REFERENCES
- See Howard Jones , Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War ( New York : Oxford University Press , 2003 ); see also Howard Jones, Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987) .
- See Don Bohning , The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959–1965 ( Washington : Potomac Books , 2005 ); Trumbull Higgins, The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987); Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995); and Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs, The Untold Story (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979) .
- Peter Wyden describes Bissell's irritation with his deputy Cord Meyer, Jr., who frequently submitted thick reports for Bissell's concurrence just before they were due in Dulles's office. Finally Bissell phoned Meyer, shouting “I'm going to tear it up. I'm going to tear it up.” He dropped the phone, tore up the report, then picked up the receiver and shouted, “I just tore it up.” Wyden, Bay of Pigs, p. 13.
- Richard Bissell , Jonathan E. Lewis , and Frances Puleo , Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs ( New Haven : Yale University Press , 1996 ), p. 170 ; Bissell, Oral History Interview, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, pp. 13–14 .
- Jones told me he believes “if anyone could have dissuaded Kennedy from eliminating air cover, it would have been Bissell, whom Kennedy trusted more than anyone else in the CIA.” Conversation with Howard Jones, 4 September 2008 .
- In his inaugural address, Kennedy sent the following direct warning to Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev: “Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.” President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, delivered Friday, 20 January 1961.
- Both Kent and Amory had intellectual credentials comparable to Bissell's, plus impressive real-world experience. Kent, a former professor of history at Yale University, had served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, where he directed much of the intelligence preparation for the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942. Amory, a former professor at Harvard Law School, had commanded an amphibious regiment in the New Guinea and Philippine campaigns, and was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action, as well as the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit .
- Wyden described Bissell as “stifling potential protest within the CIA by creating an isolation-within-isolation, refusing to use his own internal capabilities … to investigate Castro's true strength in depth.” Writing in the post-Vietnam era, Wyden also criticized the Agency for its failure to appreciate Castro's charisma and popularity among the Cubans—a failure that he attributed “to the gook syndrome.” He then stated: “American policymakers suffer from it chronically. They tend to underestimate grossly the capabilities and determination of people who committed the sin of not having been born Americans.” Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs, pp. 320, 326. Wyden's son, Ron, is currently a Democratic U.S. Senator from Oregon .