Causes: After seizing power in Cuba in 1959, rebel leader Fidel Castro reneged on his promises of democratic elections, imprisoned or executed political opponents, made the island a Soviet satellite, fomented revolution in various Caribbean nations, expropriated $1.8-billion in American property on the island, and thousands of exiles began fleeing to the United States.

Effects: The first major U.S. foreign-policy defeat of the Cold War; firmly established Soviet military bases in Cuba, violating the Monroe Doctrine; prompted the Cuban Missile Crisis; and perpetuated Castro in power for decades.
 

By the summer of 1960, the Cuban revolution had taken a totalitarian, pro-Soviet and anti-American path. The Dwight Eisenhower Administration responded with a covert $45 million plan, drawn by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was similar to the one used in 1954 to overthrow the leftist Jacobo Arbenz government in Guatemala. An invading force of 1,453 Cuban exiles, the Brigade 2506, would capture the town of Trinidad. Three Brigade air raids would destroy Castro´s air force on the ground. Thousands of clandestinely organized dissidents would stage an uprising coinciding with the landing. After seventy-two hours, the leadership of the exile Cuban Revolutionary Council would be flown to Trinidad to declare a provisional government, and if necessary, request U.S. armed intervention.

Three months before the invasion, the newly elected President, John Kennedy, rejected the Trinidad plan as "too spectacular." He changed the landing site to the isolated swampy beaches of the Bay of Pigs, and reduced the initial air strike from sixteen to six planes. The invasion force, trained by the CIA in Guatemala, departed on five freighters from Nicaragua, on April 15, 1961. Five U.S. destroyers, the carrier Essex and 1,500 Marines, escorted them to Cuba. That day, Brigade 2506 sorties destroyed half the Cuban Revolutionary Air Force. Castro immediately detained over 200,000 opponents. Kennedy canceled at zero hour the remaining sorties, the critical air cover, and all supply efforts, after a flurry of protest at the United Nations. He later told Brigade leaders that a Russian threat to Berlin influenced his decision.

The Brigade fought until they ran out of ammunition. Castro's air supremacy led to victory after sixty-seven hours of combat. Castro lost seven tanks and had eighteen hundred casualties. The Brigade had 114 men killed and 1,189 captured. In December 1962, after Kennedy promised never again to invade Cuba, the prisoners returned to the U.S., in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine.