Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation- Volume 2- Part 1

one of the principal centers of the revolt. In re-
sponse to this request, which also was supported by
the US ambassador in Guatemala City, the Navy author-
ized two P2V aircraft to survey the area as far south
as Panama and, in addition, assigned a destroyer to
patrol the Gulf of Honduras area.* 39b/ The charge
that the revolt was Castro backed would be repeated
throughout the period of the revolution, but no evi-
dence was ever found to indicate that it was anything
other than an internal uprising of dissident Guatemalans,
principally elements of the Army. In fact, before
the revolutionary episode came to a conclusion, the
Political and Psychological warfare unit of WH/4 was
to suggest that if legitimate evidence was not found
to implicate Castro, that such evidence be manufactured
to show that the basis for the revolution w~s in fact
from Fidel Castro and his coterie.
During the course of the first day's action,
the Cuban forces in training at JMTRAV were alerted
to prepare for any contingency. The Guatemalan troops
which-had been used as part of the cover and security
* Unsourced comments in the following paragraphs are
based on cables reproduced in Appendix 1, Guatemalan
Revolt, 13 November 1960: Miscellaneous Cables.
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TofRET