Word: sorensens
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Sorensen reports that Kennedy, "when briefed on the operation by the CIA as President-elect in Palm Beach, had been astonished at its magnitude and daring. He told me later on that he had grave doubts from that moment on." Schlesinger also reports that Kennedy was deeply dubious of the whole idea. But at one of the formal meetings that Kennedy held on the subject after he became President, he was persuaded by the plan's advocates that "the simplest thing, after all, might be to let the Cubans [meaning the exiles] go where they yearned...
...their defense of Kennedy, Sorensen and Schlesinger may have inadvertently done him a disservice-by suggesting how easily he allowed himself to be misled. More important, they call into question the basic decision-making process of American government. For Schlesinger insists that Kennedy was a prisoner of events, surrounded by "a collection of officials prepared to sacrifice the world's growing faith in the new American President in order to defend interests and pursue objectives of their own." And according to Sorensen, the whole Bay of Pigs project "seemed to move mysteriously and inexorably toward execution without either...
Schlesinger and Sorensen stress the fact that early in 1960 President Eisenhower gave a go-ahead to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to train, supply and support anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Guatemala. It went without saying that those exiles would eventually strike at Cuba and try to overthrow Castro. Ike crossed no t's and dotted no i's as to the specifics of the plan. In Sorensen's words, Kennedy "inherited the plan, the planners and, most troubling of all, the Cuban exile brigade-an armed force, flying another flag, highly trained in secret Guatemalan...
Perhaps the most persuasive of the invasion advocates was CIA Director Allen Dulles, who, according to Sorensen, reminded Kennedy of the success of the CIA-sponsored overthrow of a pro-Communist Guatemalan government in 1954. Said Allen Dulles to Kennedy: "I stood right here at Ike's desk and told him I was certain our Guatemalan operation would succeed. And, Mr. President, the prospects for this [Cuba] plan are even better than they were for that one." There was a strong suggestion that Kennedy could not afford to back away from a long-prepared anti-Castro project and appear...
...event, when the time came, Kennedy approved the proposed invasion. According to Schlesinger, the President strictly stipulated that "the plans be drawn on the basis of no U.S. military intervention." Sorensen recalls that stipulation with slight but highly significant differences. Kennedy, he said, insisted that there be no "direct, overt" participation of "American armed forces in Cuba...