When it comes to Cuba's military victory at the Bay of Pigs, does Che Guevara deserve any credit or should it be assigned exclusively to Castro's leadership?

Submitted by Anglicanpolitics123 t3_yk1r0q in history

In the Bay of Pigs affair we know of course that a major reason why the operation failed was because Kennedy refused to through with the plan fully. Known as Operation Zapata it had two parts. The first part being to train the exiles to invade. The second being that the Marines would go in if part 1 failed. JFK refused to go through with part 2 and allowed the invasion to fail.

However major part of why Cuba won was of course because of their preparations for the operation. Now when it comes to Castro himself he of course was the leader of the country. And during the Bay of Pigs he personally commanded the Cuban army going on the battlefield himself. Che by contrast was not involved in the fighting as his forces were diverted from the battlefield by a fake mock invasion the Marines stage to split the Cuban forces.

However in the lead up to the Bay of Pigs Che Guevara was assigned by Castro in the training of Cuba's forces as director of instruction for Cuba's armed forces. He was largely responsible for helping to form the armed forces of the new revolutionary government at the time as well as the creation of the National Revolutionary Militia, a citizens militia, that played a key role in repelling the invasion. Che along with Fabian Escalante was also important in the formation of Cuba's intelligence services. Cuba's intelligence services were of course the ones who discovered the Bay of Pigs plan.

So essentially he didn't command the operations or participate in the fighting. That was Castro. But he formed, trained, and disciplined the army and militias that went out to fight in the Bay of Pigs. So from a Cuban political perspective would he get any credit for their victory at the Bay of Pigs or would it still go mostly to Castro?

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F1ackM0nk3y t1_iur7ssv wrote

Not sure about Che but, my understanding is that Castro had an unparalleled understanding of the terrain because he fished there. Combine that with all the other known misperceptions/lack of support, it was like shooting fish in a barrel for the Cubans.

One has to wonder if because the failure was so catastrophic, it later encouraged Kennedy to send “Military Advisors” into Vietnam

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mchistory21st t1_iur96x3 wrote

It did. It was that, and Kennedy feeling like he was embarrassed by Khrushchev the first time they met that caused him to draw a line in the sand in Vietnam.

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Fabulous-Fox3057 t1_iurfs8f wrote

Hey ,i am cuban and if i know something about Fidel was that he had an unpararelled understanding of geography.

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FoxtrotZero t1_iusigfa wrote

That's an interesting and valuable trait to have. Any particular reason he had such a base of knowledge? I imagine it's easier to be intimately familiar with an island nation than a continental one.

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Fabulous-Fox3057 t1_iut0wh4 wrote

He was a man of action He understood since young age the importance of knowing one's terrain He was born In a rural part of Cuba ,Biran.But there is something you must know In the war of Angola he directed the cuban strategy ,not the soviets ,and he did it from Cuba .He knew how to use the terrain in África in his behalf. Sorry for my english i don't have much practice.

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pressure_7 t1_iutcarm wrote

I think you are too humble to apologize for your English, it is quite good

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[deleted] t1_iutlo62 wrote

[deleted]

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pressure_7 t1_iutlsyo wrote

He deserves a compliment because being proficient at a learned language is impressive

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BrontesGoesToTown t1_iuuh7ws wrote

People who speak excellent English as a second (or third) language always write immaculately and then apologize for their English.

Meanwhile, people who only speak English-- poorly-- dominate the English-speaking internet. There really is no justice, is there?

Long story short: thank you and keep up the good work, u/Fabulous-Fox3057 !

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mcr1974 t1_iuvpy53 wrote

aww those rare moments of reddit kindness... buried deep among the vitriol and factual dreariness.

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JEDD_MASON t1_iusoasy wrote

It was in fact because he fished around the terrain and area the invasion was attempted which meant he understood the area extremely well.

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TheGreatBelow023 t1_ius6kxn wrote

And before the invasion he visited the area and stated that if the US were to invade, they’d invade here.

He and Che both helped to provide this historically neglected area with doctors and engineers to build schools to win the people over.

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BaronCoop t1_iusa9zx wrote

Is this true? That’s genius, I’d never heard that part before.

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[deleted] t1_iuue8o8 wrote

This method is how he rose to power. ETA: I’m Cuban.

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TheGreatBelow023 t1_iuummmj wrote

Definitely give “blowback” season 2 a listen. It covers the Cuban Revolution

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likealump t1_iuvkwck wrote

Classic authoritarian dictator MO. Chavez in Venezuela indoctrinated children by having hungry school kids put their heads down and pray to god for food and find nothing when they opened their eyes; then had them pray to Chavez and find food before them when they looked up again.

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grapeswisher420 t1_iuta1b9 wrote

That’s my understanding. The US picked the exact spot where Fidel ran around as a kid, and Fidel personally directed the counterattack.

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Fabulous-Fox3057 t1_iurfzoc wrote

Hey ,i am cuban and if i know something about Fidel was that he had an unpararelled understanding of geography.

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fd25t6 t1_iusdx0b wrote

Hey are you Cuban?

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Fabulous-Fox3057 t1_iusxids wrote

Yes.Is there anything you want to ask me ?

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Convergecult15 t1_iutbtas wrote

What do you know about Castros understanding of geography?

