Fidel Castro on the Bay of Pigs

Fidel Castro reflects on the Bay of Pigs on the 40th anniversary of the U.S.-backed invasion. Fidel Castro's commentaries on the Bay of Pigs invasion -- both from the 1960s and his subsequent reflections on the significance of the U.S.-backed invasion -- are published here for the first time. In April 1961 a band of anti-Castro Cuban exiles invaded Cuba, supported by the CIA. The Eisenhower Administration had initiated the invasion plan but it was left to newly elected President Kennedy to carry out. The invading force was dramatically defeated within a few days. This first foreign policy crisis of the Kennedy Administration marked relations between Washington and Havana for decades, propelling U.S. plans to topple Castro as well as Cuba's measures to defend the island from a more substantial invading force. The 1962 Missile Crisis followed only 18 months later. Fidel Castro provides a detailed military account of the invasion and the 72-hour battle that followed as well as a historical overview of the significance of the invasion for Cuba and the region.