From the File

Season 1, Episode 7 · The Bay of Pigs

The Inspector General

Runtime ~18:51

Show notes

Five days after the Bay of Pigs failed, Allen Dulles asked his Inspector General to investigate it. Lyman Kirkpatrick’s survey was commissioned on April 22, 1961 — the same morning the Taylor Committee met for the first time — and delivered in October 1961: 216 pages with annexes, Top Secret, the only internal investigation the CIA ever conducted into the operation. Its mandate contained the whole story in miniature: the Agency was ordered to examine how well it had carried out its responsibilities, and forbidden from touching the national policy decisions above it.

The verdict, in the survey’s own voice (excerpts as published in the February 1998 declassification press — Kornbluh and the Associated Press — the same relay attribution used on air): the Agency converted a covert project into an overt military operation beyond its capability; failed to appraise the odds honestly; failed to advise the President that success had become dubious and recommend cancellation. “Plausible denial,” the survey concluded, “was a pathetic illusion.”

Then the Agency attacked the report. Tracy Barnes’s charges reach us through Kirkpatrick’s own reply (FRUS Supplement Doc. 278G): “an incompetent job,” “biased,” and “malicious and intentionally biased.” Kirkpatrick rejected all three. Richard Bissell signed on to intentional bias (Doc. 278I) and resigned three weeks later. John McCone bound the accusation and the rebuttal together and refused to reconcile them. Decades later, Jack Pfeiffer’s official history sided with the rebuttal — presented here as later-layer judgment, not a settling document. Present all sides; never pick a winner.

Then the burial. The Associated Press (22 February 1998): all but one of the twenty copies produced was destroyed; the sole remaining copy remained in the CIA director’s safe until a National Security Archive FOIA release. Voice of America (23 February 1998) attributes the destruction to McCone. The AP names no author. Both versions are carried; neither is chosen. Kirkpatrick ordered the working papers destroyed as well — and in his 1968 memoir agreed the report should always remain classified.

The record leaves three locked doors: the survey’s closing demand that seniors should have gone to the President and said halt — names no names; the never-reconciled binder; twenty copies printed, nineteen destroyed, one in the Director’s safe for thirty-seven years. What Directors did with it in those decades: nothing on record says.

Citations

Reading-room pointer: CIA Electronic Reading Room — Bay of Pigs. Survey excerpts for Doc. 273A are quoted as published in the February 1998 declassification press (Kornbluh / AP) when the full FRUS Supplement text was not retrieved in-session — the same relay attribution used on air.

  1. Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation, October 1961 — FRUS 1961–1963, Vols. X/XI/XII Microfiche Supplement, Doc. 273A (excerpts via 1998 declassification press). source.
  2. Kirkpatrick diary, April 22, 1961 — commissioning quote via Jack Pfeiffer, CIA’s Internal Investigation of the Bay of Pigs (Official History, Vol. V). source.
  3. Kirkpatrick memo to the DCI, December 1, 1961 — CIA-RDP80B01676R001900160013-3. source.
  4. Cabell memo on the survey, December 15, 1961 — “weapon unjustifiably [used]…” (quoted via AP 1998 reporting; full memo text not retrieved in-session).
  5. Cabell ↔ Kennedy, December 27–29, 1961 — CIA-RDP67-00318R000100200001-5. source.
  6. Barnes / Kirkpatrick exchange, January 19–22, 1962 — FRUS Supplement, Doc. 278G. source.
  7. IG staff to Kirkpatrick, January 26, 1962 — FRUS Supplement, Doc. 278H. source.
  8. Bissell to McCone, January 27, 1962 — FRUS Supplement, Doc. 278I. source.
  9. Dulles comments to McCone, forwarded February 15, 1962 (via Pfeiffer Vol. V).
  10. McCone settlement + Pfeiffer counter-autopsy — CIA official history Vol. V. source.
  11. Associated Press, February 22, 1998; Voice of America, February 23, 1998 — burial of 19 of 20 copies.
  12. Peter Kornbluh, “The Secret Kept for 37 Years” (February 1998); Bay of Pigs Declassified (The New Press, 1998).

Further reading

  • FRUS Supplement Docs. 278A and 278B — November/December 1961 transmittals (full texts not retrieved in-session).
  • DD/P “Analysis of the Cuban Operation” (completed January 18, 1962) — Bissell’s point-by-point rebuttal (via Pfeiffer).
  • Kirkpatrick oral history interview (JFK Library) — scope, interviews, Cubans not interviewed.
  • Kirkpatrick, The Real CIA (1968) — mandate framing and agreement the report should remain classified.

What the files don’t settle

We cannot adjudicate the survey-versus-rebuttal dispute. Kirkpatrick calls the survey competent; Barnes calls it “malicious and intentionally biased”; Bissell signs on to intentional bias; Pfeiffer’s official history later sided with the rebuttal. Present all sides; never pick a winner.

We cannot name who destroyed 19 of the 20 copies. The AP names no author; VOA attributes the burning to McCone. Carry both; choose neither.

We cannot name which senior officials “should have gone to the President and said frankly: ‘Here are the facts. The operation should be halted.’” The survey names no names.

We cannot say what McCone — or any Director after him — did with the surviving copy in the Director’s safe for thirty-seven years. Nothing on record says.