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. 21 Alejos's position from the Cubans -- his role would be as a private Guatemalan citizen, cooperating…
  • p. 23 …Cover, Security and Latin Pride A high degree of cooperation between the President of Guatemala and…
  • p. 39 …Agency training programs were developed with the full and complete cooperation of the President of Guatemala…
  • p. 48 …This witness recalled Headquarter's instructions to cooperate with Alejos and also the authorization for Seigrist…
  • p. 84 …was marked by a spirit of close cooperation between the Government of Guatemala and the Agency…
  • p. 85 …it was reported that there was close cooperation be- tween~and Roberto Alejos with regard to…
  • p. 91 …Once again Ydigoras lectured the Cuban political leaders about the need for unity and cooperation with…
  • p. 115 …office with the rest of State, the cooperation of which we need. It is incumbent upon…
  • p. 116 …American country, receiving his full support and cooperation. Somoza volunteered to foot the cost of the…
  • p. 149 …ever, is that Somoza gave his full cooperation to the Agency effort to mount the operation…
  • p. 153 …Somoza himself was characterized as continuing to be quite cooperative with the Agency representatives but fearful…
TOP sj:RET
The President and the Foreign Minister
both indicated their desire that said
paper corne to the attention of Mr. Adolph
[sic] Berle, a man whose past career
they seemed to know very well. C/JMATE
assured them that this would be done. 79/
Available records do not indicate that the Agency was
further involved in the promotion of this particular
activity on the part of the GOG, however, it was quite.
clear that Ydigoras continued to be very sensitive
about Belize.
In March of 1961, one of the JMADD C-54's was
forced to land in Jamaica after an airdrop over Cuba
-- said aircraft having filed a flight plan out of
San Jose, Guatemala. Unfortunately, the GOG had not
given prior authorization for this flight plan. When
word from Jamaica apparently got out that the flight
originated at San Jose, Roberto Alejos was constrained
to make an immediate press release denying that the
aircraft had ever corne out of Guatemala, and he sug-
gested that the British were tyring to embarrass the
Guatemalan Government, in part, at least, so that
there would be no pressure for negotiations on the
Belize issue. In any event, Headquarters sent an OPIM
cable to Guatemala recommending that Alejos and Ydigoras
-83/
TOP ~RET

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About this file

FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 179 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.