PARAMILITARY CASE STUDY THE BAY OF PIGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74B00415R000400170010-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2005
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: November 28, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

Naval War Colieg.e' eview
The capabilities for conducting effective intelligence gathering and paramilitary redly or emotionally involved with its
operations have long 0WUi r 1t2eid?etAOO8iO1V13 4 fCM t-t1 i,P7pti~ gotb O40Olk OOV he policymakers
Unfortunately, however, ertatn misconceptions regarding the manner and circum.. have a realistic understanding, of the,
stances in which they can be employed arose in this country after World 141ar 11 and operation?
led directly to setbacks like the Bay of Pigs. Rather than shunning the possibility of These are some of the basic questions
using covert operations in the future to gain policy objectives, experiences like the which must be. asked prior to the
Bay of Pigs merely underline the fact that policymakers must be educated as t
mountin
of
h
l
g
o w
any c
at.
andestine or covert
is possible, and the responsibility for this lies with the career intelligence community. operation.
Bf
PA M=AY CASE STUDY
rrk M, BAY O 11 F
PEGS
A lecture delivered
by
Professor Lyman B. Kirkpatrick, Jr.
e ore turning .to the case study
itself, a brief review of recent Cuban
history is appropriate. Fidel Castro
landed in eastern Cuba in 1956 with
I what turned out to be 12 men. He
gathered forces in the Sierra Maestra in
1956 and 1957. Even more important,
however, was the growth of anti-Batista
groups in the cities of Cuba among the
middle class, the professionals, and the
elite. It was the erosion of Batista's vital
political support in the cities whi
h l
c
ed
directly to his downfall. The guerrillas
? in the countryside served merely as a
I think that the usual caveat is the public media, but no proof or verifi. catalyst in this process. And eventually,
necessary before I get into the subject at cation is permissible if the operation is on 1 January 1959, Castro stepped into
hand. What I am about to say today are to be properly considered covert., ' the vacuum left by the fleeing Batista.
my personal views; they do not repre- At this point in our discussion I A fact which many people do not
sent the official CIA view' nor the believe it will prove helpful to simply seem to. recall was that despite our
official U.S. Government view. This is list some of the questions that must be misgivings about Fidel Castro, and the
an after-action'
report on an episode in asked before a covert operation is U.S. Government did have them, we
our history which engendered perhaps properly undertaken. recognized his government fairly
the most intense emotions. and public 0 Can it be done covertly? Can the promptly. The first cabinet of the Cas-
reaction we have seen since, World War role of the sponsoring government be tro regime was probably one of the
II. sufficiently concealed at each step so as finest in Cuban history. It is worthy to
President Kennedy in the aftermath to avoid disclosure
n
t
d
h
an
o
t
us either
e, however, that very few of the new
of the Bay of Pigs made the comment failure or a diplomatic setback for the Cabinet members stayed very long.
that "Victory has a hundred fathers; sponsor? And if the cover of the opera- In addition to recognizing Castro, the
defeat is an orphan." I would simply say tion is destroyed at any stage, are United States continued its subsidy of
that as Inspector General of the CIA at alternative measures or withdrawal pos- Cuba's sugar crop which at that time
the time, I was probably in charge of sible? amounted to a
the orphanage. ? pproximately $100 mil-
There n a very specific definition of Are the assets available to do the lion. The three major U.S. oil companies
job required? Are, the indigenous per- doing business in Cuba advanced him
covert operations. In the broad litera- sonnel available who are secure and in $29 million because his treasury was
ture of intelligence, covert operations the proper place to do the work re- bare when he took over. Batista and his
are about as old as espionage, which has quired? If not, are there those available cohorts had seen to that. Castro was not
been called the world's second oldest who ca
i
b
i
i
n
nv
e put
nto place?
ted to the United States on an
.profession. To' be properly considered 0 Are all of the assets of the spon- , official trip, but he came here unoffi.
covert
an operation must be designed in 0-inn
ve
- ;
dall
t
,
go
rnment
, ?
y
o att
e
Can
can easil
such
a tha
b
ca
O
er
ti
b
S
...
