What if the Bay of Pigs didn't fail?

Sunfire

I read an account by a CIA operative who worked with the Anti-Castro Cubans and he pointed out that Kennedy had removed and cancelled a lot of the support (multiple B-26s were not given as promised, which messed up the airstrike plans).
If the things that went wrong had gone right the Anti-Castro Cubans would have had air dominance and the advantage of suprise, or at least the Cuban millitary would be on their toes.
If this had not happen how would the world look?
 
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Glass Onion

Everything I've read has indicated that the Bay of Pig's was poorly planned operation from the beginning, and that Castro was well aware of the operation before the invasion itself was even launched. I'm not sure air support, or another bombing raid is going to fix the inherent problems with the operation. Fidel Castro could end up not being in power after 1961, by virtue of being dead, as there were already plans to assassinate him before the invasion took place. But all that means, as far as I'm aware, is that you end up making Castro a communist martyr, and Cuba remains communist under the leadership of Castro's brother. Now, they obviously aren't the same man and there will be differences in Cuba stemming from the death of Fidel, but from an anticommunist perspective, the death of Fidel Castro would amount to a name change.

Now, if you want to actually depose the Castro regime, you probably need direct intervention on the part of the United States, as in an outright American invasion of Cuba. While Castro is a terrible dictator, in 1961 he was fairly popular in Cuba, and any invasion attempt, even if you dress it up the way the Bay of Pigs was intended to be dressed up, is only going to make Castro more popular. (If I'm wrong I apologize, but as I understand things Kennedy et all did not want the operation to look like an outright American invasion of Cuba.) The exile brigade is not enough to defeat the Cuban army alone, the intent I believe was to create a popular counter revolution (I apologize if the terminology makes me sound like a Castro supporter, rest assured that is not my intent.) And that simply was not going to happen. So you need an American land invasion of Cuba to do the job, and if that happens, Castro will lose power fairly quickly although the Cuban insurgency will remain a problem for the Kennedy administration and the new Cuban government for years to come. But there would be repercussions to an outright invasion, relations with other American countries would probably sour somewhat over the issue.
 

Sunfire

Oops, I meant B-26s

And in response to Onion,

Castro knew the invasion was coming but he did not know exactly when. When the CIA proposed their origional plan there would have been more B-26s all hitting targets at the same time. Also since the Cuban air force was extremly small and conncentrated at the time it could have been destroyed quite easily. Also, as for the invasion being done improperly it was because agents (not CIA) who had not been working with the Cubans for the entire time. SOme of those agents were not properly informed of the plans by their supperiors and they refused to budge on certain things. Also if the Communist Cuban air force had been eliminated then the supply problem would have been fixed because the Cuban's wouldn't have had to withdraw their ships from the shore, thus being kept supplied.
 

strangeland

Bay of Pigs was so poorly planned that its success would have been almost ASB. That said, even if it had succeeded, the likely result would have been a long, bloody civil war. If the exiles had somehow succeeded in fighting their way to Havana and deposing Castro, they would have installed a deeply unpopular bunker regime and faced a raging Communist insurgency well into the 80s.
 

Glass Onion

Sunfire said:
Oops, I meant B-26s

And in response to Onion,

Castro knew the invasion was coming but he did not know exactly when. When the CIA proposed their origional plan there would have been more B-26s all hitting targets at the same time. Also since the Cuban air force was extremly small and conncentrated at the time it could have been destroyed quite easily. Also, as for the invasion being done improperly it was because agents (not CIA) who had not been working with the Cubans for the entire time. SOme of those agents were not properly informed of the plans by their supperiors and they refused to budge on certain things. Also if the Communist Cuban air force had been eliminated then the supply problem would have been fixed because the Cuban's wouldn't have had to withdraw their ships from the shore, thus being kept supplied.
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I don't doubt that the Cuban Airforce could have been destroyed, and that the supply problem could have been mitigated. (Though that would probably blow what flimsy cover the operation had, a second bombing raid makes the claim that the operation is not an American led operation look all the more ludicrous.) As I understand things there were structural problems with the Bay of Pigs that are difficult to overcome, chief among them is the reliance on a anticastro uprising. That simply wasn't going to happen, the exiles simply did not have enough popular support. The other big structural problem that I remember is that the plan called for the exile brigade to withdraw to mountains that were way too distant from the landing location for any hope of success. (Success being defined as a relatively speedy withdrawal to the mountains.) In any case you need direct American intervention for this to work. The absolute best case scenario is that the exiles somehow manage to hold some tiny area for at least a week, Kennedy declares them the legitimate Cuban government, and the marines go in to let them take Havana. Because the regime will have very little popular support, and even Cubans who dislike Castro aren't going to be thrilled by what amounts to an American imposed regime, the United States will have to deal with a communist insurgency for the better part of the decade.
 
