Since the Normandy Landings ended up being so successful, what if JFK decided to follow Eisenhower's example and conduct similar landings in Cuba to capture Fidel Castro and topple the communist Cuban government? What effect do you picture the landings having?
WI: Normandy-Style Landings Carried out Against Cuba in 1961?
- Thread starter TheGuyWhoHeartsHistory
- Start date
Delta Force
Banned
The Bay of Pigs Invasion is no where near comparable to Normandy. It was conducted by 1,500 Cuban refugees with no naval or air support.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
No Bay of Pigs was basically an old fashioned filibustering attempt ala Lopez and Quitman back before the Civil War, it wasn't a real invasion by the US, backed by the US yes, but not with full US participation. If the US actually wanted to force an invasion on Cuba it would have managed it, Brigade 2506 had no gunline, no jet aircraft, no post WWII tanks, no modern AT weapons, and was a single understrength brigade, I don't see the US doing it with less than 3 full Divisions backed up by a multiple heavy cruisers for a gunline, with plenty of modern aircover
Shadow Master
Banned
Well, I would hope that in the years bewteen the two invasions, the lessons would have been learned and applied, so the Cuban forces, that alerted to the time and place of the 'Invasion', would instead find themselves getting plastered by air-attacks, and big gun naval bombardment by all the (re)activated Iowa class, and only then, under complete air surpremacy, do the troops go in, slaughtering any surviving remanants of the Cuban defense forces in the immediate area, and moving forward only when they had properly prepared their armor and artillery, then yes, it probably would have worked. Not sure what the death toll would have been, nor how long the occupation would have lasted to remove any last stain of communist zealots from the island, but I could see Cuba becoming a free and democratic island nation just south of the US, and a staunch US ally for decades to come, and with the greatly expanded US military ( add army and marine and airforce to the navy) bases being annexed into the USA directly.
The main problem is that a full blown invasion of Cuba is a likely trigger for a nuclear war. If it occurred anytime after mid-1962(?) it may well be destroyed by the Soviet forces in Cuba using tactical nuclear weapons and there is the risk that some of their strategic missiles will be fired at the continental US. Factor in that the Soviets may then have to opt for a first strike just because their missiles and bombers can't survive a NATO strike and NATOs Massive Retaliation doctrine and well, there won't be much left of Eurasia and the US will be a bit messed up also.
marathag
Banned
In 1961 they had just a handful of ICBMs that could reach parts of CONUS.
They didn't have enough bombers that could get past the SAGE defence net.
It's the whole reason for putting IRBMs and Il-28s into Cuba in the first place.
without them, they would bluster in the US, maybe another Berlin Blockade.
But WWIII was right out.
*Of course* the US could defeat Castro with a massive invasion (which would not have to be on nearly the scale of Normandy). That was never in doubt. But knowing of Latin American revulsion at US military intervention (a revulsion by no means confined to pro-Communists) the US wanted to make it appear that this was a "Cubans vs. Cubans" thing, just as the toppling of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 was portrayed as a purely Guatemalan coup.
As for what would happen if there was a massive invasion by US troops, I'll recycle an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:
***
It's very unlikely that Khrushchev would go to war as a result but it is likely that he would feel a need to do *something.* I once proposed a scenario in which his response is to do what in OTL he did a few months later anyway-- build the Berlin Wall--and I noted that then people would be speculating in this newsgroup "What if the US had never invaded Cuba? Would the Berlin Wall have been built?"
One may doubt, incidentally, that a "totally successful" invasion (in the sense of one which would actually overthrow Castro) would be a good idea from the viewpoint of *Realpolitik*, even if there is no serious reaction from Khrushchev. It would entangle the US in an extremely messy Cuban political situation: (1) The anti-Castro factions would be struggling against each other for power, and the US would have a hard time being neutral; (2) the new regime would be seen as a puppet regime even by many Cubans who were not Castroites; and (3) there would likely be guerilla warfare and terrorism by Castroites. Moreover, such an invasion would be extremely unpopular in Latin America, and anti-Yanqui feeling could grow tremendously, so that the US in destroying one Castro might create several new ones.
