Episode 12: Operation Zapata & the "other" George Bush?

Or should I say the other  other George Bush. Not Poppy and not W.  A George W. Bush, yes, but not the other George W. Bush. A different one. 😵‍💫

Confused yet?

➡️ Should JFK have asked more questions about the Bay of Pigs before moving ahead? Yes. I think he assumed he was getting solid information and that was the wrong assumption to make.   
➡️ Reading the testimonials in the book Operation Zapata  regarding the Bay of Pigs really shows what a giant sh*tshow it was from the beginning. Was this evidence of the planners being morons or was this done intentionally to force Kennedy into deeper military action?
➡️ Poppy Bush is a cofounder of Zapata Petroleum in 1953. Two naval vessels were repainted and renamed for their usage in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The names selected were "Barbara" and "Houston." 

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

https://www.history.com/news/bay-of-pigs-mistakes-cuba-jfk-castro

https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Zapata-Ultrasensitive-Testimony-Inquiry/dp/0890933766

https://www.amazon.com/Plausible-Denial-Was-Involved-Assassination/dp/161608359X

https://www.c-span.org/video/?3367-1/bushs-cia-involvement-early-1960s

https://aarclibrary.org/notices/George_Bush_CIA_Operative_by_Joseph_McBride.pdf

Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive the typos!

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello. Hello, thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I want to talk about Operation Zapata and the other George Bush. Not George Bush, Poppy bush, and not George W. Bush, the former governor and former president No, somehow another George Bush. And this one also happens to be a George W. Bush. But it's not that George W. Bush. If you have a headache already. Frankly, I don't blame you have a little bottle of water here as my beverage for the evening. Let's saddle up and take this ride this descent into madness, if you will.

Operation Zapata aka the Bay of Pigs invasion. If we go over to the Wikipedia page for set event, we can give ourselves a bird's eye view just a little refresher for the historical memory. The band Pigs invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban democratic revolutionary front or DRF, consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution covertly financed and directed by the US government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States and the Soviet Union, all but in to say, in a lot of ways, we tend to think of it as a cluster F and a national embarrassment. I'll continue to read in 1952, the American allied dictator general Batista led a coup against President prio and forced preo into exile in Miami, Florida. pareos exile, inspiring Castro's 26th of July movement against Batista. The movement succeeded in overthrowing Batista during the Cuban revolution in January 1959. Castro nationalized American businesses including banks, oil refineries, and sugar and coffee plantations, the Charlie India Alpha began planning the overthrow of Castro. So I'm going to button again here and say, think about the shades of the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat.

The United Fruit Company, somebody's trying to nationalize land, etc. And then these powerful people and powerful position saying, well, we just simply can't allow that to happen. So the Charlie India Alpha begins planning the overthrow of Castro, which US President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved in March 1960. And the US began its embargo of the island so there I'm going to button again here and say is it's worth pointing out, especially for someone like myself that's interested in the Kennedy pop pop and all the motives the whys and wherefores, the who benefited and all of that is worth noting that the Charlie in the Alfa began the planning of this overthrow and then it was Eisenhower that approved it in March of 1960. This led Castro to reach out to its Cold War rival the Soviet Union after which the US severed diplomatic relations. Cuban exiles who had moved to the US following Castro's takeover had formed the counter revolutionary military unit brigade to 506 which was the armed wing of the DRF. The Charlie ne Alpha funded the brigade, which also included approximately 60 members of the Alabama Air National Guard and the unit and train the unit in Guatemala. There's another reference we go back to from the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat. There's there's an obvious tie there Right? Over 1400 paramilitaries divided into five infantry infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled and launched from Guatemala and Nicaragua by boat on 17th of April 1961. Two days earlier, eight, Charlie India Alpha supplied B 26. bombers had attacked Cuban airfields and then returned to the US on the night of April 17. The main invasion force landed on the beach at fly as your own in the Bay of Pigs were overwhelmed a local revolutionary militia. Initially, Jose Ramon Fernandez led the Cuban Revolutionary Army counter offensive. Later Castro took personal control as the invasion force law strategic initiative, the international community found out about the invasion and US President John F. Kennedy decided to withhold further air support. The plan devised during Eisenhower's presidency had required the involvement of US air and naval forces. Without further air support, the invasion was being conducted with fewer forces than the Charlie and the Alpha had deemed necessary. The American Force brigade 2506 invading force were defeated within three days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, and surrendered on April 20, most of the surrendered counter revolutionary troops were publicly interrogated and put into Cuban prisons. The invasion was a US foreign policy failure. The Cuban government's victory solidified Castro's role as a national hero and widen the political division between the two formerly allied countries as well as embolden other Latin American groups to undermine us influence in the region. It also pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and quote, if we go over to the History Channel's website, we will find the article Why the Bay of Pigs invasion went so wrong, a series of poor decisions and mistakes led to one of the worst foreign policy failures in American history. This was originally published May 6 of 2019 and then updated subsequently, as of this publication, October 12, of 2023. It's worth it to me to come over here, because I feel like what we get in this article is very mainstream, very much like the official narrative. In this we read before the break of dawn on April 15 1961, a squadron of eight B 26. Bombers piloted by Cuban exiles roared down a Nicaraguan airstrip on a secret mission. The US Charlie India, alpha and President John F. Kennedy hoped the Bay of Pigs invasion would result in the overthrow of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. But the operation that unfolded over the next five days became one of the greatest military fiascos in American history. I'm going to butt in and say like, we're, we're the agency and Kennedy ever that much in lockstep with each other. I mean, just a question there for you to answer for yourself.

