What Went Wrong: Bay Of Pigs

What Went Wrong: Bay of Pigs

On April 17, 1961 the United States Government launched its plan of invading Cuba, later to become known as the Bay of Pigs. This invasion was planned to send in US trained personal that would help start a revolution in Cuba. The United States hoped that this revolution would end in an overthrow of the then Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Although the US had a plan for the invasion itself, they did not prepare for anything to go wrong. This would prove to be disastrous as the invasion went on. Anything that could go wrong for the United States did go wrong and the mission ended in a horrendous failure. Had the US prepared for possible mishaps or created a plan to retreat had anything gone wrong the invasion would

The idea to take out the Cuban air force seemed like a good plan and would definitely help the rebels gain more ground as well as face less resistance. The United States had planned to take some of their older generation planes and paint them in Cuban military colors. The Cuban military had been fairly outdated and most of their technology was not as advanced as the times. These planes, painted in Cuban colors, took off from Nicaragua and were to conduct airstrikes on multiple Cuban military bases, wiping out what they had available(History.com). However, many things went wrong and the first step of the plan ended up not going as planned. Castro apparently had knowledge of the bombings and had moved his planes out of harm’s way prior to the the airstrikes occurrence(History.com). Not to mention that the airstrikes only hit some of the Cuban bases and not all of them, still leaving the Cuban military with supplies to resist the future land attack. Another big issue coming from step one of the plan had been that the colors the US plane was painted had not matched the design of the Cuban air force planes. Yet another mistake on the United States’ end that would add to their long list by the invasions

Many of Kennedy’s advisors were in favor of the invasion happening, while Kennedy himself was not one hundred percent certain on the idea. “What shocks me is to think that all of Kennedy’s civilian and military advisors were in favor of invasion. While the final responsibility is still Kennedy’s and his alone, it is nonetheless disquieting to become aware that he is not better surrounded.” (Rorabaugh 30). Not only was there conflict with his advisors but Kennedy also had conflict with the CIA director Allen Dulles. When Kennedy was promised that there would be no use of American forces he took that literally. Dulles expected at least the president to allow the use of the air force to help save those of the rebels stuck on the shore fighting while being attacked by the Cuban air force (Rorabaugh 29). However, the nonuse of the American military proved to lower the apparent power of the United States as a nation (Rorabaugh