The US didn't invade Cuba at Bay of Pigs...they convinced Cuban expatriates to invade Cuba at Bay of Pigs. Their promised air support never came through.

Ahah- and where did those cuban expatriates launch their invasion from? and where were they trained? And since any new non-communoist power in cuba would require US backing, it was therefore a US 'operation'.

"Their promised air support never came through." - dats right, because the US did not really want regime change in cuba, but hey did want rid of a bunch of ornery cuban expatriates. Win!

The real problem was that some of the US wanted regime change in Cuba, and thus were willing to support an invasion by Cuban expats. The rest of the US thought that was dangerous, and so they leaked plans for the invasion to the Cubans so it wouldn't succeed.

Basically, the invasion was screwed by Americans who didn't want it to succeed. In the end it came down to the invaders first being promised support by the US military, then denied that support, then actively opposed by America, who leaked plans for the invasion including precise locations to the Cubans. The poor bastards who were actually in the invasion force had no chance at all once they were betrayed.

Partial credit. You lose points for a lack of conspiratorial cynicysmmsmsmssmm.
USA! USA! ....

"Ahah- and where did those cuban expatriates launch their invasion from? and where were they trained?"

The answer to both is "Guatemala".

"the US did not really want regime change in cuba, but hey did want rid of a bunch of ornery cuban expatriates."

That's an interesting argument, and one I don't think I've heard of before. Do you have sources for this claim? The CIA invested a great deal in Cuba, and it is difficult to imagine that they secretly didn't want their significant investment to pay off.

@ fiedler

''You lose points for a lack of conspiratorial cynicysmmsmsmssmm. ''

Can I gain some by tossing in the name of the Zapata Corporation?

@tolstoy

"The answer to both is "Guatemala"."

If you read the wikipedia page on the bay of pigs, you will see that there was VERY heavy US involvement, which was my point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

"Do you have sources for this claim?"
- do I have sources that prove the US government deliberately setup 1,500 men to be killed/tortured/imprisoned? why no, I don't have sources. It's my own opinion.

"The CIA invested a great deal in Cuba, and it is difficult to imagine that they secretly didn't want their significant investment to pay off."
- yes, that would be *sneaky* of them! ;D
- No such thing as waste when it comes to the US military industrial complex. They have spent what 32 billion? on failed projects just recently. And thats the official number. HA.

@fulhamish - I think you just won the game ;P

Interesting reading:
http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagsg022.php

CONSPIRACY THEORIES>>>>>>who needs 'em?

''By 1964, Zapata Off-Shore had a number of subsidiaries, including: Seacat-Zapata Offshore Company (Persian Gulf), Zapata de Mexico, Zapata International Corporation, Zapata Mining Corporation, Zavala Oil Company, Zapata Overseas Corporation, and a 41% share of Amata Gas Corporation.

Bush ran for the United States Senate in 1964 and lost; he continued as president of Zapata Off-Shore until 1966, when he sold his interest to his business partner, Robert Gow, and ran for the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1966, William Stamps Farish III, age 28, joined the board Zapata Board.

Zapata's filing records with the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission are intact for the years 1955-1959, and again from 1967 onwards. However, records for the years 1960-1966 are missing. The commission's records officer stated that the records were inadvertently placed in a session file to be destroyed by a federal warehouse and that a total of 1,000 boxes were pulped in this procedure. The destruction of records occurred either in October 1983 (according to the records officer) or in 1981 shortly after Bush became Vice President of the United States (according to, Wison Carpenter, a record analyst with the commission).

First off: Bay of Pigs was 61, I am talking about 62. When Cuba had nuclear missiles and the Americans were planning to invade to get control of them.

Second off: lets move away from conspriacy theory's and move back to the discussion on hand, if the Cuban Missile Crisses lead to a US-Cuban war.

Sigh. What a dick.

I ask about CMC, you answer with BoP and I'm the dick? I just want an alternate history discussion

I don't think the US would have actually invaded. At the time, the use of nukes was a very real threat, and Miami getting nuked would have been awful, even though retaliation was possible. I think that it would have gotten to a head at which point Kennedy would have backed down when the Soviets called his bluff, and America's "major superpower credit" would have taken a severe hit.