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Dan Reilly The Great

Banned
Agreed with GlassOnion, IIRC Bay Of Pigs was actually a leftover from the Eisenhower Administration and Ike was never sold on the operation being pheasable or workable. I'm of the mind that Ike was pretty damned shrewd, so if he thought that it was too risky and implausible to succeed, then in all likelihood it was. Also, IIRC Kennedy kind of got hoodwinked by his own advisors(Dulles and McNamara I think) into signing off on it. So, short of getting American Boots on the ground on Cuba, it probably won't work.
 
Shimbo

Shimbo

KyleB said:
Ah, that makes more sense. Though even Marauders seem kind of anachronistic in 1961. I suppose that's why they were being handed away to the rebels...
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The planes weren't given to the rebels, they were operated by the CIA using pilots from the Alabama National Guard (last US unit to use the B26) and Cuban exiles. The B26s were chosen because Cuba operated B26s and were painted to look like Cuban Air Force Planes as part of a (wafer thin) cover story that they were Cuba's own planes.

See http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bay-of-pigs/joe-shannon.htm for the memoir of one of the Alabaman pilots. According to that, at least four Alabama National Guard pilots were killed. He also claims he saw US Navy A4s with no markings over the beachhead.
 

ljofa

Who takes charge of Cuba in a post-Castro scenario? I have never seen a person explicitly named. And how would he/she (ok, I’m an optimist with the she) come to terms with the leaders of the Mafia who’d already signed deals with the Mafia to make Cuba something of a gambler’s paradise to rival Las Vegas.

If we are in ASB territory, then what the hell – let’s run with that. Las Vegas is beginning to pop up as a pretty loose, free city in the middle of the desert where gambling and other such vices are legal in an attempt to bring people to Nevada. With Cuba offering an alternative for Americans who can have Florida sunshine but with gambling, the city of Las Vegas is unlikely to grow at such a rate. In this scenario, the governor of Nevada, Grant Sawyer, might win the battle to squeeze the mob out of Vegas who would up sticks and move to the Caribbean. With more mob cash, more employment and more development in Cuba, a democratic system albeit one backed by the Cosa Nostra would probably flourish so long as people are fed, housed, clothed and the number of crimes were kept to a minimum.

Without the development of Las Vegas, Howard Hughes wouldn’t have moved into the area so Hot Springs and Galveston might have remained popular destinations for tourists who wanted to gamble and enjoy entertainments more freely. He more likely would have gone to one of these two other towns, or perhaps Reno which might have enjoyed a larger rate of growth compared with OTL.
 

G.Fieendish

KyleB said:
Ah, that makes more sense. Though even Marauders seem kind of anachronistic in 1961. I suppose that's why they were being handed away to the rebels...
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Wrong, they had B-25 Mitchell's, not B-26 Marauders, as post World War 2, a lot of the B-25 fleet that was not scrapped, were sold by various means to Central American air forces, such as Venezuela, Brazil & Cuba, during the late 1940's/early 1950's...
As for Shimbo's comment, the B-25's used by the CIA were unfortunately the wrong model, to that of the Cuban airforce's, having a completely different nose to the examples used by the Cuban airforce, thus raising the alarm...
 
Shimbo

Shimbo

G.Fieendish said:
Wrong, they had B-25 Mitchell's, not B-26 Marauders, as post World War 2, a lot of the B-25 fleet that was not scrapped, were sold by various means to Central American air forces, such as Venezuela, Brazil & Cuba, during the late 1940's/early 1950's...
As for Shimbo's comment, the B-25's used by the CIA were unfortunately the wrong model, to that of the Cuban airforce's, having a completely different nose to the examples used by the Cuban airforce, thus raising the alarm...
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In the link I posted the guy who actually flew the planes says they were B-26s. He'd know the difference wouldn't he?
 

KokkenKunten

Douglas B26 / A26 Invaders - NOT Martin Marauders.

The Invader operated under the "B" designation from the late 40's to early sixties (this being after the withdrawal of the "other" B26 - the Marauder). Latterly, the "A" designation was taken up again, just to muddy the waters further.

It's confusing but not THAT confusing!