- ?
y
n
e dug-
p
a
on
e controlled? Will the in...
ociety or Newspaper Editors in
avowed by the originating government. digenous forces being used respond to Washington, and he did have an inter-
The hand of the sponsor must not be, direction or are they likely to go off on view with the then Vice President of the
visible. their own? Will they accept cancellation United States, Richard M. Nixon. Then,
Covert operations, on the other of the operation at any time? . one by one, the men a
d
roun
Castro
hand, must not be confused. with irregu- o If it succeeds or.fails, will they began dropping off. He speedily tro
lar warfare. An example of irregular maintain silence? The maxim "Silence is propriated U.S. Property worth 096ex.
8
warfare that has received recent world- golden" has never been fully accepted in million. Even his closest barbados-the
wide attention is the operation in Laos. this country, but it is still worth asking, bearded ones-that had been with him
Everybody on both sides knows who is Also, can it. be handled securely within in the hills started to turn against him as
doing what to whom: the airl and accic: the sponsorin
nn?ern
9 he
g
ment
ranee is obvious.. That is irregular war-
fare. A covert operation, however, to be
totally covert must be so clandestine, so
well hidden, that its true sources may
never be specifically proven. Guesses, al-
legations, speculations may be made in
o Finally, ' """ '""'C 4ommu.
and this is perhaps the nists, and by the middl
e of 1960 it
most important question the United became obvious that th
e United States
States must ask, is the risk worth the was not going to be able t
d
o
o business
potential gain? Has there been a true with Fidel. This
I mi
ht
,
g
say, was a very
evaluation of the chance of success cr. great shock to Americans. Cuba' was a
failure by, an objective group not di. country that we regarded as our-.pro.
1.__1 , . _._
terte W
e
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s s rt t rough tine
 :Aiii f :~-.ys vAppr9 ge.1Fgr,RR,le,qse,29P (l r,~ c i7f~`@ f N11 ,1 0?0+~(U 70ole,51ring a town. The in-
haad helped it achieve independence. Vie Moscow as supplying or planned to tenor was swampy, and there was a
had looked at it as one of our offspring, supply aircraft. The Russians were also limited road network. The area posed
but perhaps we were guilty of having supplying or planning to supply ad- problems for the brigade; but it was
looked after it too closely and in too vanced patrol boats which would make hoped that it would pose more prob-
patronizing a manner. maritime infiltration difficult, if not Iems for the defending forces, particu-
it was in 1960 that President Eisen- impossible. Those, were grave concerns larly if the airborne men captured a
hover, based upon advice of his most because it was felt that the pressures of crossroads and blocked off the incoming
senior advisers, made the decision that time might soon eliminate any possi- Castro forces, and the brigade with their
we should try to do to Castro what he bility of building up any clandestine large tanks and fairly heavy hand-carried
had done to Batista. Here is the germ of operation. One cannot reasonably take guns could establish a beachhead.
the first mistake-no one seriously slow aircraft in against jets, for if their Plans envisioned two air raids which,
studied the question as to whether this air defense was at all adequate, C-47's in fact, were very critical factors to the
was possible. Most of the anti-Castro and the like would surely, be shot down potential success of the landing. It is not
people had left Cuba; they were pouring while trying to get agents and supplies known whether the President examined
into Florida and if there was a resistance in. Further, one cannot infiltrate a in any depth the concept of the air raids
to Fidel Castro, it was mostly in Miami, hostile coast if the opposition maintains or the. attention they would attract. The
One of the realities of life was that Fidel extensive patrol activities in the sur initial raid was designed to take place at
D minus 2 and was directed at knocking
Castro had shown unique abilities, to- rounding waters
.