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Fabulous-Fox3057 t1_iutg28u wrote

He wrote 2 books about how he defeated Batista (the cuban dictator) armies . He fought majorly in the Mountains of Sierra Maestra . In the book he depicts the geography of the region.When he was in charge of the economy of Cuba he knew how to use the geography of Cuba for our own interests. He was by no means perfect but his knowledge helped building our economy. An example was the proyect "la voluntad hidraulica". Is a great network of dams in Cuba . Even after his dead we are finishing " el trasvase este oeste" I don't know if you knew that Cuba suffers from drought in the central region. So the " trasvase " is a colosal proyect to bring water from the east to the west. That Will allow us to develop farming in the central region .There are many other examples.

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boethius70 t1_iusuhkz wrote

Yes he is, definitely.

Also did you know Castro had an unparalleled understanding of geography? Let's not forget that.

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enfiel t1_ivkuoi4 wrote

I just imagined Castro getting angry they were messing with his fishing pond :D

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sum_dude44 t1_iusyaj7 wrote

He also had inside intelligence on the attack, allowing them to ambush them. Kennedy was a good diplomat but a terrible Commander in Chief

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Peter_deT t1_iur2qbx wrote

Part of the CIAs calculation was that the Castro regime was unpopular, and the landing would be greeted with enthusiasm. The marines were a backstop against pockets of die-hard resistance after the invasion had succeeded. As it happened, the local militia gave the invaders such a hard fight that it was obvious that any invasion would be prolonged and bloody. Hence Kennedy's call. Maybe Bush II should have read the memo?

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Atilim87 t1_iur303s wrote

Then”we will be treated as liberators “ is a justification countries used for centuries and for some shocking reason it never holds up.

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Grahamshabam t1_iur4udr wrote

people really hate being invaded

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blahbleh112233 t1_iur91dc wrote

Also doesnt help that us backed regimes in south america have a nasty habit of gross human rights abuses

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ezrs158 t1_iurarvx wrote

US backed regimes in South America everywhere have a nasty habit of gross human rights abuses. Cuba, Nicaragua, Egypt, Iran, Panama, etc.

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blahbleh112233 t1_iurbtou wrote

Dont disagree. But from a propaganda perspective. SA mattered more. Pretty easy to tell the population that things will be much worsen when the US is in charge when you dont need to lie about it

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Grahamshabam t1_iurcocn wrote

that’s not very relevant here. Bay of Pigs was 7 years before Operation Condor, and it also ignores Soviet influence on Cuba. not judging the merits of communism but any country that aligned with the soviets isn’t likely to treat the capitalist invasion as liberators

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CanuckPanda t1_iureiw7 wrote

It doesn’t, however, ignore the entirety of the Monroe Doctrine.

The US government had treated the Americas as its personal political sandbox for 140 years by the time of the Cuban Revolution. South and Central Americans already had generations of experience with “American interests” in their lands.

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Grahamshabam t1_iurmur2 wrote

Along with generations of experience in spanish influence, french influence and were in the midst of soviet influence

the united states obviously has caused huge problems in south america but you’re being overly simplistic. the biggest thing that gets left out of these discussions is that while the us-backed coups were against democratically elected leaders, there were also large parts of the populations that supported the coups.

to this day you can talk to older chileans who have complicated feelings about pinochet because of how much they disliked allende. allende’s party didn’t even have a congressional majority at the time when they were still a democracy. these countries aren’t ideological monoliths and those leaders may well have seized power without the US’s help. switching to my personal belief is that the big issue is that we messed with the right of south americans to self determination, and the actual political outcomes are way too complicated for outsiders to talk about confidently

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alekk88 t1_iut1i2p wrote

They had no need to look south to figure out what being in a us-backed regime is like. They just had to remember what it was like for decades before Fidel reached Havana

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Flavaflavius t1_iuspikx wrote

Regimes everywhere have a nasty habit of human rights abuses; we don't call them that if they don't.

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ComradeGibbon t1_ius65di wrote

I read a paper on the difference between NGO's and the military doing non military projects in foreign countries. Turns out locals tend to just grumble if an NGO does something unpopular. The military no matter what it is results in hard resistance.

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rockrnger t1_iurj8qo wrote

Castro invaded cuba with 50 guys and boat. And the first thing he did was sink the boat.

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Davebr0chill t1_ius4308 wrote

Castro was cuban and actually popular with the lower classes. This is fundamentally different from another country invading

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alekk88 t1_iut2580 wrote

And then he won against a national army supplied by the United States

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anarrogantworm t1_iurcrxv wrote

In the War of 1812 American warhawks were saying they would be welcomed as liberators of Canada and Jefferson said it would be 'a mere matter of marching'.

It did not hold up.

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Painting_Agency t1_iurhi68 wrote

We welcomed the opportunity to burn Washington DC 🤷‍♂️.

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BaronCoop t1_iusaor5 wrote

Oh come on! We JUST finished painting everything!

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recycled_ideas t1_iuro0mq wrote

> for some shocking reason it never holds up.

It doesn't never hold up, it happened quite often during WW2.

But it requires

  1. That the people you're liberating feel in need of liberation.
  2. That they believe that your intention is to actually liberate them.

The US view of Cuba is heavily distorted and doesn't match the experience on the ground and the US was 100% intent on returning Cuba to US investors not to the people of Cuba.

