Wasn't JFK precluded from providing air support @ Bay of Pigs?

[Myra Bronstein]

I'm experiencing that sensation of confusion that is preceeded by my reading of a book. It says that in 1954 the NSC initiated rules that precluded known armed services from assisting in covert CIA operations in peacetime. This meant that President Kennedy could not have ordered airstrikes to bail out the failed Bay of Pigs in 1961 even if he wanted to. Given that this was the law of the land the President was following, it was understood at the time that he had that restriction, so there actually was not the hostile blame of him that we've been led to believe in subsequent years.

Does anyone know any more about this? Is it true? I believe that NSC rule did exist, so it seems feasible.

Has the supposed hatred of Kennedy by the Bay of Pigs survivors been exagerated--or fabricated? Possibly to boost the scenario that some bitter cuban exiles killed him (without the CIA of course...)?

[Lee Forman]

I'm experiencing that sensation of confusion that is preceeded by my reading of a book. It says that in 1954 the NSC initiated rules that precluded known armed services from assisting in covert CIA operations in peacetime. This meant that President Kennedy could not have ordered airstrikes to bail out the failed Bay of Pigs in 1961 even if he wanted to. Given that this was the law of the land the President was following, it was understood at the time that he had that restriction, so there actually was not the hostile blame of him that we've been led to believe in subsequent years.

Does anyone know any more about this? Is it true? I believe that NSC rule did exist, so it seems feasible.

Has the supposed hatred of Kennedy by the Bay of Pigs survivors been exagerated--or fabricated? Possibly to boost the scenario that some bitter cuban exiles killed him (without the CIA of course...)?

Can't answer for your first question. There is always a loophole, however, if you choose to look for one.

On the second - I don't think it's exagerated or fabricated when you are out in the middle of a jungle watching your brothers, cousins, friends and countrymen get blown to pieces - feeling totally abandoned and betrayed. As per Lynch's book [i think], when the final efforts to assist were called off and the remains of 2056 were abandoned, they were firing shots at the last US ship that was leaving them to their fate.

Theoretically, in hindsight, if you were to want a man in a high position of power eliminated, wouldn't you want to select the folks who had the drive to get it done. If you compare all of the motives, I don't know that you will find one stronger than hate. Guilt, greed, thirst for power, etc - not even close. This doesn't imply that they did it alone, or that they had the means, resources, etc., by which to carry it out, or cover it up. Simply tools - and well handled tools. Is it not the case that most Latin Americans [that are US Citizens] vote Democrat? The Cubans, as per what I have read and friends that I have had, vote strongly for Republican candidates. One friend I know does not even know the reason, and finds it strange. She was taught that this is extremely important - by her Grandparents and Parents.

"Did he think he was bulletproof?"

I think you had some very strong language and hatred prior to the assassination, actually changed later by folks who appeared to absolve Kennedy of the blame - after he was successfully eliminated - which would be different then your scenario. Plus you had the campaign afterwards to place the blame not on exiles, but on Castro.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nati...ayofpigs20.html

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I'm experiencing that sensation of confusion that is preceeded by my reading of a book. It says that in 1954 the NSC initiated rules that precluded known armed services from assisting in covert CIA operations in peacetime. This meant that President Kennedy could not have ordered airstrikes to bail out the failed Bay of Pigs in 1961 even if he wanted to.

Besides, any attack on Cuba by U.S. forces, whether from land, sea or air, would have been an act of war. Under the Constitution, a document that JFK understood and respected, only the Congress has power to authorize war.

[Michael Hogan]

It says that in 1954 the NSC initiated rules that precluded known armed services from assisting in covert CIA operations in peacetime.

Besides, any attack on Cuba by U.S. forces, whether from land, sea or air, would have been an act of war. Under the Constitution, a document that JFK understood and respected, only the Congress has power to authorize war.

Vietnam.

[Myra Bronstein]

"Did he think he was bulletproof?"