We know that he inherited this mess from the Eisenhower administration and it was indeed a mess. But was it what was he really that informed and that much in lockstep with the agency? No, just just a question mark there for you to decide for yourself. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had first sanction the covert Charlie India Alpha operation in 1959 to topple Castro, who had nationalized American industries and strengthen ties with the Soviet Union after leading a revolution that ousted the pro American military dictator Batista. The plan called for an an initial airstrike to wipe out Castro small Air Force followed by the amphibious landing of 1400 Cuban expatriates at the Bay of Pigs and inlet of the Gulf of Caledonia is on the southern coastline of Cuba. The expats had been trained by the agency in Guatemala and Florida. Once the insurgents established a beachhead, a provisional government of exile, Cubans would fly there from Miami, declare themselves the country's rightful leaders and invite the United States to send in troops to assist in the operation to depose Castro. When the plan codenamed operations of PATA, was presented to John F. Kennedy, just weeks after he took the oath of office, the newly inaugurated President ultimately gave it his approval. Jim Rosenberger, author of the brilliant disaster, JFK Castro and America's doomed invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs doesn't believe that military planners pressured the new president into making a decision against his better judgment. And I think Kennedy knew very well what he was getting into, but he was in a tough place. He says, during the 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy had repeatedly called for American intervention in Cuba. Incredibly, Kennedy got elected by outflanking Richard Nixon as an anti communist hawk. He beat up the Eisenhower administration for allowing Castro to come to power and not doing anything about it. So he became president in large part because of his anti communist rhetoric. And he didn't want to look like a hypocrite or soft on Communism, in quote. So again, we're we're faced with a question of, does that seem to does that seem to make sense? I mean, do you feel like that is, I feel like that's a very official narrative. Kennedy knew what he was getting into. Yeah. Okay. So he inherited it from Eisenhower. But his platform was to be a war hawk, an anti communist war hawk. And so now that he's presented with the opportunity to put up or shut up, he feels like he needs to put up rather than to shut up and go to the corner. I mean, that's, that is a possible narrative. When we read his own book, which was adapted from his master's or his thesis, I don't have the master's thesis or a baccalaureate thesis adapted from his thesis at Harvard, appeasement in Munich, which was later retitled why England slept. It sounds like a young Warhawk in the making. No doubt about that to me, because he's talking about shocks, violent shocks. People have to be scared for their safety scared for their own welfare. They're not just going to in a democracy vote to spend money on armaments, they have to be scared shitless in order to do that, which is why in his mind, England was woefully unprepared. For what Hitler was doing in Nazi Germany, by the time it was time to fight, they were woefully unprepared. So when you read this early literature that Kennedy himself wrote, it absolutely sounds like a young war hawk in the making. At some point, there was a turning point from war hawk to, I believe somebody that did not want to blow up the entire world. There were too many opportunities that man had to hit the nuclear button, and he didn't take them. So it to me it's difficult to believe that he was just a bloodthirsty war hawk all the time. How much did he really know about operation Zapata? Was he doing it because he felt like his back was against the wall? Did he think it was going to succeed? Was he misinformed? Or was he kept in the dark? You have to decide that for yourself.

 And then under the subtitle early leaks about the mission tip off Castro. We supposedly have Kennedy saying I can't believe what I'm reading Castro doesn't need agents over here. All he has to do is read our papers Kennedy snapped. Although the invasion would lack the element of surprise, neither the Charlie India Alpha nor the White House called it off. Alright, so again, we see this idea that the whole thing was a cluster F. The whole thing was a nightmare. Yet nobody decided to say, You know what, how about let's don't how about we call it off, regroup and make a different choice. I'll read just a little bit more. Immediately. The entire world knew they were Charlie India Alpha backed pilots, Ratzenberger says Kennedy realized any illusion of plausible deniability was gone. He could no longer pretend the Americans weren't behind it. The President responded on April 16, by canceling a second round of bombings planned for the following day, which left Cuban air defenses intact for when the invasion force arrived in the Bay of Pigs The following morning, the moment that Kennedy canceled the second round of bombings on Castro's air fleet. The operation was basically doomed and everybody knew it. And quote, Rosenberger says, yeah. Again, I feel like this is very much official, sanitized, acceptable narrative. So it wasn't really that Kennedy fell on the sword about operation Zapata. It's that he was in on the whole gaff to it was a big mess. It was a big nightmare. And somebody whether it was the agency or whether it was Kennedy, somebody should have called the whole thing off. Apparently now we're supposed to believe that Kennedy wanted it to happen. So long as there was the era of plausible deniability. And then whenever the plausible deniability was broken, he had to say, I'm not going to send in any kind of additional military force, because it's too obvious. Now. Perhaps you believe that. Maybe that is the explanation that makes the most sense to you, I'm not going to tell you otherwise.

