Causes of the Bay of Pigs invasion’s failure

Abstract

While the failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion is generally attributed to the errors of the Central Intelligence Agency, the analysis of the operation suggests that the decisions of President Kennedy and his Cabinet were also responsible for the defeat. The aim of the paper is to present a detailed picture of the causes of the mission’s breakdown through the study of various reports and other documents, exploring the errors during both the preparatory phase and the invasion proper, and to argue that even though the Central Intelligence Agency was culpable for the substandard recruitment, selection, and training of the Cuban Expeditionary Force, the invasion was more severely hindered by the Cabinet’s hesitant decision-making process and political restrictions, most notably the cancelation of the D-Day air strikes, which ultimately led to the defeat of the operation.