Please click the icon to follow us on Facebook.the Taylor Commission's explosive conclusions on the Bay of Pigs Fiasco provided US President John F. Kennedy with the necessary justification to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds".

The announcement unleashed the fury of the agency who strongly disputed the Cuban Study Groups' report on the immediate causes of failure of the operation Zapata.

Only days later, the New York Times published the transcript of a telephone call placed by United States National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy to the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence General Cabel at 9:30 P.M. the evening before the landing of the Brigade in Cuba. Bundy had ordered cancellation of the crucial air strike from Nicaragua which was intended to destroy the Cuban Air Force on the ground. Instead, it raked the beach with gun fire, massacring the Cuban Brigade and shooting the slower B-26s that the agency had refitted for air support.

Eighteen years later, Bundy would publish a confessional article "The Brigade's My Fault" in which he would confirm that the political decision to make a last minute change to the mission plan was part of an orchestrated attempt to discredit the agency.

That imperative had become a pre-requisite to end the Cold War since Kenneday had discovered that the agency sabotaged Gary Powers's U-2 flight on the eve of Eisenhower's visit to Moscow. In the event, Khruschev had rescinded the invitation. More alarming still was the revelation that the New York Times had planned to publish full details of the mission three whole days before the launch, but had been firmly encouraged not to do so by the White House.