December 29, 1962 – All remaining prisoners from the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion return to the United States
In December 1962, or twenty months after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, in an agreement between Cuba and the United States, Fidel Castro freed the Brigade 2506 prisoners and allowed them to return to the United States in exchange for the United States delivering $53 million worth of food and medicines to Cuba. Some 60 wounded and ill prisoners had been returned to the United States a few months earlier, while five were executed in Cuba for past crimes. By December 29, 1962, all surviving prisoners had been returned to the United States.
Cuba showing location of Trinidad, which was the first proposed site of the CIA-sponsored Brigade 2506 invasion, and the Bay of Pigs, where the landings took place.(Taken from Bay of Pigs Invasion – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)
Background The rise to power of Fidel Castro afterhis victory in the Cuban Revolution (previous article) caused great concern forthe United States. Castro formed a government that adopted asocialist state policy and opened diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and other European communist countries. After the Cuban government seized andnationalized American companies in Cuba, the United States imposed a tradeembargo on the Castro regime and subsequently ended all economic and diplomaticrelations with the island country.
Then in July 1959, just seven months after the CubanRevolution, U.S.president Dwight Eisenhower delegated the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)with the task of overthrowing Castro, who had by then gained absolute power asdictator. The CIA devised a number ofmethods to try and kill the Cuban leader, including the use of guns-for-hireand assassins carrying poison-laced devices. Other schemes to destabilize Cuba also were carried out, includingsending infiltrators to conduct terror and sabotage operations in the island,arming and funding anti-Castro insurgent groups that operated especially in theEscambray Mountains, and by being directly involved in attacking and sinkingCuban and foreign merchant vessels in Cuban waters and by launching air attacksin Cuba. These CIA operations ultimatelyfailed to eliminate Castro or permanently destabilize his regime.
In March 1960, the CIA began to plan secretly for theinvasion of Cuba,with the full support of the Eisenhower administration and the U.S. ArmedForces. About 1,400 anti-Castro Cubanexiles in Miamiwere recruited to form the main invasion force, which came to be known as“Brigade 2506” (Brigade 2506 actually consisted of five infantry brigades andone paratrooper brigade). The majorityof Brigade 2506 received training in conventional warfare in a U.S. base in Guatemala,while other members took specialized combat instructions in Puerto Rico andvarious locations in the United States.
The CIA wanted to maintain utmost secrecy in order toconceal the U.S.government’s involvement in the invasion. Through loose talk, however, the plan came to be widely known among theMiami Cubans, which eventually was picked up by the American media and then bythe foreign press. On January 10, 1961,a front-page news item in the New York Times read “U.S. helps train anti-Castro ForceAt Secret Guatemalan Air-Ground Base”. Castro’s intelligence operatives in Latin Americaalso learned of the plan; in October 1960, the Cuban foreign minister presentedevidence of the existence of Brigade 2506 at a session of the United NationsGeneral Assembly.
In January 1961, the CIA gave newly elected U.S. president,John F. Kennedy, together with his Cabinet, details of the Cuban invasionplan. The State Department raised anumber of objections, particularly with regards to the proposed landing site ofTrinidad, which was a heavily populated town in south-central Cuba (Map30). Trinidad had the benefits of beinga defensible landing site and was located adjacent to the Escambray Mountains,where many anti-Castro guerilla groups operated. State officials were concerned, however, thatTrinidad’s conspicuous location and largepopulation would make American involvement difficult to conceal.
As a result, the CIA rejected Trinidad, and proposed a newlanding site: the Bay of Pigs (Spanish: Bahia de Cochinos), a remote, sparselyinhabited narrow inlet west of Trinidad. President Kennedy then gave his approval, andfinal preparations for the invasion were made. (The “Cochinos” in Bahia de Cochinos,although translated into English as “pigs” does not refer to swine but to aspecies of fish, the orange-lined triggerfish, found in the coral waters aroundthe area).
The general premise of the invasion was that most Cubanswere discontented with Castro and wanted to see his government deposed. The CIA believed that once Brigade 2506 beganthe invasion, Cubans would rise up against Castro, and the Cuban Army woulddefect to the side of the invaders. Other anti-government guerilla groups then would join Brigade 2506 andincite a civil war that ultimately would overthrow Castro. Thereafter, a provisional government, led byCuban exiles in the United States,would arrive in Cubaand lead the transition to democracy.
