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…
Alejos's position from the Cubans -- his role would
be as a private Guatemalan citizen, cooperating with
the FRD element for idealogical reasons. 9/ In ad-
dition to the Agency's interest in protecting the
cover stories, Ydigoras himself was very much con-
cerned that the training program not be revealed to
the public. In one instance when he heard that a
Guatemalan Congressman was trying to promote support
for a group of pro-Batista Cuban recruits to over-
throw Castro, he made it quite clear that such a
program would find no support at the presidential
level. Ydigoras even went so far as to suggest that
perhaps he should expel a few pro-Batista and a few
pro-Castro Cubans from Guatemala for propaganda
purposes in order to protect the Agency's on-going
operations. 10/*
By mid-July 1960, construction work had begun
on the communications training base and the search
was underway for a suitable airstrip. By early August,
despite some reservations of the DPD element in charge
* Source reference numbers 11 and 12 not used.
- 10-
TO~CRET

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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.