"Bay of Pigs: Good idea or really stupid?" Topic

Does anyone really believe that this CIA brainstorm would have succeeded, even if JFK hadn't pulled the "air support"?
Ah, yes. The People love their past dictator so much, they are willing to rise up once again.

It was dumped in Kennedy's lap by the previous administration. The one that so famously decried the military industrial complex.
But, I like Ike. I blame instead the sinister Dulles bros.
Kennedy should have scrapped the whole thing. Instead he pussied out with the air support.
This, along with his being unprepared to meet Kruschev in Vienna, is what lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Which in turn lead to the Politburo putting a K out to pasture for "adventurism".

Fun times! I remember it well! I was 11 or 12 at the time!

From what I have seen, it was wishful thinking to assume an invasion would get popular support. We already had enough experience showing communist regimes used terror to keep people in line.

Wishful thinking combined with a lack of critical analysis.

If I were teaching modern history, one of my exam questions would be, "compare and contrast the Jameson Raid and the Bay of Pigs Invasion". Actually, I might assign that as a term paper.

Now that I think of it, two of my oldest friends retired from military and got jobs as college professors. I'm sure they'll be up for another way to torment their students.

"It was dumped in Kennedy's lap by the previous administration."

If one wants to be cynical, JFK knew it wouldn't work, but went through with the invasion to get the participants off US soil, before they could become a future domestic political "problem"…

Bad operation plans.

Was it leaked on a chat group…..?
Just kidding.

79th +1

Not dissimilar to the "democracy is magic" thinking of the Neocons post Iraq 2. Most people need to feed their families, protect the kids and put one foot in front of the other daily. Hating the government and rising up are two different things and magically replacing a heavily armed repressive regime with some poorly organized yahoos who were linked to the prior repressive corrupt regime was never a realistic possibility. When the incompetence of the current Cuban regime finally rises to the level of intolerable, then you may get a change.

Misconceived. As I understand the Castro revolution, it had the popular support of the "working class." An invasion that would result in returning the elites' control over Cuba was likely not going to succeed at that time in history. It would probably have a much better chance today, given the current state of the island.

I think Castro and the revolution were still pretty popular amongst most Cubans at that point as anything was better than Batista. Castro was even a bit of a rock star when he visted the UN in New York. The idea that we would drop bombs on them and likely put another puppet in power, and be loved for it, is fantasy.

I have the impression that Kennedy didn't have full control of the CIA and might not have had the political resources to totally call it off. He should have gone all one way or the other and calling it off seems to make the most sense to me. The embargo was a sufficent response once Castro came out as a full blown blown Communist and committed enemy of the US.

Crap!

Thought this was a thread about the cast of "The View" on vacation.

My mistake.

No, it was the cast of Jersey Shore.
Sorry about that.

So this isn't about a Bay of Pigs scenario?

"I think Castro and the revolution were still pretty popular amongst most Cubans at that point as anything was better than Batista. Castro was even a bit of a rock star when he visted the UN in New York. The idea that we would drop bombs on them and likely put another puppet in power, and be loved for it, is fantasy."

I don't think the Castro revolution was ever popular. Che admitted that it was dead in the water until the New York Times wrote an article saying it was super popular and doing great.

It's not surprising that Castro was a rock star at the UN. So was Arafat, Pol Pot, Kruschev, and any other two bit dictator. As long as they say they're against the colonial powers and for the people they're popular, no matter the reality of their government's actions.

If anyone doubts that Castro was popular popular among Cubans in the early days of the Revolution, please see page 4 of the CIA report from 1969 linked below.

PDF link