Regards,
Frank
 

Typo

Banned
It didn't really matter whether the invasions fail on the beaches or not, the whole thing was contingent on the Island rising up against Castro once the beach invasion successed. Without that its just a few thousand Cuban exiles on a beach that's not going to be able to do much at best.
 

burtledog

Posted elsewhere

The Bay of Pigs operation was not the problem. JFK painted himself into a corner. He spent the fall of 1960 trying to out anti-Castro/Communism Nixon and Eisenhower to the point that he said "they didn't lose Cuba, they gave it away." He looked across at Nixon in the big debate and said "if you can't stand up to Castro, how can you stand up to Krushev?" , knowing that the Ike administration was training the Brigade and some of the air assets (this is confirmed by Gov John Patterson of Alabama who was a political ally and Gov of the Air Guardsmen who did much of the training and some of the dying). Then the big speech on inauguration day " Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty." To not do anything against Castro's govt would paint him a coward...and yet, early in his presidency who showed he wasn't serious in that when briefed on the first big assault plan to be executed in Trinidad (further east on the southern coast from Giron and at the foot of mountains filled with anti-Castro groups that he would fight against until 1965) he was told it needed to happen in early to mid March (the 10nth was the original aiming point) due to the beginning of large Soviet arms shipments to Cuba to begin arriving in late March (and Migs by summer). Yet, he did not call the big meeting until March the 11th.
During the meeting Dean Rusk emphasized that the use of all the air assets (16-20 B-26 Invaders) was to big and would get the US blamed...is there anyway we wouldn't be blamed? And that Trinidad was too populated. Of course the presence of the guerilleas in the mountains a few miles away and the strong anti-Castro sentiment in the town were reasons for it being chosen...and the mountains were a sanctuary if things did not work in the beachhead. The town is guarded by mountains, and a river...look up a topographical map...awesome terrain to defend. To be perfect it needed just 800 ft of airfield to be added...a dozer or two and willing hands with perforated steel planking and 6 hours.
The uprising was not counted on to happen immediately...the underground was known to be compromised by G2 (Communist secret police), and the majority of the people would not jump a fence until the Brigade showed some staying power. With the FAR knocked out by 2 large raids on D-Day, not D -2 (and of course they were restricted to only 6 aircraft at a time and the 2d strike was cancelled as was another to be done on D -1 at day break). With the strike aircraft operating from the lengthened Trinidad field with Castro's AF now neutralized...well, lets just say Castro may have still won, but the Brigade would have been in Trinidad for weeks...and of course the new provisional govt recognized and the US now able to overtly help...say quarantine USSR/Warsaw block equipment shipments and possibly a Navy/USMC air group or 2.
In short, JFK did by talking tougher than he was set himself up and the only choice he had (he thought) was to do it but do it so the premise of the plan was changed to make success unlikely...and of course, no matter how big or small, successful or unsuccessful it was we were still going to be blamed.
16 months later, we were at the brink of nuclear Armageddon...makes one think what if he had actually meant what he said (the Cubans and CIA thought he did and Dulles and Bissell actually pulled for him in the election). Could a Trinidad Plan executed in March before the new weapons arrived or were integrated into the communist forces and with the 2 massive raids on the airfields, a modern port, airpower on land not in Guatemala, the help of known anti-Castro forces and populace, the air raids happening just before and after the landings (not letting G2 have 2 days to round up the dissidents) have given the plan a good chance...OH YES. Even at Bahia Cochinos a barren place where Castro was popular the workmen building the new resort worked for the Brigade, many locals asked for weapons and casulties for the militias and "regular? Communist forces were in the thousands. The battle even with the handicaps the Brigade suffered could have lasted for quite a time longer with ammunition and air cover...the longer they lasted, the longer Cubans had to make up their mind.
That was fun. I hope it gives some thought.

Correction...though Rusk and the other advisors wished only 6 planes to be used in the D -2 raid (the number of B-26's believed to still be operable in the FAR, the CIA got permission to use 8 due to the inability of 6 to hit the 3 main targets...5 or more at each target may well have done the job as Castro could only get 7 off the ground with only 8 hitting him.
As for the results...The Warsaw Pact would rattle the sabre in Berlin...they did that anyway...Krushev would not fight over Cuba at this point...Eisenhower had given him a pass in Hungary and some action in East Germany. Oh...No Missiles of October. As for govt...no Battista, he was toast before Castro and the other revolutionary groups ever got to Havanna and the US government did not support him (and besides he was having a grand retirement in the Dominican Republic)...and many of the Brigade and Frente were prisoners and exiles during Battista's 2d time also...Pepe' San Roman the Brigade commander for one. Hopefully a more democratic govt reverting to the Constitution of 1940 that Battista put aside and that Castro pledged to work with and then pushed aside
 
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