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. 21 Alejos's position from the Cubans -- his role would be as a private Guatemalan citizen, cooperating…
  • p. 23 …Cover, Security and Latin Pride A high degree of cooperation between the President of Guatemala and…
  • p. 39 …Agency training programs were developed with the full and complete cooperation of the President of Guatemala…
  • p. 48 …This witness recalled Headquarter's instructions to cooperate with Alejos and also the authorization for Seigrist…
  • p. 84 …was marked by a spirit of close cooperation between the Government of Guatemala and the Agency…
  • p. 85 …it was reported that there was close cooperation be- tween~and Roberto Alejos with regard to…
  • p. 91 …Once again Ydigoras lectured the Cuban political leaders about the need for unity and cooperation with…
  • p. 115 …office with the rest of State, the cooperation of which we need. It is incumbent upon…
  • p. 116 …American country, receiving his full support and cooperation. Somoza volunteered to foot the cost of the…
  • p. 149 …ever, is that Somoza gave his full cooperation to the Agency effort to mount the operation…
  • p. 153 …Somoza himself was characterized as continuing to be quite cooperative with the Agency representatives but fearful…
Al though he was IL ~
-----lin July of 1960, Lou Napoli was sent TOY to
Managua to participate in a meeting between Agency
representatives and the President of Nicaragua in
September 1960. Accompanied by 1 _
Walter S. Holloway, the CIA representatives met with
President Somoza on 17 and 19 September 1960. ~ The
purpose of Napoli's TOY was to inform Somoza that the
Frente Revolucionario Oemocratico (FRD) was the organ-
ization of anti-Castro Cuban exiles which deserved
the support of Somoza's government. This information
for Somoza was in response to a question he had raised
with Napoli in the previously mentioned June meeting. l!
Somoza agreed that he would receive an FRD repre-
sentative to discuss the situation and in addition indi-
cated that he would make available a landing strip at
Puerto Cabezas, a training site for about 100 men, and
a shortwave radio station.* The Nicaraguan leader was
not at all reluctant to raise pointed questions with
* Th~ radio station, incidentally, that had been used
during the course of operation PBSUCCESS which resulted
in the ouster of the leftist Arbenz government in Guat-
emala in 1958.

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About this file

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