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Containedmultitudes t1_iut4yz4 wrote

I feel like liberating a people from a different foreign occupier is the sticking point with WWII. Even the Nazis had some of that good will in their invasions of Eastern Europe (although the people quickly realized the Nazis had no liberatory intentions).

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ItsAlwaysSmokyInReno t1_iurvqjk wrote

It always true. Vietnamese soldiers were seen as liberators by the Khmer peoples when the Khmer Rouge was deposed by them and a puppet state was put in their place. But you’ll tend to side with anyone who wants to fight the guys genociding your family

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Raging-Fuhry t1_iusnmha wrote

But Vietnam was fighting a defensive war, they didn't need it as justification.

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24111 t1_iuthvlh wrote

Didn't help the sanctions from piling on though. That chapter of history gets buried way too deep from public consciousness given who the supposed "democracies" were supporting.

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Kered13 t1_iuv298y wrote

He's not talking about the Vietnam War, he's talking about the Third Indochina War, in which Vietnam invaded and occupied Cambodia. Vietnam was very much not fighting a defensive war there.

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Raging-Fuhry t1_iuv2hxo wrote

I know lol, why else would they be fighting the Khmer Rouge.

They were fighting a defensive war against an aggressive and probing Cambodia that was in kahoots with China, Vietnam's long time nemesis.

I'd say it was defensive when the Khmer Rouge starting killing Vietnamese villagers on the border.

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Kered13 t1_iuv4tj0 wrote

The Khmer Rouge started the war by raiding Vietnamese villages, but the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia, which was the vast vast majority of the war, was not a defensive operation. I don't know if maybe you're taking this as some kind of moral judgement, because it's definitely not. It's just a fact that an invasion is inherently offensive.

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Kered13 t1_iuv2c4l wrote

Cambodians were happy to get rid of the Khmer Rouge, but they were not happy with the Vietnamese puppet government or the Vietnamese soldiers who remained for years. There is a reason that the Third Indochina War lasted 16 years and ended with Vietnam's withdrawal.

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24111 t1_iuthnrb wrote

Up until the end where the occupation turned extremely unpopular, and afaik plenty of Cambodians don't see that favorably today.

They still had a way better justification than the US got anywhere hilariously enough, but that didn't stop the sanctions. And Polpot were pretty much alive and well still at the end of the occupation, supported by Thailand.

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mikechella t1_ius31z2 wrote

>for some shocking reason it never holds up.

Except when it does.

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Zimmonda t1_ius03ih wrote

Ehhh its worked quite a few times

Napoleon is the most famous but coups and regime change rarely require the "full consent of the populace"

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BartholomewBandy t1_ius71ol wrote

France in 44? South Pacific, same time? Never?

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Teantis t1_iusj9pk wrote

Being treated as liberators wasn't used as a 'justification' because the allied side didn't need a justification, they were fighting a defensive war to begin with. It was the Japanese who actually used the liberators line saying they were throwing out the western colonizers to create an Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Nazis, of course, used next to no justification. Their whole ethos was based on having the will to take what you want.

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Liutasiun t1_iustues wrote

You're very wrong about the nazis. Their justification for all conflicts of the appeasement were about the people there veing Germans or the territory being rightful 'German' territory. Austria, then Sudetenland, then Danzig. So that is pretty much the "liberator" justification, just liberation by adding them to their country. They even did a false falg ooeration where they pretended Poland was invading them to muddy the waters further

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Teantis t1_iut71bx wrote

Initially, only because they were using the language of the western allies to leverage them into not acting. All the ones you cited were before any of the allies joined the war. Beyond those initial gains it was their actual motivation of pure conquest, Barbarossa and onward they dropped all pretense.

Japan kept up their Asian co prosperity sphere messaging throughout.

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Liutasiun t1_iutilez wrote

I'd hardly call it just 'using the language of the western allies' considering it was always used extensively in terms of inward propaganda. One of Hitler's major promise was reversing Versailles, which included the territorial loss Versailles represented.

You are right that after they were at war with the Allies they didn't use that justification anymore, but that was probably in part because at that point they already occupied all of the territories they could even possibly claim as belonging to Germany. I still am not sure I'd say they had 'next to no' justification. They of course used the "Lebensraum" bit were they argued Germany needed more territory for the 'Arian' race. But they also used standard red scare tactics. The official justification for Barbarossa was that the Soviets were planning to attack the nazis (which, given a couple more years, very well might have happpened).

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Meritania t1_iusznk5 wrote

Napoleon was shocked that when the coalition entered France there was no guerrilla war against the foreign invaders like there was in Spain.

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Chenksoner t1_iurhp5f wrote

Rarely, wouldn’t the Ukrainians when being invaded by the Nazis be an example?

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Containedmultitudes t1_iut4ju1 wrote

> The most extravagant idea that can take root in the head of a politician is to believe that it is enough for one people to invade a foreign people to make it adopt its laws and constitution. No one likes armed missionaries; and the first advice given by nature and prudence is to repel them as enemies.

Robespierre, unsuccessfully lobbying against the French revolutionary wars.

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TripleSecretSquirrel t1_iur992r wrote

And the whole plan was just a fuck up from the beginning.

It was all planned for a different location, then changed last minute without adjusting anything.