My guess is that none of you are old enough to actually remember the BOP invasion nor the Cuban Missle Crisis. CIA gave BOP to Kennedy when he took over as a going operation, CIA planned and finanaced and Cuban Expat staffed. The CIA seems to have believed that the people would open their arms to the invasion. They were wrong. A year later (though I didn't look it up and am hazy on dates), the CMC starts. The invasion of Cuba would have resulted in Russia retaliantion. Fairly sure the Marines in Florida who were hours away from going in didn't want to go. I knew Marines who were sure they would have gone. Nasty business.

But would the Russian retaliantion have involved nukes. This was the time that Russia had enough Nuke to blow up Europe and half of America and America had enough nukes to blow the world over.

Almost every US general wanted to go in, even Kennedy at one point thought going in was the best decision. However if they had gone in, what do you think would have been the likelyhood of the invasion turning into a Nuclear War?

The Soviets did initially think Castro was the CIA's man. The Party in Cuba had a longstanding alliance with Batista, and Castro was a protege of Eduardo Chibas, an anti-Communist (who Castro still thinks highly of). Castro's Ortodoxo Party excluded Communists from joining the July 26th movement, and the Cuban Party criticized the movement very heavily quite aside from the issue of exclusion. It's ironic that America's hostility to Castro made him a willing converter to socialism. Castro only publicly identified with socialism a couple of years after the revolution. American stupidity drove Castro into the arms of the Soviets, who still never fully trusted Castro.

Indeed, Castro's attitude towards the CMC is rather bizarre, even to this day. He still insists the Soviets "capitulated" to the Americans, and makes a bunch of accusations about great power 'chauvinism'. I still think Castro is at heart a third world nationalist, and never outgrew his petty bourgeois outlook.

I believe the Soviet nuclear policy was no first strike. They probably would have retaliated in Western Europe; Cuba's a bit far away for a conventional assault.

The answer is "nuclear war." Instead of debating about it here, go read some of the material by the American and Soviet leaders who wrote about it in the 90s.

Or Stukus, they could've retaliated with the nuclear subs they had off the coast of Virginia and Maryland...

Goldfinger: I can promise you that those subs would have been sunk the moment they attempted to make their missile bays ready for launch.

It was standard procedure to have every Soviet missile submarine shadowed during its patrol, particularly during a time of heightened crisis, such as this. Missile doors opening makes a rather distinctive noise, and while this sort of thing is classified, I'd be willing to bet money that US sub skippers had orders to shoot during the crisis if there was a potential launch in progress... the missile submarines of the time were either Diesel-electric or the nuclear Hotel class (K-19) and required the boat to be surfaced in order to shoot.

@jack: thats the thing, it takes less then 2 minutes to launch a nuke, however the americans would have had to find the subs in order to sink them. If it was a race between soviet subs launching nukes, and american subs sinking them, there is no doubt who would have won.. Also you forgot the US could only shadow subs they knew about, and the soviets had more subs then they would let the Americans think.

Your information is incorrect, to say the least.


I'd be curious to see where on Earth you're getting your information. Two minutes for a missile shot is incredibly fast (more like impossibly). I believe the Hotel class submarines could manage a launch 12 minutes after surfacing under ideal conditions.

I only wish I could go into detail about the hows and the means, but I can effectively guarantee that 90 percent of Soviet missile submarines were shadowed at ALL times during the Cold War... and I'd be willing to lay money that 100 percent were shadowed during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Correction: In 1962, the Hotel class would have been upgraded with an improved launch system, allowing for submerged launch. Slightly better, but it wouldn't help that much when the rubber met the road.

where did your data? Also what about the Echo class?

Echo class were cruise missile armed ships. And cruise missiles at the time required too much guidance to be fire and forget weapons.

Jane's Fighting Ships. Where did you get your (non)data?

"I only wish I could go into detail about the hows and the means"

Damnit... how can that stuff still be classified after 50 years? You can PM me the secret(s) and I will promise not to tell anyone.

