Documents / FOIA release

Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation- Volume 2- Part 1

Central Intelligence Agency · 179 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is Volume II, Part 1 of the CIA History Staff's Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, a Top Secret history dated October 1979 and approved for release in July 2011. It looks at how the Agency took part in shaping US foreign policy toward Guatemala and Nicaragua during the anti-Castro program. It covers dealings with President Ydigoras Fuentes and Roberto Alejos, training sites such as Retalhuleu, cover stories, and negotiations with the Somoza brothers for an air base and port. It contains no UFO material.

  • p. 16 …According to Esterline's report of the meeting "it was never said in so many words…
  • p. 31 …DPD planned to have the SALA representa- tive, who had never been cleared by the Agency…
  • p. 34 …The communications officer whom Alejos had declared to be "under arrest" was never technically arrested and…
  • p. 53 …We never were informed of KIA or wounded counts. We did hear that a couple of…
  • p. 55 …round Guatemala for years and we have never seen Guatemalan pilots fly or shoot with the…
  • p. 64 …emphatically * Delivery of the ~ight B-26's was never made to the Government of Guatemala.
  • p. 75 …Ydigoras said, "that piece of paper will never be exposed," and it hasn't to my…
  • p. 76 …young man I said, "Well, we're never going to get this thing going unless somebody…
  • p. 106 …Venezuela, have made many friendly noises but never once have made a firm offer of real…
  • p. 138 …the project "until Castro's defeat" was never officially made to either President Somoza or President…
  • p. 147 …they were on the ships they would never return to Nicaragua. With reference to the air…
  • p. 153 …68/* * The Agency's relations with Nicaragua also became \ somewhat strained because Miro Cardona was never…
beginning on 20 May, I I was not to approve
any departures of Special Forces personnel until further
authorization from Headquarters. 90/
How close the ties between the Government of
Guatemala and the Agency's representatives were was
revealed late in April 1961 at a meeting that was
called at the request of Carlos Alejos, the Ambassador
to the United States from Guatemala. He requested that
Jake Esterline meet with him at the embassy residence
to discuss some sensitive information that he had
recently received from his brother, Roberto. The
sensitive information concerned an offer that General
Truj i"llo of the Dominican Republic had reportedly made
to both President Ydigoras and to President Somoza of
Nicaragua to make available to them, in the Dominican
Republic, airfields, training sites, and other facili-
ties needed to continue to wage war against Castro.
According to the report that Esterline prepared on the
meeting "the only quid pro quo involved would be that
the United States give sanction to this arrangement
in thB first instance and, in the second instance,
agree to let Trujillo live out the rest of his days

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About this file

FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 179 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.