Dulles even mentioned privately afterward that he always knew that the invasion would very likely require US air or naval fire support but just assumed that when things were going down, Kennedy would agree. Kennedy did not agree to intervene militarily though.

More than anything, this is on Allen Dulles.

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ChessTiger t1_iurjtlo wrote

The United States thought the same thing when we went blundering around in Iraq.

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GreatCornolio t1_iutabpz wrote

There were a lot of people over there happy/open to it. That went away after about two weeks of lawlessness and looting tho

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Kered13 t1_iuv2jpe wrote

> Maybe Bush II should have read the memo?

Well Saddam was genuinely unpopular. There's a reason his regime collapsed nearly overnight and most of the Iraqi army simply fled. The problem in Iraq was our complete lack of understanding of the factional tensions and our inability to establish a competent and popular government.

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AgoraiosBum t1_iuy5sio wrote

There was a refusal to understand - the head of the Joint Chiefs opined that we'd need 400,000+ troops to ensure law and order and a stable country and was fired for giving that opinion to Congress.

And then after the US went in light with just 130,000, Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army. The insane thing is that he just kind of did it on a whim. The pre-war plan called for the end to Saddam's favored units - the Iraqi Republican Guard - but a significant use of the army in reconstruction efforts and the creation of a new Iraqi government. Bremer and his team looked at that and decided it would be hard, so he decided to just order the army to disband (rather than even try to pull things together and establish order), sent a memo up the chain, and it was approved based on his recommendation in Baghdad. But it was never discussed by the Joint Chiefs, by the National Security Council, or the State Department. Nuts.

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DouglasMilnes t1_iur2ur6 wrote

You are asking two very different questions. In your headline, you ask if Che Guevara deserves credit but at the end of your text you ask if he gets any credit from a Cuban political perspective. I think the answers to those two questions is quite different, as it is in almost any sphere when asking about the person who created the ability to achieve, against the interests of a politician.

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Anglicanpolitics123 OP t1_iur39k7 wrote

They are kinda two questions when worded that way but the general gist of my question is do you think Che deserves any credit at all for the Cuban military victory at the Bay of Pigs?

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cbleal t1_iuralem wrote

Blowback podcast season 2 is about Cuba. They go into the Bay of Pigs invasion in detail and all the backdrop, why the locals were pro-revolutionaries, etc. Highly recommended!

https://blowback.show/

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songsforatraveler t1_ius7el4 wrote

That season in particular is phenomenal

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cbleal t1_iusyzh2 wrote

It really is! I’m enjoying Season 3 very much as well though! Fascinating stuff, I’m learning a lot!

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SkarKrow t1_iut0ap8 wrote

Hey I’ve just been listening through this! It’s a stellar podcast!

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marcosbowser t1_iuus8v6 wrote

Thanks so much! Never heard of this podcast before. 3 episodes into season one (Iraq). Really really great podcast.

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No-Strength-6805 t1_iur9qcu wrote

The training had been done under Eisenhowers Administration, Kennedys problem was he left Dulles in charge of CIA when he took over.

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ViolatoR08 t1_iutztk0 wrote

The Dulles Brothers were without question the biggest detriment to the United States of America. The very worst to ever hold any influence.

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AgoraiosBum t1_iuy4z3y wrote

Just terrible; every major policy initiative of theirs caused major headaches for the US for decades to come.

They have multiple "worse than a crime, a blunder" policy decisions.

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ViolatoR08 t1_iuy6bl7 wrote

Read the Devils Chessboard based on a recommendation. Couldn’t finish it all the way from how disgusted I was about the Dulles Bros. Fucking genuinely horrible people.

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GrimReader710 t1_iur6gnb wrote

"Thank you for the bay of pigs", is what Castro supposedly said to Kennedy after the attempted invasion.

They were poorly equipped, and had no support, and underestimated their enemy; it was US who had a biggest part in it's failure.

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Drew-CarryOnCarignan t1_ius4buz wrote

Per an article from Air & Space you are correct. Link

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GrimReader710 t1_ius6qxa wrote

Thank you for confirming! I was pretty damn sure from memory, but thankfully there are less lazy people than myself to check.

(Pretty good article too!)

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NostalgicFrolicking t1_iurxmit wrote

Would it have been different if there was air support? Seeing how air support goes, probably not but I have no clue really.

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GrimReader710 t1_iurylm6 wrote

They (landing force) had been promised both logistical and air support, which they never got. They were also promised reinforcements from the US, which they obviously never got.

In all likelihood, it was probably never planned to follow thru on any of it; they were just throwing another classic CIA "Junk Ball" at their latest political rivals.

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The_Bitter_Bear t1_ius8ama wrote

It was mostly Kennedy that prevented the full proper plan from being executed. He changed the landing location, time, and cut the resources and critical parts of the plan. The CIA catches a lot of the blame and they certainly own some of it but Kennedy really made a mess of it.

Stuff You Should Know did an episode on it that is really good.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/the-bay-of-pigs-disaster-73576890/

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GrimReader710 t1_ius9yr7 wrote

I could see it that way.

Another way of looking at it tho; Kennedy was pulled into a harebrained scheme, and pulled the plug at the last minute, to avoid a catastrophe.

With American support, the initially invasion would've probably been a success, and secured a beach head.

