From the File

Season 1, Episode 8 · The Bay of Pigs

The Official History

Runtime ~21:46

Show notes

In 1973, CIA Director William Colby ordered the Agency to write its own official history of the Bay of Pigs — and staff historian Jack Pfeiffer spent nine years on it, producing five volumes: the air campaign, the secret diplomacy that kept it hidden, the policy story back to 1951, a rebuttal of the Taylor Committee, and a defense of the operation against the CIA’s own Inspector General. The Agency’s chief historian judged the draft “historically unsound, tendentious, and in some important respects distorted” and refused to approve it; Pfeiffer took the manuscript with him when he retired in 1984 and sued twice to publish it. Then the National Security Archive’s FOIA war began — a 2005 request, a 2011 lawsuit that pried loose four of the five volumes, a 2–1 appeals-court loss for the fifth, and its release in 2016 only after Congress changed the law. This episode asks what survived all of that: the institution’s official history — or one historian’s dissent that outlived the burial attempt.

Every claim in the episode traces to a document below. Quotations are verbatim. One attribution warning: the full texts of Volumes II and IV were not read in-session — their excerpts below are quoted as published in the National Security Archive’s 15 August 2011 briefing book (NSAEBB355), the same relay attribution the episode used on air. Volume I was read via the Archive’s OCR of the released volume and Volume III via archive.org’s OCR of the released scan, so page mapping is approximate. The D.C. Circuit’s 2014 decision is quoted via the History News Network’s account of the slip opinion — quotations confirmed against the slip opinion itself (No. 12-5201, decided May 20, 2014). Pfeiffer’s conclusions are presented throughout as his later-layer judgment, not documents.

The spine of the fight: WH/4 staff-meeting minutes of 15 November 1960 called the beachhead concept “unachievable”; Briggs’s June 1981 reply says Kirkpatrick’s ~70-page WH/4 interview record “cannot be located” and that the working papers were “destroyed”; McDonald’s December 1981 review refused to accept the draft as official history; Robarge’s September 2016 cover note leaves Volume V an “unfinished and unpublished draft,” “not publishable in its present form.” Present all sides; never pick a winner.

Citations

Reading-room pointer: National Security Archive — Bay of Pigs Official History. Volumes II and IV excerpts are quoted via NSAEBB355 when full texts were not retrieved in-session — the same relay attribution used on air.

  1. William Colby’s August 8, 1973 tasking — via National Security Archive NSAEBB341 (2011 court-filing account). source.
  2. Pfeiffer Vol. I — Air Operations, March 1960–April 1961 (Sept 1979; released 25 July 2011). source.
  3. Pfeiffer Vol. II — Participation in the Conduct of Foreign Policy (released July 2011; via NSAEBB355). source.
  4. Pfeiffer Vol. III — Evolution of CIA’s Anti-Castro Policies, 1951–January 1961 (Dec 1979; NARA 104-10301-10004).
  5. Pfeiffer Vol. IV — The Taylor Committee Investigation of the Bay of Pigs (via NSAEBB355). source.
  6. Pfeiffer Vol. V — CIA’s Internal Investigation of the Bay of Pigs (draft, submitted 18 Apr 1984; released Sept 2016). source.
  7. Briggs correspondence, 29 May / 4 June 1981 — missing ~70 pages (Vol. V, Appendix A). source.
  8. Thomas Karamessines memorandum, 21 June 1971 — “terminate the program and destroy the material” (via Vol. V).
  9. J. Kenneth McDonald, “CIA’s Draft History of the Bay of Pigs — the inside story,” AHA Perspectives, August 2014. source.
  10. National Security Archive FOIA war, 2005–2011 — NSAEBB341 / NSAEBB355. source.
  11. D.C. Circuit No. 12-5201, decided May 20, 2014 — Vol. V deliberative-process hold (via HNN account, confirmed against slip opinion). source.
  12. David Robarge, “Context for Readers,” September 2016 — Vol. V cover note. source.

Further reading

  • Pfeiffer v. CIA, 721 F. Supp. 337 (D.D.C. 1989) — first publication suit; summary judgment for the CIA.
  • Bill McAllister, Washington Post (1991) — Pfeiffer’s second suit / Public Citizen First Amendment challenge.
  • National Security Archive opening brief, National Security Archive v. CIA, No. 12-5201 (D.C. Cir.), filed 22 January 2013 — four-volume plan vs later five-volume split.
  • Thomas Blanton and Peter Kornbluh on the 2016 Vol. V release (National Security Archive / Small Wars Journal, 1 November 2016).

What the files don’t settle

We cannot adjudicate the Pfeiffer-versus-Kirkpatrick fight. Pfeiffer calls the IG report a “thinly veiled attempt to lay full blame”; McDonald calls Pfeiffer’s draft “historically unsound, tendentious”; the CIA in court called Vol. V “a polemic of recriminations.” Present all sides; never pick a winner.

We cannot say whether Kirkpatrick’s ~70-page WH/4 interview record was destroyed or merely “cannot be located.” The Briggs letter of 4 June 1981 says both. Don’t smooth it. The third officer in the room remains unnamed.

We cannot resolve whether five volumes that document planners calling the operation “unachievable” in November 1960, then spread blame everywhere except the planners, are history — or a defense brief the Agency itself refused to sign.

We cannot settle what Vol. V is: the Agency’s last word calls it an unfinished unpublished draft, “not publishable in its present form.” It is also the most complete CIA account that exists. Official history — or one man’s dissent that outlived the burial attempt? The documents leave that open.