.gether with his brother Raul, Che Gue- Rather than trying to build clandes- out the Castro air force and particularly, -
k
i
s. B-26 a
r-
vara, and others, in developing. a militia tine nets all over Cuba-particularly in if possible, the Castro tan
and armed forces of some consequence. the cities with guerrilla forces sup- craft were to be flown by Free Cubans
Further, they succeeded in establishing porting from the Escambrays and Sierra based in Nicaragua. This would allow
one of the better intelligence services in Maestra-it was proposed that a more the Cuban exile pilots approximately 20
Latin America. It was learned at a very substantial force be landed in order to to 30 minutes over target area. This
early date that agents sent into Cuba seize a beachhead. It was hoped that strike was to be followed at H-hour by a
spent more time trying to survive than support from popular resistance within second strike with the objective of
carrying out their assignment. When this Cuba or perhaps, more importantly, destroying whatever remained of Cas
happens to clandestine agents, the situa- that support from defections within tro's air forces. It was anticipated that'
lion is obviously quite serious. Cuba's militia and armed forces would the first strike would be noticed not
President-elect Kennedy was first materialize, thereby contributing signifi- only in Cuba, but elsewhere. Therefore,
briefed on the Cuban operation on 17 cantly to the anti-Castro forces momen..a light deception plan was conceived
November 1960. The basic concept was turn and help assure their victory whereby one of the B-26's returning
to recruit exiles, send them in by ones, through more conventional military from the strike would land at Key West
twos, and teams to develop the basic means. . and the pilot would announce he was
ingredients for overthrowing a govern- On examination of what the biogra- one of the group of Cuban pilots who
ment: an intelligence network first, and phers of President Kennedy have writ- had decided they had enough of Castro,
then sabotage nets, units for psychologi- ten, it can be concluded that the Presi- were leaving the Cuban Air Force, and
cat warfare, and finally guerrilla bands- dent never really fully understood that had dropped some bombs on the way
hopefully all sufficiently independent to this proposal entailed a military opera- out. There was hope that this would
be watertight and operable. lion in the true sense of the word. provide sufficient cover for at least a
It should be noted that these clandes. Instead of an assault landing consisting few days until the operation was
tine operations in 1960 were successful of some 1,500 men, President Kennedy moupted, at which time I presume it
only to a degree. There were many seemed to think this was going to be was thought that either the cover would
brave Cuban exiles who volunteered some sort of mass infiltration that not be necessary or simply be merged
even though they knew full well that would perhaps, through some mystique, into the whole operation itself.
anyone suspected of active opposition become quickly invisible. In mounting- such an operation, it
to the Castro government in Cuba faced Two major plans were considered. was necessary to first train those who
the prospect of a firing squad. Anybody The original plan was directed at cap- were to take part in it. There were more
caught landing on the shores of Cuba, turing the small town of Trinidad on the than adequate resources of Cuban man-
either by airdrop or by maritime opera- south coast. Intelligence available indi- power available in the exile colonies in
There Florida and elsewhere. There was one
li
held
gated it was fairl
htl
l
g
y
y
.
emency.
don, could hardly expect c
exceedingly difficult
the new Cuban authorities. was an airstrip nearby, but perhaps most t political problem
On 29 November 1960 President- importantly, it was at the foothills of however, that being the strong desire
the Escambra Mountains, and the not to use any Batistianos-people who
elect Kennedy was given a briefing at . Y ? had been prominent in the Batista mill-
length on a new approach to the Cuban brigade, if it got into trouble, could tart' forces or close to 3atista himself.
problem. It had become fairly apparent, head for the hills and theoretically live This almost automatically eliminated
under pressures of external events, that off the land. When this plan was re- anybody that had had any experience
perhaps there was not going to be viewed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and with the Cuban Armed Forces.
sufficient time to build up a large others, the reaction was that the capture The recruiting in Miami was done
enough underground in Cuba to do to of a town would be too visible and under goldfish bowl circumstances.
Castro what he had done to Batista. create excessive "noise." Therefore an- There were 113 Cuban exile groups.
