IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2001, 12 p.m.

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.

Office of the Vice President, Memorandum, Rough Draft of Summary of Conversation between the Vice President and Fidel Castro, April 25, 1959, 6 pp.

British Foreign Office, Cable, SECRET, From [British] Foreign Office to Washington, October 29, 1959, 2 pp.

British Foreign Office, Cable, TOP SECRET, From [Washington] to British Foreign Office, November 24, 1959, 3 pp.

CIA, Minutes of the First Task Force Meeting on Cuba, SECRET, March 9, 1960, 3 pp.

Republica de Cuba, Ministerio de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, Informe sobre los campamentos y bases de mercenarios en Guatemala, Nicaragua y la Florida, CONFIDENCIAL, 12 de enero de 1961, 27 pp.

Cuba, Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces, Report concerning the camps and bases of Cuban counterrevolutionaries in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Florida, CONFIDENTIAL, January 12, 1961, 27 pp. [Translation of above]

White House, Memorandum, TOP SECRET, [Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to President Kennedy], February 11, 1961, 2 pp.

Taylor Commission, Minutes, First Meeting of General Maxwell Taylor's Board of Inquiry on Cuban Operations Conducted by CIA, TOP SECRET, April 23, 1961, 8 pp.