But beyond that it's entirely conjecture. If the Cuban government wasnt immediately overthrown, then the US would be starting another front less than 60 mi from the mainland; and the Soviets would've sent direct military aid in response.

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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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Arlsincharge t1_iusij1o wrote

I thought it was pretty well understood that Kennedy thought he got played by the CIA and the joint chiefs. Both of which assured him that the plan was going to work.

I forget the exact reason why Kennedy chose to cancel the second bombing run etc. Maybe it was an attempt to obscure US involvement as publicly they were not involved whatsoever.

Either way I find it interesting that JFK no longer trusts the CIA and has an active dislike of them after the Bay of pigs, while RFK decides to go to war with organized crime. The mob and CIA have close ties, share information and actively work for years to assassinate Castro. The motivation for the mob being all the casinos and assets lost during the cuban revolution.

Makes you wonder about JFK's assassination...

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Veylon t1_iuun84p wrote

The Soviets weren't going to send anything. They were utterly shocked that the Bay of Pigs invasion failed. All they were prepared to do for Castro was use his inevitable demise as propaganda material.

There's a reason Castro always distrusted the Soviets and charted his own course. He knew damn well he'd be hung out to dry the second supporting him wasn't convenient to Moscow.

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GrimReader710 t1_iuwf64g wrote

"the Soviets weren't going to send anything"

Um what about the Cuban missile crisis?? The Soviets sent troops, planes, missiles... Oh my!

"There's a reason Castro distrusted the Soviets"

I'd be interested to see the evidence for this; to my understanding Castro supported strengthening ties with the Soviets, Che did not. It was a major disagreement between the two, and is attributed a reason for their eventual falling out.

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rwoodman t1_iutg9y7 wrote

I think one attempt at air support turned into a disaster for the invaders because a squadron of B25 bombers flying from Central America missed their American carrier based fighter cover because somebody failed to account for a time zone difference. The Cuban Air Force, flying armed T33 trainers, (2-seat F89's) wiped out the bombers and were home to toast the US fighters when they finally showed up.

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Anglicanpolitics123 OP t1_iutgrg6 wrote

So it's interesting. That wasn't actually Castro who said that. It was Che Guevara who said that to Richard Goodwin, Kennedy's aide.

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listerine411 t1_iurpvbt wrote

Kennedy also got the US into Vietnam. I'll never understand why he's so venerated.

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Sex_E_Searcher t1_iusvsnt wrote

We have access to secret recordings from the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Pretty much every one of Kennedy's cabinet, all older, more experienced men, were shit-talking him behind his back. All of them wanted him to escalate and bomb the island. Despite this, he stood his ground, avoided a potentially disastrous conflict and came out with a favorable conclusion to US interests.

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Anglicanpolitics123 OP t1_ius9imv wrote

So I'm a little strange in the sense of I'm a fan of both the Cuban Revolution and Kennedy. In terms of JFKs veneration a large part of course is his assassination. In this sense ironically he's like Che because Ches death also gave him veneration status.

I would say despite mistakes like the bay of pigs and sending advisors to Vietnam JFK does deserve legitimate praise for his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the test ban treaty, his moves on civil rights(late as they were) and other areas. It also should remember that JFKs vietnam policy was actually just a continuation of the Eisenhower policy.

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listerine411 t1_iut768e wrote

He never lifted a finger on civil rights.

He has brother AG wiretap Martin Luther King. https://todayinclh.com/?event=ag-robert-kennedy-approves-wiretaps-on-martin-luther-king

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Kered13 t1_iuv2nb3 wrote

Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Kennedy chose the first.

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I-Make-Maps91 t1_iuxeovh wrote

The US war already in Vietnam, Kennedy escalated it.

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listerine411 t1_iuz4nff wrote

No soldiers had been deployed to Vietnam until Kennedy, Eisenhower was adamant about that. Well documented. Eisenhower had no appetite to get the US into another war.

Kennedy got the US into Vietnam to show he was "tough" on Communism.

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I-Make-Maps91 t1_iuzadkc wrote

>November 1, 1955 — President Eisenhower deploys the Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. This marks the official beginning of American involvement in the war as recognized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Why are you lying? We know when soldiers went into Vietnam, it was under Eisenhower.

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listerine411 t1_iuzbi8n wrote

Advisors aren't ground troops, the US has advisors in every country. "In 1954, the French suffered a catastrophic defeat at Dien Bien Phu, bringing their colonial reign to an end. Some U.S. officials had pushed for air strikes, including the possible use of nuclear weapons, to save the French position. But Dwight D. Eisenhower, who succeeded Truman, demurred, refusing to involve the United States in another major conflict so soon after the Korean War."

https://www.history.com/news/us-presidents-vietnam-war-escalation

Kennedy is who threw the US into Vietnam.

Brush up on your history.

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I-Make-Maps91 t1_iuzcung wrote

That's drawing a real fine line that I don't really see the need for.

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Melquiades-the-Gypsy t1_ius82q4 wrote

Maybe post in /r/askhistorians, you won't get a bunch of speculation.

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talrogsmash t1_iuthp62 wrote

Or communist sympathizers all clapping each other on the back.