Castro was moving closer and closer to other locality should be picked which
becoming a full member of the. Soviet would not be quite as conspicuous. Some of them were significant and some
bloc, and thep Soviets rT re din The second plan was to land at the of them were insignificant, but they
p yet i ;,F eE,9q/ 1 ~ingl*BPPa74@gg,41 r1F0 1*6' otl5y were all vocal, and
increasing am6u
R
motet to Cuba, t;uban?pilots had been populated, the proposed landing would 2
Q
 they were r r ~~Pg47(~(~ 005
p s~f~ ~ ISe` 0`.1/69b 3rat vJaPrl a~,k? Q ya n ie of the aspects of the
for the S a e epartment, the CIA, the.~u p
Attorney General, and others involved nl was pu on em ers run?Postoperation inspection teas specifi ,
run
to or cover. it was a CIA o eratlon. cally directed to the question of
persuade the Cubans to work to requen mee ngs wit the resr dent rhetlrer any of the U.S. personnel told
gether in a cohesive organization simply from January through March and peri. the Cubans that U.S. military forces
because many of them did not want to odic progress reports were used to keep would back them up. That, I would
work together due to prior political the President informed. As the evidence submit to you, is almost an impossible
associations. of apparent Russian assistance to Cuba question to answer. If you are training a
The system of recruiting was done as continued to row
re
ssure was put on group of men to go into battle, you
clandestine) as 9 , p
y possible. The recruits the President to mount the operation. aren't saying, "Okay fellows, go ahead,
were then taken to the deactivated Opa Let me also note that there was a very but if you don't make it, it's rough." As
Locka Naval Air Station and were flown considerable Cuban lobby operable. The. an instructor you would give your
out "covertly" to Guatemala where a Cuban exiles had considerable money. trainees every bit of encouragement,
wealthy landowner had made a sizable Many of them were apparently wise and if you say something like, "We're
portion of his mountainous finca avail- enough to have kept the bulk of their behind you all the way," does that
able for training. A training base had wealth in the United States prior to mean that you are committing U.S.
been hacked out of the wilderness. The 1959. They were acquainted with military forces? The best available evi-
President of Guatemala, Ydigoras, was Americans and the American political dence indicated that no U.S. national
aware of what was going on and co- system, and a steady stream of them who was involved in training, assisting,
operated, fully. President Somoza of descended on Washington to urge or direction of the Cubans ever prom-
Nicaragua provided the airfield for the greater U.S. action in support of the iced U.S. military assistance, but obvi-
B-26's. exile movement up to and including a ously they were not discouraging the
In retrospect, it might' have been full-scale invasion of Cuba by the Cubans. On the other hand, the Cubans
wiser to have trained everybody in the United States. to a man as well as the Cuban Revolu-
.United States where they could have During this period a serious conflict tionary Council, expected that shot'd
been isolated somewhere in the vast arose within the exile training camp as a
reaches ol', a Fort Bragg or a 'Fort result of some of the Batistianos being pthe our of fuant U.S. o, ai Marines would
Benning: Latin America is'not an easy , brought into the brigade. These former , pour out
dropped, and it wruld a over
place to do such training because in members of Batista's army were profes.' would be dropped, and it would be over
countries the size of Guatemala or sional military men whose talents were about like that.
Nicaragua nearly everybody knows what judged to be useful to the operation. A to President Kennedy's inten-
is going on. As early as 30 October 1960 mutiny occurred, however, which lions, however, there can be no ques-
an article appeared in the Guatemalan quickly became known to the rest of tion. The President frequently reiterated
paper La Elora which described a mi1i- the world. Twelve Cubans were arrested his statement that no U.S. personnel
tary base in the mountains designed to and incarcerated, and the entire affair .would be involved, that he wanted no
train men for an invasion of Cuba. This was written up in the press. Americans on the beach, that there
was when the cover started to unravel. With a brigade of 1,453 trained would not be any commitment of U.S.
Paul Kennedy of The New York Times, Cubans in being, the Joint Chiefs of forces behind the Cubans, that this was
a very astute journalist whose circuit ran Staff assessed both the Trinidad plan to be an exile operation.
from Mexico City to Panama, was not and the Bay of Pigs plan as being The allegation has been made that
far behind La Elora in producing a story feasible. "the operators" deceived the President
on the base-who was there, what- they The U. S. military personnel
were doing, and what they were going who reviewed the brigade described That is not correct. "The operators"
were
The discussions they as well trained and capable of principally involved were Allen W. Dul-
toch do. The in Miari pin were quotes doing their job. Here we run into what les, Gen. Charles P. Cabell, and Richard
thee that his separate book Schlesinger s newsmen who upon re-
will perhaps throughout history be the Bissell. They are all men of honor and
turning from Miami were able to de- most controversial part of the opera- integrity. They were all very much
re est ~ifi" "suns BPS P ur upon of its size or whether U.S. forces would hm as opposed to Castro whose
scribe exactly what was going on with- tion: I label it what the Cubans thought, involved in the operation. They were all
out being specific as to where the what the Americans thought, and what reasonably convinced that it would suc-
landing was going to be made or when it Castro thought. ceed or had a good chance of success.
