Bay of Pigs invasion called off

After my extensive research into the matter*, I've pretty much decided that the Bay of Pigs invasion had pretty much nil chance of success, so let's go a different route: what if Kennedy decided not to go through with it?

*(consisting of watching some YT videos and vaguely remembering what I learned in high school)
 
An Eventual Poster said:
"But Kennedy changed the landing side..."

It does not matter because the plan was entirely based on the baseless idea that the exiles would successfully land on the island, make it into the jungles, set up a guerilla war, and the locals would greet them as liberators, causing a mass revolt against Castro, and then the US would be "asked" to intervene. That was A) not going to happen. And B) the plan was quickly discovered by Castro because it was reported publicly that the US was training Cuban exiles in Guatemala for some uncertain reason, prompting Castro to lock up dissidents, put out dummy expendable planes for the US to bomb, and prepare for an upcoming invasion. It is the Caribbean Sea Lion, short of the US completely, explicitly invading, but the exile invasion was precisely a plan to not have the US explicitly invade.

Without Bay of Pigs, Kennedy avoids an early misstep, which he rebounded from by taking the blame, but which adversaries pointed to as his lack of policy understanding and success. He also avoids a major early lesson from Bay of Pigs, which was that people who claim to know things do not necessarily know them, the generals can be wrong, the CIA can be wrong, and there is a good chance -- and this is still debated, and also would be in Kennedy's mind -- that the military and CIA knew the plan was going to fail, and pushed for it anyway because they thought the president would be forced to launch a direct American invasion of Cuba when it faltered. And he did not. After Bay of Pigs, he accepted advisement, but trusted his instincts and pragmatism. He trusted it in not launching a spur of the moment war 90 miles from Florida. And he trusted it in Berlin, Laos, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam up to the point of the assassination of Diem, which frankly recalls the problem in the Bay of Pigs of uncertain forces and experts who say the know what will happen for the better. The issue of whether Castro would go full blown Communist, and if Khrushchev would put missiles in anyway are a further topic. Bay of Pigs is something easy to point to as the cause, but the forces seemed already to be pushing Castro towards the Soviets. And the Soviets put missiles in Cuba because of American missiles near the Soviet border (Turkey), and because they thought it was fair play, would force pressure on the Americans, and force them to negotiate. That is a mood and psychology that exists regardless of a Bay of Pigs invasion.
 
I cannot emphasize this enough, and frankly I don't have faith it will get the proper focus and heavy examination it deserves, but this has a major and pivotal impact on the administration from the period of 1961 to October of 1962. It is huge.
 
I cannot emphasize this enough, and frankly I don't have faith it will get the proper focus and heavy examination it deserves, but this has a major and pivotal impact on the administration from the period of 1961 to October of 1962. It is huge.
The Emperor (?) is correct, I think. The Bay of Pigs was one of a series of events, culminating in the Cuban missile crisis, that persuaded Kennedy that his own more reserved judgement was reliable and that the judgement of the military and intelligence services were not. I'm not sure how things play out but it's worth considering:

On the one hand, if Kennedy cancels the Bay of Pigs, then he's obviously learned this "lesson" early on from some other source and doesn't need to learn it at the Bay of Pigs. The failure there doesn't make him look weak and Cuba vulnerable, which means the Soviets don't put missiles in Cuba, which spares the world a very real chance of nuclear war. Khrushchev doesn't back down in 1962, so his reputation at home is a little less tarnished, too. Maybe he gets to stay on a little longer.

On the other, gloomier hand, maybe without the Bay of Pigs Kennedy doesn't head down the path of mistrusting his best military advice. Coupled with that, news of the cancellation will almost certainly leak -- since the existence of the exile force was already something of an open secret in certain circles -- which will force Kennedy's hand politically to be more aggressive in the next diplomatic crisis down the road, presumably in Berlin. So instead of the Cuban missile crisis, we have some other nuclear crisis, maybe one that doesn't end so well.
 
I wonder if it is a factor of psychology that when in severe doubt and uncertainty (and possibly anxiety), Kennedy relies on outside decision making and invests his trust and final decision in it, to his detriment. Therefore driving a need to have as perfect information and understanding as possible, and filling in the gaps with pragmatism, empathy towards the opponent in putting himself in their place to understand their position in regards to American action, and conservatism in actions undertaken. This would be cemented by Bay of Pigs and come into play in subsequent response to Laos, Berlin, Cuba and Vietnam. A factor perhaps simply stated as knowing you know better at your core of what to do, so acting accordingly, while also vetting alternate opinions. This is an issue that would arise again with Diem, where the situation was so complex and unknown, and he relied on outside opinions and assurances that everything would work out in the removal of Diem. And then after Diem was removed, not only was he removed, but he and the Ngo family were murdered -- an action which was in total opposition to what was promised, and which the South Vietnamese military which lead to coup covered up and lied as being Diem trying to flee and therefore needing to be killed. Which was not true. They drove him out and shot him in the back of the head. The failure in those regards reaffirms Kennedy's belief in pragmatism, empathy, and more perfect knowledge to take personally vetted action. And while the previous failure prompts a subsequent larger crisis, it is then properly handled based on those reaffirmed characteristics.
 
OTL "Damn, we'd be in Havana right now if not for Kennedy!" - Anti-Castro Forces

TTL "Damn, we'd be in Havana right now if not for Kennedy!"- Anti-Castro Forces
 
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