BAY OF PIGS “We wanted to bring freedom”
In April 1961, President John F Kennedy told a confidant: “I have had two full days of hell – I haven’t slept – this has been the most excruciating period of my life. I doubt my presidency could survive another catastrophe like that.”
What Kennedy was describing was a foreign policy disaster of his own making – the Bay of Pigs Invasion. A botched attempt to overthrow the Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro, the invasion saw a CIA-trained unit of Cuban exiles known as Brigade 2506 land on Cuba’s southern coast on 17 April 1961. However, Kennedy’s attempts to simultaneously distance the USA from the operation led to the brigade’s comprehensive defeat.
Bay of Pigs strengthened Castro’s regime, pushed Cuba into closer alignment with the Soviet Union and laid the foundations for the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Caught in the middle of this struggle were the defeated members of Brigade 2506, the majority of whom had been captured. Among their number was a 20-year-old paratrooper called Juan