was going to be made, but that there There are no available figures on Mr. Dulles has been quoted by both
was going to be a landing, that it was Castro's intelligence operation in the Schlesinger and Sorenson as telling the
United States. However, given the great President that he thought that this
going to be against Cuba, and that it number of Cubans operation had a better chance of success
involved a great number of the exiles. in this country, he
The operation was exclusively under undoubtedly had a fairly complete in- than the Guatemala operation. Perhaps
ectj formation flow from not only our press he did not tell the President the Guate-
u ectron of the Central Intelli dace and radio, but from his o;m sources of mala operation only succeeded by the
gency. The Dint ue s of to were information as Well. Castro was highly narrowest of margins. This was to be a
as ted ifhy would prow e evaluations nervous in the spring of 1961, to say the very close matter and entirely different
"!4'f4f5Lt ie eaf asib lity of the .art and least. He was aware that an operation
from the operation against Arbenz, who
sec on y of the qu ity o train. was being mounted. He was not aware had but a very limited force to support
ei y a sv 'sit course rev cg
?rcu. ut;
sa iU,1":u we ratter greatry, _ _ -- "?Y c LU uuuud were
anc man ewer o asst rn raining without question. rapidly increasing in both quality and
anU admrnistratlori. Ut l nnFLlsanesiw r_ #J n ne~,nr~~ wr~nn.w w ~r~nicMonvehl~~nnw n
~ t r
,w4a, cuiu urC
??-_- nita tates would not let the opera.
 Appproved Fqr Release12005/07/13 :CIA-F DP7 B04 15R000400170010-5
The method by w rich the rest en Monday morning an aske w nether the to the beachhead-three of them had
was oriented on the operation has been president could supply some .U.S. mill- sons with the brigade-but by then the
described as a series of meetings where tary assistance, specifically some aircraft operation had failed.
three or more of the operators would from the carrier Boxer to come in and Now let us look at why the Bay of
brief the President on the latest develop- cover the landing. The President turned Pigs landing failed. Why did we mount it
meats. The President would have one or it doom. in the first place? We mounted it for a
two of his personal staff with him, the The landing went in as scheduled. Of political objective, to get rid of a gov-
Secretary. of State, and any others he the five battalions-I would call them ernment that we disliked intensely that
.deemed necessary. There would be no reinforced companies-that landed, only had cropped up near our southern
papers left; there were no staff papers 'one landed in the wrong place; it hit a shores. We mounted it with the thought
circulated. The operation was very reef. The rest got ashore, and the tanks that the objective would be accom-
closely held, within the U.S. Govern- got ashore. The airdrop was successful, plished by a covert operation when we
ment. Similarly, it was very closely held and then Castro's jets appeared: two Sea did not want to use our conventional
within the CIA. Furies and three P-33's.' Two of the. forces. We had not been able to get rid
and our in-
ects of the operation were principal landing ships, one containing of Castro by diplomacy
M
,
any asp
well done. 'Abe B-26 strike on D minus the bulk of the ammunition, were sunk. creasing economic' pressure was not
2, despite having to operate at maxi- The others , were driven away, not to proving to be any more effective. All
mum range, . was successful. It did return. And from that moment on, the intelligence reports coming from allied
manage to damage the Castro air force, operation was doomed. sources indicated quite clearly that he
but the quality of the Castro air force The brigade fought brilliantly. They was thoroughly in command of Cuba.
had been underestimated. The Sea probably took 10 to 1 casualties from and- was supported by most of the
Furies were known to be there and were the other side. But it was 1,453 men people who remained on the island.
considered dangerous, but the P-33's, against 20,000 with another 80,000 in About 2 weeks before the operation,
which were ignored or were not con- reserve. Not only were Castro's planes the President had announced that the
sidered to be dangerous, did prove to be available, but all of his tanks started to United States would not intervene in
.one of the more decisive elements. move south from Camp Libertad out- Cuba. Nevertheless, shortly before the
The cover on the D minus 2 airstrike, side of Havana. Despite the most strenu- landing, the Castro security forces
mentioned before, was ripped off in a ous efforts to assist the brigade and to, rounded up approximately- 200,000
matter of minutes. Circumstances had get them additional ammunition, they Cubans and put them in concentration
this event occur on the same day that an could not win against such odds. By camps. These people whose commit-
actual pilot: in the Castro air force Wednesday it was all over as the brigade ment the Castro regime suspected were.
