Bureaucratic Politics and the Bay of Pigs
Abstract
On 17 April 1961, a brigade of 1300 Cuban exiles conducted an amphibious assault at the Bay of Pigs (Bahia de Cochinos) on Cuba's southern coast. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had recruited, organized, trained and equipped the Cuban brigade. CIA operatives participated in the assault and American pilots flew combat missions in support of the invasion. U.S. naval surface forces and carrier aircraft were involved in the operation. Less than 72 hours later, Castro had crushed the invasion. Over 100 Cuban exiles were dead and the Cuban survivors of the assault force spent the next 18 months languishing in Havana prisons. Four American pilots were killed. Having taken place within the first 90 days of the new administration, one of the worst U.S. foreign policy disasters of the 20th Century seriously jeopardized the nascent Kennedy Presidency. Kennedy's self-confidence was badly shaken. He privately agonized over how, as a life-long skeptic of "experts," he could possibly have allowed himself to be so badly misled into approving an operation which had been intellectually, morally, and tactically bankrupt from its inception. Graham T. Allison's subsequent modeling of national security policy decisions illuminates the shadowy recesses of Kennedy's dilemma. The debacle that has become synonymous with professional buffoonery and national embarrassment is a textbook case study of Allison's bureaucratic political model. The basic unit of analysis, organizing concepts, dominant inference patterns, and general propositions of bureaucratic politics present a framework for examining the Bay of Pigs operation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1995
- Accession Number
- ADA441984
Entities
People
- D. C. O'brien
Organizations
- National War College