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CNN Sunday Morning

New Book Looks Back at Bay of Pigs Invasion

Aired April 15, 2001 - 09:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Forty years ago this week, a rag-tag army launched an ill-fated invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Fidel Castro's forces prevailed, and, of course, the rest is history. It changed the course of history with Cuba and the U.S.

For some historic perspective, we are joined this morning by Ricardo Sanchez, a veteran of the invasion, and Victor Andres Triay, the author of a new book called "The Bay of Pigs," and it offers a fascinating account. Really not much written about this particular piece of history in the English world to date.

Mr. Triay, first of all, explain that. Why haven't we seen more books, more history, more accounts of the Bay of Pigs?

VICTOR ANDRES TRIAY, AUTHOR: Well, I think there are many accounts, except usually this whole event is usually cast as the United States versus Castro, Kennedy versus Castro, Eisenhower versus Castro, when in fact, you had those Cubans fighting for democracy, constitutionalism and with a great deal of goodwill who formed part of this brigade and their American allies against Castro's people. And for us, that's what it's always been about, but usually, it's not cast this way.

So, I think the brigade has usually been minimized by many sources, since most people have focused mostly on the political history behind it and what was happening in Washington and not what was going on with the Cubans who actually fought.

O'BRIEN: All right, the 2506 Brigade, of which Mr. Sanchez was a part, explain what it was like being a part of that, Mr. Sanchez, and in that invasion, and at what point did you realize things were going very badly at the Bay of Pigs?

RICARDO SANCHEZ, BAY OF PIGS VETERAN: Well, being a part of it was something that I guess we envisioned, because of our convictions, because of what we wanted to bring back to Cuba, which was democracy and freedom, I think being part of it was the fulfillment of that desire to be a part of change in Cuba.

When we -- I was a paratrooper, and the paratroopers left many hours after the people that went -- the infantry. When we left the airfield in Nicaragua, there were already news that things had not gone as planned. There had been some airstrikes that had been canceled. Things were not going very well, but it was decided that we would go along and keep our commitment to go to Cuba, and we parachuted at about 7:00 in the morning on the 17th.

O'BRIEN: Well, it must have taken tremendous acts of bravery to press on, knowing that that air support that was promised was not going to be delivered. How did people on the front lines there deal with that prospect?

SANCHEZ: Really, many of the things that happen in a situation like this just happen. We -- the desire to do what you were trained to do, what you want to do, in our case, it was less the training than the fact that we wanted to go to Cuba, I think that desire sort of made us not think that things were going very well.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Triay, in doing your research, and you did sort of an oral history style, allowing people like Mr. Sanchez to just sort of tell their story, did you get sense, was there any revisionism in there? Did you get the sense -- you know, the conventional wisdom is that Kennedy, the young president, withheld the air support, was reluctant to do so, and had he done so, there might have been a victory at the Bay of Pigs. Anything in your research that would belie that?

TRIAY: No, I think you hit everything perfectly. It had everything to do with air support. What most people don't realize is that when President Eisenhower left office, it was actually an invasion of the city of Trinidad and Casildo (ph), which was a much better plan. But political considerations forced them to switch it to the Bay of Pigs, and then the air plan also changed because of political considerations.

Then, after it had been changed, and then in fact the D-minus-two strikes were reduced from eight strikes to 22, and then the rest of them were just completely canceled, the last ones just hours before these men hit the beaches, and the whole plan hinged on Castro's air force being destroyed on the ground. Everything hinged on that. That's what it was all about, and by withholding the air support, that's what didn't happen and that's what doomed the invasion.

O'BRIEN: I guess it would be difficult to overstate its lasting impact on U.S.-Cuba relations.

TRIAY: Oh, certainly. I think that probably the best chance that there was to restore democracy in Cuba was April 17, 1961, and you know, most of the men who were fighting and certainly the political leadership that was in Miami were all men of very democratic principles, people with democratic track records in Cuba, some of them who took part in writing the 1940 Constitution, the most progressive and democratic in Latin America, and who had fought against Batista, had fought against dictatorship in the 1930s.

So, there were some very, very good, talented people who would have been in power, many of them -- all of them committed to democracy completely and with those track records. So, certainly, it was a great opportunity lost.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Triay, I want to get one more question to Mr. Sanchez as we leave. I'm sorry to cut you short, but we are running out of time. Mr. Sanchez, here we are 40 years later, and Fidel Castro is still in power in Cuba. Does that leave you with some bitterness or anger on this anniversary?

SANCHEZ: No, I think the overwhelming sense that I have, you like to have history prove whatever you believe was right, and we believed that there was going to be a dictatorship in Cuba. We believed that the Cuban people, after another dictatorship, deserved the right to be free, and history has proven us right. We made a decision to go there, and what we got, for 42 years, is what we feared the most.

So, no bitterness. What I still have is the desire for the people of Cuba to be able to share what many other people have now shared, freedom to speak, freedom to move around, freedom to travel, freedom to be in their own country and visit their own hotels and visit their own beaches without being thrown out because they can't share it with foreigners.

O'BRIEN: All right, well, thank you for sharing your freedom of speech with us this morning, both of you gentleman: Ricardo Sanchez, veteran of the Bay of Pigs and Victor Andres Triay, author of the book of "Bay of Pigs." It's an oral history of Brigade 2506, of which Mr. Sanchez is a part. It's an interesting chapter in history and a story well told. Thank you very much, both of you gentlemen.

SANCHEZ: Thank you.

TRIAY: Thank you very much.

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