defected and landed in Jacksonville. The was out of ammunition. l precisely the elements in Cuban society
0 press was all over both Cuban planes At a meeting Tuesday night in the upon which the success of the landing
instantly. The Foreign Minister of Cuba White House, after a congressional re- depended. -
in the United Nations denounced the ception, the situation was described to What we were really trying to do was
',United States for open attack on Cuba. the President. He authorized two un- o do something inexpensively that we
The U.S.Ambassador to the United marked planes from the Boxer to- fly did not want to do the hard way.
Nations, Adlai Stevenson, had not been high cover in support of the 3-26's, but Affecting this choice was a mythology
thoroughly advised on the operation. He they were not to engage in hostilities about covert operations that had arisen
had been given what was later described unless attacked. There was.a mixup in after World War II. The brilliant exploits
as a rather vague briefing of the opera- time. The 3-26's arrived an hour before of the French Resistance, of the Danish
tion. Ambassador Stevenson immedi- the Boxer planes; four of the B-26's Resistance, of the Italian partisans, of.
' ately denied U.S. complicity, and prac- were shot down, and among the men T1to's partisans, of some of the opera-
tically before the words were out of his lost was an Alabama Air National tions behind the Japanese lines in
mouth it was fairly obvious that they Guardsmen crew who had volunteered Burma all helped create a belief that
were not true. This then created a rising to substitute for the Cuban pilots, who you could accomplish with covert
crescendo of concern on the part of the were exhausted.' operations what one did not wish to do
President, Secretary of State, and The President was under the impres- by conventional or overt means. Simi-'
others. On Sunday night-the landing sion initially that the H-hour airstrike larly, the operations in Iran and Guate-'
was to be made on Monday morning- was actually going to be made from the ala had been vaguely alluded to and
the President cancelled the H-hour beachhead. But, of course, the airstrip written about without ever the full
strike. The B-26's were already warmed was never secured to that degree, and ,details of the operations being exposed
up and ready to take off from Nicaragua the concept of eight B-26's bombing either in the government or elsewhere.
when the word came in to cancel. from the beachhead was simply not These added to the mythology that
General Cabell, Acting Director of feasible. Also, there was no reserve there was some mystique by which you
the CIA at the time, was given permis- available to reinforce the brigade, and could use a clandestine or,%ani;,ation to
sion to appeal to the President who was the rationalization that once the beach- neatly and. cheaply remove most any
at Glen Ora in Middleburg, Va. Cabell head was secured then Cubans could dictator 'you wished. This is inaccurate
decided not to appeal, but after going pour in from Florida and that assistance and dangerous. A clandestine or covert
back to the. operational headquarters would come from the United States and operation can be used to support mill-
and seeking advice from a representative Latin American countries was not valid. tary operations and can be used when
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he called The Cuban Revolutionary Council, 'you do not want to commit regular
the Presiden in Middleburg at 4:30 a.m. lx e d incommunicado UP rc s 'uc o orations must be used,
Approved For Release 2C"?~:c W9T,F PaQ4aAARQ9490W, ; Fi the knowledge that if
Washington to see the President. They unsuul there will come a time
ashad if they could be immediately sent 4
 C)
v.iwll you have , _ ; n .1,1
lose the u>iAtc@~ FglIge35t.0-hhj~rig-e`bF~'7410`hSFOo0400170010-5 says that e
your integrity-perhaps never to be re- wrote a memorandum that was opposed BIOGRAPHIC SUMMARY
ained
g
. to the operation after he had learned
In looking back over both the about it. But these documents were not
l
i
p
ann
ng and execution of the Bay of given much weight.
Pigs landing, several important lessons r?, ,
arises from the operators' failure to
I secure accurate intelligence. Inaccurate
intelligence was the basis for the Bay of
Pigs disaster. There is no other place to
put the blame for that than on th e
agency mounting the operation. There
was a totally erroneous estimate of the
quality of Castro's fighting forces, a lack
of realism in evaluating the potential
resistance, and therefore as a corollary,
a. lack of realism in estimating the
number of forces required to do the job.
