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…
apparently -- that last minute changes in flight sched-
ules were unacceptable to Alejos and that if he could
not be given 24 hour notice of planned flights, then
schedules should be revised in order to accommodate
Alejos's demand. 24/ Some preliminary discussions
between the Agency's representatives in Guatemala and
the Thompson Cornwall Company (the construction company
responsible for the improvements of the Retalhuleu
airfield) over the question of providing cover for
the Agency's PBY came to naught when Alejos pointed
out the numerous difficulties which would attend the
attempts to cover the aircraft commercially. Alejos
noted that it would be much simpler to bring the PBY
in black, or chartered in his name, rather than to
attempt to use it under commercial cover. 25/
The problem of airc~aft maintenance posed a
more serious question in terms of both cover and dip-
lomatic relations with Guatemala. In the early summer
of 1960 negotiations had been undertaken with a Costa
Rican aircraft maintenance-organization known as SALA.
The Development Projects Division, (DPD) which was
in charge of air operations for JMATE had initiated
the contacts with SALA through I
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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.