I think you had some very strong language and hatred prior to the assassination, actually changed later by folks who appeared to absolve Kennedy of the blame - after he was successfully eliminated - which would be different then your scenario. Plus you had the campaign afterwards to place the blame not on exiles, but on Castro.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nati...ayofpigs20.html

I don't know who you're quoting Lee; I sure never said that.

[Ashton Gray]

I'm experiencing that sensation of confusion that is preceeded by my reading of a book. It says that in 1954 the NSC initiated rules that precluded known armed services from assisting in covert CIA operations in peacetime. This meant that President Kennedy could not have ordered airstrikes to bail out the failed Bay of Pigs in 1961 even if he wanted to. Given that this was the law of the land the President was following, it was understood at the time that he had that restriction, so there actually was not the hostile blame of him that we've been led to believe in subsequent years.

Does anyone know any more about this? Is it true? I believe that NSC rule did exist, so it seems feasible.

Has the supposed hatred of Kennedy by the Bay of Pigs survivors been exagerated--or fabricated? Possibly to boost the scenario that some bitter cuban exiles killed him (without the CIA of course...)?

With uncanny precision, Myra, you've managed to open the exact can of worms (and there are so many cans of worms) I was referring to when I said this in the Watergate forum to you:

I for one think "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" goes much, much deeper than thee or we currently know, and by "Bay of Pigs," I mean as the Bay of Pigs, of the Bay of Pigs, and for the Bay of Pigs. Amen.

I can't answer your question, but I know it's a damned good question that shines a good frog-giggin' light on a lot of ugly. I, too, believe the NSC mandates were generally as you describe them, and hoping to get more specifics on that, I want at least to mention the following:

1) Carlos Bringuire had left Cuba in May of 1960 and gone to Guatamala for some undetermined period of time, then was in Argentina for some period, then came to the United States, arriving in Miami, Florida (among other things, home of E. Howard Hunt's little "Cuban regime in exile" as Hunt characterized it) on 8 February 1961.

2) Bringuire stayed in Miami for 10 days, then left there traveling to New Orleans on 18 February 1961. (Very soon after arriving in the Big Easy, Bringuire established his newsletter called Crusada.) On the same day of Bringuire's arrival in New Orleans, MacGeorge Bundy handed JFK two memos: one from Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Thomas Mann counseling a non-invasion course for dealing with Cuba, the other from CIA's Bissell urging CIA invasion. Kennedy put it on hold.

3) Three weeks later, on 11 March 1961—over a month before the debacle—Kennedy was again pressured by CIA to approve a CIA-run invasion of Cuba. He was briefed by Bissell and Dulles (the, you know, good patriot) that "the Cuban force had to leave Guatemala in the near future," and that a "CIA-run air strike from planes based in Guatemala could then be attributed to defectors from the Cuban air force." If Kai Bird has it right about this, I don't know how this could be overstressed: the entire plan being presented to Kennedy completely addressed the exact NSC rules you've raised, and precluded even a possibility of the "reasons" we have now for Kennedy having ostensibly called off an air strike. The entire thing, including the air cover, purportedly was going to be run by CIA (the air cover somehow "attributed to defectors from the Cuban air force"). According to "George Bush, the Unauthorized Biography," Kennedy had established as a precondition for any such plan that "under no circumstances whatsoever would there be direct intervention by U.S. military forces against Cuba." (And this is entirely consistent with the issue of the NSC rules that you've raised—innit?)

4) On 15 March 1961, "Bundy told Kennedy that he thought the CIA had done 'a remarkable job of reframing the landing plan so as to make it unspectacular and quiet, and plausibly Cuban in its essentials.'" (Sparing here all the gory details leading up to what was by this time essentially a done deal.)

5) (Sharp curve ahead) We move up to about a month later, sometime up around mid-April 1961, not long before the catastrophe in the making, and lo! and behold!, who do you think should arrive—having walked, no less, at least the way he tells it—in Guatemala City? I won't keep you in suspense: George de Mohrenshildt. On a "walking tour of Mexico," doncha' know. Just a little vacation. And he just happened to wind up in Guatamala City just when the biggest U.S. international disaster conceivable is about to take place with Cuban troops that have been based in Guatemala. (My motto: God and the CIA work in mysterious ways.)

