EXCERPTS FROM "SUPPORT FOR A DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION IN CUBA"

THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION

On January 28, 1961, President Kennedy received a full-scale briefing on the CIA plans. After his review, the President authorized the CIA to proceed with the operation.

In accordance with the plans, on 17 April 1961, the Assault Brigade “2506,” that has been trained and equipped by the US government, landed at the Bay of Pigs. Cuba. After three days of intense and fierce combats, without ammunition, supplies or the promised direct air support, the Brigade was militarily defeated by an overwhelming combined force. As a result of US government’s failure to meet its commitment with the Brigade’s civilian and military leadership, 1,189 members of the Brigade spent 20 months in Cuban communist prisons. One hundred fourteen freedom fighters died in combat, nine were murdered inside a refrigerator truck and five executed by firing squads.

    At a news conference after the failed invasion, the president told reporters: “There is an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers, an defeat is an orphan.”

    The Bay of Pigs failed mainly because President Kennedy cancelled the air support promised and also because he failed to follow the advice of President Eisenhower when he said: "Force is a naked, brutal thing in this world...if you are going to use it, you have got to be prepared to go all the way...if your hands had been discovered, then it is more important than ever that we win..."

    On 22 December 1962, the prisoners of war were returned to the United States after the US government paid a ransom for their freedom.

    OPERATION PETER PAN

    The revolution was a year old when Cuban parents got their first scare. On January 6, 1960, the Education Ministry announced a new military program for high school students to support the Revolution’s People’s Militia. It was decided that all Cuban students had to learn to bear arms. The children were instructed at the schools to inform on their parents and neighbors. Constant indoctrination in schools, on radio and television began. Children were taught to read, “F is for Fidel, and R is for Revolution.”

    The parents began to send their children alone out of Cuba for fear of communist indoctrination and of “La Patria Postestad.” Rumors began to circulate that the government was going to take over legal guardianship of children from Cuban parents. It presupposed that the state would become the children’s guardian and guide their education, provide their living accommodations, and send them abroad to study behind the Iron Curtain. On January 21, 1961, the first group of 1,000 Cuban students departed for the Soviet Union.

    By September 1961, hundreds of families were frantically trying to send their children out of the country. Flights began arriving at Miami International Airport daily with as many as 60 children aboard without their parents. In January 1962, the State Department granted Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh at the Catholic Welfare Bureau the authority to provide a visa waver to any children between ages of 6 and 16 who wished to enter the United States under the guardianship of the Catholic Diocese of Miami; Operation “Peter Pan” had begun. Those 16 to 18 needed their names to be cleared by the United States Government beforehand.

    By May 1962, it was reported that 10,000 unaccompanied children had already arrived in USA, with about 500 arriving each month. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 all flights out of Cuba were terminated and Operation “Peter Pan” ended. Around 14,048 boys and girls from age 6 to 17 had been brought to the U.S. It was a program that operated without reference to race, creed or color. Left behind were over 50,000 young Cubans who had received visas but not gotten out in time.

   THE BEGINNING OF THE ECONOMIC EMBARGO

     On September 7, 1961, the United States Congress proclaimed that it will suspend "U.S. economic assistance to any country that assists Cuba unless the President of the United States determines that the assistance is in the national interest of the United States." On February 3, 1962, President Kennedy declared a total commercial embargo against Cuba with the exception of medical supplies.

   CASTRO PROCLAIMS HE IS A COMMUNIST

    On December 7, 1961, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro removed any doubt as to whether he was a communist, when he declared himself a “Marxist-Leninist until the last day of my life.” Three days after Castro’s announcement, the Soviet press reported the speech, in which Castro also said the communist party in Cuba would be modeled after the communist party of the Soviet Union. Cuba’s selective membership and national political system Castro said would be the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

    Two weeks later, on December 22, Castro explained in the newspaper “Revolución” why he had concealed his true political persuasion: “If we would have said from the Turquino Peak (Sierra Maestra mountains) that we were Marxist-Leninists, probably we would have not been able to go down to the plains.”

    DESPITE THE BAY OF PIGS’ FAILURE, THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION TRIED AGAIN TO OVERTHROW THE CASTRO DICTATORSHIP

    On January 19, 1962, the Special Group of the National Security Council met in the office of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to consider Castro’s ouster. Two days later, the Organization of American States (OAS) met in Punta del Este, Uruguay. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk declared Cuba a threat to the Western Hemisphere and called for its isolation. The OAS declared the Castro government incompatible with the inter-American system, and expels Cuba from the organization. The organization agreed to prohibit its members from selling arms to Cuba, and approved on collective measures against communist Cuba.

