Page 13 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 13 of 237

Nine B-26s had left Nicaragua. One was shot down, and three had landed, respectively, at Key West, Grand
Cayman and Miami. Two pilots were dead. But five of the bombers returned to Happy Valley.

Despite the heavy air losses, the trouble over Zuniga's cover story and the UN debate, Richard Bissell was
encouraged by the partial success of the April 15 raid. From the beginning the CIA understood the rather
elementary military principle that no amphibious landing can take place without either (1) air cover at the beaches
or (2) complete destruction of the opposing air force on the ground.

In the case of the Bay of Pigs, the latter course was chosen. Castro's air force would be destroyed on the ground
by the exile B-26 force, so that air cover at the beaches would be unnecessary. Originally, three full-strength
strikes by the B-26s were planned. This was cut down to two strikes of moderate strength. The second strike was
scheduled to take place at dawn, Monday, April 17, as the 1,400-man exile invasion force fought its way ashore.

The CIA had estimated before the first raid that Castro's air force included at least four T-33 jet trainers, six to
eight B-26s and several British Sea Furies, fast propeller-driven fighters. Estimates by the returning exile fliers of
how many of Castro's planes were destroyed varied. They claimed they had destroyed twenty-two to twenty-four
planes. Pilot claims are often inflated, but Bissell knew that at least a number of Castro's B-26s were
destroyed. Hopefully, the next raid, on Monday, would finish the job of demolishing Castro's air force.

But political and foreign policy considerations began to outweigh the tactical plan. The cover story crumbled as
Sunday wore on. United States participation was surfacing rapidly. The CIA plan had hinged on the assumption
that Zuniga's cover story would hold for at least forty-eight hours. In that event, the second air strike would either
seem like the work of the rebelling Castro pilots, or would be overlooked in the general confusion of the invasion.

The CIA reasoned that if the airstrip at the Bay of Pigs could be captured and held, photographs could be released
by Tuesday, April 18, showing exile B-26s operating from inside Cuba. This, the CIA assumed, would divert
attention from the question of where the bombers had taken off from on April 15 and 17. The problem was to get
by with the "defecting" pilots' tale from Saturday to Tuesday. After that, the cover story told by Zuniga would not
matter; it would be overtaken by events.

Now the situation had changed radically. All had hinged on the Zuniga story. With that story fast unraveling at the
edges, could the President permit another B-26 strike on Monday and still convince the world that somehow a
new covey of Castro pilots had defected from the Cuban Air Force? The President decided he could not.

***

With Allen Dulles in Puerto Rico, Bissell was the CIA's man in charge. At 9:00 P.M. on Sunday, April 16, his
telephone rang. It was McGeorge Bundy, the patrician Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Bundy had been a student of Bissell's at Yale.* Now he was calling to instruct Bissell that the President had
decided to cancel tomorrow's D-Day B-26 strike against Castro's air bases.

Alarmed by the President's eleventh-hour decision, Bissell and General Charles P. Cabell, the CIA's deputy
director, hurried to the State Department to appeal to Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

The air strike was vital to the invasion plan and should be reinstated, Bissell and Cabell argued, otherwise Castro
would have jets and other planes to attack the invaders. It was now 10:00 P.M. From his office at the State
Department, Rusk telephoned Kennedy at Glen Ora. He told him that Cabell and Bissell were there and believed
the strike should go ahead as planned. The President said no. Rusk asked whether Cabell wished to say anything
to the President directly, but Cabell declined. Bissell did not talk to Kennedy either. Twelve hundred miles away,
the invasion fleet was already approaching the beaches.