Castro: Settled on $53 Million Worth of Baby Food and Medicine in Exchange for the Prisoners.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed assail on the southwestern declension of Cuba in April 1961 by CIA-led Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution. Explore some intriguing facts about the failed U.Southward.-orchestrated set on on Fidel Castro's Republic of cuba.

1. The paramilitary group that led the invasion took its name from the serial number of one of its members.

Early in 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the CIA to recruit Cuban exiles living in Miami and train them for an invasion of Cuba. The grouping that became known as Brigade 2506 was initially 28 members, including 10 one-time Cuban armed services officers recruited past Dr. Manuel Artime, caput of the Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionaria (MRR).

Later on training in hugger-mugger camps in the Florida Everglades as early as March 1960, the growing brigade moved its base to the Sierra Madre in Republic of guatemala, which boasted a like climate to Cuba and a friendly government. That September, a brigade member named Carlos Rodriguez Santana was killed in a grooming accident, and his comrades chose to proper name the brigade after his serial number: 2506.

Map of Cuba, showing the Bay of Pigs. (Credit: Public Domain)

two. Role of the plan was a imitation revolt to the United States past Cuban pilots—which backfired.

On Apr 15, 1961, eight B-26 bombers took off from Nicaragua and bombed Cuban military aircraft on the basis, hoping to wipe out Castro'south air force before the planned invasion at Playa Girón. Subsequently that mean solar day, ii other bombers landed in Miami and Fundamental West, Florida, where their pilots claimed to exist Cuban defectors that had participated in the air raids.

This drama was supposed to ensure that the attacks appeared to exist the work of Cubans only, lending credibility to the U.S. government's deprival of involvement. But reporters noticed the planes' guns looked equally though they had not been fired, and the planes themselves were of a blazon not typically used in Cuba. The political fallout from this initial bombing raid—which in fact left much of Castro'due south air force intact—led President John F. Kennedy to cancel a 2nd planned air strike that might have completed the chore.

3. Two B-26B bombers were shot down and four Americans were killed.

Officially, no Americans were supposed to be involved in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Unofficially, a top-secret squadron of pilots flew a last-ditch mission authorized past Kennedy on the morning of April 19, to assist defend the overwhelmed invaders at Girón. Due to a misunderstanding over fourth dimension zones, the bombers arrived an hr before planned escort cover arrived from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, and were shot downwardly past the Cubans.

For years, the CIA refused to acknowledge the interest of these U.South. servicemen in the invasion, even though Castro's authorities announced it had the trunk of an American airplane pilot on the 24-hour interval it shot his plane downward. After preserving the remains of the pilot, Captain Thomas Willard Ray, for years, Cuba returned his body to his family unit in 1979. For its part, the CIA waited until the 1990s—and the declassification of many Bay of Pigs-related documents—to admit Ray'due south link to the bureau and award him its highest honor, the Intelligence Star.

four. After being interrogated and branded as 'yellow worms,' the surviving members of Brigade 2506 were finally released subsequently 20 months in captivity.

During the months later the failed invasion at Playa Girón, Cuba and the The states began negotiating for the release of hundreds of surviving brigadistas, then beingness held past Castro'due south authorities.

In May 1961, Castro proposed exchanging the POWs for 500 large tractors; he after upped his asking to $28 1000000 in U.S. dollars. Finally, in Dec 1962, Castro and the American lawyer James B. Donovan agreed to commutation the 1,113 prisoners for $53 million in food and medicine, to be raised through private donations and corporate sponsorships. (At the time, Donovan was fresh off negotiating the complicated exchange of captured American airplane pilot Francis Gary Powers and for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, events that were dramatized in Steven Spielberg's acclaimed 2015 film "Bridge of Spies," which starred Tom Hanks every bit Donovan.)

On Dec 28, President Kennedy received the brigade's flag in an emotional "welcome back" ceremony at the Orange Basin in Miami, promising that it "volition be returned to this brigade in a free Havana."

5. Che Guevara thanked Kennedy and the United states of america for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

In August 1961, representatives of all American nations convened at Punta del Este in Uruguay for the Inter-American Economic and Social Council. At a cocktail party, the Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara spoke with Richard Goodwin, then an adviser and speechwriter for President Kennedy. As Goodwin recorded in a hush-hush White House memo declassified in the 1990s, the conversation ranged from the possibility of a "modus vivendi," or interim settlement, betwixt Cuba and the United States, to the U.S. naval base of operations at Guantanamo Bay and the problems facing Castro's revolutionary government.

Well-nigh the end of the conversation, Goodwin wrote, Che "went on to say that he wanted to give thanks us very much for the invasion—that it had been a groovy political victory for them—enabled them to consolidate—and transformed them from an aggrieved trivial country to an equal."

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Source: https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-the-bay-of-pigs-invasion

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