On this day in history, one of America’s most disastrous assaults landed on a foreign shore.
Crowning the fever pitch of the Cold War, the Bay of Pigs Invasion was launched in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro, the revolutionary-turned-leader who ruled Cuba as a communist state. A self-proclaimed “Socialist, Marxist, and Leninist,” Castro’s ties to the ideology of communism, for lack of a better word, terrified the U.S. government.
It was recognized that Castro’s government was becoming increasingly hostile towards America, and thus, then-president Eisenhower began to sow the seeds of usurpation. In 1960, as Kennedy and Nixon spoke at electoral debates, both promised to “get tough with the Communists.” After Kennedy’s win, he created a force of approximately 1,400 Cuban exiles, backed them with the CIA’s resources, and sent them to invade the shores of Cuba. However, the “classified” plans were quickly discovered by Cuban media sources, who then spread them like wildfire until they came across Castro himself. To answer America’s attack, he retaliated with over 20,000 of his soldiers.
The unequal strength had catastrophic effects: of the 1,400 Cuban exiles on America’s side, 100 were killed and 1,100 were captured by Castro’s troops. The invasion also had hoped to spark an uprising from within Cuba, but that failed too. All of these details compounded together to stain the Kennedy administration’s reputation and solidify the Bay of Pigs Invasion as one of the United States’ most embarrassing military disasters.
The proximity between Cuba and America was the fuel to the fire, with the Bay of Pigs acting as a microcosm of the entire Cold War. Although the invasion was a massive failure, it managed to ignite nationalism in both America and Cuba; Kennedy’s approval rating rose from 78% to 84%, and it cemented Cuba as the communist regime that Castro sought to create. It would be the catalytic event to eventually lead to the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis, but during April of 1961, the Bay of Pigs was the apex of communist-capitalist conflict.
Yet, despite it all, President Kennedy refused to yield his patriotism, embodying the often-tragic idealism of the American spirit:
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge, and more.” (Kennedy at his inauguration, 1961)