    In late April, Exercise “Quick-Kick,” a large-scale U.S. Military maneuver, began off the East Coast of the United States. Seventy-nine ships, 300 aircraft, and over 40,000 troops participated. Cuba denounced the exercise as a provocation and as a proof that the United States intended to invade.

    “Quick-Kick” was followed by another exercise called “Whip Lash” which began on May 8; this exercise was designed to test contingency planning for military operations against Cuba. Another exercise in the Caribbean, “Jupiter Springs,” was planned for the spring or summer. The Cubans, again, denounced those exercises as proof of hostile intentions.

    OPERATION MONGOOSE

    Operation Mongoose was approved by the Kennedy administration on March 1962 in response to Cuban dirty wars, Cuban subversion of other governments, and Cuban assault on the vital interest of the United States.

    The main objective of this operation that began developing in November 1961 by a Special Group of the National Security Council was the overthrow of Castro dictatorship. The operation was under the general supervision of the Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy. However, the operational control was placed in the hands of Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale.

    When the project was officially established on March 16th, President Kennedy told his brother that the final Cuba chapter had not been written—it’s got to be done and will be done. The Attorney General established that no time, money, effort or manpower was to be spared. The project was backed by all U.S. agencies. The CIA and the Department of Defense played the major role. In April and May, BG Lansdale reviewed American covert activities against Cuba and predicted that by October 1962 Castro would be overthrown.

    The “Guidelines for Operation Mongoose” established two very important points: “(a) In undertaking the overthrow of the Castro government, the U.S. will make maximum use of indigenous resources, internal and external, but recognizes that final success will require decisive U.S. military intervention. (b) Such indigenous resources as are developed will be used to prepare for and justify this intervention, and thereafter to facilitate and support it.”

   After a year of failures and disappointments, Operation Mongoose was suspended in January 1963.

    THE OCTOBER MISSILE CRISIS

    In late April 1962, a high-level Soviet delegation, including the commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Marshal S.S. Biryuzov, traveled to Havana to propose to Castro the deployment of nuclear weapons to Cuba. The Cuban dictator enthusiastically approved the project. At the return of Biryuzov to Moscow with the good news of Castro’s approval, the Soviet Presidium ordered the Ministry of Defense to prepare detailed operational plans for the deployment. The plan is given the code name “Operation Anadyr.”

    In July, a Cuban delegation led by Defense Minister Raúl Castro traveled to Moscow to discuss Soviet military shipments to Cuba, including nuclear missiles. A few days later, the first surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and supporting equipment for the construction of nuclear missile sites left the Soviet Union. Immediately, the Cuban dictator announced that Cuba was taking measures that would make any direct U.S. attack on Cuba the equivalent of a world war. He claimed that the USSR was committed to helping Cuba resist further imperialist attacks.

    In September, President Kennedy announced that “if at any time the Communist buildup in Cuba were to endanger or interfere with our security in any way…or if Cuba should ever attempt to export its aggressive purposes by force or the threat of force against any nation of this hemisphere, or become an offensive military base of significant capacity for the Soviet Union, then this country will do whatever must be done to protect its own security and that of its allies.”

    In the same month of September, in a speech to the United Nations, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko warns that an American attack on Cuba would mean war with the Soviet Union. On October 15, a team of analysts at the National Photographic Intelligence Service Center reviewed photos taken during the 14 October U-2 flight, and identified missile sites at San Cristóbal, Cuba. The following morning the President is informed of the missiles in Cuba.

    On October 22, the White House Press Secretary announced that the President would make an important statement at seven o’clock that evening. Reacting to the announcement of the president’s speech and to large-scale military movements in the Caribbean, the Cuban dictator decrees a state of general mobilization and war alert throughout Cuba. At the prescribed time, the President addressed the nation in a televised speech, announcing the presence of nuclear missile sites in Cuba.

    The following day, the OAS Council met to consider a proposed U. S. quarantine proclamation. The final vote was 20-0 in favor of condemning the Soviet missile deployment and endorsing the quarantine.

    President Kennedy’s quarantine proclamation went into effect at 10:00 A.M. on October 24. Soviet ships en route to Cuba with questionable cargo either slow down or reverse their course. Khrushchev threatened to sink quarantine vessels if Soviet ships were stopped and said that the United States will have to learn to live with Soviet missiles in Cuba, just as the USSR has learned to live with American missiles in Turkey.

    On October 25, after receiving various reports suggesting an imminent U.S. invasion of Cuba and reacting to a U.S. nuclear alert, Khrushchev sent a letter to President Kennedy containing the basis for a resolution to the crisis.

