A plan has been presented to President Esienhower and he signs it.

 

A covert operations program to invade Cuba goes forward.

 

The US responded to the radicalization in Cuba by building up its biggest ever CIA base in Miami recruiting thousands of Cuban exiles to work for it. One of the CIA's recruits was a young man, called Felix Rodriguez.

 

Born and raised in Cuba, Felix's family fled to Miami after Fidel Castro came to power.

 

"I learned that they were training camp and would fight Castro, so I joined them. I was then 18."

 

The Cuban exiles trained in Guatemala under the direction of the CIA. And a smaller group is sent into Cuba.

 

Our team infiltrated Cuba before the invasion to what we’ve received it.

 

Back in the United States, John.F.Kennedy has sworn into office on Jan.3rd, 1961.

 

At the very first meeting, the CIA director for the western hemisphere said 'unless you eliminate Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Che Guevara as part of this plan, you are never going to win. This is going to be one long drawn-out affair."

 

Kennedy agrees. Not only will he support the CIA plan to invade Cuba, but CIA assassination plots as well.

 

So in August of 1960, a very high CIA official named Richard M authorized the CIA to create poison pills that would then be sent to mafia contacts inside Cuba and somehow put in Fidel's food.

 

Although the assassination attempts are unsuccessful, the plan to invade Cuba begins on April 15th, 1961.

 

It was in the course of the fighting that Fidel finally showed his true colors, and announced that he was Socialist and Marxist Leninist that the regime henceforth was going to be allied to the Soviet Union.

 

Fidel Castro gives Che command of Cuba’s western army but the invasion comes further south, in an area called 'PLAYA GIRON', the Bay of Pigs". As the 1500 men Cuban exile army known as brigade 2506 approached the island on April 17th, 1961, their boats were sunk by Castro's Air Force.

 

They were waiting for some support like air support...navy support, but nothing on that happened.

 

"For them, 48 hours, this force was largely decimated.

 

Che had been far from the action, but he and Fidel Castro are credited with fighting off the Americans.  

 

And they were heroes for everybody, schools, universities, on the Soviet leadership.

 

For America’s new president, the invasion is a disaster.

 

"It was a famous meeting between Che Guevara and a Kennedy aide named Richard Goodwin. The first thing he said to Goodwin was 'thank you for the bay of pigs, it allowed our revolution to consolidate, before the invasion we were somewhat you know fragmented, young government .But after the revolution, our victory in the con-nationalists' fervor that your invasion caused has allowed us to truly a little forward far more stronger than we have been before. It backfired in every conceivable way possible.

 

Fidel Castro and Che are convinced that America will invade again and turn to the Soviets for protection.

 

"My farther told they can not protect Cuba using old conventional forces so it must be signal--even you invade Cuba, you will be in trouble, because yes, it is.

 

"The last discussion about deploying missiles in Cuba, it was in Che Guevara and Хрущёв(赫鲁晓夫.

 

It's not long before the Soviet's missiles installed in Cuba are detected.

 

It's a very very dangerous time

 

Fidel Castro and Che pushed the Soviets to launch the missiles in the event of American ground invasion.

 

Castro was so aggressive that Хрущёв totally cut him out of the loop on these negotiations.