There was a lack of knowledge about
Castro's control in Cuba, even though
the British and French intelligence re-
.~~-fem.
ti
rganization collecting intelligence f
should be permitted to conduct covert
,
operations has provoked continuing j i{
debate in the intelligence community L
,,,...; :. l:..s..i
over the years. It was a question which
was addressed when the National Se-
curity Act of.1947 was being considered
before Congress. It is a question which
has frequently come up, and it is cer-
tainly one that is worthy of note.
Within an organization such as CIA, it is
possible to compartmentalize it so that
the intelligence evaluators are separated
from the collectors, but in this instance
this was not done.
And then
finally
the covertness or
,
,
ports were available on the subject.
l
k
f
ibili
f th
i
i
ac
v
o
s
ty o
e operat
on must
Organizationally, a large part of CIA
be examined. It lost all of its veils, all
present was excluded Director from of the the Central operation. IntelliThe five, before it was ever mounted. By the
Rich ielms who was known the landing took place, it was well
gence then Chief of Agency, peration CIA, was mounted. an operation was was
not involved in the operation. It was . It was. well known who was
not
involved
It was well known that it was.
.
a
led in separate compartment, and
a
totally and completely supported by the-
a very great portion of the expertise in United States. And at some point along
the agency was excluded. In like man- the line somebody, somewhere around
ner, the bulk of the military expertise of the President should have said, "Mr.
the Pentagon was excluded because President, this is going to create one hell
knowledge of the operation was handled of a lot of noise. It is going to be very
on such a close basis within the Joint obvious that we're behind it. If it
Staff. succeeds, great; if it fails, we are in for
Now when I say that the bulk of the deep trouble." Obviously most people
CIA was excluded, I mean that the thought it was going to succeed. In fact,
operators running the operation were most of those talking to the President
assessing and evaluating the intelligence, thought it was going to succeed.
not the intelligence directorate, where it Also, trying to mount an operation
should have been done. Much of the of this magnitude from the United
intelligence came from the Cuban re- States is'about as covert as walking nude
sistance, which was not always an objec- across Times Square without attracting
tive intelligence source, and, as later in attention. (Although, I must say that
the missile crisis, their reports had to be the latter is becoming more of a possi-
scanned and evaluated based upon other bility every day.) In retrospect, the use
information. of the U.S. bases would have been more
The White House advisers have noted feasible because we did have the capa-
in their books that nobody in the White bility for controlling access to a sizable
House was really being critical about the geographical area. We could have iso-
operation. They assumed that the Presi- lated the brigade; even the training of
dent was accepting the advice of quali- the B-26 pilots could have been done in
ficd experts, and therefore they were the United States; and perhaps, only
unwilling to submit themselves to being perhaps, it could have been done with-
the opposition to the operation. To my
knowledge only two documents were out having been disclosed.
Written in' the Fnrlnral (:nvnrnment Policymakers must be educated as to
ecretary for Research and Intelligence,
also heard about the oru~ratinn. askr~rl try makers be educated as to what covert The staff work must be complete
International
in 1938.
ryi
Lyman B. Kirk-
patrick, Jr., was born
in Rochester, N.Y.,
educated in public
schools there and at
Deerfield Academy,
Deerfield, Mass:, and
graduated from the
Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and
After graduation he worked for the U.S.
News Publishing Corporation in Washington,
D.C., as an editor and personnel director. In
1942 he joined the Office of Strategic Ser-
vices and served in Europe with that organiza-
tion and as a military intelligence officer on
the staff of Can. Omar Bradley's 12th U.S.
Army Group where he was the-G-2 briefing
officer. He left the military service with the
rank of major, and for his service received the
Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, French and
Belgian Croix de Guerre, and the European
Theater Ribbon with five battle stars. -
After the war he returned to the U.S.
.News as an. editor of World Report Magazine.
In 1947 he went to work for the Central
Intelligence Agency where he served in a
variety of positions, including Division Chief, -
Assistant to the Director, Assistant Director,
Inspector General, and from 1962 to 1965
was Executive Director-Comptroller. In Sep-
tember 1965 he resigned from CIA to accept -
an appointment on the faculty of Brown
University in Providence, R.I., as Professor of
Political Science and University Professor.