6) And now the big climax, quoted the way I've got it here, again from Kai Bird regarding the night of 16 April 1961 (my emphasis): "Only hours before [the Bay of Pigs invasion of 17 April 1961], on Sunday evening, Mac Bundy had phoned Bissell and the CIA's deputy director, General Charles P. Cabell, to say that Kennedy had decided to cancel the D-day air strikes, which would have been flown by American pilots."

Wait. Okay. Where to start? Kennedy didn't call—Bundy called? And who did he purportedly call? Well... CIA cruds who had architected the whole thing, which was supposed to have air cover from... the damned CIA!

And suddenly we come slam up against some of the finest slicing and dicing of language I can recall, and I only can admire it's ambiguity: "which would have been flown by American pilots." Now, please note that doesn't say "of the United States Air Force"—it just sounds like it does. And we are to believe that this little wrinkle comes up at the eleventh hour, when over a month before CIA had said that the air cover would be handled by CIA itself, and would be "attributed to defectors from the Cuban air force."

And with these random, jumbled irreconcilable contradictions, miraculous flukes of relocating anti-Castro Cuban nationals, and the vacationing serendipity of de Mohrenschildts in beautiful, tropical Guatemala, I must leave you. Because I can't make a damned particle of sense out of any of it.

And if I linger even a single moment, I might mention that on the very day the Bay of Pigs invasion started, for some reason Martin Ebon was in Washington, D.C. briefing "a top intelligence agency" on the subject of telepathy. And none of us wants to deal with that right now.

Ashton

Edited November 20, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Pat Speer]

And suddenly we come slam up against some of the finest slicing and dicing of language I can recall, and I only can admire it's ambiguity: "which would have been flown by American pilots." Now, please note that doesn't say "of the United States Air Force"—it just sounds like it does. And we are to believe that this little wrinkle comes up at the eleventh hour, when over a month before CIA had said that the air cover would be handled by CIA itself, and would be "attributed to defectors from the Cuban air force."

And with these random, jumbled irreconcilable contradictions, miraculous flukes of relocating anti-Castro Cuban nationals, and the vacationing serendipity of de Mohrenschildts in beautiful, tropical Guatemala, I must leave you. Because I can't make a damned particle of sense out of any of it.

And if I linger even a single moment, I might mention that on the very day the Bay of Pigs invasion started, for some reason Martin Ebon was in Washington, D.C. briefing "a top intelligence agency" on the subject of telepathy. And none of us wants to deal with that right now.

Ashton

The American pilots were Alabama National Guard pilots recruited by the CIA to fly with the Cubans and sheep-dipped as mercenaries in case they got killed. A few of them did. After they died, a CIA cut-out company paid their families while the families fought to get the U.S. Government to recognize them as Americans killed in service to their country. Eventually, they won recognition. Even so, the pilots are still anonymous stars on the wall at CIA headquarters.

By the way, Ashton, I know you'll love this. The fake company used to pay the families was a creation of Hunt's boss Tracey Barnes and his Domestic Operations Division. Barnes' and Hunt's ability to make paper companies and funnel money through these companies to hide operations from congressional oversight was pretty much a license to kill, don't you think?

Edited November 20, 2006 by Pat Speer

[Myra Bronstein]

I'm experiencing that sensation of confusion that is preceeded by my reading of a book. It says that in 1954 the NSC initiated rules that precluded known armed services from assisting in covert CIA operations in peacetime. This meant that President Kennedy could not have ordered airstrikes to bail out the failed Bay of Pigs in 1961 even if he wanted to. Given that this was the law of the land the President was following, it was understood at the time that he had that restriction, so there actually was not the hostile blame of him that we've been led to believe in subsequent years.

Does anyone know any more about this? Is it true? I believe that NSC rule did exist, so it seems feasible.

Has the supposed hatred of Kennedy by the Bay of Pigs survivors been exagerated--or fabricated? Possibly to boost the scenario that some bitter cuban exiles killed him (without the CIA of course...)?