In my mind, personally, I'm skeptical of that, just because I don't think that the preponderance of evidence tells me that Kennedy was salivating at the mouth, going crazy trying to have all of this war and drop all of these bombs. Some presidents have been that way. I'm skeptical that he fits into that category. I was able to track down an old book, I'm allowed to say that because I was my birth predates the publication of this book. Okay, so I'm allowed to say it's an old book, titled operations, a part of the ultra sensitive report and testimony of the Board of Inquiry on the Bay of Pigs. The copyright on the addition that I got from the library is 1981. And when I say I got it from the library, I had to get it through an interlibrary loan, and it took weeks, I have never had a book take that long. And it wasn't coming from that far either. mean, the library that it came from, is within reasonable driving distance. I could have gotten on the turnpike gone to this library in another state checked it out and drove back home. in less time. It took weeks to get my hands on this book. And I'm like, Are they finally going to tell me it got lost in the mail? What the hell? What the hell is in this book? That was my main thought, Why is it taking so long? What the hell is in this book? So it is it's interesting, and it is exactly what it purports to be you get all of these testimonies and like, minute meetings almost, or meeting minutes, I should say, of these various figures that were involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion. There are a couple of reviewers on Amazon who summed it up well, one of them writes want to know what really happened at the Bay of Pigs. This book basically constitutes a transcription of the report compiled by Admiral Burke Robert Kennedy and Allen Dulles following the debacle at the Bay of Pigs. The book was published 20 years following the event simply because the information was kept secret until then, as primary source information including direct interviews with those involved it is unbeatable. I highly recommend this report to anyone interested in the conflict over responsibility and culpability in the Bay of Pigs and quote, another reviewer calls it anatomy of Charlie India Alpha treason. And that person writes breathtaking to read between the lines as one can see the powerful individuals at the Charlie India alpha and in the US military aligning themselves in opposition to the Kennedy administration's foreign policy, Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell and general Cabell whose treasonous actions got them all fired by the President later planned JFK is pop pop in quote. It is interesting. And so I think, all right, we have this juxtaposition that we can make. The official narrative Hey, Kennedy was in on the gaff, he knew what he was doing might have been a bit of a dumb ass to have done it. But hey, he knew what he was getting into. And then when we start reading a book, like operations Uppada, which is just a record, and there's no real editorial comment, it's just the record, you begin to see a different picture. I mean, you just do, go and check this book out for yourself, please and read it for yourself. Because I don't want you to just take my word for it. I want you to go read this book, read these testimonies and these meeting minutes and see what you think for yourself. Come to your own conclusions about it. On memorandum number one, which is titled narrative of the anti Castro Cuban operations, Uppada, dated June 13 1961. One of the things that we read here is although the Cuban situation had been the subject of serious study in the special group, Charlie, India, alpha agency and other government agencies since 1958, this study takes as its point of departure, the basic policy paper, a program of covert action against the Castro regime, approved by the President on March 17 1960. So let's think about this. Kennedy was not in office at that point in time. 1960 was an election year. Kennedy's inauguration day was January 20 1961. So if we're talking about a program of covert action that was approved by the President on March 17 of 1960, we're still talking about Eisenhower. This document developed by the Charlie India, Alfa and endorsed by the special group provided a program divided into four parts to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime by covert means. So let's listen to this again. This document developed by the Charlie India alpha and endorsed by the special group. By the way, they have an asterisk. The special group sometimes called the 5412 committee consists of a deputy undersecretary of state Deputy Secretary of Defense director, Charlie India, alpha and the Special Assistant to the President for national security affairs and meets weekly to consider covert operations conducted by the Charlie India Alpha under the authority of NSC, 5412 slash two. So we're not even talking about the president. We're talking about the agency and the special group coming up with this. So when we're reading this memorandum number one, we're talking about activities that predate Kennedy being in the White House. The four points that are mentioned in this memorandum number one, A is the creation of a responsible and unified Cuban opposition to the Castro regime, located outside of Cuba B is the development of means for mass communication to the Cuban people as part of a powerful propaganda offensive. Remember, we saw that same tactic being used in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat, where they were going to commandeer the airwaves and tell everybody that their coup was a smashing success, whether it was or it wasn't, they were gonna get on the airwaves and tell people that so they would just give up and go along with it. History repeats itself. Points see the creation and development of a covert intelligence and action organization within Cuba, which would be responsive to the orders and directions of the exile opposition, which in other words, means responsive to the west responsive to the US and their agenda, D the development of a paramilitary force outside of Cuba for further guerrilla action in quote on page six of this hardback copy, it's interesting because there there are certain lines and names throughout this testimonial that are redacted throughout the whole book. There are redactions, but there's this line, the final training of the Cubans was done by blank when it says one and a half lines deleted. The final training of the Cubans was done by blank in Guatemala, where 400 To 500 Cubans had been assembled and quote, when I read that I immediately thought back to Richard ballfields book terminate with extreme prejudice at the beginning in the chapter titled never write anything thing down he takes us to the US Navy airbase in Opa Locka, Florida in 1954, to talk about the training that was occurring for the Guatemalan coup d'etat. And I thought, What are the odds? Right? So we have the final training of Cubans for the Bay of Pigs. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion was done in Guatemala were four to 500 Cubans had been assembled on page seven of this hardback as they're still talking about the Cuban force being trained in Guatemala. One of the things we read here, he expressed the opinion that such a force would have no difficulty inflicting heavy casualties on a much larger militia force. There is no evidence that the special group formally approved the plan at this time. But the Charlie and the Alpha representatives were encouraged to continue in its development. A comment was made at the meeting that the existence of the US back force of Cubans and training was well known throughout Latin America and quote, I feel like this, this dispel several things for me, right? Because I feel like and this is just my interpretation, okay. It's just my opinion, and it could be wrong. But the way that I interpret it is, the agency was like this is going to happen. We're not worried about the special groups approval, we're not worried about presidential approval, this is going to happen. And then the comment was made that the existence of this US US backed force of Cubans being in training was well known throughout Latin America. Well, I feel like that blows this notion out of the water of Kennedy flying off into a rage being like, well, if Castro knows and it's already hit the newspapers, then what's the point? Well, what was the point here? If people in Latin America already knew the military intelligence complex was saying, people in Latin America already know that we're doing this what in the hell would make you think Castro wouldn't know? This is absurd look at look at the absurdity of all of this. But you know, you want some hashtag real talk. It's easier to be SMERSH someone's image, it's easier to attack somebody's legacy. If you make them look like a buffoon, or some kind of flying off the handle Warhawk. Think about in Dr. Strangelove, the behavior that we see from Jack D Ripper or general turgid isn't played so well by George C. Scott flying off the handle frothing at the mouth, or King Kong play by slim pickins I'm we're going to drop this bomb on somebody dammit, We've come too far. I'm all geeked up and excited to nuke somebody. And then he rides the bomb down onto the land like he's at a rodeo writing of rodeo bull. We also on page seven read that the director of the Charlie India Alpha brief the President on the new paramilitary concept on November 29 1960. So again, we're still still talking about Eisenhower here, not Kennedy, and received the indication that Eisenhower wish the project expedited. The concept was formally presented to the special group on December 8 1960. At this meeting, blank a name has been redacted with a name or group we don't know there's some redaction there, in charge of the paramilitary section for the Cuba project describe the new concept as one consisting of an amphibious landing on the Cuban coast of 600 to 750 Men equipped with weapons of extraordinarily heavy firepower. The landing would be preceded by preliminary airstrikes launched from Nicaragua against military targets, airstrikes as well as supply flights would continue after the landing. The objective would be to seize hold a limited area and Cuba maintain a visible presence and then to draw dissident elements to the landing force, which hopefully would trigger a general uprising. This amphibious landing would not entirely eliminate the previous concept for infiltrating guerrilla teams, it was expected that 60 to 80 men would be infiltrated prior to the amphibious landing. And then that's where we find the special group was also briefed on the quality of the Cuban force in training in Guatemala in quote. So we're still in the realm of Eisenhower. And Eisenhower wanted this to be expedited.

