Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Pass the Flotilla
Another theory floating around the blogosphere (hell, even a piece pertaining to it showed up in Time magazine) is that the Bay of Pigs fiasco wasn't really a Kennedy blunder at all. It was an Eisenhower blunder. They cite, specifically, that the planning for the operation began when Eisenhower was still in office....and that Kennedy was somehow powerless to stop it..................................Of course, what these throngs of Kennedy worshippers fail to mention is that 1) Kennedy himself was totally on board with the plan (Kennedy hates Communists, remember?), 2) he clearly COULD have halted the operation if he had wanted to (he didn't), and 3) it could as well be argued that Kennedy's alterations of the initial plan were the main reason why it ultimately failed..................................I cite, specifically, the fact that Kennedy changed the landing area for Brigade 2506 (a tactic that cut off contact between 2506 and the mountain rebels). He also cancelled air-strikes and curtailed U.S. air-cover and support for the landing. Just how exactly this can be blamed on Eisenhower, I'm not exactly certain. I am sure, however, that these ever-so-true-believers in Camelot will come up with something. They always frigging do, my friends.
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3 comments:
Actually Will as usual some of your"facts" are plain wrong;
to wit;
Shortly after the attack started, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, flatly rejected Cuba's report of the attack, telling the General Assembly that the attacking planes were from the Cuban Air Force and presenting a copy of the photograph published in the newspapers. In the photo, the plane shown has an opaque nose, whereas the model of the B-26 planes used by the Cubans had a Plexiglas nose. Within a few hours the truth was revealed, and Stevenson was extremely embarrassed to learn that Kennedy had referred to him as "my official liar."
The landing began shortly before midnight on Sunday, April 16, after a team of frogmen went ashore and set up landing lights to guide the operation. The invading force consisted of 1,500 men divided into six battalions, with Manuel Artime as the political chief.
Two battalions came ashore at Playa Girón and one at Playa Larga, but the operation didn't go as smoothly as expected. The razor-sharp coral reefs, identified as seaweed by U2 spy photos, delayed the landing enough to expose it to air attacks the following morning. Two ships sank about 80 yards from shore, and some heavy equipment was lost.
Cuban militia commander José Ramón González Suco was one of five men stationed in Playa Larga when the invasion began, and the first to report the invasion.
On Monday, April 17, as the invasion was well under way, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk gave a press conference. "The American people are entitled to know whether we are intervening in Cuba or intend to do so in the future," he said. "The answer to that question is no. What happens in Cuba is for the Cuban people to decide."
Basulto was never told when the invasion would begin. He was surprised to hear the attack had started and didn't have time to get around to completing his assignment. Instead he drove out to Guantánamo and jumped the fence into the U.S. Naval Base.
By 3 a.m. Monday morning Castro knew about the landing, and the Cuban government responded almost immediately, taking a superior position in the air during the early morning hours. Cuban pilot Captain Enrique Carreras Rojas was able to quickly sink the command vessel "Maropa" and the supply ship "Houston."
After Ambassador Stevenson became aware of the true facts, he was so outraged that he publicly urged Washington to stop the attack and avoid further embarrassment. Soviet Ambassador Zorin said, "Cuba is not alone today. Among her most sincere friends the Soviet Union is to be found."
At 12:15 Kennedy received a letter from Khrushchev in which the Soviet leader stated: "It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America. The planes which are bombing Cuban cities belong to the United States of America; the bombs they are dropping are being supplied by the American Government.
"…It is still not late to avoid the irreparable. The government of the USA still has the possibility of not allowing the flame of war ignited by interventions in Cuba to grow into an incomparable conflagration.
"As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, there should be no mistake about our position: We will render the Cuban people and their government all necessary help to repel an armed attack on Cuba."
The expected supporting air cover by the U.S. Air Force never came. In a political environment full of posturing, threats and confusion, Rusk advised Kennedy to back off, concluding that additional strikes would tilt international opinion too far against the U.S.
"At about 9:30 p.m. on April 16," describes L. Fletcher Prouty in Bay of Pigs: The Pivotal Operation of the JFK Era, [URL below] "Mr. McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President, telephoned the CIA's General C.P. Cabell to inform him that the air strikes the following dawn should not be launched until they could be conducted from a strip within the beachhead."
Prouty, the first "focal Point" officer between the CIA and the Air Force for Clandestine Operations, quotes the report by General Maxwell Taylor, a member of the Kennedy-appointed Cuban Study Group: "From its inception the plan had been developed under the ground rule that it must retain a covert character, that is, it should include no action which, if revealed, could not be plausibly denied by the United States and should look to the world as an operation exclusively conducted by Cubans. This ground rule meant, among other things, that no U.S. military forces or individuals could take part in combat operations."
Do you think Will John F Kennedy should have order the air strikes to continue and possibly start World War Three, or did John F Kennedy make the right choice for the American people, you know Will those who he had sworn to defend FIRST?
Also remember Will parts of the bay of pigs fiasco were planned and conducted by some of the very same people who planned and executed the Watergate break-in. E. Howard Hunt, Frank Anthony Sturgis and others like Barry Seal a known drug smuggler, Porter Goss, David Atlee Phillips.
Check out Operation 40 for more help and the truth that Dwight David Eisenhower did approve the planning and operation of the Bay of Pigs plan.
Aren't you glad John F Kennedy listened to people who were a little better then they were at their job?
By the way Will why haven't you addressed the lie you posted about what I said?
I can give you the link;
PS
As there are only four comments there right now it shouldn't be too hard to correct the record yet.
First of all, I did acknowledge the mistake and apologized for misquoting you. Sorry that you're also blind........ Of course, The Bay of Pigs planning started in the Eisenhower administration. I never said that it didn't (you really need to learn how to read). And I never said it was a good idea. It was probably a stupid idea (though, yes, it probably would have been executed better by a more tested President). All I'm saying is that Kennedy could have stopped it and that it was badly executed (these are not radical ideas, fellow). As for air-strikes, they were clearly critical for the operation to be successful. If Kennedy felt that they were too risky, ALL THE MORE REASON FOR HIM TO HALT THE OPERATION. Look, Kennedy screwed this up. O.K.? In many other ways, yes, he WAS a good President (I have him ranked number 5, Eisenhower 6). But this was not his finest moment. P.S. Once again, I apologize for misquoting you. There, now get over yourself, alright?
And just for the record, Kennedy HIMSELF publicly accepted full responsibility for the disaster. The fellow "manned up", in other words. Now, if we could only get his devotees to show a similar amount of integrity/humility.
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