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Stand-down by Steve Payne
 Author
says: what if the last-minute cancellation of the Bay of Pigs Operation
made matters far worse? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post
do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
April 13th, 1961:
on this day US President John F. Kennedy cancelled the
Bays of Pigs Operation after
Radio Moscow broadcast an English-language newscast predicting the
invasion "in a plot hatched by the CIA" using paid "criminals" within a
week.
US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara dispatched a stand-down order to the
bases in Guatemala, Panama and South Floride where "Brigade 2506" had been
posed to launch their counter-revolutionary insurgency just four days later.
Insensed, the majority of the fifteen hundred U.S.-trained Cuban exiles
returned to the Miama area where they would soon create a virulent hot-bed
of anti-Kennedy resentment.
Having fought in the Great Patriotic War, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
dismissed Kennedy as a rich playboy who had avoided serious military
service. And Soviet Intelligence indicated that the closest Kennedy had come
to a physical encounter with Adolf Hitler was the sharing of the sexual
favours of the Danish Journalist
Ingrid Arvad.
Already planning to exploiting the foreign policy inexperience of the new
American President, Khrushchev now redoubled his resolve to press the United
States after sensing this unmistakeable sign of weakness as well. And
Khrushchev had no plans to create a superpower showdown off the cost of
Florida when the city of Berlin offered so much more leverage.
The events of Kennedy's first one hundred days in office would resonate
disasterously through the nineteen sixties. Long after Kennedy himself was
assassinated in Miama campaigning for re-election.
Author
says to view guest historian's comments on these post please visit the
Today in Alternate History web site.
A Selection of Other Contemporary
Stories
Steve Payne, Editor of Today in
Alternate History, a Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History
That Never Occurred Today. Follow us on
Facebook, Myspace and
Twitter.
Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit
differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items
explore that possibility. Possibilities such as America becoming a Marxist
superpower, aliens influencing human history in the 18th century and Teddy
Roosevelt winning his 3rd term as president abound in this interesting
fictional blog.
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