The memo arrived on Dulles's desk at 6:47 AM, three days before the landing. He read it with his pipe unlit—a tell his secretary had learned to interpret. Unlit pipe meant calculation. Lit pipe meant the decision was already made.
1. Asset positioning complete. Brigade 2506 at embarkation readiness, Nicaraguan staging area. Morale assessed as HIGH. Cuban exile leadership confident of popular uprising upon landing.
2. AIR SUPPORT CONFIGURATION remains the critical variable. The President has authorized D-Day strikes from Nicaragua but has expressed continued reservations regarding "visibility" and "deniability." Request clarification on whether second-wave air support will proceed as planned.
3. It is the assessment of this directorate that WITHOUT complete air superiority, Brigade casualties will be SIGNIFICANT and mission success UNLIKELY. This assessment has been communicated to the Special Group. See attached appendix.
4. If the President cancels the second air strike, the operation will fail. This office recommends proceeding regardless, as cancellation at this stage creates unacceptable political exposure.
Dulles set the memo down. Bissell was a brilliant man—Yale, the Marshall Plan, the U-2 program. But Bissell still believed in outcomes. He hadn't yet learned that operations existed to create conditions, not achieve objectives.
The phone rang. The President's voice was flat, Massachusetts vowels clipped with irritation.
"Allen, I'm looking at the weather report over the Caribbean."
"Yes, Mr. President."
"And I'm looking at the proposed flight paths from Nicaragua."
"Yes, Mr. President."
A long pause. Dulles could hear Kennedy breathing. Could picture him in the Oval, that boy's face trying on a man's decisions.
"The second strike is canceled. We can't have American planes visible over Cuban airspace. Adlai will be eaten alive at the UN."
"I understand completely, Mr. President."
Dulles hung up. Lit his pipe.
He did not call Bissell to relay the cancellation. Not immediately. There would be confusion at the beachhead about air cover. There would be desperate radio calls. There would be dying men asking where the planes were.
And afterward—after the bodies and the prison cells and the ransoms paid in baby food and medicine—there would be a President who understood what the Agency already knew:
You do not manage us. We manage outcomes.
You will need us more than we need you.
You will learn.
Forty-eight hours later, Brigade 2506 hit the beach at Playa Girón. Castro's T-33 jets, the ones the first air strike was supposed to destroy, strafed the landing craft. The supply ship Houston went down with most of the ammunition. The Rio Escondido exploded in the harbor, a gasoline blossom visible from the Sierra Maestra.
In Washington, the President aged a decade in three days. His back seized. He paced the Rose Garden at 3 AM, alone, asking aides a question no one could answer:
"How could I have been so stupid?"
In Georgetown, Allen Dulles poured himself a scotch and answered the question Kennedy would never ask him directly:
Because, Mr. President, you were supposed to be.
[ hover over redactions ]