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. 153 …thence to the US via Key West, Norfolk, and Baltimore. From the last port, the prisoners…
The picket would not only assuage Somoza's fears, but
would be insurance against any unorthodox surprise
attack on TIDE.* The emergency cable from TIDE to
Headquarters recommended that the radar picket be
established by 0800 local time 15 April 1961, or as
soon as possible thereafter; and it also suggested
that instructions be provided for communications to
link the Navy picket with both TIDE and Managua. 64/
One of the few points of contention between the
Agency representatives and the highest officials of
the Nicaraguan government occurred at the time that
the operation was being mounted at Puerto Cabezas.
One of the Garcia Lines ships -- the Lake CharZes
which was to be one of the backup ships of the invasion
fleet -- arrived in Puerto Cabezas where 10 of her
Cuban crew membe~s were detained as potential prO-
Castro security risks. These crew members were re-
moved from the Lake CharZes and turned over to Captain
* The idea suggested by General Somoza -- that bombs
might be rolled out the doors of Cubana airlines C-47's
or other transport aircraft -- undoubtedly struck a
familiar note with the air ops people at TIDE. After
all, they had tried to develop a make-shift napalm
bomb to be rolled out -- or dropped out on a pallet --
of a C-46 or C-54. (See Volume I, Air Operations.)

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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.