Starter file · Season 1
The Bay of Pigs file
Eight documents that open Season 1 — titles, dates, record numbers, what each says, why it matters, and where the record still will not settle. Facts first. No hype.
History from the documents. Every claim traced to a declassified file.
Get the documents by email. Cited bundles as episodes and notes ship — cables, memos, record numbers. This page is the public starter; the list carries the rest.
Sugar-quota / economic-prelude papers are not listed here — no solid, already-verified citation was in the Season 1 kits for that thread. Eisenhower’s 17 March approval conference (Doc 486) stands in as the contemporaneous authorization companion.
-
A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime
FRUS 1958–60 Vol. VI Doc 481- What it says
- The founding authorization: four courses of action — a unified exile opposition, propaganda (including a gray radio station), an intelligence and action network inside Cuba, and paramilitary cadres trained outside the country to seed a resistance. Six-to-eight-month estimate. Small teams. No invasion authorized.
- Why it matters
- Every later layer of the season measures the force that was built against what this paper actually approved. Eisenhower’s signature is the clearest thing in the Bay of Pigs record — and the funding and operational tabs remain heavily redacted where they count.
- What remains unsettled
- Who later decided the small-team concept was over, and how an Agency-only beachhead became “achievable,” still has no clean contemporaneous decision paper in the file we have.
Source: history.state.gov — FRUS 1958–60 Vol. VI Doc 481 · Listen: S1E01 The Inheritance
-
Memorandum of a Conference With the President
FRUS 1958–60 Vol. VI Doc 486- What it says
- Eisenhower approved the 16 March covert-action paper the next day, telling Dulles that “our hand should not show in anything that is done.”
- Why it matters
- Contemporaneous presidential approval of the program’s founding paper — the hand-not-show line that later collided with an amphibious assault force built in Guatemala.
Cited on S1E01 show notes (volume/document). FRUS page: history.state.gov — Doc 486
-
Narrative of the Anti-Castro Cuban Operation Zapata
FRUS 1961–63 Vol. X Doc 231- What it says
- Post-failure narrative of the operation, including the November 1960 turn: on 3 November the Special Group rejected a proposed large conventional lodgment; on 4 November headquarters cabled Guatemala to begin planning an amphibious assault force of at least 1,500.
- Why it matters
- This is the later official narrative of the pivot from guerrilla teams to beachhead assault — the hinge between what March 1960 authorized and what landed in April 1961.
- What remains unsettled
- The pivot is told in this June 1961 narrative. A contemporaneous decision paper naming who ended the guerrilla concept is still missing from the file we have.
Source: history.state.gov — FRUS X Doc 231 · Listen: S1E01 · S1E02
-
Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation
FRUS Supp. Doc 273A / IG Survey- What it says
- On the 28 January 1961 presidential briefing: “There was no authorization, express or implied, that military action would in fact eventually be undertaken.” Kennedy had approved continuing preparations — not a landing.
- Why it matters
- The Agency’s only internal investigation draws a bright line between continuation of preparations and authorization for military action — a distinction later political memory often collapses.
- What remains unsettled
- Of twenty survey copies, nineteen were later destroyed; one sat in the Director’s safe for decades (1998 press relay). Full recovery of every suppressed copy’s path is incomplete.
FRUS transcript: history.state.gov — Supp. Doc 273A · Collection: CIA Reading Room — Bay of Pigs · Listen: S1E07
-
CIA staff memorandum — cancellation night
FRUS X Microfiche Supp. Doc 261- What it says
- Minute-by-minute reconstruction of the night of 16–17 April 1961. Quotes the Puerto Cabezas cable in full, including: “The only real offensive danger to the Brigade is enemy fighters and bombers which are better hit on their home field — not repeat not over the beachhead.” Preserves the paraphrased decision relay: Rusk “telephoned the President and recommended there be no air strike, in view of political considerations.”
- Why it matters
- This is the core paper for the cancelled dawn D-day strikes — distinct from the D-2 strikes of 15 April that already flew. Pilots were in cockpits at Puerto Cabezas when the cancel landed.
- What remains unsettled
- The exact sentence that cancelled the strikes is not in the files — only a paraphrase survives. Three different clocks for the same night appear in the record; no document bridges what Kennedy personally understood he was cancelling.
Source: history.state.gov — Supp. Doc 261 · Listen: S1E04 The Cancelled Strike
-
Record of Paramilitary Action Against the Castro Government of Cuba
CIA C06828873 DOC_0000132097- What it says
- Paramilitary staff after-action: how the force grew from the March 1960 authorization through the landing. Cold open for D-day: “Troops commenced landing at 0100.” Also records enemy air from 0630; Houston hit; Río Escondido sunk at 0930 with ten days’ reserve.
- Why it matters
- Operator-level chronology of the force’s growth and of D-day itself — the paper that sits beside the later investigations when clocks and ship losses disagree.
Cite by record number. Collection pointer: CIA Reading Room — Bay of Pigs (no stable per-document URL invented). · Listen: S1E05
-
Taylor Memorandum No. 1 — ¶75 dissent footnote
FRUS 1961–63 Vol. X Doc 231 ¶75- What it says
- Inside Memorandum No. 1’s narrative, paragraph 75 carries a formal dissent footnote from Burke and Dulles on a central judgment — while the package’s transmittal letter (Doc 230) claimed “a unanimous view on all essential points.”
- Why it matters
- The President’s own study group put unanimity and dissent on facing layers of the same report. The contradiction is on the page; the season does not resolve which label fits.
- What remains unsettled
- How “unanimous on all essential points” and a formal ¶75 dissent coexist as the official record is a question the files leave open — see S1E09 and S1E10.
Source: history.state.gov — Doc 231 · Transmittal: Doc 230 · Listen: S1E09
-
What the files don’t settle — destroyed copies & casualty fog
AP 22 Feb 1998 / VOA 23 Feb 1998 E05 / E07 / E10 kits- What it says
- On the IG survey: twenty copies; nineteen destroyed; one held in the Director’s safe for about thirty-seven years. AP (22 Feb 1998) names no author for the burial decision; VOA (23 Feb 1998) attributes it to McCone — both carried. On casualties: published and lore figures in the kits span 176 / ~300 / 2,000+ / <150 / an 1,800 intercept with no recoverable text — never a single settled number.
- Why it matters
- Season 1’s signature method: the documents that survive, the copies that were destroyed, and the figures that never converge are part of the record — not a failure of storytelling.
- What remains unsettled
- Who ordered the destruction, whose attribution is correct, and which casualty figure (if any) the primary record will ever support remain open. That is the door into S1E10 and Season 2.
Method: How We Know · Listen: S1E10 What the Files Don’t Settle · Related: S1E07
Get the documents
Cited document bundles by email — the cables, the memos, the record numbers. Same list as fromthefile.com/email.
Prefer audio first? Season 1 hub · Home — Start Here · How We Know