Correction: The SS-N-3 Shaddock was inertially guided. Still had to be surfaced to fire, so same issue.

A submarine is probably its most vulnerable on the surface, particularly when you're dicking around with a surfaced missile launch in the Atlantic.

Tolstoy: A lot of shit involves missions that I heard about secondhand. Having had to sign papers saying I can't talk about that without going to Leavenworth makes me rather leery. Having said that, there is no classified information that I know that would shock you. I guarantee that if I said "Hey, the USN did X" your response would be "No shit, of course you do."

Most of it really isn't that interesting.

"Echo class were cruise missile armed ships. And cruise missiles at the time required too much guidance to be fire and forget weapons.

Jane's Fighting Ships. Where did you get your (non)data?"
Defcon

"Tolstoy: A lot of shit involves missions that I heard about secondhand. Having had to sign papers saying I can't talk about that without going to Leavenworth makes me rather leery. Having said that, there is no classified information that I know that would shock you. I guarantee that if I said "Hey, the USN did X" your response would be "No shit, of course you do."

Most of it really isn't that interesting."
Stop pretending your a CIA agent.

I forget the exact sequence of events, but I believe a US destroyer was minutes away from firing on a soviet vessel which could have touched off something ugly.

And I dont think a US invasion would have led to a nuclear war. I think Krushchev was a reasonable man and understood the implications of such a decision very well. It might have led to a conventional war in Europe though. I just dont see the two sides using Nukes unless it was a last resort.

and I would expect for the US to use them first

I think this is the incident you're referring to, Santa:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov#Cuban_Missile_Crisis

More here: http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/02/sp_world_blanton101602.htm

"The most surprising new evidence revealed that we were even closer to nuclear war than the policymakers knew at the time, and that's saying something, because on Saturday, October 27, Robert McNamara thought he might not live to see the sunrise. At the time, there was a crescendo of bad news: a U-2 shot down over Cuba, another U-2 straying over Siberia with US Air Force jets (also armed with nuclear air-to-air missiles) scrambling to head off possible MIG interception. The Joint Chiefs had recommended air strike and invasion of Cuba, as of 4 p.m. The Cubans were firing on all the low-level US recon flights. At the conference, we found out that exactly at that moment, US destroyers were dropping signaling depth charges on a Soviet submarine near the quarantine line that was carrying a nuclear-tipped torpedo -- totally unbeknownst to the US Navy. The Soviet captain lost his temper, there could be a world war up there, let's take some of them down with us, etc. Cooler heads prevailed, specifically the sub brigade deputy commander named Vasily Arkhipov, who was onboard and calmed the captain down. The sub came to the surface about 15 minutes after Soviet ambassador Dobrynin left Bobby Kennedy's office carrying RFK's urgent message to Khrushchev, time is running out, invasion in 48 hours, if you take the missiles out, we will pledge not to invade Cuba, plus we'll take our missiles out of Turkey as long as you don't mention that part of it publicly. Early the next morning, Khrushchev announced the Soviet missiles would be coming out. "

If I remember it wasnt even about the soviet captain losing his temper, the soviet captain was ordered to fire if he was hit if i remember

"I forget the exact sequence of events, but I believe a US destroyer was minutes away from firing on a soviet vessel which could have touched off something ugly.

And I dont think a US invasion would have led to a nuclear war. I think Krushchev was a reasonable man and understood the implications of such a decision very well. It might have led to a conventional war in Europe though. I just dont see the two sides using Nukes unless it was a last resort."
agree. Kruschevs message to kennedy during the cmc:
Mr. President we and you ought not now to pull on the end of a rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter the knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it. And then it will be necessary to cut that knot.
And what that will mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly what terrible forces our countries possess.

Despite this they almost went to war even though both sides wanted peace. McNamara on the situation said:
"we got lucky, it was luck that prevented a war"

You should see a movie called "The Fog of War" where McNamara gives one of the only extended interviews in his life. He went to a conference in the 90s and met the Cuban delegation that was in control during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They said that not only would they have authorized the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a US invasion but that the authorization had already been given.