Group sues CIA to declassify Bay of Pigs history

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Group sues CIA to declassify Bay of Pigs history
(AP) – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A research group is demanding that the CIA declassify its five-volume, official history of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

The National Security Archive filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., just in time for the 50th anniversary of the failed attack.

CIA Historian Jack Pfeiffer took nine years to compile the report. One volume of the report that was declassified sheds light on the role of then-Vice President Richard Nixon in the Bay of Pigs. The Archive filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the rest of the history in 2005 and says the CIA has wrongfully withheld it.

The head of the Archive's Cuba project, Peter Kornbluh, says 50 years is long enough for the rest of the history to be made public.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jJhglCYBIK7yt3FXVpMNwQiJAFSg?docId=fb9dd29eb93f410b8b24e673e7de6935

[Judi Lynn]

1. Cuban veterans recall how workers, children joined fight to repel Bay of Pigs invasion

Cuban veterans recall how workers, children joined fight to repel Bay of Pigs invasion
ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press
5:26 p.m. EDT, April 14, 2011

HAVANA (AP) — Rafael Soldevilla Quesada was on guard duty at Fidel Castro's house when a defense ministry official rushed in with the news: A 1,200-strong invasion force of U.S.-backed exiles had landed at Playa Giron, as the Bay of Pigs is known in Cuba.

The attack was not much of a surprise, Soldevilla recalled 50 years later. Castro himself had warned that a recent bombing raid by planes painted to look like they were part of the Cuban air force was a prelude to invasion. They both rushed, along with others, to defend Giron.

"Fidel said 'What fools they are!'" Soldevilla said. "We knew they were coming."

Faced with a bold challenge to its very existence, Castro's young government sent a hastily mustered defense force that included many who weren't even soldiers. In interviews with The Associated Press, Cubans who fought in the brief battle say that fact was both the key to victory, and the reason Giron still inspires deep pride among many on the island.

More:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-cb-cuba-bay-of-pigs-anniversary,0,3363440.story

[Judi Lynn]

2. US-Cuban relations still colored by Bay of Pigs invasion 50 years on

15.04.2011
US-Cuban relations still colored by Bay of Pigs invasion 50 years on

After a three-day conflict which would become known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, the proxy army of the US was routed by Cuban forces, Castro's leadership and hold over Cuba was strengthened and a lasting enmity between the US and Cuba was assured.

"The failed invasion effectively secured Fidel Castro's rule on the island," Dr. Bert Hoffmann, a Latin America expert at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg, told Deutsche Welle. "Fidel was widely celebrated as the hero who defeated 'US imperialism' and the Bay of Pigs remains a key highlight in the Revolution's heroic 'success story' and legitimizing narrative."

From the US point of view, the Bay of Pigs invasion was a huge embarrassment. Despite the best efforts of President John F. Kennedy and the CIA to avoid any evidence linking the United States to Brigade 2506, no-one - especially Castro - believed that the US was innocent. With hindsight, it became clear that the efforts of the White House to maintain plausible deniability throughout the operation eventually undermined the invasion and led to its failure.

The planning for the removal of Castro and his revolutionary regime in Cuba began a year before Kennedy took office when then President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved a document advocating "the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the US in such a manner to avoid any appearance of US intervention."

More:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14991860,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-world-4025-rdf

[No Elephants]

3. "CIA Historian Jack Pfeiffer took nine years to compile the report." NINE YEARS? Really?

"One volume of the report that was declassified sheds light on the role of then-Vice President Richard Nixon in the Bay of Pigs."

Hmmm.

http://mtracy9.tripod.com/kennedy.html (Don't skip the footnotes.)

Background: http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/baypigs/pigs3.htm

[dipsydoodle]

4. The point being

that the plan was already in the pipeline before Kennedy.

[No Elephants]

5. There may be a hell of a lot more to it than that, at least in the aftermath.

http://mtracy9.tripod.com/kennedy.html

[trof]

6. I flew with a couple of the American Bay of Pigs pilots.

Billy Goodwin and Joe Shannon.
We were in the same Alabama Air National Guard squadron in the '60s.

Col. Joe Shannon was a particularly distinguished Air Force pilot.
Here's his fascinating bio:


(Reprinted with permission)
In the midst of the cheering thousands who turned out to welcome Charles Lindbergh to Birmingham in 1927 was a 6-year-old boy who resolved then and there to pursue a career among the clouds.

Joe Shannon grew up in Fairfield in a family that had followed the military. Unable to wait until the calendar said he was old enough to enlist, Shannon signed up for the Army National Guard squadron headquartered in Birmingham while still a student at Fairfield High School.

The boyhood days of Shannon and his friends, like those of an entire generation of American boys, came to an abrupt end when Birmingham's Guard unit was activated in 1940. After completing his Army Air Corps training, Shannon's pilot wings were pinned on his uniform, and he shipped out for England to train in British Spitfires.

At just 19 years old, Staff Sgt. Joe Shannon was learning how to stay alive in aerial dogfights against Germany's Luftwaffe pilots in the skies over North Africa.

When Rommel's Afrika Korps was defeated, Shannon's squadron remained in hot pursuit, flying combat missions in Italy during the Salerno landings. He flew missions in the P-40 fighter plane, the P-51 Mustang escort fighter for long-range bombers and the P-38.

"The P-38 was the most sophisticated fighter we had, and the one I found most challenging to fly," Shannon says.

After surviving 50 combat missions during his tour in Africa and Europe, Shannon received orders returning him stateside to train in the B-25 bomber. He then saw action in the China/Burma/India Theater of Operations, where his squadron flew aerial reconnaissance missions from China to the Indian Ocean.

More, about his involvement in the Bay of Pigs fiasco:
http://blog.al.com/bn/2007/11/sky_soldier_joe_shannon_worthy.html

[JackRiddler]

7. 50 years. Mind-boggling that we think this is a democracy with open institutions...

Wonder if a certain Zapata oil exploration company is mentioned in the history.

[MinM]

8. April 17, 1961

On April 17, 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba.

Fifty years later, you can visit the History Now section of www.JFK50.orgto learn about how the Bay of Pigs invasion unfolded. Using archival images, audio and video, the interactive graphic novel timeline brings this chapter in American history to life for people of all ages.

http://justiceforkennedy.blogspot.com/2011/04/info-on-bay-of-pigs-at-wwwjfk50org.html

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yLsh-nHcXC8/Tag48Gl-1xI/AAAAAAAAAk0/oWWrhn2bNso/s1600/JFK50.org+Bay+of+Pigs.jpg
http://justiceforkennedy.blogspot.com/2011/04/they-are-still-hiding-stuff-about-bay.html

http://www.jfk50.org/

[conspirator]

9. This is possibly the worse moment to ask the CIA to do that. Given that a similar script

is being used in Libya

[No Elephants]

10. Which may make it the perfect moment.