How the US military and CIA deceived JFK: The Bay of Pigs

[Chuck Schwartz]

Charles Cabell was a dark figure (almost as dark as his boss, Allen Dulles). This is from Wikipedia, " 

• Cabell personally negotiated with Chancellor Adenauer for permission to station the U-2 in Wiesbaden and from there to fly over the Soviet Union illegally. It was the U-2 program that allowed CIA chief Allen Dulles to sabotage the peace summit between Khrushchev and Eisenhower. Cabell was promoted to full general in 1958."

Charles Cabell's brother , Earle Cabell was the Mayor of Dallas  at the time of the big event  As such, Earle had jurisdiction  over the city jail in which LHO was assassinated.  LHO was to be transferred the county jail, which Earle cabell did not have jurisdiction.

[Larry Hancock]

My answer would be "none" as far as I know.....Cabell was never really operationally involved and I would say most of what I read shows him to be woefully ignorant of what was really going on in the field.  We have exceedingly detailed information on the air operations, who gave what commands at what times, etc.  Including the fact that the Cuban Brigade leaders were absolutely briefed before sailing on what support they would and would not receive.  Its also key to remember that Brigade Air Operations were run though a completely separate line of command from the Brigade landing force and that there were actually no provisions for the Air elements to communicate directly with the landing force, nor for that matter any forward air controllers.  Bottom line, the command and control was a disaster from the beginning - which the projects military leaders were fully aware of but could not manage to convince Bissell to fix.

If you want to really get into the timing you can find that Cabell and Bissell had ample time to make their last minute pitch to JFK and inform him of the huge risk of the Cuban military aircraft that they then knew to be operational and not only failed to talk to him and be honest about it but willfully let the Brigade begin to go onshore when they actually had time to actually abort the mission.

I don't mean it to be a sales pitch but anyone interested in this really should read In Denial, I spent the better part of two years going though just those type of details against the extremely detailed information we have now, not only from the inquiries but sources like Lynch's first hand account of the landings.  I'm sort of frustrated more people have not read it and that so much wrong informaition is still ciruculating.....

[James DiEugenio]

Gil:

Are you confusing Cabell with Bundy?

Cabell's decision is described in Hunt's book, GIve Us this Day. He held back because he knew JFK had certain restrictions on  the operation.

In his essay he blamed Bundy I think, but Bundy was acting with Kennedy's permission.

IMO, this is all a diversion manufactured by Hunt and Dulles after the fact.

In the IG report, Kirkpatrick asked the theoretical question: OK, what if the air strikes took out Castro's air force?

You still would have had 30,000 Cuban regulars with 100,000 in reserve all with tanks, mortar and cannon at the beach, facing a force of about 1,400 ill equipped  disorganized militia.  How could they have established a beachhead?  There were no defections and there was no element of surprise. And Dulles and Bissell had sold JFK on those two elements.

Karl, yes I know about the letter. That is really important.

But I would really like to see the full transcript of the hearings.  Anatomy of a debacle with layers of deception filled in from the top. 

Kennedy wept into his wife's arms.

"How could I have been so stupid as to let them go?"

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Karl Kinaski]

@Jim ... IMO the 65 documents starting here, and ending here are covering the activities and Q&A sessions of the "Taylor Board of Inquiry of the Cuban Operation" very well, resulting in JFKs NSAM 55 where he gave the JCS the full responsibility to lead the Cold War   (28.6.1961) and Schlesingers recommendation for a rebuilding of the CIA (30.6.1961). The Kennedy administration was moving fast ... but so were it's arch-enemies. 

I believe the crux of the whole affair is buried in document 200. When Dean Rusk was asked about the strange visit of Cabell and Bissell in his office when the news of the canceling of the D-Day air strike had arrived in Quarters Eye. (It took Bissell and Cabell 45 Minutes to go from Quarters Eye to State which were just half a mile apart. The No 2 and No. 3 of the CIA were at last ambiguous about the D-Day air strike cancellation. 

This is, what occurred acc. to Dean Rusk when asked by the Taylor-Board:

Quote, Memo for the Record 200. (Location Rusks Office, date 4. May 1961) The quote is buried in the middle part of the memo. 

