Gives an overview of the "Bay of pigs invasion" Why it failed and the repercussions that followed

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The Bay of Pigs attempted Invasion was a United States-planned and funded attempted invasion by armed Cuban exiles in southwest Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in 1961 and marked the climax of anti-Cuban US actions. US-Cuban tensions had grown since Castro had overthrown the regime of General Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959. The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations had made the judgment that Castro's shift toward the Communist Party could not be tolerated, and moved to overthrow him. This process of thought and action was characteristic of all presidents in the post-WWII, anti-communist era, up until the early 1990s. However, the invasion attempt failed miserably and proved to be a major international embarrassment for the Kennedy administration. The resulting fiasco has been studied as an ideal case of "groupthink" decision making. Others, especially Cuban Americans, view this matter as policy decision by the Kennedy administration to rid itself of bothersome Cuban exiles.

However, this event had prolonged electoral consequences resulting in the election of a number of Cuban-Americans to the US Congress, and established electoral conditions that favor the Republican Party. During debates in the United Nations Security Council, a Cuban attempt to condemn the US invasion failed due to a US veto. Gunboat diplomacy or direct military intervention by the US to overthrow the Cuban government would cause international protests against "interference with interior matters of foreign states" common in the atmosphere of the Cold War. A failure to justify a direct US involvement on the basis of international law risked provoking a geopolitical retaliation by the Soviet Union, especially in the Third World.

On February 17, 1961 Kennedy asked his advisors whether the toppling of Castro might be related to weapon shipments and if it was possible to claim the real target...