If we go over to page eight, early in January, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that there was a need for an overall United States plan of action for the overthrow of Castro and produced a paper JC s m 44 Dash 61. So let's let's say that again, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that there was a need for the US to come up with an overall plan to overthrow Castro. So we're still not in the realm of Kennedy saying I think we ought to do this. I want to be an anti communist Warhawk. I think we need to freakin do this, in which they recommended the institution of an interdepartmental group to consider various courses of action in ascending degree of US involvement, which, after approval by the President would become an overall plan to be supported by subordinate plans prepared by the agencies concerned. This way commendation reached the Secretary of Defense but appears to have been lost in the activities arising out of the change in administration. How convenient. Now we read on November 18 1960, President Elect Kennedy had first learned of the existence of a plan for the overthrow of Castro through a call on him at Palm Beach by Mr. Dulles and Mr. BISSELL. He received his first briefing on the developing plan as president on January 28. At a meeting which included the vice president secretary of state secretary of defense, the director of the Charlie India alpha, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Assistant Secretary man Assistant Secretary knits, Mr. Tracy Barnes and Mr. McGeorge Bundy. After considerable discussion, the President authorized the following a continuation and accentuation of current activities of the Charlie India alpha, including increased propaganda, increased political action and increased sabotage, continued overflight of Cuba was specifically authorized. The Defense Department was to review Charlie India Alpha proposals for the act of deployment of anti Castro Cuban forces on Cuban territory. And the results of this analysis were to be promptly reported to the Charlie India alpha. The State Department was to prepare a concrete proposal for action with other Latin American countries to isolate the Castro regime. And to bring against it the judgment of the organized American states. It was expected that this proposal and then two and a half lines have been redacted. So we don't know what that paragraph finally said. So can we say that Kennedy's hands were completely clean? No, we cannot. To me that gets into hero worship, and trying to trying to legacy build in a way that's not authentic. Right. So for me, it's it's a midpoint. Do I think that he was a bloodthirsty war hawk, and he was just ready to drop nukes on anybody anytime? No, I don't think so. Was he the next Jesus? Was he going to be beatified and canonized into the sainthood as the most like Blessed are the peacemakers. Now, not that either. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle for a memorandum number to June 13 1961. We learned in the summary the proximate cause of the failure of the Zapata operation was a shortage of ammunition which developed from the first day of the landing April 17, and became increasingly critical until it resulted in the surrender of the landing force about 1400 on April 19, and quote, on page 39 of the hardback, we read the lack of full appreciation of the ammunition situation at the end of d plus one which was like the first day plus one. In the Charlie India Alpha operational headquarters was largely the result of the difficulty of keeping abreast of the situation on the beach, and the location and movement of the ships at sea from the distance of Washington. Also, there was a confidence in the supply of the beach by air which turned out to be unjustified. Had there been a command ship in the sea area with an advanced Charlie Andy Alpha command post on board a more effective control would have been possible. The executive branch of the government was not organizationally prepared to cope with this kind of paramilitary operation. There was no single authority short of the president capable of coordinating the actions of the Charlie India alpha state defense and us is a top level direction was given through ad hoc meetings of senior officials without consideration of operational plans in writing. And with no arrangement for recording conclusions and decisions reached in quote, cluster F. This organized cluster f, i, I'm not going to, you know sort of lurk in the shadows on this one. I tend to buy into the thesis that the more savvy is the word that's coming to my mind, the more politically savvy the more militarily savvy, the people that really were the war hawks, those turgid son Jack D Ripper types, that Kubrick was satirizing. And Dr. Strangelove I think the folk of that ilk, were pretty much convinced that they were going to be able to put Kennedy's back against the wall. And when push came to shove, and they were out of ammunition, and the invasion was going quite shittily they would say, well, you're gonna have to send in troops, you're gonna have to give an airstrike, you're gonna have to really take this war seriously. Let's just do it. We're already there. We already have exiles on the beach and things are floundering. So let's just do it. And I think they thought he was going to do it. And then when he didn't, I think it caused quite a rift quite a commotion. Now, that's my opinion, looking at the evidence and the things that I've read and it could be wrong. That's the ultimate conclusion that I come to. At some point, I may read further information and come to the opposite conclusion. That's where I'm sitting on it at the moment. There's a section titled second meeting memorandum for the record and it's a morning session. This took place on April 24 1961. In a Charlie India Alpha administration building, the participants are listed as being General Maxwell detailer, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Admiral Burke, Allen Dulles. General David W. Gray commander Mitchell a redacted name. Colonel in hid in hidden Leo in in Julio, I'm not sure I'm not even going to try to butcher that name. General Cabell, Richard Bissell Tracy Barnes and then three other redacted names that we are not going to get access to. So if we go now to page 91, there's some question and answer here. And when they're talking about Mr. Kennedy, in this context, they're talking about Bobby, they're not talking about Jack because it was Bobby Kennedy that was in attendance in this meeting. Mr. Kennedy asked if these pilots were Americans or Cubans and blank, one of the names redacted, replied, They were both Americans and Cubans, they got along well together, and both were motivated by patriotic reasons. Mr. Kennedy asked if the pilots expected they would have help or assistance. Were they ever told they would not have assistance? Blank replied that they were not told they would not have assistance, and he did not think they expected military assistance. Mr. Bissell said that on D plus two, so the day plus two. They were expected they were briefed to expect Navy cover and protection and beginning at that time, they may have expected assistance. Blank said the news was a great morale booster to people in the Puerto cabezas area. And when it did not materialize, morale was affected adversely. Human crews are boarded. And without this assurance of assistance, American pilots would not have participated. So I think this is one of the things that that reviewer was referring to about the maneuvering of the intelligence agencies and the the military complex here to put the Kennedy administration up against the wall. Let me because because RFK is asking, Well, did they think they were gonna have assistance were they told that they weren't. And look at the slippery language there. This redacted name this mystery man replied that they were not told they would not have assistance. But he didn't think that they expected military assistance. But then morale went down when they didn't get it. And some of them just said The hell with it. What What kind of military operation was this? The insanity. So when we go to the second meeting, the afternoon session or memorandum for the record, which also was on April 24 1961, in a conference room, at the Charlie indie alpha, we had Maxwell Taylor, Robert Kennedy, Admiral Burke. Michael, inhale, inhale, Lido. I'm going to try to get that right. General David Gray Allen Dulles, general Kabil, Richard Bissell Tracy Barnes and then 12345 redacted names that we're not allowed to know who they were. And when we go to page 101, and this hardback copy, we have general gray saying what actually happened then was that the Charlie in the Alpha wrote up all the concepts we in the JCS were Joint Chiefs of Staff got them on an evaluation basis, and the State Department got into the act very informally. Still later. General Taylor says their Zapata plan was apparently put on paper and approve sometime after the march 15 meeting was a field order ever put out on it. And then this redacted person we don't know who they are. This was a rush order after several alternatives had been discussed. I don't know if the Joint Chiefs of Staff ever got a detailed plan as we worked and rework this until just before the operation. General Taylor says as I understand it, then the concept was okay by the President and the detailed plan was worked over for a period of time and finished just before the operation. When was the plan for the landing approved, Bissell says the President approved successive steps as we prepared for this but up until D minus one he reserved unto himself the final decision to go or no go and up until this time d minus one. He could have diverted the expeditionary force from landing even though it was on its way.

