Havana, Cuba: Without having spent 70 hours after the invasion of Cuba, the self-propelled cannon in which Fidel Castro was traveling arrived before the last stronghold of attackers in Playa Girón 60 years ago today, Prensa Latina publishes.
Of the 1,500 mercenaries of the 2506 brigade trained by the United States government, about 1,200 remained to be taken prisoners, most of them Cuban exiles.
According to historical research, the so-called Operation Pluto, inherited by President Jonh F. Kennedy from the Dwight Eisenhower administration, failed and the first great military defeat of northern imperialism in America occurred.
On April 24, 1961, the US president recognized the implication of his government in the events and from then on Washington designed new strategies to end the young Revolution at 90 miles.
“The Kennedy brothers will entrust the CIA with an intensive program directed against the Castro regime, responsible for the humiliation of the United States,” stated in his memoir William “Bill” Colby, head of that intelligence agency from 1973 to 1976.
In fact, on November 30, 1961, the US president approved Operation Mongoose, the largest subversive plan orchestrated against Cuba, responsible for some five thousand sabotage actions and terrorist acts on the island in less than 10 months.
Meanwhile, the Playa Girón prisoners were accused of treason, tried and after a time in prison began exchanges to return them to the United States in exchange for compensation.
“The incredible thing is that the lawyer who negotiated with me the CIA tried to use it to bring me a diving suit as a gift that was impregnated with enough fungi and bacteria to kill me?, Fidel Castro said in an interview with journalist Ignacio Ramonet.
The historical leader was referring to James Donovan, who first traveled to the island in August 1962 and with whom an agreement was reached to receive compensation of about $ 52 million in food and medicine in exchange for the invaders.
“We had more than 150 dead and hundreds of wounded” among the Cuban troops during the attack on Playa Girón, assured Fidel Castro and emphasized that, however, “there was not a single blow” against the prisoners.
Some members of that 2506 assault brigade are still alive, they participated in other aggressive actions against their country of origin, they supported President Donald Trump (2017-2021) in his economic war to suffocate the island and 60 years later, they still hope to see the fall of the revolutionary government.
The successive administrations of the United States continued with the same objective, legally codifying the blockade of the island with the Helms-Burton Act (1996) and according to the Cuba Money Project site, in the last three decades they allocated more than 261 million dollars to the subversion.