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[deleted] t1_iur0cai wrote

i mean they dramatically outnumbered the invaders and still took more casualties while defending so idk, whoever logistically managed to create a larger army probably gets credit

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Call_of_Tculhu t1_iurnphx wrote

It should be assigned to CIA incompetence

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The_Bitter_Bear t1_ius6yvi wrote

It was more complicated than that. Kennedy forced them to completely change their plan. Was it probably a bad idea either way? Sure, but the CIA getting all the blame isn't a fair assessment either.

He could have pulled the plug and instead he turned it into a complete mess after initially being onboard.

Stuff You Should Know did a pretty good episode on it.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/the-bay-of-pigs-disaster-73576890/

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GarfieldVirtuoso t1_iur67sl wrote

Was Che Guevara a good commander? I know nothing about his military story, but it seems he played an important role in the cuban revolution, but dont know if he was vital for winning the war. Then there was the Bay of Pigs invasion defense but his influence there is debated as this thread shows, and then he went to have some blunders in Africa and Bolivia, but I dont know if that was the case of him trying to do the best with little resources or just made poor decisions that lead to his death

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Fabulous-Fox3057 t1_iurh8lj wrote

He was a good commander, you should take a moment and read about the batle of santa clara in the cuban revolution.

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Anglicanpolitics123 OP t1_iusb4gz wrote

So there's a book written on this subject that I haven't read but i know the summary of it. It's called 'Commandante Che' by Paul Dosal. It establishes that the answer is complicated(I would add yes but complicated). Che when it comes to military campaigns Che was a terrible strategist but a brilliant tactician and soldier. During the Cuban Revolution it was Castro's strategic planning that gave them the edge but Che's tactical genius won them the final decisive battle at Santa Clara despite being outnumbered 10 to 1. What happened though was internationally in places like Congo and Bolivia he could not win the campaigns because he would always be at a strategic disadvantage. This despite the fact that he would win the battles anyways. So he found himself in the position America found itself in Vietnam. Winning every battle but being at a massive disadvantage.

Furthermore it also concludes that Che was not w great commander in chief but he was a brilliant field commander. What I get when reading Ches military escapades is that he is the Hannibal of guerilla warfare. A brilliant tactician who's tactics as well as the strategic disadvantage he found himself in ended up being used against him by his enemies.

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GarfieldVirtuoso t1_iuscqwb wrote

Wow, that sounds interesting, gonna learn more about this. Never thought about the idea that one could be a terrible strategist but an god tier field commander

​

Now I really want to know other military figures and distinguish them between good strategist/good field commanders or even both

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terminallycurious399 t1_iurab8d wrote

I realize this is not the focus of your question, but I believe there are some important details your framing leaves out.

  1. The plan was developed under Eisenhower. Indeed, it was pitched under the leadership of the CIA director who was the brother of Eisenhower's Secretary of State. Eisenhower said no - not because he thought it was dumb, but because he thought it was unfinished. He asked for more work to be done on what happened to make the invasion a success and what would happen when the invasion succeeded.
  2. This brings us to the further work the CIA did providing extra training to the exiled Cubans and the way in which the invasion would inspire an uprising which would greatly bolster the numbers of the counter-revolutionary forces and support an alternative government until fresh elections could be held or until a relatively stable puppet government could be installed.
  3. Kennedy had a legacy problem when he came into office. What do you do with a very large bunch of Cubans and their families who are familiar with the plan and who are champing at the bit to take their country back and rescue their loved ones if you junk the operation? As bombastically dumb as the plan was, he knew that the mess he had been left was too big to ignore and although it was unlikely to succeed, he both felt he had to go through with it, and he was desperate to do something to deliver Cuba from Castro. Kennedy had little faith that it would work but he had to do something with the Cuban legacy fighters and he had made such a big deal about Cuba in his debates with Nixon the previous year.
  4. Here is my answer. Castro. That wily fox could see the invasion, or something like it, 90 miles away, so to speak. The CIA had assured Kennedy this would work because it was straight out of their Guatemala Play Book. Castro saw it coming for the same reason that the CIA were complacently certain it would work: they had done it before. Historians are divided on how many hare-brained attempts the CIA made on Castro over the years - but the archives admit to twenty and the Cubans claim over 35. They never got him. He was sometimes lucky, but always paranoid.
  5. It is true that Kennedy hesitated and would not follow through with the air support - but he knew, and now we do too, that the rudimentary attempts to conceal the American planes' country of origin had failed and that it would be deemed an outright act of war. Likewise the futility of the marine landing - which was lost on the brass - was not lost on Kennedy. It was a lesson which would save the world from antihalation the following year. The marines were supposed to support and consolidate. Not capture the beachhead. Their part of the mission was never intended to be invasion. If that had been the plan, training the Cubans would have been pointless.
  6. The Bay of Pigs debacle/triumphant victory is emblematic of so much of the cold war. Shadow proxy engagements which ultimately thwarted their own stated intent through a corrupting of trust on all sides. The failure of the invasion directly led to Castro inviting Khrushchev to place missiles on Cuba and brought us all so close to disaster.

There is of course, so much detail I am glossing over, but I would reiterate my answer to the question you posed. It was Castro. He was the person most responsible for the victory.

I would however, take issue with your assertion:

>"... we know of course that a major reason why the operation failed was because Kennedy refused to through with the plan fully."

Kennedy himself recognized that the failure for the operation rested with him. He had his doubts about it from the beginning - just like Eisenhower did but unlike Ike, he went through with it.

