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. 89 …strictly enforce the Pan American instruments governing terri- torial asylum. Whenever these have been overlooked or…
that the material had been reviewed by the Secretary
of State. In the transmittal to Dungan, the Depart-
ment said:
As you will note, President Ydigoras'
letter takes up extremely sensitive
matters regarding Cuba. We believe that
the President's comments on March 7 to
Mr. Alejos obviate the need for any writ-
ten reply to President Ydigoras. More-
over, it is believed that it would not
be desirable in any case to reply in
writing to the letter. 81/*
* Of interest with reference to the letter from Ydigoras
to President Kennedy are the following: In briefing
the Special Group on 2 March 1961, the DCI noted:
That [Roberto] Alejos is in Washington with
a letter from President Ydigoras addressed
to President Kennedy, and that he is attempt-
ing through his brother, the Guatemalan Am-
bassador [Carlos Alejos], to obtain an appoint-
ment with Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Dulles said that
he understood the letter took a strong posi-
tion on the necessity of early action, vis-
a-vis Cuba, but -- in answer to a question --
assured the group that we "[CIA] had neither
written nor inspired the letter. 82/
Then, whether incidental or intentional, at that
same meeting, "Mr. Dulles also said that he thought we
should discuss soon with the Special Group actions to
be taken with respect to employment of the forces now
in training in Guatemala." In other words, the identi-
cal subject that Ydigoras was raising with Presiden~
Kennedy.
In 1964, when he appeared in an NBC television
White Paper on the Bay of Pigs, Roberto Alejos put a
somewhat different emphasis on the meeting that was
(footnote continued on following page)

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 above. 179 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.