From the File

Season 1, Episode 9 · The Bay of Pigs

The Taylor Committee

Runtime 20:47

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Show notes

Four days after the Bay of Pigs failed, President Kennedy asked General Maxwell Taylor to investigate. The meeting record of April 22, 1961 (FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 169) shows who sat at Quarters Eye, Fort Myer that afternoon: Taylor, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Admiral Arleigh Burke, and CIA Director Allen Dulles — the DCI investigating the CIA’s own operation, the Chief of Naval Operations judging the Navy’s role, and the President’s brother in the room. In the official history’s canon the committee’s formal name was the “Cuba Study Group”; “Taylor Committee” is the later shorthand. The membership list is the thesis: the jury was the defendants.

Over seven weeks the committee heard dozens of witnesses (more than 60, by the CIA historian’s count). On June 13, 1961, Taylor delivered a transmittal letter and four memoranda (FRUS Vol. X, Docs. 230–234). The transmittal claimed a “unanimous view on all essential points” — while a footnote to Memorandum No. 1’s central judgment recorded Burke and Dulles formally dissenting. FRUS prints only Recommendation 6 of the fourth memorandum; the texts of Recommendations 1–5 survive in Taylor’s 1964 oral history. Memorandum No. 3 is genuine criticism of CIA, the Joint Chiefs’ piecemeal review, and White House machinery — yet the May 16 interim report shows the conclusions were fixed a month before the final delivery.

Every claim traces to a document below. Quotations are verbatim. Attribution warnings carried on air: Recommendations 1–5 appear only via Taylor’s 1964 recollection, with transparency that FRUS Doc. 234 prints only Rec. 6; Dulles’s April 22 line and Kirkpatrick’s diary via Pfeiffer-draft relay; Pfeiffer Vol. IV via HTML relay; Szulc 1977 framed as journalism, causal claims excluded. The full testimony record — Aguilar’s Operation ZAPATA / Taylor Papers at NDU — remains unread on this show. Honest autopsy, or whitewash? The files hold both the claim and the contradiction on the same page.

Citations

Reading-room pointer: FRUS 1961–1963, Volume X — Cuba. Recommendations 1–5 via Taylor’s 1964 oral history only; Pfeiffer volumes via released draft / relay as noted.

  1. FRUS 1961–1963, Vol. X, Doc. 169 — first meeting of the Taylor Committee, 22 April 1961. source.
  2. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 193 — May 1, 1961 session (Admiral Clark, Lt. Col. Egan). source.
  3. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 201 — McGeorge Bundy to Taylor, May 4, 1961 (replacement testimony). source.
  4. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 209 — General David Shoup testimony, May 8, 1961. source.
  5. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 218 — interim oral report to the President, 16 May 1961. source.
  6. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 230 — Taylor to Kennedy, June 13, 1961 (transmittal letter). source.
  7. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 231 — Memorandum No. 1, narrative (incl. para. 75 dissent footnote). source.
  8. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 232 — Memorandum No. 2, immediate causes of failure. source.
  9. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 233 — Memorandum No. 3, conclusions. source.
  10. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 234 — Memorandum No. 4, recommendations (FRUS prints Rec. 6 only). source.
  11. FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 229 — Burke’s memorandum of the June 13 final briefing. source.
  12. Maxwell D. Taylor Oral History Interview, JFK Library, April 12, 1964 — sole source for Recommendations 1–5. source.
  13. Jack Pfeiffer, Official History DRAFT Vol. V (submitted 18 Apr 1984; released Sept 2016) — via Cipher Brief PDF relay. source.
  14. Jack Pfeiffer, Official History DRAFT Vol. IV — Taylor Committee investigation (via HTML relay); McDonald verdict via HNN. source.
  15. Tad Szulc, “Kennedy’s Cold War,” The New Republic, Dec. 24 & 31, 1977 — later journalism; causal claims excluded. source.
  16. FRUS 1961–1963, Vol. XI, Doc. 84 — Khrushchev’s October 26, 1962 letter (Season 2 teaser). source.

Further reading

  • FRUS Vol. X, Doc. 142 — Gray’s April 19, 7:30 a.m. JCS briefing (“Have you quit?”). source.
  • CIA-RDP80B01676R001900160002-5 — “Memorandum for the Record: Taylor Report,” August 15, 1961. source.
  • FRUS 1964–1968, Vol. XXIV action statement — post-Taylor Special Group machinery under Bundy.
  • Luis Aguilar (ed.), Operation ZAPATA (1981/1983) — published testimony; Taylor Papers, NDU, Box 12.

What the files don’t settle

We cannot reconcile the transmittal’s “unanimous view on all essential points” with Memorandum No. 1’s paragraph-75 footnote recording Burke and Dulles dissenting on the central judgment — the same disagreement Burke’s June 13 briefing memo records spoken aloud. The documents give the claim and the contradiction. Not the answer.

We cannot say whether the committee found Kennedy’s responsibility and muted it, or reasonably concluded his advisers failed him. RFK in the room “to look after the interests of the President himself” (Taylor 1964), Bundy rewriting his own testimony, against Memo No. 3’s real criticism of CIA/JCS/White House machinery. Honest autopsy, or whitewash? Present both; never pick a winner.

We cannot say why the Brigade B-26s came an hour before the Navy CAP. Clark testified; King was tasked; Memo No. 1 says only “For an undetermined reason.” The reason is still — in the report’s own words — undetermined.

Cited document bundles by email. The cables, the memos, the record numbers.

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