314
A REVOLUTION
IS NOT A BED
OF ROSES
THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION (1961)
O
n April 15, 1961, a force of
Cuban exiles began an
invasion of Cuba to try
to topple Fidel Castro’s left-wing
regime and replace it with one
more open to American interests.
Eight American B-26 bombers flew
from Nicaragua to destroy Castro’s
air force on the ground. The air raid
seemed successful, but at least six
of Castro’s fighter planes survived.The next day, Castro’s air force sank
two ships loaded with vital supplies.
In the early hours of April 17, a
group of around 1,400 Cuban exiles,
codenamed Brigade 2506, launched
an amphibious assault on the coast
of southern Cuba, the Bay of Pigs.
They were driven back by Castro’s
forces and ran out of ammunition.
It only took three days to thwart
the exiles’ invasion.IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
Revolution and reaction
in Latin AmericaBEFORE
1910 The Mexican Revolution
is the first major social
revolution of the 20th century.1952 The National
Revolutionary Movement
(MNR) takes power in Bolivia.1954 A military junta is
installed in Guatemala in a
coup organized by the CIA.AFTER
September 11, 1973 Salvador
Allende, president of Chile,
dies during a coup led by army
chief Augusto Pinochet.1981 The US suspends aid
to Nicaragua and supports
fighters known as Contras, in
an attempt to overthrow the
left-wing Sandinistas.The United States
is determined to
keep communism
from the Americas.President Kennedy
inherits a CIA
plan to get rid of
Fidel Castro.The Bay of Pigs
invasion is a disaster,
and Castro emerges
triumphant.The US steps up its
support of anti-communist
regimes in Latin America,
while the USSR backs
pro-communist
revolutionaries.The Cold War
continues to
dominate global
geopolitics.US_314-315_Bay-of-Pigs.indd 314 15/02/2016 16:45
315
The Bay of Pigs invasion was
a disaster for the United States,
and many anti-Castro forces were
captured during the conflict.See also: Bolívar establishes Gran Colombia 216–19 ■ The October Revolution
276–79 ■ Stalin assumes power 281 ■ The Cuban Missile Crisis 308–09 ■
The military coup in Brazil 341 ■ Pinochet seizes power in Chile 341THE MODERN WORLD
Castro must go
After World War II, Latin America
became a proxy battleground for
two competing ideological systems:
capitalism and communism. The
US was determined to eradicate
communism and supported right-
wing dictators with anti-reformist
regimes in countries such as Cuba,
Honduras, and Guatemala.
During the 1950s, corruption
and brutality within the Cuban
Batista government forced a slow
withdrawal of US support. When
Castro defeated Batista in 1959,
the US government had misgivings
over Castro’s communist leanings.
By 1960, Castro had nationalized
all US interests in Cuba without
compensation and had broken
diplomatic ties. To protect their
economic assets and defeat
communism, US policy-makers
decided that Castro must go.
Within a year of Castro
taking power, several counter-
revolutionary groups were formed
by Cuban exiles in Miami. The
American Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) took an interest
in these groups, providing them
with training and equipment to
topple the Cuban government.The failure at the Bay of Pigs was
largely down to poor planning and
President Kennedy’s reluctance to
become too involved.Pro-Cuba demonstrations
Castro forged a closer alliance with
the Soviet Union, its ally against
American aggression, enabling him
to export his ideals across Latin
America. The invasion incited
pro-Cuba anti-US demonstrations
from Chile to Mexico. Castro
actively supported guerrilla
warfare, and thousands of Latin
American guerrillas went to Cuba
for training. The revolution in Cuba
inspired similar uprisings through
the 1960s and 70s in Nicaragua,
Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela,
where there was disaffection with
illiteracy, inequality, and poverty.
Latin America continued to
preoccupy US foreign policy. The
US intervened several times in an
effort to contain communism. They
supported military coups in Chile
in 1973 and Argentina in 1976 and,
fearing a communist takeover,
funded the El Salvadoran military
in the late 1970s to prop up their
regime. In 1983, the US invaded
Grenada; and in 1989, Panama. ■Fidel Castro
To his supporters, Fidel Castro
(b.1926) was a revolutionary
hero who stood up to the US.
To his detractors, he was a
dictator whose close ties with
the Soviet Union brought the
world close to nuclear war.
Jailed as a student in 1953
for his revolutionary activities,
Castro was released two years
later and went into exile in the
US and Mexico. He returned
to Cuba in 1956 with a small
guerrilla band, among them
the Argentine Marxist
revolutionary Ernesto “Che”
Guevara, and set to work
undermining the regime of the
dictator Batista. On January 1,
1959, he assumed absolute
power. Castro was determined
to improve literacy, offered
free healthcare, and instituted
land reforms.
Castro saw himself as a
leader of the world’s oppressed
people and helped train
anti-Apartheid forces in South
Africa. In the 1970s, he sent
troops to support communist
forces in Angola, Ethiopia,
and Yemen.
In 2008, wracked by ill
health, Castro stood down
as president of Cuba, leaving
power in the hands of his
brother Raúl.Cuba must not
be abandoned to
the communists.
John F. KennedyUS_314-315_Bay-of-Pigs.indd 315 15/02/2016 16:45