended up cancelling the air strike on the 16th. Once they realized this was not true, ais charade, wait a minut something is not right about this, they started looking to the americans as to what was going on. Yeah, they were all marked. They were all marked to look like castros plane. Theres somebody over here. Ill come to you in a second. Yes. In your opening remarks, you referred to the fact that kennedy was concerned that about provoking russia. And by his actions in the bay of pigs and in that invasion. Do you go into that in the book . And what extent subsequently ha because four or five months later the berlin wall went up. Right. Im sure that was triggered by his weakness in the bay of pigs. Eight months later, vietnam exploded. That was all in context, what they detected was his what they interpreted to be weak that triggered a lot of problems. And john kennedy knew that. He went to a summit in vienna in june with khrushchev, and khrushchev eight his lunch. And john kennedy said he thinks im stupid and weak because of what happened at the bay of pigs. Then certainly, you can make a connection to khrushchev making his connection to putting up the berlin wall. Although in some way, the berlin defused thats a different story. But it triggered the wall being built. It did. And the bay of pigs. And the same thing happened in asia. Thats true. And kennedy certainly was very aware of that when he went to the summit with khrushchev. Look, the repercussions in the bay of pigs just kept going. All through it really didnt end for kennedy until the cuban missile crisis. A lot of things, vietnam war, in many ways, started on april 20th, the day after. B the bay o pigs. John kennedy needing a victory against the communists ordered a task force to figure out a way to stop communism in south vietnam. Shortly after that sent 400 men into vietnam. Really the first step into the morass of vietnam began in beaches of cuba. This gentleman here. And then ill go there. Thank you. In my mind, there must have been some sort of cause that caused kennedy to back away from the second air strike. Immediately after that first air strike, are you aware, or is there any documentation of any conversations between john f. Kennedy and khrushchev, immediately after the first air strike . No. That may have caused john kennedy to back out and continue . No the conversations were with dean ross, his secretary of state who advised him to stop. Khrushchev on may 18th sent a very threatening letter to john f. Kennedy saying if you value the lives of your people you better back off. You know, in the cold war, the stakes were always so high. And i think thats why we have to have some sympathy for these president s who served when is there were always a few decisions away from nuclear war. At least they thought they were. So, khrushchev said if you i cant quote the letter in the book, you better get out of cuba, or were going to come after you. So there was certainly communications after that. And kennedy then responded to that. Yes. During your research did you come across any documentation that after the election, the Republican Administration either wanted to back off or wants to accelerate it . There was a cia history done in the 1970s and kind of jack piper. And he was he remarked that eisenhower for some reason really seemed to start pushing again, after the election. Just before kennedy took over. And it may be because eisenhower because before that was afraid of doing something to muck up nixons chances. It may be that he was just trying to hand kennedy a tough problem. I doubt it. But he did he did really try to i think what they wanted to do was hand off something that was ready to go. Now, eisenhower did later say that he never meant this to be a plan. He called it a program. In other words, it was an asset. It wasnt something that had to be done. So, he later denied that he really had much responsibility for it. Although, remember, for a year, this plan lived under eisenhower. And it only lived under kennedy for three months. All right. I think we can take a few more questions. Somebody who has not asked one yet. Did you ask yet . Go ahead, please. Can you elaborate on the four Alabama National guard, whats the history behind that . I dont think it was made clear that theyd gotten flattened down for several years. And whats the status of this gentleman now . Well, this one here knows about that than i do. Her father was one of them. Theyd been brought in to train the cia pilots. They werent meant to fly. I mean, theres always a backup plan that maybe they would be used to fly, but that wasnt really their main function. And it is true that when they were killed, the Kennedy Administration and then the cia denied that this happened. They came up with a cover story for how they died. And its really one of the most shameful parts of the whole thing. Because these men died trying to serve their country, trying to do the right thing. And then their families were lied to about how they died. Through the efforts of janet wray, mainly, and other people, that is not the truth came out. And we now all know what the truth is. That these four men died in battle, fighting for their country. Let me take one more question, does anybody who has one do you want to ask one . Okay. You said that president kennedy felt personally guilty for not ordering the second air strike. But you made tell clear that he was upset with the cia over the failure of the bay of pigs because he fired many of the heads of cia afterwards . Thats right, he fired alan beltz, Richard Bisson and charles cavil, the second in command at the cia. He fired the whole group. He was upset with the cia. He thought the cia misled him. Partly, though, you have to understand it was scapegoating. I dont mean that as being highly critical. Even before the