CIA defeated with 72 hours
By Roberto Jorquera
The Bay of Pigs and the CIA
By Juan Carlos Rodriguez
Ocean Press, Melbourne, 1999
212pp., $24.95
In the early hours of April 17, 1961 the "Cuban Revolutionary Council" released a statement, proclaiming, "Before dawn, Cuban patriots in the cities and in the hills began the battle to liberate our homeland of Fidel Castro and rid the Cubans of international communism's cruel oppression".
The council was set up, with CIA collaboration, to be Cuba's transitional government, which would take over within three days of the invasion at the Bay of Pigs. The Cuban people, however, were ready and determined to repel the invading force; within 72 hours the CIA's plans to overthrow the revolution had failed.
Rodriguez's book is a detailed analysis of the events that led up to the invasion, the role of the United States and the response of the Cuban people in the critical hours following the invasion. Rodriguez uses material from Cuba's counterintelligence archives and quotes extensively from secret reports prepared by Cuban double agents who had penetrated the anti-Castro groups seeking to overthrow the new revolutionary government.
As early as March 1960, then US president Dwight Eisenhower had begun preparations for the April 17, 1961 invasion stating, "I ordered the Agency to commence the training of Cuban exiles, principally in Guatemala, for the possible future day when they could return to their country.
"Another idea was that we commence to construct an anti-Castro force in Cuba itself. Some thought that we should quarantine the island, arguing that if the economy quickly collapsed, the Cubans themselves would overthrow Castro."
CIA sponsorship
The CIA sponsored the establishment of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FRD), which was officially launched in June 1960 as a political organisation, based outside Cuba, uniting the five major right-wing and conservative forces.
These so-called "freedom fighters" adopted a 12 point program at their founding meeting, to be implemented as soon as the overthrow was achieved. It included "the elimination of the communist party, review of the sentences given to Batista officials and the retention of the agrarian reform but as established in the 1940 constitution, without dispossessions or abuses".
The US government used the FRD as a political front to justify its aggression and eventual invasion of Cuba. It was aware of the overwhelming support that the new revolutionary government had and thus sought to demoralise and confuse the Cuban people as prelude to invasion.
The CIA's Richard Bissell was given the job of promoting and organising the counter-revolutionary propaganda. In April 1960 he helped journalist David Phillips, who had organised a similar campaign against President Arbenz in Guatemala in the early 1950s, to set up Radio Cuba Libre (Radio Swan). The station began beaming transmissions into Cuba from Swan Island (a US island of the coast of Honduras) in May 1960.
In the next year it was to carry stories claiming that Castro had turned priests and nuns into "mere government employees", that prisoners' relatives were no longer allowed to visit them and that the prisoners had been sent to Russia, that soldiers had used a cemetery as a campsite, cooking meals on the graves and sleeping in the tombs. It also broadcast stories of uprisings against the government. None of the stories were true.
In October 1960, Radio Swan even went to the extent of announcing that the Cuban government was planning to make all children between the ages of five and 18 property of the state, removing them from their families for Marxist indoctrination.
The CIA, together with Radio Swan, also organised Operation Peter Pan. The operation would involve the Catholic Church in Miami and Cuba sponsoring children to go to the United States, as part of a "humanitarian aid program". Over 1000 children were taken from Cuba to the US and never returned.
Invasion
Throughout late 1960 and in the first few months of 1961 the US began smuggling infiltration teams and armaments into Cuba. The overwhelming majority of these incursions were defeated and those involved arrested, mainly due to the highly organised citizens' committees, the Committees in Defence of the Revolution.
Rodriguez writes,"During the last three months [before April 1961], the underground had engaged in intensive activities to make itself felt, but the massive defence put up by the people was overwhelming. They responded to the acts of sabotage and terrorism with spontaneous demonstrations and calls on the Committees in Defence of the Revolution to redouble their vigilance. The CDRs had branches in every city block and on every farm, 104,000 branches throughout the country by the end of March".
Failing to organise counter-revolutionary armed groups, the US and the right-wing Cuban exile community resorted to terrorism. On April 13, 1961 there was an attempt to paralyse Havana by sabotaging the largest department store.
There has been much written about the "ill preparedness" of the invading force. However, Rodriguez clearly demonstrates in his account that the invading force was well equipped and well armed. What it was lacking was the political and moral enthusiasm and tenacity.
The new revolutionary government of Cuba did not have the fire power of the invading force. But what it did have was military tactics learnt during the revolutionary war in the Sierra Maestra. And it had the support of the majority of the people.
These combined to demoralise and defeat the US-backed invasion within 72 hours of the landing at the Bay of Pigs.
"The people who lived in the swamp helped the Cuban military forces to round up the mercenaries", Rodriguez states. "The invaders who were captured and put on trial were finally exchanged for baby food and medicine, which was desperately needed because of the US blockade of Cuba."