The Bay Of Pigs: A Case Study

Review the setting. Lasting only three days, the Bay of Pigs was a short yet defining battle in the Cold War. Fought between the communist Soviet Union and the United States the cold war lasted approximately 45 years. In the years of the Cold War, 1945-1991 “America and its allies struggled to keep the communist, totalitarian Soviet Union from expanding into Europe, Asia, and Africa.” (Independence Hall Association, 2016) The Bay of Pigs affected The Cold War on a strategic level as one of the main factors leading to the Soviet Union’s strategic placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba. (United States Department of State, 2016) The Soviet Union, known for offering support to new and easily influenced governments in return for their support
The CIA was granted a generous budget of 13 million dollars in order to recruit and train the U.S. assault force. Members of the Frente Revolucionario Democratico (FRD), who had run from Cuba to Miami, FL were the primary recruits targeted by the CIA. The FRD known for its anti-Castro sentiments made ideal revolutionaries. The intent of the U.S. assault force known as Brigade 2506 was to spark a revolution by motivating anti-Castro sympathizers to rise up with the invading ground force. Brigade 2506 received specialized military training from the CIA on Useppa Island. On the private island leased by the CIA Brigade 2506 learned advanced military tactics. The Army Special Forces, Air Force, Air National Guard, and CIA made up the training cadre. The CIA also managed to recruit 39 military and commercial pilots who had fled Cuba. The specialized training included infantry tactics, land navigation, amphibious assault tactics, team guerrilla operations, and paratrooping. The trainers were unaware at the time that their trainee force also contained spies who were actively reporting the forces every move back to Castro. (Central Intelligence Agency,
The Bay of Pigs invasion is best defined by its three phases. Phase One describes the opening moves of the battle, which takes place on April 15th, 1961. During phase one Castro’s Air Force was bombed. The amphibious assault team would be vulnerable to air attacks, phase one was designed to mitigate the risks associated with a strong Cuban Air Force. Castro immediately ferreted out that the U.S. was responsible for the attacks, not his own military, as we had intended him to believe. As a result, Castro had his Cuban foreign minister call an emergency United Nations Political and Security Committee in New York the same day as the air raids. This was an important move on Castro’s part because of how concerned the U.S. was with maintaining deniability. At the meeting, it was uncovered, due to photo evidence, that the planes conducting the bombings in Cuba were in fact U.S. B-26 bombers disguised as Cuban aircraft. President Kennedy fearing further political fallout and potential intervention by the Soviet Union called off Phase Two of the operation. The U.S. lied to the UN and was caught; this had severe consequences, a second airstrike attributed to the U.S. would have put the U.S. in a bad position. Phase Two, a second airstrike intended to destroy the remaining Cuban Air Force was cancelled minutes before the aircraft took off on April 16th. Phase Three is the actual invasion by both amphibious assault and paratroopers. On April 17th at