Central Intelligence Agency. “Paper Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency”. In “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume X, Cuba, January 1961–September 1962 – Office of the Historian.” Accessed May 2, 2021. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d61.
This document is a revision of a previous plan to attempt to overthrow the government of Cuba, drawn up by the Central Intelligence Agency. As can be seen in the excerpt below, the plan specifically needed to make it appear as through the overthrow of the Cuban government came as an internal rebellion rather than an external invasion by the US. This was both to legitimize the operation in the eyes of the Cuban people, and to deflect international criticism from the United States. Amusingly, this plan became the blueprint for the Bay of Pigs invasion, a complete disaster which stands as one of the CIA’s greatest failures.
The document develops a blueprint for invasion whereby a nighttime landing of armed Cuban exiles would happen before the Castro regime detected it, and would be supplied by air supply as they took over the surrounding area. Following this, they would be supplied by a naval route and reinforced until the entire Island was back in US supported hands. The document considers the political cost of this maneuver, and considers the cost to be meaningful, but worth the objective.
“Political Requirements: The plan for a Cuban operation and the variants thereof presented on 11 March were considered to be politically objectionable on the ground that the contemplated operation would not have the appearance of an infiltration of guerrillas in support of an internal revolution but rather that of a small-scale World War II type of amphibious assault. In undertaking to develop alternative plans and to judge their political acceptability, it has been necessary to infer from the comments made on the earlier plan the characteristics which a new plan should possess in order to be politically acceptable.”