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…
Barnes, the A/DDP/A, mentioned among other things
"Although we failed to complete these arrangements
with Ydigoras [e.g., the signing of the Status of
Forces Agreement] we have since been successful in
making identical arrangements with the Guatemalan
Ambassador to Washington who acted as the Government
of Guatemala representative in place of Ydigoras." 71/"
Esterline continued as the principal in the negotiations
that led to the signing of the agreement (21 December
1960) with the Guatemalan Ambassador.
This, however, was not the end of the story.
In a meeting on 22 December with representatives of
the Department of Defense, John M. Irwin, Assistant
Secretary for Defense and a newcomer to the negotia-
tions, raised a question about the utility of the
secret agreement that had been signed; and he indi-
cated that the agreement showing that the CIA was
\
providing US military forces to another government
to train personnel of that government would not serve
the primary purpose of providing a secure cover for
the SF trainers. As a result of Irwin's objections
it was decided that an attempt would be made to get

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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.