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From International Socialist Review, Vol.26 No.1, Winter 1965, p.29.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders’ Story of Brigade 2506
by Haynes Johnson, with Manuel Artinie, Jose Perez San Roman, Erneido Oliva, and Enriqque Ruiz-Williams
W.W. Norton, New York, 1964. 368 pp. with index. $5.95.
Haynes Johnson purports to tell, for the first time, the full history of the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the ultimate fate of the Cuban counter-revolutionary prisoners. Most of the information is not new; it is a compilation, in book form, of the events as seen from the invader’s point of view. As such, it does present some new information (that the first man ashore was an American CIA agent, for example) as well as omitting facts which tend to question the “individual and group heroism, dedication to principle, (and) self-sacrifice ...” of the members of Brigade 2506 (the name given to the main landing force which trained in Nicaragua). Also, based on interviews with the counter-revolutionaries and authorized by four of the Brigade’s officers, it underplays or ignores the spirit, unity and determination of the Cuban militia, army and entire population in defense of their revolution.
However, it does reflect the disillusion of the counter-revolutionaries with the CIA-Pentagon operation. And in this respect, some revealing new insights into CIA operational procedures are brought to light.
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