New Battle Over the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Court to Consider Whether CIA Must Disclose Report That Could Shift Blame for Failed Attack

By TENNILLE TRACY
CONNECT

More than 50 years after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, the Central Intelligence Agency and scholars are battling over the release of a secret document that could challenge assumptions about who was to blame for the famous fiasco.

A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments later this year on whether the CIA should be forced to disclose the document, the concluding volume of an official Bay of Pigs history written decades ago by a former CIA employee.

The 1961 invasion failed to topple Cuban leader Fidel Castro and led to recriminations in Washington. From the first days, analysts have debated whether the mission collapsed because of CIA incompetence or because of decisions made by the new U.S. president, John F. Kennedy.

During the 1970s, the CIA assigned its historian, Jack Pfeiffer, to write an official Bay of Pigs history. Mr. Pfeiffer conducted dozens of interviews and sifted through hundreds of documents, producing a five-volume account by the time he retired in 1984.

In the years since, the CIA has released four of the five volumes that Mr. Pfeiffer wrote, but it refuses to declassify the fifth. That has prompted a suit by the National Security Archive, a private research institute and library.

The Bay of Pigs invasion "is an important enough episode in U.S. history, we cannot rest until every page is released," said Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst with the National Security Archive.

The CIA says it excluded Volume V from the official history, making it therefore exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

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Volume V by Mr. Pfeiffer, the CIA historian, is of high interest because it analyzes Mr. Kirkpatrick's work—and, perhaps, his motives. According to court documents, Mr. Pfeiffer, who died in 1997, believed Mr. Kirkpatrick "deliberately distorted the facts" in his audit and ignored the testimony of key witnesses. Mr. Pfeiffer alleged Mr. Kirkpatrick was trying to denigrate a top CIA officer who planned the invasion with the hope of eventually getting that officer's job.


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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...J_WSJ_US_News_3

This is what is starting to bug me about things being "Classified". Just how long are we supposed the be kept in the dark about stuff? What mind bending and sensitive stuff still remains from an event that took place over 50 years ago?

Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #2

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This is what is starting to bug me about things being "Classified". Just how long are we supposed the be kept in the dark about stuff? What mind bending and sensitive stuff still remains from an event that took place over 50 years ago?

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"The CIA says it excluded Volume V from the official history, making it therefore exempt from the Freedom of Information Act."

What? Under what authority does the CIA do this?

Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #4

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"The CIA says it excluded Volume V from the official history, making it therefore exempt from the Freedom of Information Act."

What? Under what authority does the CIA do this?

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