The new president soon learns that the CIA (the Central Intelligence Agency) has been secretly training refugees from Cuba as warriors and is planning an invasion of that island. Cuba has had decades of problems. For years, a corrupt government fostered crime and ignored poverty. Then Fidel Castro took charge and brought reforms. But he is a dictator and there is no freedom in Cuba. The CIA believes that with its help the Cuban people will rise up and overthrow their Communist leader. President Kennedy agrees to go ahead with the plan.

But the invasion, at a place called the Bay of Pigs, is a fiasco . The invaders are captured; the Cuban people don't rise up; America—and Kennedy—look foolish . The President takes the blame. He says, "This administration intends to be candid about its errors. For as a wise man once said, 'an error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it '."