ANALOGIES (II): WAS DESERT I ANOTHER BAY OF PIGS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606590003-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: May 12, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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THE WASHINGTON POST
12 May 1980
.Analogies (III: was D1. A
ARTICLE' Arrj,.:,ED
ON PAGIii
Maxwell D. Taylor
In the aftermath of the failure to rescue our hos-
tages,in.Tehran, there has been a frequent ten-
dency. to find. similarities. between.It and. the Bay
of Pigs fiasco In the.early months of the Kennedy
administration. Having served as,-chairman: of the
Cuba Study Group established; by President Ken-
nedy to investigate the causes. of the latter failure,
I too have been interested in' sorting out some of
the analogies and differences of the two episodes:''--
Atthe outset, one is struck by certain broad simi-
larities. Both were spectacular failures' with wide
repercussions, both domestic'and international. In
both cases, the tasks undertaken were difficult-
for the Cuban Brigade, to effect in its first combat
a landing on a hostile shore, one of the:znost deli
cateoperations-in the military repertory..
The task of the-hostage rescue mission was even,-
more complex and, by its nature, was highly ex-
posed :to unpredictable contingencies-a com-
mando raid moving by night nearly. 1,000 miles
through unfriendly and unfamiliar country to free
prisoners in the embassy; compound in Tehran,
there to overcome the guards as quickly and qui
etly as possible and then to whisk the captives-to
safety outside the country... Despite the obvious difficulties and risks, at-the
outset both. presidents- were. highly confident of
success in their undertakings and correspondingly
dismayed by their failures. Each unhesitatingly as-
sumed full personal responsibility for the reversal.
But there are also sharp. contrasts between-the
two operations,, and 'even..apparent similarities,
under examination, reveal notable differences of
cause or effect. For example,. while both opera-
tions were difficult, much of the difficultytof the
Bay of Pigs was self-imposed
w?From the beginning,.President,Kennedy had:in
sisted that the operation must be "covert," i.e., that
the" American involvement must: be concealed or,
plausibly deniable. Hence there could be no visible.
American . participation-no -American 'advisers
with the Cuban Brigade, . no assistance at sea from
the U.S. Navy and. no air support by aircraft other
than old fighter bombers, B26s,.which Cuban'reb-
els rising against Castro could conceivably have ob-r
tained in the world secondhand arms market with
outU.S. assistance..In the:cotrse of the operation,
the: president's desire to conceal the American.
hand behind this diaphanous veil of "covertness"
led. to serious" restraints being ; imposed' upon'the
military effectiveness of the limited forces availa
ble to carry out the
so f ar as we know, at this writing, the rescuemis I
Sion ni Iran suffered. from no similar handicap. It:
had' the: advantage of .'a clear channel of military.
command extending from the president to the secre-
tary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then to
a unified task force commander, and finally to Col.
Beckwith,'the commando team .commander: There
was no question as to the:responsibility of the null
tary f orwhat took place in the field.
;r '
Incontrast, in the Cuban venture it was the CIA;
not the Department of Defense, that was the
,agency responsible for the conduct of. the opera...
tion using torte purpose an im rovise com-
mand and communication system that invited the
trouble that promptly arose in exercising control.
The role of the JCS was that of advisers on the
sidelines, offering comments from time to time on
selected aspects of the operation but never formu-
lating an integrated evaluation of the overallmerit
of the plan and its probability of success.
This matter of the probability of success as per-
ceived by the leaders of these two operations is an
interesting aspect to explore. In their minds, what -
was meant by success and what were their expec-
tations of achieving it?
In discussions after the fact with President Ken-,
nedy's principal advisers, I was struck by'the fuzzi-
ness of their concept of what the Cuban expedition
was supposed to accomplish. All agreed that the in-
itial purpose was, to establish a beachhead in the.
Bay, of.,Pigs,.but then _what? There was-a vague
hope among most that a successful landing might .
trigger a popular uprising resulting in the eventual
overthrow of Castro. But if such were not the case,
there was never a clear plan as to how to proceed.
President Kennedy and a few of his advisers'had
understood that, if threatened' by defeat, the bri
gade.would. exercise the so-called' "guerrilla op-
tion,": i.e., a break-out to the nearby swamps and
hills in guerrilla bands to join the anti-Castro dissi
dents believed to be in the region:
Unhappily,. the brigade apparently had heard
nothing, of this option-certainly it had- received'
no training in its execution. So when the .soldiers
ran out 'of ammunition, they retreated' to the
beaches hoping for rescue craft that, never having
been included in the plan, never came to their aid.
In the meantime, whatever confidence President
Kennedy had initially in success had vanished by
the end of the first day of combat
C,0-5T1_9'D
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It is difficult to make a parallel analysis of the
state of mind of President Carter and his colleagues.
