As an addendum to your brilliant post above @Smokin Joe:
The United States Department of State cut the legs out from under General Chang in China forcing his retreat to Formosa (Taiwan now) which ceded mainland China to Mao. That played a very large role in bringing about the Korean and Vietnam wars. Then they proceed to betray the enemies of Castro who had escaped Cuba and come here to organize an effort to take their country back. Under the pretense of helping them in that effort, they instead exposed them on a Cuban beach for Castro to do with as he pleased. Tried to do the same in Nicaragua and would have got that done as well but for a couple of TRUE American patriots by the names of Oliver North and John Poindexter.
Anyone who does not believe that our federal National government was and is riddled with Communist operatives is very much delusional.
Had the air strikes proceeded in support of the expatriate Cuban invasion to re-take their government from the Communists, the Cuban air force and armor could have been destroyed with little opposition.
Instead, citing State Department sources, (closely tied to a NYT article/writer), Kennedy called off the air operation (with disagreement from CIA, who knew Castro was a communist who had no intention of setting up democratic government in Cuba) , and that cancellation of air support directly led to the failure of the counterrevolution, as Cuban air and armor factored heavily in defeating the expatriate force.
The debacle is now known as
The Bay of Pigs invasion, and likely would have been successful had the original plan been followed. Two years later, we were looking down the nosecones of Soviet made IRBMs, doubtless for the purpose of a nuclear launch, and capable of reaching Washington, D.C. (The Cuban Missile Crisis for those who aren't up to speed.)
We lived 50 air miles south of DC at the time, and it is the only time I saw serious concern from my father, who mapped out our escape route from the peninsula we were on to Virginia (by water) in the event the balloon went up.
Dad was right, in that not only would land routes have taken us into or toward fallout, but the roads would have been clogged. Only by water could we have made it out in a timely fashion.
