Playa Giron ― Bay of Pigs : Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas

In April of 1961, following a US-organized campaign of sabotage and bombings against Cuba, Cuban exile forces trained, organized, and equipped by the US Central Intelligence Agency invaded Cuba in an effort to overthrow the revolutionary Cuban government, only to be decisively routed within a matter of days by a combination of Cuban regular security and revolutionary militias. This work collects documents from the Cuban side of the conflict, including calls to arms from Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, and Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the days immediately prior to the main invasion; war communiques issued by the Cuban government during the invasion; an account of events by Jose Ramon Fernandez, commander of the main column battling the CIA-backed forces during the invasion, provided as testimony during a 1999 Cuban court hearing seeking damages for the consequences of decades of US efforts to overthrow Castro; and post-invasion observations by Fidel Castro. Also included are appendixes providing information on the balance of forces, a chronology, a glossary, and maps. The volume is introduced with a foreword by Jack Barnes, who at the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion was early in his involvement with the Socialist Workers Party (US), describing his involvement with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee at Carleton College in Minnesota. This is a paperbound edition of a work first published in 2001 by Pathfinder Press. Also available in Spanish as Playa Giron/Bahia de Cochinos: Primera derrota militar de Washington en America. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)