No doubt Clayton Fritchey, then an aide to Adlai Stevenson, had some of these things in mind when he told JFK, "Mr. President, it could have been worse." "How?," JFK asked. Fritchey replied, "It might have succeeded." (Jim Rasenberger, *The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs,* p. 395.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0Ex08ZkkXEkC&pg=PA395 )
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/DQFyp4RcAUQ/ErKyse2Ms3MJ
As for what would happen if there was a massive invasion by US troops, I'll recycle an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:
***
It's very unlikely that Khrushchev would go to war as a result but it is likely that he would feel a need to do *something.* I once proposed a scenario in which his response is to do what in OTL he did a few months later anyway-- build the Berlin Wall--and I noted that then people would be speculating in this newsgroup "What if the US had never invaded Cuba? Would the Berlin Wall have been built?"
One may doubt, incidentally, that a "totally successful" invasion (in the sense of one which would actually overthrow Castro) would be a good idea from the viewpoint of *Realpolitik*, even if there is no serious reaction from Khrushchev. It would entangle the US in an extremely messy Cuban political situation: (1) The anti-Castro factions would be struggling against each other for power, and the US would have a hard time being neutral; (2) the new regime would be seen as a puppet regime even by many Cubans who were not Castroites; and (3) there would likely be guerilla warfare and terrorism by Castroites. Moreover, such an invasion would be extremely unpopular in Latin America, and anti-Yanqui feeling could grow tremendously, so that the US in destroying one Castro might create several new ones.
No doubt Clayton Fritchey, then an aide to Adlai Stevenson, had some of these things in mind when he told JFK, "Mr. President, it could have been worse." "How?," JFK asked. Fritchey replied, "It might have succeeded." (Jim Rasenberger, *The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs,* p. 395.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0Ex08ZkkXEkC&pg=PA395 )
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/DQFyp4RcAUQ/ErKyse2Ms3MJ
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I have a doubt David, but I don't want to make another thread just for it, so I'm going to ask you here
what if instead of allowing Castro to rise to power, the USA had instead couped Baptista as soon the revolution started and either called new elections or placed a more "humane" dictator in power, while helping him to crush the castros before they had the change to rise
What would happen in such scenario?
See my post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/i1my1Q6VD54/eF9M2oi0T3EJ The US did try to get rid of Batista, but too late. "As for why the attempt was made so late, two obvious reasons are (1) it wasn't clear until very late that Castro was winning, and (2) it was by no means unanimously agreed by US policy-makers at the time that Fidel Castro was a Communist, though they were certainly worried by Communists around him, like his brother Raul and Che Guevara. But there were also many moderates in the July 26th Movement, and just where Fidel stood remained something of a mystery."
Khruzchev never would have used nukes over a Cuba, he wasn't batshit insane. Bluffing is one thing, using another. If we would have done a Normandy style invasion the Soviets would have protested but in the end done nothing of consequence. The Soviet ambassador would have done some Anti-imperialist speeches and that would have been that. Push comes to shove the Soviets weren't willing to risk Moscow for Havana!
To what end? To make sure Leningrad, Moscow and Minsk all go up in big mushroom clouds? The Soviets weren't that crazy! They would try to cause trouble for us somewhere else in retaliation no doubt but nothing that overboard.
In general I agree as the stakes were higher in 1962 when the Soviets had a bit of pride and diplomatic credibility at stake. On the other hand, 1961 is during the Berlin Wall crisis. There's a lot of things that could go wrong inadvertently or bad decisions due to not seeing the whole picture.
I did not say they would. Or even that they might. I just said that they could.
But there were itchy fingers on both sides and we are just lucky that they did not successfully get a chance to use their deadly and overpowered firecrackers.
Fair point. My carelessness.
I suppose the landings would succeed but would be followed by Castro retreating back to guerrilla warfare. Would the Soviets retaliate by putting more pressure on West Berlin
Maybe not but they would i think seek to retaliate in other areas. Hence my query over West Berlin.
And what happens if those free elections ends up with the party that uses the "Yankees go home" slogan wins? Or if the party that uses the "Fidel is the best" slogan wins?
West Berlin makes sense as long as they don't push it too far. The thing is Cuba has little to offer anyone except some good tobacco. Nobody is going to start a big war over the loss of their tobacco supply.