invasion, Arthur Schlesinger wrote a memo saying somebody has to be on the chopping block and it cant be the president. Thats the cia thats partly the job of the cia, they have to take the heat when things like this happen. And they, you know, it was their baby. And bissell it was, the end of his career, certainly, he went and worked at a corporation in connecticut the rest of his life. And it changed the lives of many people in the cia, whose careers basically, not just the top guys ended with that. Kennedy said he wanted to shatter the cia until a thousand pieces. He didnt do that but he was certainly upset. Do we have time for one more . Lets do one more question here. Just to ask you, does the book explore the issue of why allen dulles was in puerto rico, left to run probably one of the highest profile operations that the cia had planned in many, many years to joe bissell Richard Bissell or Richard Bissell who was and underling of his . Was there any further delving into that situation . Yeah there was an invitation proffered to dulles. Basically, it was a retreat for Young American executives and they invited allen dulles to come talk to them. Dulles went, something that didnt go, it was a tipoff that the invasion was about to happen and if it did go to puerto rico, it would be one more indication that the United States had nothing to do with this. Now, in moscow, the newspapers immediately, as early as the 18th saying allen dulles was intentionally in puerto rico to run the operation from puerto rico. Thats not true. But dulles did give the speech at the same time the ships were exploding in the bay of pigs. At 6 30 in the morning he was chatting with young executives. It was bizarre and he thought it was the right thing to do. He didnt know much about what was happening until he came back that evening, he learned at the airport how badly things were going. He told his aide, lets go get a stiff drink. Thats how he handled that. I think we need to cut it off here. Can we do any more questions are okay. All right. I dont understand how if everybody in the world knew that this was going to happen, the cia didnt know that castro knew . Did they not have any people infiltrated in the castro organization at the time . If everybody knew, then how does dulles not know that everyone knew . Yes. It is tell goes back to the weird psychology of the cold war. Everyone knew, but again, it wasnt that they thought they were going to get away and nobody would ever suspect the United States. Its just that they wanted enough deniability, to hide behind that, really, so khrushchev wasnt in a position to elevate it. If it was obvious that United States was behind it, khrushchev would have no choice but then to escalate it to west berlin. And then john kennedy would have no choice but to escalate somewhere else. Thats how this worked. It worked on several different levels. I mean, if theres one thing i learned writing this book is that you dont want to be a president certainly during a cold war. I mean, youre faced minute by minute by these life or death decisions. And theyre incredibly difficult. Ill end by saying the point that i the moral for me is that when people write about the bay of pigs or talk about the bay of pigs theres often so much anger involved. Or there has been over history and a lot of blame goes around. My impression is most of the people involved in this from all ends were doing it for what they thought were good reasons. They were basically good people trying to do the right thing for the country. The problem was that it was a very difficult thing to do. And the way they did it was not the right way. And now, you know, what the answer should have been still isnt really clear to me. Should john kennedy have thrown in the u. S. Military entirely into this . Well, we can say yes to that, but then we have to ask, what would have happened afterward. What if he had done that . What if marines had gone into cuba in april 1961, its hard to know how that game would have played out. What we do know is what happened. And what happened is a tragedy. Thank you all very much for coming tonight. I really appreciate it. Thank you. [ applause ] coming up on American History tv a tour of the former u. S. Army communications based in warrington, virginia, that now houses a cold war museum. And then a look into the concept of the deep state, American History and political debate. Afterwards, a 1959 film called decade of nato which marks the tenth anniversary of the april 4th, 1949 founding of nato. Every saturday night, American History tv takes you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Why do you all know who Lizzie Borden is, raise your hand if you ever heard of this murder trial, the gene harris murder . The deepest cause to find the true revolution is in the transformation that takes place in the minds of the american people. So, were going to talk about both sides of the story here, right . The tools and technique of slave owner power, and were also going to talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch lead history professors lead discussions with students on topics from American Revolution to september 11th. Lectures, every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv. And lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. And now American History tv travels about 45 west of the Nations Capital. The tour of former using Army Communications base in warrington, virginia, that now houses a cold war museum. Each week, american artifacts visits museums archives and historic places. And up next, we travel about 45 miles west of the Nations Capital to tour a former u. S. Army Communication Base in warrington, virginia, that now houses a Museum Dedicated to remembering the cold war. This is just under an hour. Welcome, my name is Francis Gary Powers jr