One handicap is that, while asserting their,belief
prior to the operation that its chance of success was
'good," "excellent" or "militarily feasible," they have
never defined what they mean by success. Obvi-
ously, complete success would have been the freein
of all the hostages and their safe return home with
few or no casualties. But success is seldom if ever
complete. In the. Mayaguez incident, the nation ap-
peared. to feet ay success had'been.scored although
the Marines'loetmore men in connection.with the
operation !Tura-the number of American-captives
rescued. So in the Iranian affair, I imagine that most
citizens and probably most government officials..
would have,been-satisfied if the commandos had..
rescued most of the hostages pretty much regardless..
ofthemilitajylosses suffered.
If the latter were the standard set,.we would still
be unable to understand the confidence of our sen-
ior officials in achieving such success in an enter-
prise deemed impossible. only n'.few,months be-
fore. Our Inability may ;stem 'from: our' lack of
knowledge of the plan for the-operation beyond
Desert I, where the mission aborted, and of the un-
disclosed assets ("friendlies,": motor, vehicles, informers, air support, etc.) that are rumored to have
been available Whelp the commandos on their`
way to Tehran.-Although it would seem that the
going~wouldge@ harder as they approached their
destination,where final success would be decided,
our. senior authorities state that the participants
were highly, confident of the outcome of the as=sault on the embassy,and the evacuation of the.
prisoners. They add that the first-leg', the 500-mile
helicopter flight to Desert I, 'was considered the
most hazardous part of the whole job:
-At this point, I must confess myself baffled in',
trying to understand official confidence in the out-
come of this operation. Their greatest concern, we:
are told;'waa over'a 500-mile helicopter flight far,
from any likely armedenemy rather than over the "
high probability of a bloody hand-to-hand combat
in the darkness 'of the embassy-compound in the_
heart ofra':hostile city;, with our -hostages *unin
formed of what was taking place. Yet for all its im-
portance, only seven helicopters were initially con-
sidered necessary for the 500-mile flight, an eighth
having been added as a. second thought. Yet these`
same authorities presumablytnade the concurrent
decision that;, if the er.of,ayaiiablehelicop,~l
icop
ters ever dropped below six, the mission would be
aborted. I find it extremely hard to understand,
confidence in any plan so fragile that the loss of
one or two helicopters would be certain to cause it
to fail. It is equally difficult to understand embark-
ing on an enterprise of such world consequence
with such a thin margin of safety.
We have heard much about the use of fail-safe de? .
vices to reduce the risks of the operation. No such
device was available in the case of the Bay of Pigs..
Although. President Kennedy had always been un
easy about the whole business and had set back the
date of the landing twice, he never sought to turn-
back the brigade once it was headed toward Cuban
soil. As a matter of fact, because of the precarious-
state of the communications,.I am -not sure that : a,
cancellation would have been possible ,
The fail safe procedure used in Iran has much to?
recommend it, particularly in an operation so clear-
ly divided into distinct phases,` all of which.had'to.:
succeed in sequence to obtain mission success. How-
ever, it also raises the question of the possible effect-
on' leaders when escape hatches are so readily ac-'-
cessible. In the course of history, the successful
commander has often. been the kind of man who
deliberately burns his bridges behind him to pre-
vent thought of anything but.victory.
One would hope that at a proper time President
.Carter would conduct a post-mortem review of the
rescue mission as President Kennedy did of, the
Bay of Pigs. On the latter occasion, the president
assembled' in the White House all the senior par-
ticipants; had them briefed on the report of the
Cuba Study Group and then conducted a frank dis.
cussion of errors made and lessons learned. The
criticism of individuals and agencies was ofteii
sharp but evoked no excuses or signs 'of resent-
ment from delinquent officials. As President Ken-`
nedy said, with some relief as they departed, "At.'-
least nobody got mad." The disaster of the Bay of
Pigs was-bitter medicine for the young,Kennedy
team, but.the bond formed by shared adversity
contributed in some measure to their later success,,
in the Cuba missile crisis.'
It would be more difficult for President Carter
in an `election year- to' conduct such a private, in?
house self-examination. If he did so, I suspectthat
the major lesson taught by: the failure of the
rescue mission would be essentially the same as in
the Bay of Pigs. -In both cases, the decision-to act
-was not .accompanied by a determination to sucr
ceed, followed by an allocation of 'resource more
than enough to assure success. In both cases, our'
government tried to-do too much with too little
and-. with' insufficient regard forthe eternal veri~'
rues of Murphy's Law hw ",r 7 3
Thy writer, no 6 retired from` t3ae Army, ums
cha'irmun'of the Joint Cmefsof StaffcI rangthe''
Kennedyand Johnson administrations
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