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The_Bitter_Bear t1_iusdxxe wrote

To your last point, I completely agree. They wildly overestimated anti-Castro sentiment. If it had been successful, it probably would have ended in the backup plan of having the forces retreat into the mountains to launch a gorilla campaign and would have been obvious that the US was involved. It was probably better that it failed.

Kennedy was originally on-board and then started to get concerned with keeping political distance and started making them change the plan. He should have scrapped it all together because instead he got a failure that obviously had the US behind it.

I guess I'm just always surprised how much of a role he had in the mess it was but it mostly gets attributed solely to the CIA.

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GrimReader710 t1_iushs4d wrote

Completely agree. Not a huge Kennedy fan (too soon?), So I'm def not defending him.

I also agree, it's bizarre how involved a president is in a clandestine operation like that. But considering how much executive power has increased to include that stuff in the last 60-70 years, it's not that surprising in retrospect. (Not a good thing tho!)

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