Air Force. 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. The movement succeeded in overthrowing Batista during the Cuban Revolution in January Castro nationalized American businesses, including banks, oil refineries, and sugar and coffee plantations. By early , President Eisenhower had begun contemplating ways to remove Castro, in the hopes that he might be replaced by a Cuban government-in-exile, though none existed at the time.
Cuban exiles who had moved to the U. Over 1, paramilitaries, divided into five infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled and launched from Guatemala and Nicaragua by boat on 17 April As the invasion force lost the strategic initiative, the international community found out about the invasion, and U.
President John F. Kennedy decided to withhold further air support. Without further air support, the invasion was being conducted with fewer forces than the CIA had deemed necessary. Most of the surrendered counter-revolutionary troops were publicly interrogated and put into Cuban prisons with further prosecution. The invasion was a U. The Cuban government's victory solidified Castro's role as a national hero and widened the political division between the two formerly allied countries, as well as emboldened other Latin American groups to undermine U.
As stated in a memoir from Chester Bowles : "The humiliating failure of the invasion shattered the myth of a New Frontier run by a new breed of incisive, fault-free supermen. However costly, it may have been a necessary lesson. Since , Cuba had been part of the Spanish Empire. In the late 19th century, Cuban nationalist revolutionaries rebelled against Spanish rule, resulting in three liberation wars: the Ten Years' War β , the Little War β and the Cuban War of Independence β The U.
A special operations attempt to land a group of at least Cuban soldiers on the island succeeded in the Battle of Tayacoba. On 20 May , a new independent government proclaimed the foundation of the Republic of Cuba , with U.
