Max J. Castro. Published Tuesday, April 17, 2001 in the
Miami Herald
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion. After four
decades, the U.S and Cuban governments and the exiles still hold widely
diverging views and still harbor counterproductive myths.
For students of U.S. foreign policy, the Bay of Pigs was "the perfect
disaster,'' a combination of blunders that led to a profound humiliation.
For Fidel Castro and Cubans who continue to support his revolution, Playa
Girón (as it is called in Cuba for the beach where the invaders landed)
was a historic victory and "the first defeat of United States imperialism
in this hemisphere.''
For the veterans of the 2506 Brigade who carried out the invasion, and for
1960s-vintage Cuban exiles in general, the Bay of Pigs was a heroic reach for
freedom frustrated by the betrayal of the Kennedy administration, which refused
to use the U.S. Air Force to support the invasion.
There is some truth in these tales, but they also obscure and distort. More
than just a bunch of isolated mistakes led the United States into the Bay of
Pigs. Only a mythical faith in American invincibility, righteousness, and
omnipotence, along with sheer contempt for Third World adversaries, can explain
what possessed the U.S. government to undertake such an ill-conceived adventure.
SUCCESS IN GUATEMALA
Hadn't the CIA managed to overthrow the elected government of Guatemala six
years earlier using a similar lame scheme? Hadn't Guatemalan president Jacobo
Arbenz panicked when confronted with a minuscule American-organized invasion?
Many here expected Castro to do the same.
The myth of American invincibility survived the Bay of Pigs, leading the
United States into the Vietnam quagmire. Battered and bruised, the myth survives
today in various guises, including the conceit that the United States can and
should legislate democracy and liberty for Cuba.
Victory at Girón cemented the Cuban Revolution's own myths of
invincibility and righteousness. It made Cuban revolutionaries believe they
could accomplish great things, from lowering infant mortality to record levels
to winning Olympic medals to successfully fighting the South African armed
forces thousands of miles from home.
But victory also produced a disastrous overconfidence that revolutionary
fervor could accomplish anything; many foolhardy schemes cost the Cuban people
dearly.
MYTHS DON'T DIE
Victory, too, reinforced the practice of treating government opponents as
disloyal, unpatriotic U.S puppets. Wasn't the Bay of Pigs a CIA operation
through and through? Didn't the invaders receive a stipend from the American
government? The Cuban government labeled the 2506 Brigade mercenaries, and ever
since it has operated under the convenient myth that government opponents are
all traitors, a practice that has earned it the criticism of independent
international human-rights organizations.
For its part, the exile myth of U.S. betrayal fueled a fierce need to
achieve and the in-group feeling that helped Cubans succeed in this country. But
the myth ignored the basic reason the invasion failed: In 1961, the majority of
the Cuban people supported the revolution, and many were willing to die for
Castro. Short of a full-scale Marine invasion, U.S. intervention would have made
for a bloodier outcome, not a different one.
Yet the fallacy that just a bit more U.S. pressure can defeat Castro and
magically bring democracy to Cuba is still alive and well today. In the 1990s,
this myth was the basis of laws that toughened the embargo amid promises that
tighter sanctions would quickly bring Castro down. This myth is the basis of
current exile proposals asking the Bush administration to channel millions to
the anti-Castro opposition in Cuba in the hopes of provoking another Poland.
Has anyone learned anything in these 40 years?
maxcastro@miami.edu
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 