With uncanny precision, Myra, you've managed to open the exact can of worms (and there are so many cans of worms) I was referring to when I said this in the Watergate forum to you:

I for one think "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" goes much, much deeper than thee or we currently know, and by "Bay of Pigs," I mean as the Bay of Pigs, of the Bay of Pigs, and for the Bay of Pigs. Amen.

I can't answer your question, but I know it's a damned good question that shines a good frog-giggin' light on a lot of ugly. I, too, believe the NSC mandates were generally as you describe them, and hoping to get more specifics on that, I want at least to mention the following:

1) Carlos Bringuire had left Cuba in May of 1960 and gone to Guatamala for some undetermined period of time, then was in Argentina for some period, then came to the United States, arriving in Miami, Florida (among other things, home of E. Howard Hunt's little "Cuban regime in exile" as Hunt characterized it) on 8 February 1961.

2) Bringuire stayed in Miami for 10 days, then left there traveling to New Orleans on 18 February 1961. (Very soon after arriving in the Big Easy, Bringuire established his newsletter called Crusada.) On the same day of Bringuire's arrival in New Orleans, MacGeorge Bundy handed JFK two memos: one from Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Thomas Mann counseling a non-invasion course for dealing with Cuba, the other from CIA's Bissell urging CIA invasion. Kennedy put it on hold.

3) Three weeks later, on 11 March 1961—over a month before the debacle—Kennedy was again pressured by CIA to approve a CIA-run invasion of Cuba. He was briefed by Bissell and Dulles (the, you know, good patriot) that "the Cuban force had to leave Guatemala in the near future," and that a "CIA-run air strike from planes based in Guatemala could then be attributed to defectors from the Cuban air force." If Kai Bird has it right about this, I don't know how this could be overstressed: the entire plan being presented to Kennedy completely addressed the exact NSC rules you've raised, and precluded even a possibility of the "reasons" we have now for Kennedy having ostensibly called off an air strike. The entire thing, including the air cover, purportedly was going to be run by CIA (the air cover somehow "attributed to defectors from the Cuban air force"). According to "George Bush, the Unauthorized Biography," Kennedy had established as a precondition for any such plan that "under no circumstances whatsoever would there be direct intervention by U.S. military forces against Cuba." (And this is entirely consistent with the issue of the NSC rules that you've raised—innit?)

4) On 15 March 1961, "Bundy told Kennedy that he thought the CIA had done 'a remarkable job of reframing the landing plan so as to make it unspectacular and quiet, and plausibly Cuban in its essentials.'" (Sparing here all the gory details leading up to what was by this time essentially a done deal.)

5) (Sharp curve ahead) We move up to about a month later, sometime up around mid-April 1961, not long before the catastrophe in the making, and lo! and behold!, who do you think should arrive—having walked, no less, at least the way he tells it—in Guatemala City? I won't keep you in suspense: George de Mohrenshildt. On a "walking tour of Mexico," doncha' know. Just a little vacation. And he just happened to wind up in Guatamala City just when the biggest U.S. international disaster conceivable is about to take place with Cuban troops that have been based in Guatemala. (My motto: God and the CIA work in mysterious ways.)

6) And now the big climax, quoted the way I've got it here, again from Kai Bird regarding the night of 16 April 1961 (my emphasis): "Only hours before [the Bay of Pigs invasion of 17 April 1961], on Sunday evening, Mac Bundy had phoned Bissell and the CIA's deputy director, General Charles P. Cabell, to say that Kennedy had decided to cancel the D-day air strikes, which would have been flown by American pilots."

Wait. Okay. Where to start? Kennedy didn't call—Bundy called? And who did he purportedly call? Well... CIA cruds who had architected the whole thing, which was supposed to have air cover from... the damned CIA!

And suddenly we come slam up against some of the finest slicing and dicing of language I can recall, and I only can admire it's ambiguity: "which would have been flown by American pilots." Now, please note that doesn't say "of the United States Air Force"—it just sounds like it does. And we are to believe that this little wrinkle comes up at the eleventh hour, when over a month before CIA had said that the air cover would be handled by CIA itself, and would be "attributed to defectors from the Cuban air force."

And with these random, jumbled irreconcilable contradictions, miraculous flukes of relocating anti-Castro Cuban nationals, and the vacationing serendipity of de Mohrenschildts in beautiful, tropical Guatemala, I must leave you. Because I can't make a damned particle of sense out of any of it.

And if I linger even a single moment, I might mention that on the very day the Bay of Pigs invasion started, for some reason Martin Ebon was in Washington, D.C. briefing "a top intelligence agency" on the subject of telepathy. And none of us wants to deal with that right now.

Ashton

Well, this is a really confusing subject for me, so I wont even pretend that I understood everything you're saying. But this could tie in with the info in "The Invisible Government." I haven't finished the book, but I've read the sections on the Bay of Pigs. Some interesting details:

-"Under Eisenhower, there had never been any plan to use United States armed forces in the Cuban operation. Kennedy reached the same decision, even though the operation had changed in scope and size." Of course the CIA could use any planes, ships, etc they had.

(I don't think any prior CIA coup had called for use of traditional US armed forces.)

-"Few of the Cubans claim that there was any clear promise that US Air Force or Navy planes would provide this control or protection. Rather, this was the conclusion many of the exiles drew. Possibly, some of the CIA advisers wanted to leave this impression." "Under the plan...the exile air force...was to provide control of the air."

-Kennedy had stated at an April 12 press conferene that no US armed forces would invade Cuba.

-"Bundy had been a student of Bissell's at Yale. He had also worked for Bissell in the Marshall Plan from April-September, 1948." (I don't know much about Bundy, but I have a vague distrust of him because of some buzz about him writing a draft of a memo (NSAM #273?) reversing a Kennedy policy a day *before* the assassination.)

-Bundy told JFK that the landing would be "unspectacular and quiet" eh? Well the initial problem, according to the book, was that the air raids that preceeded the landing at the Bay of Pigs, intended to destroy Castros air force for the invaders, was spectacular and loud. On April 15, '61 Cuban pilots took off from the training base in Guatamala, bombed air force planes in Cuba, then landed at various points in Florida with the cover story that they were defectors from Castro's air force. The media saw through the cover story in no time, and covered the landings and coincidental bombing of Cuba by raising questions and showing picture of the "defector's" planes (which had quirks that undercut the story). Castro saw thru the stories immediately and talked to the media.

Kennedy was furious about all the press coverage after he was assured it would be stealthy, so by the time the real invasion came about he couldn't risk any more mistakes.

-After the third day of air strikes the CIA had lost ten of their original force of sixteen planes. Something like 10 of sixteen pilots had been killed without achieving their goal.

-Also on day 3--April 18--Kennedy got a note from Khrushchev accusing the US of training the exiles and threatening to give Castro "all necessary assistance" if the invasion wasn't stopped. But Bissell told Kennedy the invasion "could be saved if the President would authorize the use of Navy jets from a carrier then stationed offshore." Finally Kennedy authorized unmarked Navy jets from an aircraft carrier to fly over the Bay of Pigs for one our after dawn on a restricted mission to protect the Cuban's planes, but could only fire if fired upon.

Now it gets really hazy and versions contradict. Bissell was supposed to notify the exile air force of the Navy cover. "Bissell did not write the order out himself. He repeated it verbally to the coloniel on duty." (Plausible deniability?) The colonel at the CIA office transmitted it to the exiles, who took off believing they'd have cover. Then there was no cover and we know how the rest went.

Now some genuine weirdness:

-"The evidence pointed directly to the incredible conclusion that the mix-up had occurred because of confusion over time zones....The Navy pilots reported they never made contact with the CIA bombers. They said they saw no bombers and no Castro planes. After the hour had elapsed, they returned to the carrier."

-The Cubans were asked by the CIA to fly again over the beaches due to the lack of air cover from the Navy, "but since another trip meant almost certain death they demanded to know why there were being sent out. "We must hold twenty-four hours more," the CIA chief said. "...something is going to happen." It was the sort of vague promise that the Cubans, by this time, were fed up with. Now they rebelled...."I think we've had enough losses" one said, "I believe this operation is a failure, I don't see any reason to continue the flights." That was it. Failure.

