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…
TOP sjcRET
Robertson, on the scene in Nicaragua, made solid prog-
ress in establishing a base at JMTIDE. Between 3 and
17 January 1961, for example, he reported on three
meetings with General Anastasio Somoza; and in the
course of these, made arrangements for the movement
of guards into the TIDE area in anticipation of the
arrival of the first supply ship toward the end of
January 1961. He also worked out arrangements for
housing and paying the guardia nacional contingent
which would be responsible for base security; and he
set up the bookkeeping for the expenditures for the
guardia. Although he gave no specifics, Robertson
indicated that he had set up a system for alerting
JMTIDE when "doubtful persons or newspapermen board
the local airlines," and apparently this system was
considerably more successful than the program estab-
lished for the JMADD and JMTRAV activities. 46/*
With reference to the security problem, Robertson
reported that the arrival of the team reponsible for
* In this context Rip did note that he was being
"pestered" by Cora Waterhouse, a newspaper woman
from the United States who was trying to find out
what was going on.

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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.