Bay of Pigs Revisited

The disastrous failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion was all the more embarrassing to John F. Kennedy because by some widely believed accounts he lost his nerve and doomed the expedition by calling off promised U.S. air cover. Last week the President's brother made an attempt to erase that version of what happened. Said Attorney General Robert Kennedy in an interview: "I can say unequivocally that President Kennedy never withdrew U.S. air cover . . . There never were any plans made for U.S. air cover, so there was nothing to withdraw."

That statement of the case sounded pretty firm and final--except that it contradicted the accounts of many other people, including some members of the Bay of Pigs expedition. One of them, Manuel Penabaz, charged a few weeks ago that "we were betrayed." The invasion's leaders, he said, "had been assured of U.S. air cover." Dr. Manuel Antonio de Varona, a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, insisted that the U.S. had indeed assured the invaders of "full air control," though another invasion leader, Manuel Artime, declared that no U.S. air support had been promised. Adding to the confusion, Publisher Jack W. Gore of the Fort Lauderdale News said that in May 1961 the President himself had told a group of seven Florida newspaper executives, gathered for a confidential White House briefing, that planned air cover had been canceled by presidential order on the morning of the invasion. At his press conference, President Kennedy grimly declared that "there was no such conversation."

Targets of Opportunity. Whether or not the invaders were promised U.S. air cover, they were indeed promised air cover of a sort. It was to be provided by some 20 obsolescent B26. bombers, resurrected from U.S. Air Force storage by the CIA. The pilots were mostly Cuban exiles, but some were U.S. citizens (at least one U.S. pilot was killed during the invasion attempt). The bombers took off from a CIA-managed base at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.

The basic mission of this semi-clandestine bomber force was to destroy Castro's planes on the ground before the invasion was launched. That task, the invasion planners decided, would take three days of repeated strikes at "targets of opportunity." After that, the bombers were supposed to provide close support for the invaders as they moved over the beaches. But shortly before the invasion got under way, White House orders went out limiting the B-26 force to two pre-invasion strikes. The first ineffectual sortie, two days before Dday, set off rumblings at the United Nations, so Kennedy called off the second strike, scheduled for the morning of the invasion. After the invaders scrambled ashore, Kennedy ordered the second strike reinstated, but it was too little and way too late.

Over the beach the B-26 force was shattered by Castro's T-33 jet trainers. Offshore stood at least one U.S. aircraft carrier, and its jet fighters might have been enough, even that late, to reverse the outcome--but they remained on the sidelines. The invaders' appeals for help--"Mad Dog Four, May Day, Red Beach" --went unheeded. According to the official version, the U.S. Navy was there to defend the invasion ships in case they were discovered and attacked in international waters--it was not supposed to aid the landing.

A final plea for help went out from the invasion force's Colonel Jose Perez San Roman. It was denied. In a burst of futile anger, San Roman cried back into his radio "And you, sir, are a son of a bitch."

40 Minutes on Target. From the known and undenied facts, two unpleasant conclusions emerge:

P: If the score of B-26s was indeed the only air cover contemplated for the invasion, then the U.S. planners, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff (who reportedly okayed the plan), stand convicted of incompetence. They knew that Castro had a force of T-33s, and they also knew that after the long flight from Puerto Cabezas the B-26s would have only enough fuel left to keep aloft for 40 minutes over the target area.

P: In spite of the gross inadequacy of the B-26 air cover plans to begin with, the operations originally scheduled were drastically curtailed on orders from President Kennedy.

"Rewriting History." Bobby Kennedy's oversimplified statement of the case stirred up strong reactions. In a TV interview, Dwight Eisenhower shrugged off any blame for the fiasco, said that his Administration had contemplated no more than support for a "guerrilla type of action" in the Cuban mountains. (At least two plans had been talked up in the Eisenhower days--a guerrilla type of action, and a direct invasion with U.S. air and logistics support. The final decision fell to Kennedy.)

In the Senate, Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen promised a personal investigation, with the blessing of the Republican Policy Committee. "Cuba is very much unfinished business," he said. Arizona's Barry Goldwater demanded an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee, charged Bobby Kennedy and the Administration with attempts at "the rewriting of history." Georgia's Senator Richard Russell, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, retorted that he saw no useful purpose in "relaundering this linen--though I'll confess it has never seemed very clean."

Under Russian Occupation. The Administration was beset by other Cuban embarrassments last week. U.S. newspapers reported an intensive buildup of Soviet strength on the island. According to some accounts, upwards of 20,000 Soviet troops are still in Cuba. Construction of underground depots, heavy pillboxes, hangars and runways is moving ahead rapidly under Russian supervision. The island's antiaircraft missile defenses are being strengthened. Cuba is virtually under Russian occupation. In Havana's harbor lie a dozen ships flying the hammer and sickle. Cuban shoppers buy Russian canned foods. Plaques and pictures praise "martyrs of the proletariat." Tens of thousands of children are being indoctrinated with Communist propaganda.

At his press conference President Kennedy said there has been "no influx" of Russian weapons into Cuba since Khrushchev withdrew his offensive missiles. By the "best information we have," said Kennedy, only one Soviet ship that might have carried military cargo has arrived in Cuba since then, and "there is no evidence that this ship carried any offensive weapons." But after a briefing by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and CIA Chief John A. McCone, Mississippi Democrat John Stennis announced that his Senate Preparedness Subcommittee will investigate the "buildup of military might in Cuba."

Despite the impressive cold war victory that Kennedy scored when Khrushchev called back the missiles, Castro's Cuba, both past and present, remains a heavy burden upon the Administration. And instead of lightening that burden, Bobby Kennedy's comments on the Bay of Pigs only revived grim memories and nagging doubts that had begun to fade.

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