General Taylor was there ever in affirming order given to go ahead. Admiral Byrd my record show that 1340 hours on the 16th of April was the time that we received the greenlight General Taylor, this was just before the landings, which were to take place the next day, general Gray, the first time the new administration came into this was at a January 27 meeting at the White House. And then Robert Kennedy speaks up and says I attended that meeting and there was never any discussion of that plan. I do remember that Secretary Rusk brought up the fact of a possible landing on the Isle of Pines. To which general Grace says That's right. They merely discussed the seven possible courses of action ranging from straight volunteer forces to straight us over intervention. We were told to prepare plans for all of these possible courses of action in the ascending scale of difficulty. Bobby Kennedy says one thing sticks in my mind in regard to this meeting, I remember that at that time, we were told that it would be impossible to successfully overthrow Castro because of his control over his armed forces. And over the country in general, unless you had the invading force backed up by intervention by US forces and quote, again, look at the maneuvering. I mean, they were going to they were going to go on with this narrative until Bobby Kennedy speaks up. It's like, wait a minute, I was at that meeting. There was never any discussion of that plan. And then suddenly, they're like, oh, yeah, that's right. Sort of like once you're calling us out on our bullshit. And you're saying, No, I was in the room. And that never happened. Oh, well, yeah. Okay, you're right, you're right. My bad. If we skip over to page 120 of the hardback copy, we're still in the second meeting, afternoon session with the same attendees I listed off earlier. This redacted name that we're not allowed to know says, As far as the Cuban volunteer force was concerned, we had given them something and then had taken it back, a complete cover by naval air was never established. Bobby Kennedy says, had you or these pilots expected to have this aid or cover? The redacted name says we never, we were never briefed. So Bobby says, Did you ever expect it by inference? Were you ever told that you would not get it? The redacted name says I don't think they ever definitely said that they would not get it to the pilots. Bobby asked, Did you expect such aid? The redacted name says No, sir. But yet, there is this narrative, a mainstream narrative, I would say that JFK was supposed to go along with this military strike, and then got cold feet or wimped out and decided not to, or decided, as we saw on that History Channel article. Well, there's not going to be the plausible deniability. He's not going to be able to play pretend that the US was not involved and slink away in the darkness. So that's why he didn't do it. And I appreciate the fact honestly that RFK is in this meeting, like wait a minute assholes. Wait a hot effing Minute, where these people ever told that they were going to get air cover, like be honest with us. If we go to page 123 in the hardback, we're still in second meeting, afternoon session. General Taylor asks, how were the aircraft directed from the ground by radio, the redacted name, we don't know who it is? No, this wasn't possible. As the communications went down with the ship that was sunk. They did land an aircraft on the strip and had to do some controlling with their radio. We then tried to have other aircraft land, but the Cuban pilots fuel control procedures were bad. And they had to turn back. Robert Kennedy asked you say then that you did not find the Cuban pilots to be very good. redacted name says no. When the chips were down, and the going was tough. They found excuses not to do the job. Robert Kennedy asked, what percentage would you say did do their job? The redacted name says I'd say that not over 35% of them did. In our early missions, we had some Cuban crews making as many as three passes over heavily defended targets. That was in the early days when they smelled victory. When the going got tough. We had trouble even getting them into the aircraft. On d plus two, it took us several hours to get some of their crews in the aircraft. And then they aborted the mission in quote. But you know, by all means, let's assume that this was JFK is disaster. One of one question that I would have like in the corporate world, if I were having a meeting, some failed business merger, some plan went all to hell, who vetted these people? Who was responsible for going out and procuring and recruiting these people? And then who vetted them? That those would be very important questions for me. I'm gonna skip ahead now to going toward the end of the book, the 20th meeting. Apparently there were a lot of them. Some of them are completely redacted. The 19th meeting, for example, entire meeting still classified so we don't we don't know what happened there. 20 of meeting memorandum for the record, this was on May 25 1961. At the Pentagon. The participants are General Taylor, Mr. Dulles, Dr. Murrow Cardona and then three redacted names so we don't know who they were. Murrow Cardona, I believe, is referring to Jose mero. Cardona who was the 14th prime minister of Cuba. I think. So, on page 356, we have Miro Cardona stating on the front it before the invasion, I was very worried. I had no information on what was planned. I had no alternatives. And I didn't want to stop anything that was planned by the United States government. And he says I stated at this time that this was the moment for the United States government to come in and help this operation. Otherwise, it would appear that the United States had abandoned the people who were fighting against communism and Cuba. And I asked President Kennedy to go all out. However, that night, one of the US representatives came to me with a defeat statement saying that the invasion force was going to the Escambray is to continue fighting from there, I said that I wouldn't sign it because it would make me responsible for something that I had known nothing about. At this point, I requested to see Mr. Kennedy and I was informed that some high officials would talk with me. The next morning, Mr. Berle, Mr. Schlesinger and blank a redacted name came down, and explain to them my view that it still wasn't too late that this was the moment for the United States to come in with all its power, that there was already anti American feeling in Cuba and Latin America, and that Castro would exploit this to the maximum if the invasion force was abandoned. This in turn would result in tremendous repercussions throughout Latin America. I further stated that if the US would now throw in the 15,000 people that they had promised, the council would accept everything that had been done previously in good grace. However, this was not done in the force was defeated. Following this, I was invited to the White House and when I went in the president stated that he had been responsible for the failure. At that moment, I felt that the past should be forgotten. The next day, I prepared a memo asking the president to continue the war and quote, so he goes on to say that he wants to have a government in exile. I feel that the relations have to be from the US government to the Cuban government in exile, then we could make loans recruitment and raise an army and obtain bases and other countries. This government in exile could also buy arms and make military alliances, that people want to go back to the training bases and raise another brigade and go to war. The only alternative to this is the Cold War and the communists are the masters in the Cold War. We should go to war soon, otherwise Castro will spread throughout Latin America. Question Do you believe the council should be modified? Dr. Cardona says no, I would also like to make it clear that I am ready to continue serving Cuba in any way that I can't either on the council or off the council in any capacity. But I feel that we have the pilots, we have the people and we should get on with the project of ousting Castro. And this should be done in the very near future and quote. So again, I'm going to come back to what I've said before, there's another opportunity in Kennedy really had been some frothing at the mouth war hawk, there would have been other opportunities to do exactly that. And he chose not to. Meanwhile, we're left with this Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy going on and public falling on the sword saying, hey, this happened on my watch. It didn't go well, I'll take responsibility for it. That could just be that I could leave the story with you right there. And I do encourage you if you can find a copy for yourself. As I mentioned, it took some doing to even get it through the interlibrary loan. But if you can find a copy of operation zapata and read these testimonies for yourself, I highly encourage you to do it. For me, it was eye opening exactly the depth of what a disorganized cluster F it was. One of the things that Richard Belfield points out in his book terminate with extreme prejudice is that what he calls cock ups. And these government bureaucracies go hand in hand, and that includes pop pops, and covert operations, expect some degree of cocking up to happen in these operations.