 

Quote

 

Question: Was it understood that control of the air was considered essential to the success of the landing?

Secretary Rusk: Yes, it was understood that it was essential to the success of the landing, but there was an inadequate appreciation of the enemyʼs capability in the air. Furthermore, neither the President nor I was clear that there was a D-2 air strike. We did have it in our minds that there would be a D-Day air strike. Following the D-2 air strike there was considerable confusion. It wasnʼt realized that there was to be more than one air strike in the Havana area. The President was called on this matter and he didnʼt think there should be second strikes in the area unless there were overriding considerations. We talked about the relative importance of the air strikes with Mr. Bissell and General Cabell at the time. However, they indicated that the air strikes would be important, but not critical. I offered to let them call the President, but they indicated they didnʼt think the matter was that important. They said that they preferred not to call the President.

Question: Did you attempt to advise the President as to the importance of the air strikes?

Secretary Rusk: I had talked to him and he had stated that if there werenʼt overriding considerations the second strikes shouldnʼt be made. Since Mr. Bissell and General Cabell didnʼt want to talk to the President on the matter, I felt there were no overriding considerations to advise him of. I didnʼt think they believed the dawn air strikes were too important. I believe that Castro turned out to have more operational air strength than we figured.

 

There were not only overriding considerations FOR the D-Day air strike to take out the three remaining T-33 jet fighters, this air strike was absolute essential to the whole operation. Cabell and Bissell knew that and kept quiet. Their intention was to sabotage the operation from within to force Kennedy to use US military and start a big 

war in Cuba, when he was barely  100 days in his tenure. Had Kennedy fallen for this dirty trick there never would have been a Camelot. IMO Kennedy knew the implications and that was why he said NJET to the use of US military force. (Confusing Kennedy was the nature of their game ... and they lost ... for the moment ... ) 

BTW. If Rusk is right than he and JFK never knew of a air strike prior to the D-Day strike  ... which is odd. What is clear is that JFK approved the Day Day strike an Sunday, quote Fletcher Prouty JFK. THE CIA, VIETNAM AND THE PLOT TO ASSASSINATE JOHN F. KENNEDY. 

Quote

 

... Kennedy had approved the dawn air strike (on D-DAY) at 1:45 P.M., April 16, 1961.

This quote is from the Taylor letter, paragraph 43: “At about 9:30 P.M. on April  16,  Mr.  McGeorge  Bundy,  Special  Assistant  to  the  President, telephoned  General  C.  P.  Cabell  of  CIA  to  inform  him  that  the  dawn  air strikes the following morning should not be launched until they could be conducted from a strip within the beachhead.”

No  wonder  Bundy  admitted  he  had  “a  very  wrong  estimate  of  the consequences.”  First  of  all,  U-2  photos  taken  late  Saturday,  April  15,
showed  the  three  T-33  jets  parked  wingtip  to  wingtip  on  a  small  airstrip near Santiago, Cuba. One eight-gun B-26 alone could have wiped them out on  the  ground.  The  CIA’s  operational  commander  at  Puerto  Cabezas  was sending four B-26s to do the job that one could have done easily—provided the T-33s were caught on the ground. The brigade was scheduled to hit the beach at sunrise. That would alert Castro’s air warning system and put the T-33s in the air. As reported by Wyden, the Bundy call to Cabell stating that no  air  strikes  could  be  launched  until  after  the  brigade  had  secured  the Giron airstrip constituted a total misreading and a complete reversal of the approved tactical plan. The  dawn  air  strikes  were  essential  to  destroy  the  three  T-33s  on  the ground—the only way the slower B-26s could destroy them. With them out of the way, Castro would have had no combat aircraft. The brigade would have been subject to no air attacks, their supply ships would have been safe ... 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Karl Kinaski

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks for all that Karl.  SO this has a lot of the transcripts in it.

