Bay of Pigs Declassified
Subject: "Bay of Pigs Declassified"
Date: 01 Dec 1998 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <19981130191417.07781.00000269@ng-cf1.aol.com> Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Just came across a fascinating book:
"Bay of Pigs Declassified", edited by Peter Kornbluh, 1998, The New Press,
339pp, wraps. ISBN: 1-56584-494-7
The meat of the book is the recently-declassified CIA "Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation, October 1961. It discusses in detail the planning, organization and execution of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and offers the IG's views on the structural flaws and judgemental errors of the project's organizers. Included are several relevant documents, including the original 3/16/60 "A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime" that started the whole process.
Also included is the Deputy Director (Plans) 1/18/62 "An Analysis of the Cuban Operation". a rebuttal that lays primary reponsibility for the failure at the door of the White House, again with associated documents.
Also included is an interview with invasion organizers Jacob D. Esterline and Colonel Jack Hawkins, as well as a chronology of events.
In reading the IG report, keep in mind that the Inspector General, Lyman Bickford Kirkpatrick Jr., was a rising young CIA bureaucrat until he was felled by poliomyelitis in July, 1952. Upon his recovery and return to work (in a wheelchair), Kirk found himself passed over for the position of Chief of Operations, DD/P, by Richard McGarrah Helms, and passed over again for the DD/P job in 1958 by Richard Mervin Bissell Jr, after the breakdown of Frank Gardiner Wisner (pronounced wiz-ner). Many in CIA felt that Kirk was embittered by the slights, and this caused him to be unduly harsh on the DD/P who oversaw the Cuba Project: Bissell. Both Kirkpatrick's IG report and Bissell's DD/P rebuttal should be read in this light.
For New Orleans historians, there are a few references to underwater demolition training (UDT) at the Belle Chasse Naval Station across the river, as well as "other training camps" in the area, all circa Spring, 1961.
Fascinating stuff, essential for serious historians.
oo
David