Check here on Friday, March 23 at 10 a.m. (EST) for the next update
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Read the most recent press release, March
23, 2001, 5 p.m.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2001, 12 p.m.
DOCUMENTS REVEAL CIA'S DULLES WANTED
CUBA TO ASK FOR SOVIET BLOC ARMS IN 1959
BRITISH CRITICIZED U.S. "EFFERVESCENCE
AND VIOLENT FEELINGS" ABOUT CUBA
Cuba expected 6,000 men in the invasion force as of January 1961
Havana, Cuba: British documents
released on the first day of an historic conference on the Bay of Pigs
show that CIA Director Allen Dulles hoped that British refusal to sell
military items to Cuba would force the Cuban government to request arms
from the Soviet bloc, providing a pretext for U.S. intervention.
The conference - involving former officials of the Kennedy Administration,
the CIA, members of Brigade 2506, and Cuban government and military officials
- convened today in Havana to begin three days of discussion on one of
the most infamous episodes of the Cold War - the April 1961 invasion at
the Bay of Pigs.
In an unprecedented declassification, the Cuban government has also
declassified some 480 pages of records relating to the invasion, including
intelligence reports on U.S. preparations and Fidel Castro's directives
during the battle - records that "shed substantial light on Cuba's ability
to repel the invasion," according to National Security Archive Senior Analyst
Peter Kornbluh. The National Security Archive at George Washington
University is co-sponsoring the event along with the University of Havana
and several Cuban government agencies.
One of the Cuban documents - a January 1961 report
on the CIA's clandestine training camps in Central America and Florida
- shows that Cuban intelligence analysts estimated there were as many as
6,000 CIA "mercenaries" training at a camp in Guatemala, overestimating
by far the agency's 1,400-man invasion force.
Other documents released today include:
Vice President Richard Nixon's April 1959 summary
of his meeting with Fidel Castro during his visit to Washington.
A summary of the first meeting of WH-4, Branch 4
of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division, established in January 1960
to implement President Eisenhower's request for an ambitious covert program
to overthrow the Castro government.
A February 1961 memorandum to the president from
Arthur Schlesinger, President Kennedy's special assistant and the only
adviser to oppose the invasion, arguing against a "drastic decision with
regard to Cuba."
A memorandum of conversation from the first meeting
of Gen. Maxwell Taylor's board of inquiry on the Bay of Pigs, held
just days after the failed invasion.
Documents
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