[Gene Kelly]

JFK was severely misled about the entire BOP project ... the story circulated for many years to come was - as Jim states - a diversion ... misinformation manufactured by Hunt and Dulles after the fact. BOP was - like the Maddox/Gulf of Tonkin incident and other false flag operations - constructed to create a pretext for an invasion of Cuba (similar to Operation Northwoods). It was meant to fail ... and Dulles and his acolytes sacrificed the Cuban exiles for their own ends. The entire rationale that JFK withheld or cancelled the air cover, and caused the invasion's failure, is baloney. And what CIA did to Manuel Ray and his anti-Castro organization, Junta Revolucionario Cubana (JURE) was treasonous, as evidenced with the Sylvia Odio incident. No wonder that JFK fired Dulles. Dulles played the same disinformation trick when he approached Truman after the assassination, and Hunt was his willing ghostwriter. Hunt would later be found planting false history yet again when the false Diem papers were found in his White House safe. These duplicitous characters were manufacturing false scurrilous history, to smear Kennedy's legacy and reputation, and further their own selfish agenda. Because the official record is doctored and convoluted, it takes some digging and persistence to piece it all together.  How honest and intelligent historians can't see all of this today is baffling.    

[James DiEugenio]

One of the things that got him upset was that, as described in McNamara's book, JFK actually took a vote on this. 

There were even people who were not part of the administration there, like Fulbright.

McNamara says the vote was overwhelming for the operation. It was something like 20-2 in favor..

McNamara was in favor.  He offered to resign after the debacle.

What really disturbed Kennedy, was that after it failed, all these stories came out about how certain people had severe reservations etc.

This is why he installed a taping system, so that would not happen again. Paid off during the Missile Crisis.

JFK lost a lot of respect for the Pentagon after this disaster.  He felt that they should have provided a cross check on the CIA guys and did not. And he made that clear in the three NSAMS 55. 56, 57.

I think the only JCS guy Kennedy liked was Shoup.

[Larry Hancock]

Well I will make one more try at this and simply  point out that there is a lot more to this story than in the material presented above....including the essential fact that the estimates of the initial pre-invasion air strikes proved to be way too optimistic - not uncommon since they came largely from the Cuban pilots carrying out the strikes and aircrews do the best they can when under fire. It was only the photo reconnaissance of the following days which showed that a considerable portion of Cuban air was still operational (there was even a major push back on that from Brigade Air  which did not want to admit its failures on any thing about the invasion). 

What any of senior leadership including Rusk knew about those sorts of details is questionable, certainly JFK was not briefed by the military commanders on the post strike assessment nor did Bundy or Bissell bring it up to him when they made an abortive attempt to restart the D Day strike.  Neither of them apparently wanted to tell him the actual level of risk to the ships nor did they understand there was no way the ammunition ships were going to be unloaded and off the beachhead as JFK had ordered, again they seem to have had little grip on the operational plan (you don't unload tanks and ferry them to the beach over nasty reefs in a couple of hours).  And nobody on JFK's staff was in direct communication with the Brigade or even the CIA liaison on he Essex, the Navy command ship.  Nobody told JFK his order to have all ships at sea before daylight was impossible nor that the Cuban crews on the supply ships fled far out to sea under fire (the Navy had to chase and then force them to stop) and refused to return to attempt to supply  the beachead even the following night.

To get the full picture of what was going here  you need to read the interviews with the military commanders when they were actually shown documents covering what Bissell was telling JFK vs what he was telling him (documents only available to show them decades after the event). 

You also need to see Lynch's detailed information on the landing itself and what the Cubans expected what JFK had ordered they be told about American support.  And of course the Navy preparations that I mentioned above, for a second task force and for a false flag at Guantanamo are not discussed in any of the documents mentioned above other than some vague references to how damaging the abortive Nino Diaz mission was to the plan...without any detail on what that mission really was...

Its a very complex story and it is also necessary to keep in mind that remarks by several of the senior people like King, Rusk etc were woefully ill informed and can't really be taken as the reality of what was going on in the operation in real time.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Larry, this is not clear, please clarify:

To get the full picture of what was going here  you need to read the interviews with the military commanders when they were actually shown documents covering what Bissell was telling JFK vs what he was telling him (documents only available to show them decades after the event). 

