Wholesale Besieged Beachhead by J. J. Valdés

[Globe Pequot Publishing] On New Year’s Day 1959, Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement overthrew the ruling regime in Cuba, bringing the Cold War to the United States’ doorstep and setting the island nation and its superpower neighbor on a collision course. The clash came in April 1961 on the southern coast of Cuba at the Bahía de Cochinos—the Bay of Pigs. In an hour-by-hour chronicle that is as even-handed as it is dramatic, J. J. Valdés gets to the heart of this Cold War battle, from the beaches and skies of Cuba to the corridors of power in Washington and Havana. Long entangled in Cuba’s economy and politics, the United States watched Castro’s revolution carefully and grew wary as Castro drew closer to the Soviet Union. Within a few months, the CIA, with President Dwight Eisenhower’s approval, was recruiting and training Cuban exiles for a paramilitary force to topple Castro. By early 1960, when John F. Kennedy became president after campaigning on a hard line on Cuba, policy