The Mrs and I have been watching the miniseries “The Company” on TNT since the premiere last week. Last week’s two episodes started out kinda slow, but this week’s shows quickly picked up the pace. The first hour covered the Hungarian Uprising in the fifties and the latter hour covered the Bay of Pigs invasion.
While major liberties have been taken with the actual events and historical context I was glad a bout two things in the Bay of Pigs episode: First, they lay the blame on the invasion’s failure squarely on the shoulders of one John F. Kennedy and second, they made mention of four American Alabama National Guard pilots who defied orders and scrambled their planes to help the Brigade 2506 heroes stranded on the beachhead. Both planes were shot down and all 4 pilots killed.
As my wife and I sat there in the comfort of our living room watching the Bay of Pigs, I couldnt help but wonder how my father-in-law, Birgadista and bay of Pigs Veteran, survivor of the infamous rastra de la muerte and subsequent POW, felt as he watch the portrayal before him. He’d left a baby daughter and wife behind to train and fight for his Cuba, only to be betrayed at the last moment. It’s not something he likes to talk about, but I know he lost many friends in battle and quite a few more to the firing squads. Young men in their twenties with their entire lives ahead of them.
I also thought about Janet Weininger, whose father Thomas “Pete” Ray was one of those four Alabama National Guard pilots that went against orders, knowing full well they would probably be flying a suicide mission, and flew over the beachhead to help those being massacred below him. Janet was six years old when she last saw her father alive and it took her 18 years of struggle to get her father’s remains back to the USA for the proper burial benefitting a true American War hero and man of incredible dignity and honor.
For most Americans watching the program, it was an hour or two of entertainment. But for Cuban exiles like father in law and their families, as well as some Americans like Janet Ray, it was a lifetime of pain and anguish encapsulated.
Update: Here’s the link for released classified CIA documentation of the Bay of Pigs from the CIA website.
i’ve been watching the series,and yes,i was waiting to see how they would show who was the responsible for the defeat at bay of pigs,this time,they got it right,…
and God bless la brigada 2506,and the american pilots,and their families….
Good Morning Miami!
I speak to sooooo many democrats hoy en dia and they cant believe their ears when I say it was JF Kennedy’s fault in the loss of Cuba. The bay of pigs plan was changed, distorted, disguised all in the name of “political correctness” AKA “we dont want the Russians to know we had a hand in the invasion.” You tell them these things and its like your maligning their mother or something.
The Kennedy Gov tried to save face but in actuality they became face-less-ones! Today we remember, we never forget, and never lose the vision & the future of a free Cuba!
Tanto hombres valiente wasted……May God keep all those who suffered or lost a loved one those few days in His heart. Que Dios lo bendiga a todo!
9 October 1992
Dear Dr. Morrissey,
I have just returned from Europe to find your recent letter. I am too busy at the moment to refresh my memories of Bay of Pigs details; but I am sure that the cancellation of the air strike is much overrated as a factor in the outcome. Castro had dispersed his planes after the first strike. Cancelling the later strike made no great difference; there would still have been a tiny invading force facing 200,000 or so of Castro’s army and uprising behind the lines or a US invasion force. I agree with you that Dulles probably counted on direct US intervention when the invasion faltered; but I don’t think for a moment that the CIA people purposely sabotaged the invasion.
The project was a terrible idea, doomed from start to finish — or so it seems to me.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur Schlesinger, jr
Tango,
200,000 troops? What was Schlesinger smoking when he wrote this letter?
That’s just another revise history, cover ass letter,like so many out there.
I do not smoke dope, so I do not know what grass he was smoking. But before reacting, I suggest for you to dig up:
The Bay of Pigs Revisited
by Michael D. Morrissey
and the book operation Zapata
Here are some excerpts:
The failure of the invasion of Cuba in April, 1961 by 1500 CIA-trained anti-Castro expatriates is generally attributed to President Kennedy’s loss of nerve at the critical moment, when he cancelled the air strikes which were supposed to incapacitate Castro’s air force. As a result, more than a hundred men were killed, the rest surrendered, and the Cuban exiles in America never forgave Kennedy for this “betrayal.”
Kennedy did assume full public responsibility for what he too considered a disaster, as he should have. Privately, though, he blamed the CIA, and fired the three top men in the agency responsible for the operation: Director Allen Dulles, Deputy Director Gen. P. Cabell, and Deputy Director for Plans (now called Operations) Richard Bissell. Immediately after the failed invasion, on April 22, Kennedy ordered Gen. Maxwell Taylor, the President’s special military representative, Admiral Arleigh Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations, Dulles, and Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, to conduct a full investigation of why the invasion had failed.
I do agree with you that these brigadista deserve recognition since they where the only ones with the “genitales” to do something about Castro.
When the time comes, justice will be done in the case of the dead in the container and Osmany Cienfuegos will pay for his crime.
Tango,
Im familiar with the book as well as Kennedy’s “house cleaning” efforts post invasion – which, I might add, were more for PR purposes (remember he had an election coming up) than for anything else.
I recorded and I almost couldn’t watch it; between Hungary & the Bay of Pigs segment;
I felt ashamed for my country. On the first
instance, that experience is not unlike the
Shia uprisings in Southern Iraq in 1991. On
the second, Roberto San Roman, is the real
life version of “Roberto” in the episode, I
think this is possibly the most accurate and
complete depiction of the invasion ever seen
on US Tv. They did leave out the USS Essex and their Navy fliers; as well as the marine battallion; considered that Mr. Morrissey?
Mr Morrissey is an historiam who came with a theory about the resons behind the bay of pigs invasion.
Well, if you are revolted by it, them go on and study the Escambray revolt, where a true genocide occured when the peasnts revolted and where aniquilated. The US goverment prohibited the maimi based cubans from helping the guerrillas and even put in prison anti castro activist in conjunction wih castro agents in miami. The telenovela continues today.
I the USA kept a ridicoluos the pact with the soviets post the october crisis of not permiting escursions from US territory against the castro regime, in hte meantime castro was fomenting revolts all over Latin America.
When Cuba opens up, we will know the magnitude of this genocide where entire villages where wiped out, the toll is estimated on over 100,000 deaths.
Disgust, you have not seem the top of the ice berg.
First of all bad spelling will get you no where; what is “aniquilated”,”peasnts”. I’m familiar with Escambray; it was not unlike the operations
in the Ukraine in the 50s,or Albania in the 40s.
In fact Alpha 66 was born out of that movement; hence it’s subtitle, SNFE. Roberto was a distant
relative of mine; that’s why it affected me.