If this is true I don't see how it was possible for President Kennedy to do anything further. He'd already stretched things significantly by providing an hour of cover from unmarked Navy planes. But someone down the line screwed up the order accidently or on purpose. It smells real bad... Time zones???

I hope I didn't mangle the points in the book. And those weren't the only points made. If anyone else read it then feel free to give input.

I don't even know what to say about the Mohrenshildt stuff.

[Ashton Gray]

The American pilots were Alabama National Guard pilots recruited by the CIA to fly with the Cubans and sheep-dipped as mercenaries in case they got killed. A few of them did. After they died, a CIA cut-out company paid their families while the families fought to get the U.S. Government to recognize them as Americans killed in service to their country.

Thanks for the info. I've made a note of the CIA coziness with Alabama National Guard, since a little over 10 years later this outfit comes up again as part of the shell-game shuffle of George Bush the Younger during his AWOL period as a pilot—which just happens to coincide with the heart of the CIA's Watergate fraud, in the development of which there had been much discussion of a "chase plane."

The fake company used to pay the families was a creation of Hunt's boss Tracey Barnes and his Domestic Operations Division. Barnes' and Hunt's ability to make paper companies and funnel money through these companies to hide operations from congressional oversight was pretty much a license to kill, don't you think?

This seems to be a fitting cue for CIA's Paul Helliwell's entrance onto this stage of dancing pigs, since Helliwell is cited as having been "paymaster" for the Bay of Pigs.

FLASHBACK TO WW II: On 17 January 1945 Helliwell had been made Chief, Special Intelligence Branch OSS, Chinese Theater. This was just eleven days after James Walton Moore had relocated to "north China." Helliwell was over all covert operations in China, which was his position when Hunt, Conein, et al. arrived in Kunming, China in and around February-March 1945. At almost the same time—on 28 February 1945—George de Mohrenschildt became a U.S. citizen.

Working with Helliwell in China OSS were several peace-time members of William Donovan's New York law firm. Helliwell would have been completely in the know on E. Howard Hunt's mission to "north China," which took place not long at all before the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. Then on 18 August 1945, Helliwell was put "in charge of postwar intelligence."

Moving forward, Helliwell "officially" joined CIA sometime in 1950, and by 1951 had already been involved, himself, in setting up just such a CIA front as you describe: Sea Supply Corporation. Within two years, in 1953, George H. W. Bush sets up Zapata Oil/ Zapata Offshore. Within three years Zapata Offshore will sink $3.5 million into the SCORPION—"the first three-legged, self-elevating mobile drilling barge"—and deploy it into the Gulf of Mexico.

And five years later is the Bay of Pigs.

Sliding back down into WW II, my keen interest at the moment is what happened financially in relation to China after the war, and who profited. I currently believe that's precisely who the key players in OSS China were working for that last year of the war, and that they knew the bombs were going to be dropped.

Let it also not be forgotten that E. Howard Hunt was "invited" to be in the "newly created Central Intelligence Group" (CIG) before leaving China, and I have documented that Hunt left China about four months before Truman "created" CIG. Hunt's "invitation" was received exactly when McCloy was shuffling certain core components of these hand-picked scum into the little nucleus that would become first CIG and then CIA.

And I currently am of the opinion that the Bay of Pigs had far, far more to do with oil and banking and other commercial interests of CIA's actual masters than there ever has been any hint of.

Ashton

P.S. Yes, Pat, I'm responding to you because your post was on-topic and relevant instead of baiting and badgering.

Edited November 20, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Ashton Gray]

Kennedy was furious about all the press coverage after he was assured it would be stealthy, so by the time the real invasion came about he couldn't risk any more mistakes.

-After the third day of air strikes the CIA had lost ten of their original force of sixteen planes. Something like 10 of sixteen pilots had been killed without achieving their goal.

