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…
TOP
Deputy Secretary of Defense by Brigadier
General Lansdale with a proposal that it
be raised at the next Group meeting. 61/
The end result was that neither Army Special Forces
nor USAF assignees were officially permitted to move
from Guatemalan bases to TIDE. The number of USAF
ground crew personnel who were at TIDE "unofficially"
cannot be determined.
G. Down to the Wire with Somoza
Whether or not, adequate formal assurance of sup-
port in the OAS or UN was actually reached between
President Somoza and high level officials of the United
States Government is uncertain -- what is certain, how-
ever, is that Somoza gave his full cooperation to the
Agency effort to mount the operation out of Puerto
Cabezas. As of 10 April, in a meeting with the Agency
representative, it was made clear that the Somozas
were going to do everything in their power to insure
the security of the operation. Measures to be taken
included the monitoring and censorship of radio, out-
going cables, international telephones, television,
and the press, and control of the airlines -- on 15 April
1961, for example, commercial air traffic to Puerto

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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.