I myself push back against the narrative that all politicians are idiots, and that when they do something, it's not out of malicious intent. It's just out of being Stone Cold morons. I don't believe that's true. I don't think that everybody in the government or these NGOs or the web, for example, the Bilderberg Group, I don't think that these people are all a bunch of colossal morons that have no idea what they're doing. I just completely rebuke that. I think that a lot of things are orchestrated and planned and engineered, like recessions, these boom bust cycles, for example, I don't think they happen on accident. The fat cats and the cronies at the top make so much money. Look at what happened with Oxfam. They went to Davos and sat in front of the fat cats who profited off the pandemic and talked about how the fat cats profited off the pandemic. Okay, we couldn't make that up. I don't think that these things happen on accident. So I myself refute the idea that everything is a cock up. But to Richard's point, yes, there are cock ups. There are mistakes there are complete what the eff moments that happen in these operations and when we if you go and read operations a PATA you look at the testimonials. You'll see some of those coffee cups. Okay, here's a conspiracy theory. Let's throw some let's throw some sand in the question for a second. What if this was all done in elegantly on purpose to back Kennedy against the wall and have a full scale war? What if this whole ragtag team of exiles who wanted to abandon the mission and say Screw this? What if all of that was done on purpose? Knowing that Kennedy would send him legit troops and mount a war against Castro? Is that what happened? You be the judge. We get in the story there. But I was reading Mark lanes book plausible denial, and he has an epilogue at the back of the book called operations Uppada. I mentioned in a previous episode, because he quotes this journalist who acts like Well, we did y'all a favor. Okay. When we got rid of your golden Prince of Camelot who probably would have been in a scandal that would have made Watergate look like a peanut. We did you a favor, which I find so repellent what a vile thing to say. Blowing someone's brains out in front of the man's own wife and in front of children on the sidewalk who were spectators you thought you want me to thank you did me a favor that day? Fuck you. Plug your ears if you don't like nasty language, but seriously fuck off. That's that's what a horrible elitist thing to say how disgusting. So Mark Lane goes on in this epilogue operation zapata  to bring up Joseph McBride. Joseph McBride was doing research for something totally unrelated. He's in a library and he comes across this memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover, who was then the director of the Foxtrot Bravo, India. It's dated November 29 1963. And the subject of this memorandum is the pop pop of President John F. Kennedy.