Professor Kirkpatrick was the occupant of the
Chester W. Nimitz Chair of National Security
and Foreign Affairs at the Naval War College
during the 1971-72 academic year and has
since returned to the faculty of Brown Uni-
versity.
In 1960 he received the National Civil
Service League annual award as one of the 10
outstanding career employees of the Federal
Government. In 1964 he received the Presi-
dent's Award for Distinguished Service, the
highest award that can be given a civilian in
the Federal Service.
He, is the author of The Real CIA, Pub-
lished by Macmillan in January 1968, and
Captains without Eyes, published by Mac-
millan in 1969, numerous articles, and has
contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Yearbook.
look on them as some type of easy
device whereby one can simply reach
out and press a button and bang, a
resistance group comes up and suddenly
an enemy is destroyed. The obligation
for destroying this myth lies with the
career- personnel.
There was nothing more secret about
the Bay of Pigs than about nuclear
weapons. Yet it was handled as though
it was so sensitive that people who were
y CIA, he blamed the military just-as trusted with the highest secrets of the
about the operation and opposed it. '
Roger Hilsm, p1}t at r - t Id not be trusted with
S l t~Ve 11R@tle /O very rlailt a pa r b0( ~ ' N 6`-''
opposing the operation, one by Chester wudL ry possiure. I tnintc uney will De m
Bowles, the then Under Secretary of the future. The shock to President
State who had inadvertent) heard- Kennedy was great and he blamed the
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'these, in turn, must be reviewed in the
most tough, highly critical, and objec-
tive manner. There must be those that
are going to say "no" or at least express
all, the warnings and let the President
know the dangers that he is taking.
While no one questions the absolute
authority of the President to make
policy and to insure that it is properly
implemented, the locus for the conduct
of the operation is important. It should
be at a much lower level of government.
Having covert operations run out of the
White House or even out of the Office
of the Secretary of State or the Secre-
tary of Defense makes absolutely no
sense whatsoever in any society.
If the President makes the policy, get
rid of Castro, that is about the last he
should hear of it. If something goes
wrong, he can fire and disavow, which is
what a President should do, not ac-
knowledge and accept blame. Of course,
I am being critical of the President, but
?I think that this is essential in this area.
Mr. Dulles, incidentally, after the failure
of the Bay of Pigs, as he had done
previously when the U-2 went down
over Russia, said to the President, "If
you wish, I v411 go." lie was a very wise
and able man, and he recognized that
when an intelligence failure takes place,
the first expendable person is the direc-
tor of the operation.
There is a further corollary to what I
have said thus far: a U.S. controlled
intelligence base must be in existence.
In this case it would have meant an
intelligence network operating in Cuba
which was knowledgeable, controlled,
and reliable. There was no such network
in Cuba at the time. Instead there were
scatterings of intelligence nets. The in-
formation, to a large degree, was con-
trolled by Cuban exiles who, of course,
wanted us to go into Cuba. IG was not a
U.S. controlled intelligence base.
My final comment is that the Bay of
Pigs experience does not mean we
should forget covert operations as a tool
for implementing national policy. In
fact, that is the last thing it means. We
should continually examine the concept
and doctrine and reevaluate all covert
operations and irregular warfare activi-
ties, keeping the capability in being. As
has been the case with our military
forces, when a war is over our immedi-
ate instinct is to demobilize; the same is
true in intelligence. But the capability
for mounting a covert operation is. an
exceedingly important capability for
our government to have. It may not be
used but, like certain military capabili-
ties in peacetime, the expertise should
be. available and ready if needed.
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0.Fpr[~ '
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (optional)
FROM:
EXTENSION
NO.
Legislative Counsel
ST
DATE 28 November 1972
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
RECEIVED
FORWARDED
INITIALS
row m. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
1.
Director
2 ^ N0
1972
LZ
Here is the Kirkpatrick article
2.
from the Navy War College Review
in which Representative Nedzi
expressed interest. I have under-
3.
lined on page 3 the paragraph he
quoted to me on the phone, and I
4.
have marked a few other passages
that will give you the flavor of ST
the article.
5
.
ST
b
.
John Maury
egislative Counsel
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
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