The Cuban Missile Crisis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The Cuban Missile Crisis - search Paper Example253) By January, the decision seemed to have been made to remove Castro (Freedman 2002). In the spring and summertime of 1960, Richard Bissell, the Deputy Director (of Plans) of the CIA, planned various assassination schemes for Castro, and inducted training a group of anti Castro fighters. In the beginning, the plan was to send in delicate groups of guerrillas that were being trained in Guatemala, which could infiltrate the island nation and start uprisings and eventually a counter-revolution. Bissell and the CIA had used similar masked operations (though on a smaller scale) to disturbance governments successfully in Guatemala and Iran, and not so successfully in Indonesia (Freedman 2002 Blum, 1986). However, by the Fall the plan had evolved from inserting small bands of guerillas to a conventional amphibious invasion, and by November the group swelled to a l500-man paramilitary force of antiCastro Cubans that even had their own ai r force of B-26 bombers (Andrew 1995 Blum, 1986). Given the sheer size of this force, it did not remain covert for long. By 10 January 1961, The New York Times ran a full story on the training populate with a detailed map (Andrew 1995 Blum, 1986). Moreover, in his last State of the Union address, Eisenhower warned Castro that, Although, unhappily, Communist penetration of Cuba is actual and poses a serious threat, Communist dominated regimes have been deposed in Guatemala and Iran. (Andrew 1995 p. 255). This overt and covert pressure against Cuba act under the Kennedy constitution. The earlier plans to assassinate Castro, including subcontracting with the Mafia, continued in the spring of 1961 (Andrew, 1995 Blum, 1986). In April, Kennedy authorized Operation ZAPATA, which became the bay laurel of Pigs fiasco. After the failed invasion, the debate within the administration was between the overthrow or the containment of Castro (Freedman, 2002). The difficulty was that though the administration agreed that Castro should go, Kennedy was not interested in a direct American invasion. Instead President Kennedy, with the burning urging of his brother Robert Kennedy, decided upon a mixed policy of economic warfare and covert operations. The conclave of these, it was thought, would produce some sort of anti-Castro uprising (Freedman, 2002). On the covert action side of the policy, in June 1961, Kennedy ensnare up the Special Group (5412) - consisting of John McCone (the new Director of Central Intelligence, or DCI), the chairman of the conjugation Chiefs of Staff (the JCS), and the undersecretaries of the State and Defense Departments, to plan more covert action against Castro. Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, became a assistance and advocate of covert action to eliminate Castro during his time overseeing the reorganization ofthe CIA after the Bay of Pigs. As Robert Kennedy wrote, My topic is to stir things up on island with espionage, sabotage, general disorder, run and operated by Cubans themselves with every group but Batistas and Cornmunists (Freedman, 2002 p. 158). American covert action against Castros regime continued and intensified in the spring of 1962 under the code draw Operation MONGOOSE (The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962).