-Also on day 3--April 18--Kennedy got a note from Khrushchev accusing the US of training the exiles and threatening to give Castro "all necessary assistance" if the invasion wasn't stopped. But Bissell told Kennedy the invasion "could be saved if the President would authorize the use of Navy jets from a carrier then stationed offshore." Finally Kennedy authorized unmarked Navy jets from an aircraft carrier to fly over the Bay of Pigs for one our after dawn on a restricted mission to protect the Cuban's planes, but could only fire if fired upon.

Now it gets really hazy and versions contradict. Bissell was supposed to notify the exile air force of the Navy cover. "Bissell did not write the order out himself. He repeated it verbally to the coloniel on duty." (Plausible deniability?) The colonel at the CIA office transmitted it to the exiles, who took off believing they'd have cover. Then there was no cover and we know how the rest went.

Myra, you've made many good points that need no augmenting (including the two-faced Bundy observation) and I've selected the above passage to respond to specifically only because it's practically a "lights-and-sirens" giveaway that the CIA fix was in on the entire operation at all relevant times.

I don't pretend to know yet why, and I don't pretend to know yet who profitted from it going down the way it did—but somebody did.

I also specifically had not gotten into the bizarre incident involving the CIA ship that made straight for the U.S. base at Guantanamo carrying troops whose dress "could be mistaken for" Castro-Cuban regulars, because I still haven't figured out how this fits into the actual motivation for this CIA clown show that willfully sacrificed God knows how many to death and torture. But it sure as hell wasn't there by some "mix-up." And until its real role in the whole disaster is known, nobody will have a clue about what CIA was doing with all this.

I don't even know what to say about the Mohrenshildt stuff.

Who could?

Ashton

Edited November 20, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Myra Bronstein]

Hey Ashton, Whaddya think about this thread?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4970

Excerpt:

"Thomas H. Purvis

post Sep 16 2005, 10:55 PM

Post #4

...

QUOTE(Mark Knight @ Sep 16 2005, 09:25 PM)

8. Old "vintage" WWII aircraft were utilized in the coup in Guatemala as well as the Bay of Pigs (whatever it was).

Huh.

And they told us the mission failed due to the absence of air cover.

Howzaboutdat?

Despite what many may think, the "mission" was an engineered and "designed failure".

There were some twenty old B-26 Invaders pulled from stock and sold to the CIA front organization "Intermountain Aviation" for use.

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/a26-27.html

The pilot were, as most are aware, ready to go in on the attack. But were denied the authority.

Some who ignored the order died!"

[Myra Bronstein]

Dusting this thread off 'cause I'm reaching the tipping point from suspecting that the BOP was a trap to sandbag President Kennedy to believing it (almost) 100%. Thanks to Talbot. Pg. 47 (I still don't have the book but someone posted this excerpt on another forum) about the BOP:

"...The country's military and intelligence chiefs had clearly believed they could sandbag the young, untested commander-in-chief into joining the battle. But he had stunned them by refusing to escalate the fighting.

"They were sure I'd give in to them and send the go-ahead order to the Essex," Kennedy said to Dave Powers. "They couldn't believe that a new president like me wouldn't panic and try to save his own face. Well, they had me figured all wrong."

What JFK suspected about the CIA--that the agency knew all along that its plan was doomed to fail unless Kennedy could be panicked into sending in U.S. forces at the eleventh hour--was confirmed years later. In 2005, a secret internal CIA history of the Bay of Pigs was finally released to the public. The 300-page document contained proof that Bissell concealed the operation's bleak prospects from Kennedy when he briefed him about it for the first time shortly after JFK's election. The internal history quoted a CIA memo dated November 15, 1960, that was prepared for Bissell before the Kennedy briefing. In it, the agency conceded that "our concept...to secure a beach with airstrip is now seen to be unachievable, except as joint Agency/DOD action." In other words, "The CIA knew that it couldn't accomplish this type of overt paramilitary mission without direct Pentagon participation--and committed that to paper and then went ahead and tried it anyway," explained Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive, the George Washington University-based research group that made public the CIA document. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Bissell informed Kennedy of the CIA's bleak assessment."

