swine bay backstory

{Excerpt from Grace And Power, by Sally Bedell Smith. Copyright 2004. Random House. New York.}-----------------------
--------------------------- Macmillan didn't prevail in their Key West meeting, however, as Kennedy insisted on keeping the military option open in Laos. The President had already made a tough televised statement and moved troops and warships into position. JFK's plan was to secure the Laotian capital of Vientiane with several battalions of American soldiers joined by troops from regional allies such as Pakistan and Thailand. Although Kennedy "pressed very hard," Macmillan couldn't offer British forces, explaining that he needed cabinet approval for such a commitment. "Kennedy obviously thought this was an excuse," said Henry Brandon, Washington correspondent for London's Sunday Times. Against his better judgment, Macmillan agreed that Kennedy might have to take action out of political necessity "in order not to be 'pushed about' by the Russians."

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Privately, Kennedy assured dovish aides such as Schlesinger that his maneuvers were more theatrical than real -- bluffs intended to convince the Soviets to support a cease-fire. Kennedy thought Laos was not "worthy of engaging the attention of great powers," Schlesinger wrote. But the hawks on his staff believed Kennedy intended to proceed. In Walt Rostow's view, "Kennedy was ready to fight in Laos to hold the Mekong Valley" -- the strategic linchpin of the country.

A crucial factor in Kennedy's thinking had nothing to do with Southeast Asia. By late March he was immersed in plans for an American-backed invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro -- the infamous landing at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. The scheme had been hatched during the Eisenhower administration by the CIA, which trained Cuban exiles in Guatemala for what was known as Operation Pluto.

The numerous mistakes Kennedy made in authorizing and directing the ill-conceived invasion resulted from inexperience and over-confidence. In dismantling Eisenhower's national security apparatus, Kennedy had intended to broaden his sources of information for decision-making. Yet the ultimate irony of the Bay of Pigs was that Kennedy limited himself to advice that he couldn't test or analyze. "He tried to keep it very secret, and he succeeded too well," said Douglas Dillon. JFK's susceptibility to a covert preemptive operation also hearkened back to themes in Why England Slept, in which he argued that the cautious nature of democracy could hamper a nation's response to totalitatian aggression.

Having taken a stand as an anti-communist fighter committed to oust Castro, Kennedy considered several options. The simplest was to help a small cadre -- perhaps several hundred men -- infiltrate Cuba to strengthen an indigenous resistance movement. The most ambitious was a full-scale invasion including American troops, which was unacceptably imperialistic. JFK compromised on what Macmillan called "a complete muddle" -- an amphibious landing of 1,400 men that was expected to provoke a popular uprising against Castro. ...

Kennedy had serious doubts from the start; he questioned the likelihood of mass uprisings, for example. "He couldn't quite bring himself to trust his own sense," wrote Stewart Alsop. But a greater concern was that he would seem the appeaser -- the ghost of his father's legacy -- if he derailed the plan, handing the Republicans "the issue forever," said Rostow.

[Ambassador Joseph Kennedy had wanted to appease Hitler and avoid war. ('Mon over here Adolf, & sit b'side me. Set-a-spell.) -- I'm just making up that quote, but that was the -- that was -- Yikes. That was something the Ambassador never lived down, & here was his son trying to live it down for him. ... ]

Kennedy and George Smathers had visited Cuba together at the end of 1957....They stayed at the U.S. Embassy as guests of Kennedy's longtime friends Ambassador Earl Smith and his wife, Flo. On December 23 the two senators were honored at an embassy Christmas party, followed by gambling at the Sans Souci casino...."Kennedy wasn't a great casino man," said Smathers, "but the Tropicana nightclub had a floor show you wouldn't believe. . . . Kennedy liked Cuba. He liked the style."

Many in the State Department dismissed Earl Smith as a lightweight, but Kennedy gave him more credit....Said Charley Bartlett..."Earl had a very sharp mind, was a very good investor, a bit of a gambler. Earl had good judgment and was shrewd." A graduate of Yale who was fluent in three languages, Smith had been visiting Cuba since 1928 and had made many friends there before arriving in Havana as ambassador in July 1957, seven months after Castro landed with a guerrilla force he had trained while exiled in Mexico.

For the next eighteen months, Smith tried to manage an increasingly explosive situation as Castro gathered strength and Fulgencio Batista, Cuba's longtime president, tightened his dictatorial grip. Unlike Smith's predecessor, Arthur Gardner, who was friendly enough with Batista to play canasta with him several times a week, Smith kept his distance and reached out to an alternative "anti-Batista element" in the intelligentsia, middle class, and Catholic Church. Smith recognized early that Castro was an avowed Marxist, which the State Department and influential reporters such as Herbert Matthews of the New York Times...chose to ignore.

Shortly after Batista fled on New Year's Day 1959 and Castro seized power, Earl and Flo returned to the United States. Within the next year, Castro declared himself a communist and ally of the Soviet Union, prompting the Eisenhower administration to impose economic sanctions. The U.S. government viewed the close proximity of a Soviet client state as a significant military threat, not only to Latin American countries but to the United States as well. While Smith's warnings about Castro were vindicated, State Department mandarins continued to belittle the former ambassador. ...

[In 1961] Kennedy spent the long Easter weekend in Palm Beach, where he had more than three hours of private meetings with Smith at his friend's beachfront home. The topic, according to Earl Smith Jr., was the proposed attack on Cuba. "My father said they were talking about how could one remove the threat without an all-out military exercise," said Smith. "Kennedy said, 'What happens if we get bogged down?' My father said, 'Don't undertake it unless you do it 100 percent.' Jack Kennedy said, 'There are things at hand you are not aware of.'"

When he returned to Washington on April 4, Kennedy didn't disclose the substance of his Florida discussions. But Mac Bundy and Schlesinger detected a toughening of Kennedy's attitude and suspected that Joe Kennedy, Earl Smith, and Smathers were responsible.

On April 5, JFK approved the CIA plan.

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