And, again, he's not even looking for this information. But in the, in the memorandum, he learns that a Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was briefed, along with a Mr. George Bush of the Charlie in the Alpha, about potential problems as they related to the Pop Pop. Now McBride goes and writes an article about this for The Nation magazine, back in 1988. I will also drop a link so that you can watch a video from C span, July 14th 1988, there was a video that was on C span, a little callin segment where Joseph McBride talks about what he found, and then callers call in to discuss it. And it's interesting because one of the things he says is, as he made this revelation to people, some of them thought it was great. Some of them thought, Well, hey, if Poppy Bush actually was some kind of covert agent and was covering it up all this time that makes his stock go up in our book, not down. And I thought, Wow, what a world you know, what, what a world that somebody would would think that. So McBride is in the process of doing his research and trying to make sure that he is getting the best possible information. He tries to question. Poppy Bush about hey, is the George Bush in this memorandum you? And if so, what do you have to say about it? So we have to put this into context for the time. Joseph McBride writes this article for the nation in the July 16, through 23rd 1988 addition. Vice President George Bush, not yet President George Bush, but Vice President George Bush. And as McBride is trying to verify this information like hey, was this you? He is speaking to the Vice President spokesman Stephen Hart and Stephen Hart asked McBride Are you sure it's the same George Bush. So heart goes back, allegedly anyway, and talks to Poppy bush, and quotes Poppy Bush is saying I was in Houston, Texas at the time and involved in the independent oil drilling business. And I was running for the Senate and late 63 must be another George Bush added heart. So then we start to get into this question of, well, who the hell is the other George Bush? Because who, obviously, at that point in time was not yet governor of Texas. And he also obviously had not been the president yet. So who Who is this other George Bush. So I will read now from the epilogue operations Uppada. At the back of plausible denial by Mark lane, Mark Lane writes, during 1988 Bush responding to McBride's charges through a spokesperson deny that he had been associated with the Charlie India Alpha Before he was named its director in 1976. Subsequently, the agency said that George Bush, who had been briefed by the DIA and the fox trot Bravo, India, the day after the Pop Pop was George William Bush, not George Herbert Walker Bush. There, the matter might have ended a footnote to a complex conundrum. But MacBride person had McBride, not persistent, he located George William Bush, a lower level researcher who denied that he had been briefed by either the Foxtrot Bravo India or the DIA, the work assignment of George William Bush, who had been employed by the Agency for only six months during 63. And 64, was looking over photographs and documents unrelated to the subject of the briefing. He was not the Mr. George Bush of the Charlie India alpha, referred to in Mr. Hoover's memorandum, if the present president which because Okay, the epilogue was written by the time that Poppy had been elected president, if the present president worked for the agency before 63, the most obvious inquiry is why he lied about it in 1988, and why he has permitted that false statement to persist to the present time in quote.

