April 19, 1961, Itinerary of a Victory

John F. Kennedy was irritated that Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, assured him that the success of the Bay of Pigs invasion was even better than the operation of the agency in Guatemala that overthrew progressive President Jacobo Arbenz, and that would seem to be the last lie that the hitherto first American spy would tell a president because shortly after the disaster he resigned under pressure from the president.

Even Dulles, inspired by his past glories, appointed against the Island the same team that in 1954 put an end to the nationalist government in Guatemala. Although the disaster of the so-called Operation Pluto began in its own conception, long before the more than a thousand men of the mercenary brigade boarded their ships in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, on their way to Playa Girón and Playa Larga, south of the province of Matanzas, where they had to become strong and establish a puppet government that would justify the direct intervention of the U.S. and its allies in the region.

Beyond Dulles’ own professional errors in conducting military and intelligence actions, his team and North American circles of power failed in Girón essentially because they were unable to understand that they were facing for the first time in the hemisphere a popular revolution that destroyed bourgeois power and its repressive institutions to the ground, and that was led by a leadership headed by its maximum leader who was always at the head of his people.

Lies and False Illusions

The Organization of American States (OAS) served as a screen for the CIA and the State Department to try to discredit Cuba as an “importer of the communist dictatorship to the Continent” and to create conditions for armed aggression against the Island, a role that currently repeats that freak of the empire against the Bolivarian Revolution by using practically the same language and actions they developed against Cuba.

In a climate of generalized euphoria of those who expected an easy victory, the departure of the invading Brigade was carried out. The head of the CIA harangered the troops, apparently under the influence of the good rum of the region, telling them that when they reached land they would take a jeep, advance along the road, take out their hand as if they were going to turn left and arrive directly to Havana.

The celebration was completed by Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, who told the invaders: “Bring me a hair of Fidel’s beard!

To continue the legacy of the CIA in Guatemala, U.S. officials appreciated that the entry into action of mercenary airplanes over Guatemalan cities and their armed institutions, was a demoralizing factor in the population and that it caused terror among many soldiers and officers, who bowed to the coup.

But that practice would be completely adverse to imperialism on the Island when planes carried out the bombing plan on April 15, 1961 to the main air bases and airports by means of B26 airplanes with false badges of the Cuban air forces, which left Nicaragua to simulate an internal military uprising, which very few people in the world believed.

That first action failed in its objective of destroying the few planes that were in the airfields, and of the eight invading ships more than half were reached and some possibly shot down by anti-aircraft fire and the U.S. was evidenced as an aggressor country before the world, denounced in the UN by the Cuban Chancellor Raúl Roa.

But also the bad attack limited the surprise factor and above all in the political, moral and historical order, it provoked a devastating response. Less than 24 hours from the attack and 24 hours from the invasion.

On April 16, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro declared the socialist character of the Revolution at the burial of the victims of the aggression to Ciudad Libertad, in Havana, in an improvised act near the entrance of the Christopher Columbus cemetery, less than 10 kilometers from the bombed base and in which he called to defend the nation under the slogan of Homeland or Death, backed by the majority of the Cuban people.

Continued…

(Taken from ACN in Spanish)

Written by Radio Grito de Baire