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…
of US policy for Guatemala. There 1S little question
that in his choice of working with the Agency rather
than with the US Ambassador in Guatemala, John J.
Muccio, Ydigoras was no fool. As [ [, who D
Fn 1 December 1960 indicated,
-----------;=~--
relations between '--I -----ll and the Ambassador were
strained to the point where the I I·ioperated al-
most as a separate entity until the departure of the
Ambassador in the Fall of 1961." 92/*
If the oral history interview which Muccio made
for the John F. Kennedy Library in the Spring of 1971
is indicative of his character, it is understandable
why relations between Muccio and Agency personnel were
strained. In that interview, the pertinent portions
of which are reproduced in Appendix 3, Muccio tried to
indicate on the one hand tha~ he.was uninformed about
CIA activities in Guatemala, yet on the other hand he
* As indicated earlier in this chapter,
J I overlapped as
L rand, 1n fact, each i--L-----------------,-J
in his own particular bal~'lw~l~C~~=-r---r-~W~l~~~~e~
Bay of Pigs Operation, and ~with the operation
I f MUCC10 s successor, John Bell,
was named 10 November 1961. 93/
TOP S

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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.