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…
The fact of long continuing support from the
government of Guatemala showed in an incident of early
December which also reflected some internal dissension
between 1 1 and the Chief of Base at
JMTRAV. Colonel Egan had apparently arranged for an
air reception and field training exercise for a group
of Cuban trainees at the "finca San Jose" (probably
the finca San Juan in the San Jose area) which was
another of the properties Robert Alejos made available
to the Agency~ but somewhere in the process Egan had
failed to clear the exercise with ei ther Dor the
local authori.ties -- military and civil -- in the area
of the finca. The result being that:
Airdrops attracted attention local secur-
ity forces who appear considerably more
alert and effective than in TRAV area.
Night 7 December delegations from national
police, military, and ~my.MP visited finca.
Fortunately "Alejos was visiting and ex-
plained that no invasion in progress, only
secret army maneuvers.
In his cable to headquarters reporting the incident,
Chief of Base TRAV also had indicated that a planned
. This particular cable is another of the relatively
few concerning the JMATE operation which were released
by Richard Helms as Chief of Operations, DDP.
- 55 -
TOP ;;CRET

Not linked to a story yet.

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.