But, it didn't fail because he refused to go through with the plan fully, it failed because it was spectacularly fucked from the beginning. Perhaps he should have sent in the marines to rescue the invasion force under air cover. It certainly would have been the humane thing to do for the men who were killed or captured and brutalized. But it would not have won them anything. It was already over by that stage.

The Bay of Pigs was a rare event in human history. Like the Battle of Cannae for Hannibal, the Bay of Pigs was for Castro a perfect victory. For the Americans - like the Romans, it was a total, abject failure.

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AgoraiosBum t1_iuy713z wrote

Great response; the idea that the Cubans totally failed in the landing so now the US should invade and fight through the streets of Havana is crazy.

Kennedy was pressured / rolled by the CIA who were supremely overconfident (after all, in Guatemala, all they had to do was basically say "boo" and the government collapsed). It was still his mistake to authorize it, and he did note he took sole responsibility.

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Few-Brilliant-431 t1_iurwtzn wrote

Castro had very good intelligence knew about the attack weeks in advance

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The_Bitter_Bear t1_ius9bf8 wrote

For anyone claiming it was just the CIA blundering or the troops being poorly trained I would recommend giving the Stuff You Should Know episode on The Bay Of Pigs a listen. It is a good episode and goes into a lot of stuff that wasn't revealed until long after.

While it was most likely a bad idea regardless, Kennedy made them change a lot of the plan and made an even bigger mess of it. When he started to get cold feet he should have scrapped it entirely, instead he forced them to make changes that pretty much guaranteed it would fail. It also was blatantly obvious the US was behind it still so he didn't even achieve his goal of trying to politically distance the US from it.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/the-bay-of-pigs-disaster-73576890/

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shrike06 t1_iusfk8i wrote

Have to hand it to Che. Training, doctrine, and operations are a tremendous element of why armies succeed or fail. He may have eventually succumbed to his own ego and a need to solve problems by killing people, but he did a good job laying the foundations for the modern Cuban Armed Forces.

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[deleted] t1_iusk7ba wrote

I say it's mostly due to lack of US support and the exiles making an amphibious landing with nothing but themselves

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Flavaflavius t1_iuspa1e wrote

I think the US deserves the credit for the cuban victory there. We promised them air support and reinforcement from the marines, and reneged on both so hard that many Cubans in Miami still hold a grudge.

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spizzywinktom t1_iur94ll wrote

I'd compare it to scratching in eight-ball.

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BadHillbili t1_ius72xi wrote

Also you neglected to mention that air support was supposed to be offered to the invading force but JFK got cold feet at the last minute and withheld air cover. A lot of the invading force of Cuban expatriates never forgave Kennedy for this.

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Mobydickhead69 t1_iusiuec wrote

I remember being taught the fighters were waiting on not Marines, but air support. Jfk was supposed to approve some kind of aerial bombardment to go along with the invasion, but not wanting to start a war, he refused.

I wouldn't be surprised if the US planned both Marines and air support and scrapped the plan to appear uninvolved.

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fd1Jeff t1_iust0xh wrote

It is very unfortunate, but there is a huge amount of misinformation about the Bay of pigs. This began even before the invasion. To some extent, is the nature of compartmentalization of these operations, and the deception that entails, and then part of it is the result of deliberate lying. Most of the stories are very incomplete or completely wrong.

The Taylor Comission’s report on the Bay of Pigs was not fully released until the year 2000. Among other things that came out, it states how the Soviet union knew the exact date and most likely the location in advance. Sources showed that the Soviets got this knowledge on April 9, even before the Cuban exiles themselves have been briefed. I’m not sure how, but the info came from the CIA itself. Wiretap? Cryptography? A spy? I don’t know that the report says how, but that was what Maxwell Taylor’s commission reported.

Like so many things, when more information comes out, it completely changes the entire narrative. The fact that the Soviets knew in advance means that everything written before the year 2000, much of which already was pretty sketchy, is incomplete.

This happens. All the old books stay on the shelves, and the people who wrote those books or got their PhD on this usually aren’t in a rush to correct things.

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saul2015 t1_iusyzvg wrote

You might be interested in checking out season 2 of the Blowback podcast with Noah Kulwin and Brendan James

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Nathan-Stubblefield t1_iutcmto wrote

I’ve heard that George Bush senior was a planner or facilitator of the Bay of Pigs landing while working with the CIA. His 1953 Houston based petroleum company was called Zapata Offshore, like the code name Operation Zapata for the landings. Two of the support ships were named Barbara, like Mrs. Bush, and Houston.

https://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=BushBook&C=8.2

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Nepomucky t1_iutjqis wrote

Are there any books related to this conflict, in special Fidel's understanding of geography, that you would recommend?

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RandomGrasspass t1_iutq08x wrote

I think it’s more how the Americans and their Cuban Allie’s lost over any real tactical genius from Castro or Guevara.

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metropitan t1_iutre8y wrote

che doesn't deserve to be remembered, cos he sucked

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ViolatoR08 t1_iutusxl wrote

The reason Bay of Pigs went sideways was because the CIA turned on JFK since he did not like the way they did business. They passed off the information to Castro and he used it to his advantage and to build his myth. My fathers uncle was in the Brigade and spilled the beans day before he died.

