On Edwin Kaiser and Related Topics

[Cliff Varnell]

The claim Jim DiEugenio and many others make that the CIA and the military tried to pressure JFK into saving the operation with US military force on D-Day is bullshit.

Well if there we no plans to deploy the Marines, then the operation, if it had any chance of success, must have relied on the Cuban people to rise up against Castro. But that is nonsensical, as reported by the CIA's inspector general, Lyman Kirkpatrick and the author of the CIA's own internal investigation into the disaster.

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB35..._26-28.pdf
"Kirkpatrick asserted that the CIA's poor "planning, organization, staffing, and management" were the principal reasons for the failure. Specifically, the agency's uncertainty that an invasion would "trigger an uprising," which it considered essential to the success of the operation."

Kennedy himself said a popular uprising was necessary.

All the principals knew that.

Kennedy rolled the dice and crapped out, under-mined by his advisors -- especially Rusk and Bundy.