Plausible Deniability and the Bay of Pigs Tragedy

On the 65^th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs tragedy, we must remember what occurred to avoid an incident like it ever happening again. 

From April through October 1961, hundreds of executions took place in those fortress-prisons, and prisoners complained they could not sleep because of the shots heard day and night. Antonino Díaz Pou, a leader of one of the infiltration teams sent in advance of the invasion force, the 2506 Brigade; underground leader Raimundo E. López, who resisted arrest; and students, such as Virgilio Campanería, Alberto Tapia, Rogelio González, and Bernardo Corrales as well as hundreds of others, died courageously by firing squad within the prison walls of those fortresses. By the spring of 1961, Cubans who openly opposed the Revolution or who posed a threat to Fidel were eliminated or were serving time in prisons throughout the island. Countless others died under mysterious circumstances.

Comandante Húber Matos, who fought in the Sierra Maestra in the 26th of July Movement, was arrested and received a 20-year sentence for exposing communists in Fidel’s government and resigning his revolutionary post in 1959. Camilo Cienfuegos died under mysterious circumstances in a plane crash after complaining to Fidel about the Maximum Leader’s crack down on other revolutionaries, merely because of a difference of opinion at the time of Matos’ arrest. Comandante Pedro Díaz Lanz, Fidel’s Chief of the Revolutionary Air Force, defected and safely fled Cuba for the same reason as Matos – namely, the growth of communist influence in Fidel Castro’s government.

The G2 political police and Fidel’s agents knew what was about to happen just prior to the fateful days of the Bay of Pigs invasion and apprehended thousands of Cubans without apparent cause.