April 17, 1961: US-Backed Guerrillas Invade Cuba via the Bay of Pigs

April 17, 1961: US-Backed Guerrillas Invade Cuba via the Bay of Pigs

April 17, 1961: US-Backed Guerrillas Invade Cuba via the Bay of Pigs

“If they fail,” The Nation warned many months in advance, “the United States will lose face in an almost irreparable way.”

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Just beneath an editorial titled “Mr. Kennedy’s Opportunity,” heralding and welcoming the election of JFK as the country’s 35th president in November of 1960, The Nation published a brief article citing evidence provided by Stanford professor Ronald Hilton that the US was training Cuban exiles in the forests of Guatemala. The article, as well as another editorial in January of 1961, were almost entirely ignored by the mainstream press. File this one, with our March 11 entry on the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, under “Hate to Say We Told You So.”

Cuban history is full of filibustering expeditions from the United States which have failed. Even though we may arm the anti-Castro groups to the teeth, we have no guarantee that they will succeed militarily. If they fail, the United States will lose face in an almost irreparable way.

April 17, 1961

Support The Nation’s June Fundraising Campaign

With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Nation elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.

We can play this critical role because of support from readers like you. This June, we’re raising $20,000 to power The Nation’s independent journalism in the run-up to November’s immensely consequential elections.

It’s in our power to build a more just society, and your support at this critical moment brings us closer to that bold vision. I hope you’ll donate today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x