[Larry Hancock]

Jim, the military commanders working directly under Barnes and Bissell were shown documents from the inquiries that they were not aware of and those documents made it clear to them that Bissell had been telling them one thing and telling JFK something different, in effect he had lied to them about the representations he was going to be making to JFK about their concerns over dialing down the number and scope of air strikes being planned for the operation. 

The commanders had actually gone to Bissell in advance of the operation, expressed their concerns that the landings would fail and then resigned. Bissell had convinced them their duty was to the Brigade and they would be jeopardizing it if they did so....and he had promised to go to JFK and obtain more air support. 

Based on that they retracted their resignations and proceeded with the operation.  In fact, after further meetings with JFK, the level of air support was actually further reduced, without the commanders being told. This was only one of the occasions in which Bissell can be shown to have been shielding information and concerns from JFK, another major one being the fact that a major campaign against the Unidad revolutionary organization only weeks before the landings had doomed any chance of a major uprising in support of the landings.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Larry Hancock

[James DiEugenio]

Ok, thanks Larry.

Well Bissell's goose is even more firmly cooked.

[Cliff Varnell]

From the Charles Cabell wiki

“Charles P. Cabell was born in Dallas, Texas on October 11, 1903, the son of Ben E. (son of Confederate general William L. Cabell) and Sadie E. (Pearre) Cabell.  He attended Oak Cliff High School in Dallas, Texas, and graduated from West Point in 1925.  He was initially commissioned as an artillery lieutenant and served in the field artilleryuntil 1931, when he went to flying school, and was transferred to the Air Corps.”  Textbook Cowboy

From the Richard Bissell wiki

”Richard Mervin Bissell Jr. was the son of Richard Bissell, the president of Hartford Fire Insurance. He was born in the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, and went to Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. Two of his fellow pupils at Groton were Joseph Alsop and Tracy Barnes. He studied history at Yale University, turning down membership in Skull and Bones, and graduating in 1932, then studied at the London School of Economics. He returned to Yale where he obtained a Ph.D. in economics in 1939. His brother, William, also attended Yale and became a member of Skull and Bones[citation needed].”  Textbook Yankee

I think it’s a mistake to assume these two had the same agenda during the BOP.

Robert Lovett (Skull & Bones) and Joe Kennedy tried to get Dulles fired throughout Ike’s second term.

Think the murder of Lumumba slackened that desire?  I don’t.  Do I suspect McGeorge Bundy (Skull & Bones) and Richard Bissell (Skull & Bones adjacent) sabotaged the BOP so Kennedy had a reason to fire Dulles?  Yes, I do.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Cliff Varnell

[Cory Santos]

6 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

From the Charles Cabell wiki

“Charles P. Cabell was born in Dallas, Texas on October 11, 1903, the son of Ben E. (son of Confederate general William L. Cabell) and Sadie E. (Pearre) Cabell.  He attended Oak Cliff High School in Dallas, Texas, and graduated from West Point in 1925.  He was initially commissioned as an artillery lieutenant and served in the field artilleryuntil 1931, when he went to flying school, and was transferred to the Air Corps.”  Textbook Cowboy

From the Richard Bissell wiki

”Richard Mervin Bissell Jr. was the son of Richard Bissell, the president of Hartford Fire Insurance. He was born in the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, and went to Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. Two of his fellow pupils at Groton were Joseph Alsop and Tracy Barnes. He studied history at Yale University, turning down membership in Skull and Bones, and graduating in 1932, then studied at the London School of Economics. He returned to Yale where he obtained a Ph.D. in economics in 1939. His brother, William, also attended Yale and became a member of Skull and Bones[citation needed].”  Textbook Yankee

I think it’s a mistake to assume these two had the same agenda during the BOP.

Robert Lovett (Skull & Bones) and Joe Kennedy tried to get Dulles fired throughout Ike’s second term.

Think the murder of Lumumba slackened that desire?  I don’t.  Do I suspect McGeorge Bundy (Skull & Bones) and Richard Bissell (Skull & Bones adjacent) sabotaged the BOP so Kennedy had a reason to fire Dulles?  Yes, I do.

Cliff your not answering.   We are staying out a little later then coming back.   Btw Oswald did it.