Again, it would have been illegal for Kennedy to use the military for a covert operation, yet the CIA seemed to expect it according to the document Talbot quotes. I sure would like to see this document...and/or even know its name. I wonder what Talbot's footnotes say about it.

[Michael Hogan]

".....In 2005, a secret internal CIA history of the Bay of Pigs was finally released to the public. The 300-page document contained proof that Bissell concealed the operation's bleak prospects from Kennedy when he briefed him about it for the first time shortly after JFK's election. The internal history quoted a CIA memo dated November 15, 1960, that was prepared for Bissell before the Kennedy briefing. In it, the agency conceded that "our concept...to secure a beach with airstrip is now seen to be unachievable, except as joint Agency/DOD action." In other words, "The CIA knew that it couldn't accomplish this type of overt paramilitary mission without direct Pentagon participation--and committed that to paper and then went ahead and tried it anyway," explained Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive, the George Washington University-based research group that made public the CIA document. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Bissell informed Kennedy of the CIA's bleak assessment."

Again, it would have been illegal for Kennedy to use the military for a covert operation, yet the CIA seemed to expect it according to the document Talbot quotes. I sure would like to see this document...and/or even know its name. I wonder what Talbot's footnotes say about it.

Myra, there is no mention in Talbot's footnotes; just the reference cited in the text above. Here's a couple of pages from the website:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publicati...read/bpread.htm

http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl?in...ery=bay+of+pigs

[Bernice Moore]

Myra you may be interested ......

They posted 2 then 1 for some reason...??

B...

Edited May 16, 2007 by Bernice Moore

[Myra Bronstein]

".....In 2005, a secret internal CIA history of the Bay of Pigs was finally released to the public. The 300-page document contained proof that Bissell concealed the operation's bleak prospects from Kennedy when he briefed him about it for the first time shortly after JFK's election. The internal history quoted a CIA memo dated November 15, 1960, that was prepared for Bissell before the Kennedy briefing. In it, the agency conceded that "our concept...to secure a beach with airstrip is now seen to be unachievable, except as joint Agency/DOD action." In other words, "The CIA knew that it couldn't accomplish this type of overt paramilitary mission without direct Pentagon participation--and committed that to paper and then went ahead and tried it anyway," explained Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive, the George Washington University-based research group that made public the CIA document. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Bissell informed Kennedy of the CIA's bleak assessment."

Again, it would have been illegal for Kennedy to use the military for a covert operation, yet the CIA seemed to expect it according to the document Talbot quotes. I sure would like to see this document...and/or even know its name. I wonder what Talbot's footnotes say about it.

Myra, there is no mention in Talbot's footnotes; just the reference cited in the text above. Here's a couple of pages from the website:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publicati...read/bpread.htm

http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl?in...ery=bay+of+pigs

Thank you very much Mike.

"Bay of Pigs Declassified

The Secret CIA Report"

Has anyone here read this document?

On edit:

"C.I.A. Bares Its Bungling in Report on Bay of Pigs Invasion

February 22, 1998, Sunday

By TIM WEINER (NYT); Foreign Desk

Late Edition - Final, Section 1, Page 6, Column 3, 1450 words

Correction Appended

DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - Central Intelligence Agency's report on 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, one of most secret documents of cold war, is released to National Security Archive under Freedom of Information Act; report lays blame for disastrous invasion of Cuba on agency's own institutional arrogance, ignorance and incompetence; document also cautions those who would use CIA to overthrow enemies, saying that job belongs to Pentagon and its broad arsenal of military forces; report was written by then-CIA Inspector Gen Lyman Kirkpatrick

Correction: February 23, 1998, Monday An article yesterday about the Central Intelligence Agency's internal report on the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, and a front-page summary of the article in some copies, misstated the death toll among the invaders. Of about 1,500 commandos, 114 died, not nearly 1,500, and 1,189 were captured; the rest either never landed or made their way back to safety."

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...nce%20Agency%20

Edited May 16, 2007 by Myra Bronstein