What was the Bay of Pigs Invasion?
The Bay of Pigs Invasion (also known in Cuba as La Playa Gron after a beach in the Bay of Pigs where the landing took place) was a US planned and funded landing by armed Cuban exiles on southern Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban socialist government of Fidel Castro which had deposed the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. The CIA began training the exiles in Guatemala and other Central American countries under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, even before he broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961. In the 1950s the United States had had great success with covert operations, including a very similar plan that toppled the left leaning government of Guatemala in 1954. Eisenhower’s successor, John F. Kennedy, approved the actual invasion and modified the plan. Instead of attacking the city of Trinidad, which was closer to the anti-Castro guerrillas’ area of operations in the Escambray mountains, the new plan was to land in two points in the Ba
