Wasn't it only yesterday that we were talking about the havoc politicians can wreak by micromanaging military operations?
But this wasn't a military operation - it was CIA. How in the heck did anyone expect a force of 1500 to defeat an army of 300,000, even with full air and naval support? The only way this plan could work is for U.S. ground intervention to follow the initial invasion, something neither the Eisenhower nor Kennedy administrations came to grips with. Were we prepared to invade Cuba to overthrow a Communist government or not? Lots of reasons to do so. Hindsight would sure say to go for it.
Kruschev took his measure of young Kennedy in Vienna and here and decided the feckless young President could be gamed. So, he bet most of his nuclear chips by putting missiles in Cuba, stared down Kennedy and won removal of our missiles from Turkey, nonintervention and security for Castro and huge prestige among third world thugs as an ally who could shield them from the U.S. Kennedy was a disaster in foreign and defense policy. His idea of standing up to Kruschev was to go to Berlin and call himself a jelly donut. Kruschev must have enjoyed that one.
LOL.