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~ET
to be approved or authorized; but it was quite clear
that the Agency wished to defer to State on the matter
of the formal loan applications and to put the political
burden on the Department's back. 54/ At the same time
that the Agency was holding Somoza's hand, Headquarters
was being extremely concerned that none of our assurances
to Nicaragua got put into writing. 55/
On a very local level, Somoza pointed out to
Ambassador Whelan that because the government of Nica-
ragua had diverted funds which had been appropriated
by the Nicaraguan Congress to keep the railroad and road
systems operating in order to support TIDE activities,
he was going to be in a very embarrassing position
should TIDE collapse, and should the US fail to provide
the $(US)2 million loan. 56/ In Washington, Ambassador
Sevilla-Sacasa pressed Napoli for assistance in getting
high level assurance that Nicaragua would not suffer
in either the UN or OAS because of her anti-Castro
position. Sevilla-Sacasa suggested that Berle, Rusk,
or President Kennedy would be a suitable US spokesman
to indicate that Nicaragua's position would be supported
should any international or regional sanctions be

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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.