    On October 27, Castro sent a letter to Khrushchev requesting that the Soviet leader immediately launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States.
.. The same day, Castro ordered a SAM battery to open fire and shoot down an American U-2 plane over Banes in Eastern Cuba, killing its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr.

    On October 28, Radio Moscow reported the text of Khrushchev’s letter to President Kennedy. He informed the United States that: “The Soviet Government, in addition to earlier instructions on the discontinuance of further work on construction sites, has given a new order to dismantle the weapons, which you describe as offensive, and to crate them and return them to the Soviet Union.”

    EXCERPTS FROM PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S SPEECH TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DURING THE OCTOBER 1962 MISSILE CRISIS

…Finally, I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba, to whom this speech is being directly carried by special radio facilities. I speak to you as a friend, as one who knows of your deep attachment to your fatherland, as one who shares your aspirations for liberty and justice for all. And I have watched and the American people have watched with deep sorrow how your nationalist revolution was betrayed--and how your fatherland fell under foreign domination. Now your leaders are no longer Cuban leaders inspired by Cuban ideals. They are puppets and agents of an international conspiracy which has turned Cuba against your friends and neighbors in the Americas…We know that your lives and land are being used as pawns by those who deny your freedom. Many times in the past, the Cuban people have risen to throw out tyrants who destroyed their liberty. And I have no doubt that most Cubans today look forward to the time when they will be truly free--free from foreign domination, free to choose their own leaders, free to select their own system, free to own their own land, free to speak and write and worship without fear or degradation. And then shall Cuba be welcomed back to the society of free nations and to the associations of this hemisphere…Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead--months in which both our patience and our will will be tested--months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But "the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing."

THE PRISONERS OF WAR WERE WELCOMED BY PRESIDENT KENNEDY AT THE ORANGE BOWL IN MIAMI

(Above: President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Manuel Artime Bueza and the Second-in-Command of the Brigade, Erneido A. Oliva)

On December 29, 1962, at the Orange Bowl of Miami, Erneido A. Oliva, then the Second-in-Command of the Assault Brigade “2506”, presented the Brigade flag to President John F. Kennedy.

      The President unfurled the flag, stepped to the microphone and said: "Commander, I want to express my great appreciation to the Brigade for making the United States the custodian of this flag." He paused, and then his voice rising emotionally declared:

    "I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT THIS FLAG WILL BE RETURNED TO THIS BRIGADE IN A FREE HAVANA."

    PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S FINAL ATTEMPT TO OVERTHROW THE CUBAN DICTATOR

    On June 19, 1963, President Kennedy approved a new covert-action program designed “to nourish a spirit of resistance and disaffection which could lead to significant defections and other by products of unrest in Cuba. An interdepartmental planning group was set up under the overall command and control of Robert Kennedy. In this new phase, the President designated the Secretary of the Army, Cyrus Vance, as the executive agent for the entire federal government in dealing with Cuba and the threat that Castro’s regime posed to the Western Hemisphere. This included responsibility for coordinating a secret war against Cuba that encompassed sabotage, commando raids, and propaganda and other clandestine operations.

    The CIA brought to the Pentagon proposals for operations inside Cuba and for secret landings on the coast. Fast boats, small weapons, and the necessary explosives were provided; U.S. military personnel trained operatives in the necessary skills. The targets were always economic. All projects were approved directly by the Attorney General.

    The planning for the new covert-action against Castro really began much earlier after the return of the Bay of Pigs prisoners and the promise made by the President to return to them the Brigade flag in a Free Havana. . Early in March, General Erneido Oliva (then a U.S. army second lieutenant) and Manuel Artime Bueza, the civilian leader of the brigade, attended a meeting at Robert Kennedy's home in Hickory Hill. During the meeting, the two Cuban leaders were told by the Attorney General, that a new plan would be developed to destabilize the Cuban government. He did not get into details of the operation. However, Bobby Kennedy said that Oliva and the brigadistas who were at that time at Fort Benning and Fort Jackson, would be responsible for the overt military phase of the project…And Artime will go to a place in Central America (Nicaragua) to establish military bases to conduct covert operations against Cuba.

    In October, the month before President Kennedy’s assassination, General Oliva was asked by Robert Kennedy to prepare an operational plan to ensure the participation of all Cuban-Americans enrolled in the U.S. Armed Forces in the new plan approved by the President. At Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Oliva and the former Brigade Chief of Staff, Colonel Ramón Ferrer Mena (then a second lieutenant like Oliva) were working intensely in the development of the plan when the President was killed in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

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