At 5:00 PM on April 19, 1961, the Cuban government sent out its third and final military statement announcing, that all invading forces holed-up in their last outpost in Cayo Largo, had surrendered to the Cuban Armed Forces and the Militia.
This apparently simple military communiqué would become a world wide symbol of the United States vulnerability, in which it had invested endless military, political, intelligence and financial resources, only to see it evaporate before their eyes, less than 72 hours after it began.
For approximately 18 months, hundreds of Cuban exiles had been trained by the US Army, CIA and the State Department at Useppa Island, Homestead AFB, Opa Locka and Miami International Airport in Florida, Ft. Gluck and Ft. Clayton in Panama, by the Alabama National Guard, at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. Ft Benning, GA, at Belle Chase, New Orleans, Vieques, Puerto Rico, Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, Quetzaltenango base in Guatemala and others.
The CIA had created hundreds of counterrevolutionary groups in Cuba, charged with spreading diversionary rumors, bombing public buildings, terrorizing teachers, uprisings across the country and sabotaging industrial and farming facilities. Many CIA funded radio stations pumped scare-tactics news and false military actions throughout the country, in a failed effort to break the will of the Cuban people.
Underreported by the media, is the important role played by Guantanamo Naval Base, which in fact, acted as a safe heaven and beachhead in Cuba from where, millions of useless pesos in the hands of Batista supporters, rich Cubans and early dissenters were laundered in broad daylight, meetings with CIA operatives and Cuban counterrevolutionaries employed or hiding on the base took place unhindered, and counterrevolutionary agents were regularly flown in and out of that military enclave.
The most important, dangerous and unforeseeable consequence that Guantanamo Naval Base was engaged in during its infamous history, was by receiving, harboring and allowing a group of Cuban counterrevolutionary men, armed with Russian weapons and dressed in Cuban military fatigue, were allowed to enter Cuba through its gates, charged with executing an auto-attack on this facility, -Remember the Maine, Gulf of Tonkin-, which would be followed by the US self defense reaction to this enclave, by bombing Cuba back into the stone ages. Operation Northwoods provide an in depth description of this and other sinister plans of the US government.
Yet, most Cubanologists, mainstream media and historians, have devoted hundreds of articles attempting to determine, if the failure of this reprehensive and treacherous invasion was lost because of a lack of air support, fire power or wrong landing site, without ever questioning the morality of this action or condemning its perpetrators.
Much in tune with the overall, rotten principle of this enterprise was, the sleazy bombing raid on Cubas three air fields two days before the invasion, by using B-26s disguised with fake Cuban Air Force markings in hopes of neutralizing their Air Force and by presenting to the media in Miami, a B-26 littered with fake anti-aircraft bullets and its crew, as defecting Cuban Air Force personnel, which was later shamefully presented by Adlai Stevenson to the UN Security Council.
How can anyone plan an execute such a treacherous act, when precisely twenty years before, the Japanese Air Force attacked and destroyed the US fleet in Pearl Harbor, leading president Harry Truman to declare December 7th, as A Day of Infamy, declaring war on Japan and entering into WW II?
And today, 49 years after this heinous act, the perpetrators and intellectual authors have not come to grips with their disgraceful behavior, accepted their responsibility, apologized to the Cuban people, the wounded and dead, but rather, they are actively hosting a series of events in south Florida in honor the victimizers and strengthening the punishing 50 year old embargo on innocent Cubans, because the Cubans dared to defend their homeland.
Much in tune with the overall, rotten principle of this enterprise was, the sleazy bombing raid on Cubas three air fields two days before the invasion, by using B-26s disguised with fake Cuban Air Force markings in hopes of neutralizing their Air Force and by presenting to the media in Miami, a B-26 littered with fake anti-aircraft bullets and its crew, as defecting Cuban Air Force personnel, which was later shamefully presented by Adlai Stevenson to the UN Security Council.
How can anyone plan an execute such a treacherous act, when precisely twenty years before, the Japanese Air Force attacked and destroyed the US fleet in Pearl Harbor, leading president Harry Truman to declare December 7th, as A Day of Infamy, declaring war on Japan and entering into WW II?
And today, 49 years after this heinous act, the perpetrators and intellectual authors have not come to grips with their disgraceful behavior, accepted their responsibility, apologized to the Cuban people, the wounded and dead, but rather, they are actively hosting a series of events in south Florida in honor the victimizers and strengthening the punishing 50 year old embargo on innocent Cubans, because the Cubans dared to defend their homeland.
As a survivor and on behalf of tens of thousands of friends, family and neighbors living in Guantanamo, a mere 12 miles away from the US Naval Base or Ground Zero, we have no doubts, our city would have been pulverized and we would have occasionally been remembered, as the victims of Coventry, Dresden, Lidice, Mi Lay or Nagasaki.
To those whose defensive actions saved the lives of tens of thousands of fellow citizens in Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Havana and everything in between, we can humbly say, Thank You Very Much, for all what you have done.
More Information
> The Bay Of Pigs Invasion: A Chronology Of Events
> The Bay of Pigs / Playa Girón
> The Bay Of Pigs Invasion: A Chronology Of Events
> The Bay of Pigs / Playa Girón
