Timeline for US Invasion of Cuba, 1963?

For a tl i'm currently working on, I have a few questions for any military historians who can tell me what a US invasion of Cuba would look like, following an alternate assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The basic idea is this: On November 22nd, 1963, JFK is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas, as per OTL. The difference in this timeline? Rather than being identified as a lone, crazed gunman, Oswald is discovered to be a member of a Cuban-linked domestic terror cell. A hand-written manifesto is discovered in Oswald's sniper nest shortly after the shooting, which describes a group of radical Communist terrorists bent on the violent overthrow of the American government. Although the bulk of this organization is composed of American citizens, links are discovered to Cuban actors in the form of weapons, funding, and training. Fidel Castro completely denies the claims, calling it a fabrication by radical right-wing elements within the US government. The Soviet Union, not willing to escalate to nuclear war over this, throws him under the bus, leading the United States to invade.

My questions: With the knowledge that Cuba was at least partially responsible for the death of President Kennedy, how long would it be before the US declared war? What would the global response be, beyond the groans and complaints of the Soviet Union (again, assuming no overt support for Castro on their part)? How long would it take for the United States to successfully overthrow Fidel Castro's government? I was able to find this memo from 1962 that says, hypothetically, the US could achieve victory in Cuba within 10-15 days with a force of 261,000 units. Is this a realistic timetable, and is a force that size reasonable?

Bonus points: What ramifications would this have on other conflicts for the United States? In particular, how would this impact Vietnam? Would this rally together more Americans against the Communist threat, and potentially enable us to "win" (by some definition or another) in that conflict?
 
For a tl i'm currently working on, I have a few questions for any military historians who can tell me what a US invasion of Cuba would look like...

Not a military historian per se, but I'll take a stab at this nonetheless.

Well. you might start by looking at the invasion plans drawn up for the Cuban Missile Crisis. It wouldn't be the same, of course, since the CMC invasion was in part headed for the missile sites, but some of it is going to look similar. As for the actual invasion, I'd expect the idea would be to bear down with amphibious landings aimed at capturing Havana and Santiago with perhaps a third thrust aimed at cutting the country in two. At its narrower points, the island is about 55 miles across.

The problem here is the Soviets throwing the Cubans under the bus. Even if justified, it sends a bad signal to Soviet allies around the world. Managing that issue is key to making the whole thing plausible. As for winning in Cuba in 10-15 days, fat chance of that. It will take weeks if not months to fully suppress resistance to the invasion. The US at that time could have invaded with much more than 261,000 troops, but even doubling the force isn't going to eliminate the fact that there is plenty of tough terrain in Cuba where insurgents could hold out for some time and plenty of veterans of the Revolution who had experience doing precisely that fighting Batista. The US will win, but it will be harder than one would think and it's quite possible the whole thing gets bogged down for awhile. This might actually help in Vietnam if the US Army winds up with some experience fighting a guerilla war in Cuba. If anything, the lesson should be learned that all the hardware in the world won't make the task of winning much easier.
 
A Guerillia/Terrorist war is liable to drag on for some time. Possiblly a decade. The Exiles of 1963 are not a good pool to select future leaders from & most Cubans are going to be a bit bitter about the whole thing. In the US this will kick start assorted leftist, & anti war movements a year or two earlier. With 100,000 US soldiers in Cuba & demand growing for more to suppress the insurgents its going to be tougher to escalate in Viet Nam. In the imeadiate afterglow of the Cuban intervention there will be a argument for intervention elsewhere to clean up Latin America. How far that goes I cant say.
 
If the US tries to go for an invasion of Cuba this soon after the CMC, what’s the likelihood that the Soviet’s respond by blockading or otherwise going after Berlin again?
 
If the US tries to go for an invasion of Cuba this soon after the CMC, what’s the likelihood that the Soviet’s respond by blockading or otherwise going after Berlin again?
Not likely, as it would fail, just as it did with Stalin's blockade. Plus the Soviet Union as mentioned wouldn't antagonize the United States other than through protest of the US invasion of Cuba.

I believe Cuba would not be like Vietnam, as the US would not tolerate a Communist government close to home, and would do whatever it took to keep Cuba out of Communist hands, even if that meant fully annexing Cuba. US plans was to probably place Cuba under US military occupation, at least temporarily. They may perhaps even fully annex Cuba if butterflies flow right.

It may mean that the US doesn't get too involved in Vietnam due to being occupied in Cuba. The lack of defeat could have dramatic consequences, and the US would be far more inclined to go on military adventures than IOTL.

Military resistance would crumble in a matter of weeks or months, though insurgency will take years to suppress probably.

After all, I'm not a historian, this is just an opinion.
 

SsgtC

Banned
What about the next question? Assuming the bearded one gets the gate How is the beloved island governed?
Probably has a military government under a US Governor-General. At least for the short term. Long term it depends on what happens to the islands. They could be treated the way the US did the Philippines and a 10 year plan put in place to grant full Independence with an acceptable US backed regime. Or they could be annexed as a US territory and treated like Puerto Rico. The final option would be full statehood. Really depends on the way things fall
 
There must be some remnant of the government in exile.

That lot were the folks who lost through incompetency & corruption. Their exile organization was inept. You could find a few fairly clean academics &some respected businessmen but thats about it. If you don't want former communists running the water works & street dept you left with the former Batista era political hacks & kleptocrats, or a decade of growing a new generation of civil servants & government employees who are only average or less in terms of corruption & ineptitude.

... They could be treated the way the US did the Philippines and a 10 year plan put in place to grant full Independence with an acceptable US backed regime. ...

This. Its a return to the earlier decades of how Cuba was run. If the US leaders are smart they will attempt to mollify the Cubans by suppressing corruption among the new civil service & politicians, but I'm not optimistic.
 
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