Cuba

Ann Louise Bardach looks at the current state of Cuba, 45 years after America's failed invasion.

Ann Louise Bardach: The Bay of Pigs invasion was an invasion force, led and created by the CIA, but using 1,500 Cuban exiles, very angry at Castro, wanting to overthrow his revolution. And they landed in southern Cuba. No one could keep a secret. There were big problems. The plan was developed by Eisenhower. Kennedy inherited it. Kennedy had his questions and doubts about it. And in the middle, he refused to provide air cover, which completely doomed it.

Tavis: So these exiles were supposed to land with U.S. support, get the people in the streets riled up, march to the palace, and throw Castro out.

Bardach: Exactly. And people were supposed to be waiting in the streets, the way we were sort of told in similar, sort of in Iraq, that we would be greeted as liberators. Well, at that time in history, Castro really did have a lot of strong popular support. He still has some support, but at that time he had considerably more.

So you didn't have people rushing out in the streets. But more than that, we did not annihilate the Cuban Air Force, which is what we needed to do. In fact, Castro was so wise to the deal that he had put out these decoy papier-mâché airplanes that we were knocking down. So I mean, again, and this seems to be what's gone on 45 years here, is that we're playing checkers, and he's playing chess.

Tavis: For those who do not understand the Bay of Pigs 45 years ago, despite your brilliant explanation, they do understand Iraq. And the comparison you make between how we were told we were gonna be greeted in the streets of Baghdad and what, in fact, has and continues to happen.

So, how is it that we knocked over Iraq? We don't control it yet, one could argue, but we knocked Saddam out and knocked the place over. How did we do that thousands of miles away in Iraq, and 90 miles off of our shore, 45 years later, this guy's still thumbing his nose at us?

Bardach: Well, you can take over any country through sheer brute military force. We have vast military superiority, and we could have done it in Cuba. John F. Kennedy, who was president at the time said, "I'm not comfortable with this." He told the CIA, "I have limits on this." Previously, under Eisenhower, we had done that in Guatemala.

It had immediately led to a civil war. It was in fact a civil war that went on for 40 years. Kennedy did not wanna go down that road. He wanted a different kind of politics. Not that he was pro-Castro. But he did not wanna go that way. And this is the problem. You are seen as invaders, you're seen as occupiers.

And unless you have completely and total support from people in the streets, it's not gonna happen. The political legacy of Bay of Pigs, which I think is important today, is that as a result of that failure, it really embittered Cuban exiles in Miami. And what happened, out of their outrage against Kennedy and his party, which was the Democratic Party, they forged a pretty rock solid alliance with the Republican Party, which has been very keenly important in elections ever since.

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