Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba

Description

For decades, the CIA's top secret postmortem on the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion has been the holy grail of historians, students, and survivors of the failed invasion of Cuba. But the scathing internal report on the worst foreign policy debacle of the Kennedy administration, written by the CIA's then-Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick, has remained tightly guarded - until now. Dislodged from the government through the Freedom of Information Act, this is an uncompromising look at high officials' arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence, as displayed in their attitude toward Castro's revolution and toward the Cuban exiles the CIA had organized to invade the island. Including the complete report and supplementary materials, this text provides a picture of the operation and of the secret world of the espionage establishment, with stories of plots, counterplots, and intra-agency power struggles.

Peter Kornblugh directs the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive. The Archive serves scholars, journalists, Congress, public interest organizations, and citizens by obtaining and disseminating internal U.S. government documentation that is indispensable for informed public debate.

"One of the most secret documents of the Cold War" (New York Times) - "The most brutally frank and honest government document ever written." - Evan Thomas, Deputy Managing Editor, Newsweek - "There is little wonder why the spy agency has guarded [this report] so jealously." - Associated Press - "A picture of an agency shot through with deadly self-deception ... An untapped well of cold, hard facts." - New York Times