I realize this is not the focus of your question, but I believe there are some important details your framing leaves out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
terminallycurious399 t1_iurab8d wrote
Reply to 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? by Anglicanpolitics123
I realize this is not the focus of your question, but I believe there are some important details your framing leaves out.
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.