Kennedy's Colossal Disaster in Cuba

Hello, it’s April 17. This date in American history is a reminder of the great responsibility that comes with the presidency, and, paradoxically, on the limitations of a commander-in-chief’s ability to mold events to his will.

I’m referring to April 17, 1961. On that night, John F. Kennedy nervously awaited word out of Cuba on the fate of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

When President Kennedy took office in January of 1961, he inherited a covert operation that Dwight Eisenhower had authorized the CIA to plan, but not launch. In hindsight, it was a far-fetched scheme: dispatching some 1,200 U.S.-trained Cuban exiles to land on Cuba’s southern Bahia de Cochinos to launch a coup against Fidel Castro’s government.

Even with U.S. air cover, which JFK did not authorize, the invasion was likely doomed because it was based on a faulty premise: that Cuba’s military would side with the U.S.-backed invaders. Instead, the government captured the raiding party of exiles, executed some and imprisoned the rest, many of whom were ransomed back to their families in Florida.

The finger-pointing began immediately, but over the years a consensus has emerged that the plan JFK inherited was a mess; that the CIA “intelligence” on Cuba was an oxymoron; and that if Kennedy was going to approve the plan he probably should have gone into the Bay of Pigs, well, whole hog.

At a press conference four days later, the young president pithily acknowledged an essential truth about his new job. “There’s an old saying that victory has 100 fathers,” Kennedy said, “and defeat is an orphan.”