 So let's also put this in an additional context and go just a little further back in January of 1976, Gerald Ford appoints Poppy bush to become the director of the Charlie India Alpha. There had been a lot of bad publicity, a lot of bad feelings that people had about the agency due to Watergate and the Vietnam War. And so theoretically, Poppy Bush is brought in as a quote, outsider, to kind of restore the public reputation. We're not going to promote somebody from within, we're going to bring somebody who's an owl quote, an outsider to the organization to kind of clean things up. But it's like, well, what if that's not really the case? Think about. Again, if we, if we look at it in private sector terms, imagine you have a huge manufacturing company. And they decide to appoint somebody, the CEO, who has no experience has never held a corporate job before has never worked in manufacturing. They're just going to pick John Doe off the street to come in and be the head CEO of this huge multinational manufacturing company. How long do you think that company was stay in business? When we put it in private sector terms? It's clear to see it makes no sense. No sense. So was Poppy really only just then getting to be an agency guy? I mean, Judge for yourself there. Now Mark Lane also tells this upon his story. So after Bush leaves New Haven, he moves to Texas. He gets involved in a business agreement with a John Overby and Hugh and Bill Liedtke In 1953, they form an oil company. The name of it is Zapata petroleum.

Bush is in the role of Vice President and this Hugh Liedtke is the president. He's the he's the older, more knowledgeable guy that has more old money connections. So he leads the company and they get some Wall Street investors to come in and do their backing. It also turns out that bush is befriended by George de Mohrenschildt that name is going to be familiar to you if you've studied the Pop Pop. It's definitely a topic that I want to talk about in more depth in another episode. Funny enough, George de Mohrenschildt had a personal telephone book containing the entry Bush comma george HW Poppy in parentheses, which is his nickname 1412, West Ohio also zapata petroleum Midland.

And Mark Lane writes the names zapata was Bush's good luck charm symbolic of the two successful operations in his public career as a businessman, while Bush resided in Houston with Barbara and ran Zapata during 1961. The Charlie India Alpha plan the big Bay of Pigs invasion, the top secret codename given by the agency to plan for the invasion of Cuba known only to a select few was operations. Uppada Colonel Fletcher Prouty, I'm going to butt in here and say remember, Prouty is the one who supposedly is the basis for Mr. X played by Donald Sutherland in Oliver Stone's film JFK. proud he was responsible for securing the ordinance for the invasion, he was ordered to find two United States Navy craft suitable for carrying men tanks weapon and ammunition. His instructions were to provide equipment for 25,000 men, although only approximately 1400 were to make the initial landing in quote Now he goes on to talk about how these vessels were then repainted. So they would not look like US naval vessels, and the military equipment was placed on them for operations Uppada the vessels were given new names, one being Barbara, and the other being Houston.

 Is that purely a coincidence? Does it show the fingerprints of poppy Bush being inside of operation zapata isn't an indication that he was already Charlie India alpha in the early 1960s, even though we're supposed to believe he came in much later as an outsider but was appointed the Director. Also keep in mind that both Houston and Barbara the ships are mentioned throughout the testimonials given in operations are part of the book. Is this a coincidence? So just a weird kooky conspiracy theories and a long shot? Or do you think there's something to that? In another episode, I will ask the question Where was Poppy on November 22 1963.

Stay a little crazy. And I will see you in the next episode.

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