Slaughtered like Pigs

When Kennedy became president, he was clearly expecting some sort of Cold War conflict to occur during his term. What he didn't expect was that it would occur a mere three months after his election, and the first confrontation would take place less than 90 miles from the shore of Florida. Nine days after his election, he was approached by the higher officials in the US military regarding a secret plan engineered by Eisenhower: a CIA sponsored invasion of Cuba. Even though some doubts lingered in his mind, Kennedy approved it and set one of the greatest Cold War military conflicts in motion.

Much of the attack had been hinted to before the actual planning and execution of the beach landing by Cuban exile forces. Eisenhower cut off diplomatic relations seventeen days before Kennedy took office. Kennedy declared in his State of the Union address on January 30, 1961, that Communism in the western hemisphere "can never be negotiated." The CIA, working undercover with a goal that was common knowledge to many people, did everything it could to end the Castro regime. Even before the Cubans celebrated their first year of independence, they knew it was coming. They simply didn't know when.



On the night of April 17, 1961, the US finally struck. Around 1,300 to 1,500 Cuban exiles supported by the US military landed on Cuba's southern coast at Bahia de Cochionos, the Bay of Pigs. The operation was doomed the second the exiles touched Cuban soil. The Cuban government responded almost immediately, taking air superiority and sinking much of the exiles' naval support. American air support, which had been promised to the exiles, was nowhere in sight. Cuban infantry, numbering almost 25,000 and backed by Soviet tanks and jet aircraft, slaughtered the invaders. By the third day, despite a feeble attempt at an air strike by the United States, the remaining 1,200 exiles surrendered. To them, the United States had backed out of the deal and betrayed them, leaving them to die on the shores of their former homeland by the hands of the Communists. They were, in all ways and forms, slaughtered like pigs; a namesake to the beach they landed on.

The Cuban Media took a field day at this event. It sensationalized the defeat of the "North American Mercenaries," spiked nationalism in Cuba, and idealized Castro, increasing his popularity exponentially. The United States feverently denied any accusation of involvement, but as Khruschev put it in a letter to Kennedy, "It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America....It is still not late to avoid the irreparable. The government of the USA still has the possibility of not allowing the flame of war ignited by interventions in Cuba to grow into an incomparable conflagration."

The United States, embarrased from the conflict, could not tolerate the defeat and began planning other moves. Kennedy, taking responsibility, spoke to the American people in a moving speech and became more popular himself despite the gravity of the situation. It would be a long time for the exiles, almost 25 years for some, until they would finally be released through US payment of money and supplies, promising them that they would one day return to a "free Havana."

The Cold War moved on after the incident, inciting new conflicts and bringing the world again to the brink of nuclear war several times. But the day of a "free Havana," the day promised by Kennedy; that day still has yet to come.

By Brandon Cheung, D period