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PuraVida3 t1_iutxyqh wrote

The museum at Bay of Pigs in Cuba is so fun. It's exactly the pride that any country that has won a skirmish will display. It was an absolute victory on the part of the Cuban military. Not one of them would attribute it to anything but unity.

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HolyGig t1_iuu4gso wrote

The attack was doomed from the start lol, it was totally unsupported and it stood no chance if it didn't decapitate the Cuban government in an impossibly small amount of time.

"Leadership?" Yes, it was very impressive that Castro's government didn't just dissolve themselves in the face of small amounts of adversity. That was basically the only way the "dissidents" could have won.

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turbo_mc_turbo t1_iuvs7dv wrote

Castro was supposed to be assassinated, there are ample quotes and statements supporting this, but he was not. And the Bay of Pigs is a swamp with only one road out. And the Cuban Expeditionary Force landed in the middle of the night, with tanks and heavy equipment. And, JFK kept changing the plan basically on a daily basis. On D-Day, he made himself unavailable on purpose, as did Allen Dulles the CIA director.

Did they really want this to succeed?

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immortal_duckbeak t1_iurquz0 wrote

The exiles were outnumbered 150:1, Castro brought hundreds of tanks and self-propelled guns to bear, the invaders had 5 tanks. The whole thing hinged on the false assumption of a massive popular uprising, I don't think Castro or Che masterminded this all-out defensive stand, the invasion just stalled and petered out.

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Checkyoursidemirrors t1_iutxsxz wrote

Neither deserve credit. The U.S. has a very low success rate when it comes to invasions, particularly when it's done without allies.

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bullfrog316 t1_iuu5241 wrote

Sure. Let’s give the ruthless, murdering coward Che some due

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Anglicanpolitics123 OP t1_iuup4qu wrote

(1)How was Che a coward when he literally put himself in harms way all the time?

(2)Who did Che murder? Che played a role in the 1959 trials of the Cuban Revolution and many scholars and historians agree that the people being tried were Batista war criminals ironically enough who were guilty of torture and murder. Which isn't that different from what the allies did at Nuremberg and Tokyo.

I agree he was ruthless and i radically disagree with him on that as well as his use of capital punishment which I strongly oppose. But how does what he did constitute murder.

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romerogj t1_iuu5uji wrote

The win goes to the Cia for their lack of recon on that beach.

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JoeMobley t1_iuudwc6 wrote

"When it comes to Cuba's military victory at the Bay of Pigs, does Che Guevara deserve any credit or should it be assigned exclusively to Castro's leadership?"

Neither one. The primary reason for the US failure in the "Bay of Pigs" was US government idiocy.

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[deleted] t1_iurfxty wrote

[removed]

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Aaroncls t1_iurul14 wrote

Ernesto "che" Guevara's exploits were and still are more myth than anything else in the cuban revolution era.

He and the other leading barbudos (bearded men) glorified their roles to great extent to be symbols of revolutionary glory. Che was well known as a cruel executioner at the "triumph of the revolution".

Fidel Castro was a very astute leader, but he did not put himself in direct danger according to the testimonies of other desilusioned rebels.

Now there were really brave fighters in the war, one of them being the beloved Camilo Cienfuegos who presumably got taken out post revolution with other leaders (because they did not want to Cuba to be communist) in the early 60's.

In any case, Playa Girón/Bahia de cochinos was a CIA clusterfuck that JFK refused to back up over the threats of nuclear war. It was an easy win for Castro, and there are stories that he was panicked until it became clear the invasion was small time. Then he showed up after the conflict ended and that's where they shot that picture of him jumping off a tank for a good morsel of propaganda.

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why_are_you_so_awful t1_iuqz54y wrote

It's more of a fuck up on America's part and who ever was standing on the other side doesn't really deserve credit for us tripping and falling at the start line.

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blahbleh112233 t1_iur98hy wrote

Was it a fuck up? I thought the bay of pigs happened largely without JFKs awareness on the idea that he would be forced to act once the fighting started and that it didnt happen

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Marcolepsyyy t1_iuthlrm wrote

That was my understanding as well. The upper tier of the CIA was well aware that this was a doomed invasion and were trying to force Kennedy's hand into committing to a larger conflict. Also fits as to why Kennedy sacked Dulles and a quarter of the CIA personnel in the wake of the failed invasion.

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DigStatus7318 t1_iur6p22 wrote

Leadership? He was a Marxist–Leninist AND a Cuban nationalist. Those are ideologies, not military attributes. His brand of fighting was guerilla warfare which is how he gained control of Cuba. None of that had anything to do with the incompetence and poor training of the Cuban exiles who mainly fought (if you want to call it that) in the invasion. The plan failed because it was ill-conceived, not because of Castro's "leadership".

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Anglicanpolitics123 OP t1_iur88yg wrote

When I talk about leadership I'm not talking about their ideology. But their role in the Cuban political structure.

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DarkwingDuc t1_iur7oil wrote

The Cuban exiles were outnumbered, yet still inflicted more casualties on their foes, who where in the defensive position, which is usually stronger.

I’d say they fought well. The failure was in the planning, intel collection/analysis, and the lack of support.

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Nmaka t1_iurf8oq wrote

this is cope. if your conception of fighting doesnt include planning for the fighting, gtfo

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