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…
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 under it. 179 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.