Washington Rules_ America's Path to Permanent War - Andrew J. Bacevich [31]
Less than a hundred days into his presidency, Kennedy found himself obliged to take personal responsibility for the most humiliating foreign-policy failure the nation had experienced in decades. He was adamant that this would never happen again.
In Washington, large-scale failure or scandal inevitably produces demands for explanations. More often than not, however, the ensuing investigation undertaken by some congressional committee or blue-ribbon commission devotes less attention to uncovering truth or probing for underlying causes than to limiting political fallout.
So in the wake of the Bay of Pigs, the president turned to Maxwell Taylor, recruiting him to head up an in-house inquiry into the causes of the debacle. As chair of the Cuba Study Group, the retired general presided over an investigation that gave the president what he wanted. Besides Taylor, the group consisted of chief of naval operations Adm. Arleigh Burke, CIA director Allen Dulles (whose agency had, after all, planned, prepared, and overseen the debacle), and Attorney General Robert Kennedy—all of whom, albeit for different reasons, were more interested in damage control than in pursuing the facts wherever they might happen to lead. Not surprisingly, Taylor and his colleagues focused almost exclusively on tactical and operational issues, while giving wide berth to anything touching even remotely on basic policy. It was the equivalent of investigating a bridge collapse without bothering to assess the structural integrity of the basic engineering design.
As Taylor interpreted his charge, he was to evaluate the Bay of Pigs as one instance of U.S.-orchestrated “paramilitary, guerrilla, and anti-guerrilla activity . . . with a view to strengthening our work in this area.”21 What mattered most was to get on with business. When it came to identifying the “proximate cause” of Operation Zapata’s failure, therefore, Taylor’s group concluded that the core problem was a “shortage of ammunition.” That the Cuban exile air force—a ramshackle collection of obsolete aircraft, largely crewed by CIA contractors—had performed poorly also emerged as a matter of concern. Finally, there was the fact that the executive branch “was not organizationally prepared to cope with this kind of military operation.” A rejiggering of the organizational charts, allowing for more effective presidential control, was clearly in order.22
Exactly how Cuba threatened U.S. interests, thereby necessitating Castro’s removal, and whether or not covert action offered a plausible way to achieve that aim: These were matters the Cuba Study Group did not take up. In reporting their findings to the president, Taylor and his associates were content to note: “They had been struck with the general feeling that there can be no long-term living with Castro as a neighbor.” The basis of this general feeling remained unexplored and unexplained.
The members of the study group—who engaged in little actual study—deemed it sufficient to assert that Castro’s “continued presence within the hemispheric community as a dangerously effective exponent of Communism and Anti-Americanism constitutes a real menace.” They urged Kennedy to have another go at the Cuban dictator, recommending that “new guidance be provided for political, military, economic and propaganda action against Castro.”23 Kennedy welcomed these findings, which conveniently coincided with his own existing views.
The Bay of Pigs might have provided an opportunity for what we today call “a teachable moment.” Taylor’s management of the Cuba Study Group—its classified findings needless to say withheld from the public—ensured that nothing of importance would be taught or learned. Yet when he had finished