S3 E11. SEA PART III – The Bay of Pigs

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast

When John F. Kennedy backs an invasion by sea of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, disastrously poor planning leaves Brigade 2506 in dire straits.

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CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Riley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Alfonso, P. (1998). ‘Bay of Pigs survivor: We became cannibals’, Miami Herald, 16 April. Available at: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bay-of-pigs/baypigs2.htm
• ‘Bay of Pigs Invasion’. (2021). Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
• ‘Bay of Pigs Survivor Tells ‘Secret’ of Cannibalism’. (1998). Orlando Sentinel, 16 April. Available at: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1998-04-16-9804151076-story.html
• Cannibalism: Secrets Revealed. (2007). History Channel, 24 April. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I95evV1eYqQ&ab_channel=DocumentaryArchive
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Alejandro del Valle Martí. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2121/
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Ernesto Ibrahín Hernández Cosío. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2555/
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Jesús Vilarchao Quintana. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2677/
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Jorge García Villalta y Espinosa. Available at:
• http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2675/
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – José García Montes y Angulo. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2695/
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Julio Caballero González. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2694
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Manuel J. García Rosales. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2344/
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Marco Tulio García Turino. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2679/
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Raúl García Menocal Fowler. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2680/
• Cuba Archive. (2016). Case Record – Rubén Vera Ortíz. Available at: http://database.cubaarchive.org/search/simple-search-view-case/2676/
• Cueto, J.C. et al. (2021). ‘How the Bay of Pigs invasion began – and failed – 60 years on’, BBC News, 23 April. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56808455
• Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2021). ‘Cold War’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War
• Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2021). ‘Fidel Castro’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fidel-Castro
• ‘Fidel Castro: Dodging exploding seashells, poison pens and ex-lovers’. (2016). BBC News, 27 November. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38121583
• History.com editors. (2020). ‘Bay of Pigs Invasion’, History, 30 March. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/bay-of-pigs-invasion
• History.com editors. (2021). ‘The Bay of Pigs Invasion Begins’, History, 16 April. Available at: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-bay-of-pigs-invasion-begins
• John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. (n.d.). The Bay of Pigs. Available at: https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-bay-of-pigs
• Newcott, B. (2021). ‘After 60 years, Bay of Pigs disaster still haunts veterans who fought’, National Geographic, 16 April. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/bay-of-pigs-disaster-still-haunts-veterans-who-faught-60th-anniversary
• Pruitt, S. (2021). ‘5 Things You Might Not Know About the Bay of Pigs Invasion’, History, 15 March. Available at: https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-the-bay-of-pigs-invasion
• Serena, K. (2018). ‘In 1994, The U.S. Military Actually Considered Building A “Gay Bomb”’, All That’s Interesting, 2 February. Available at: https://allthatsinteresting.com/gay-bomb
• ‘2 Bay of Pigs Survivors Tell of Cannibalism to Stay Alive’. (1998). Chicago Tribune, 16 April. Available at: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-04-16-9804170096-story.html#:~:text=2%20BAY%20OF%20PIGS%20SURVIVORS%20TELL%20OF%20CANNIBALISM%20TO%20STAY%20ALIVE,-CHICAGO%20TRIBUNE&text=Desperate%20to%20survive%2016%20days,of%20Pigs%20invasion%20of%20Cuba
• United States. Department of State. (n.d.). The Bay of Pigs Invasion and its Aftermath, April 1961–October 1962. Available at: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/bay-of-pigs
• White, M. (2011). ‘Bay of Pigs invasion: Kennedy’s Cuban catastrophe’, BBC History Extra, May. Available at: https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/bay-of-pigs-invasion-kennedys-cuban-catastrophe/

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Welcome to Episode 11 on the Bay of Pigs.

[Intro music continues]

C: Alix, would you like to hear about the Bay of Pigs?

A: As in, the Bay of Pigs invasion from ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’?

C: The very same.

A: Well, other than ‘long pig’, I did not know of this connection between Bay of Pigs and survival cannibalism – so let’s go.

C: How’s your Cold War history?

A: Not bad. I can muddle my way through the Cold War.

C: Mine is GCSE History-level, so, with this in mind, [laughing] let’s have a quick run-down of the political context.

A: Geo-political storytime with Carmella – let’s go.

C: Let’s start with World War II. That’s a pretty solid footing; we know what that is.

A: Was it a big war?

C: It was. The US and Britain: temporary allies with the USSR. They all have the common goal of stopping Nazi Germany; they’re all mates. Until Germany surrenders in 1945.

A: Friendship with USSR ended.

C: Yeah. The USSR installs communist governments across Eastern Europe, which terrifies the US and Britain, because [mock gasps] what if it comes into Western Europe? And then what if it gets to us?

A: Is it Red Terror? Is that what they call it?

C: That’s the one. Cue the formation of NATO. Cue the Space Race. The nuclear arms race.

A: Berlin Wall.

C: Cold War is in session. Over to Cuba… In 1950, the country is led by president Carlos Prío Socarrás, and a young man called Fidel Castro is graduating from law school. Castro joins the Orthodox Cuban People’s Party, which is a left-wing populist political party, and becomes their candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives in the June 1952 elections. However, the elections do not happen, because in March that year, former president Fulgencio Batista stages a military coup and overthrows Prío’s government.

A: [Sarcastically] Oh, I do love a democracy.

C: [Laughs] Batista installs a dictatorship.

A: [Laughing] Oh, I do love a democracy.

C: [Laughs] Batista is anti-communist and pro-American, so US president Eisenhower is pretty chill with this. Crucially, Batista allows the US corporations to maintain their monopoly on Cuba’s sugar plantations, cattle ranches, mines and utilities.

A: That’ll do it.

C: Yep.

A: We’re anti-communism, but we’re also pro-America – which of these is more important? Cast your votes now.

C: [In an American accent] Well, surely they’re the same thing? [In normal voice] Unlike Eisenhower, Castro is not chill with Batista. He leads an attempt to overthrow Batista’s dictatorship unsuccessfully in 1953, gets imprisoned, and is later granted political amnesty in Mexico. There, he founds the 26th of July Movement, who finally manage to defeat Batista’s government in December 1958 and install Castro in power the following year. [Pause] I promise all of this is relevant. Castro establishes the first communist state in the western hemisphere.

A: Ooh, I don’t think America’s going to like that.

C: Castro takes immediate steps to limit America’s influence in Cuba, nationalising their industries such as sugar and mining. One of his campaign slogans is ‘Cuba Sí, Yanquis No’.

A: With my Duolingo Spanish…

C: Mmm, tell me what that means, Alix.

A: [Pause] Cuba yes, Yankees no.

C: I would say that that’s probably what it means.

A: I have been studying for many many hours under the green owl to be able to bring you that information.

C: [Chuckles] To prevent the collapse of Cuba’s economy without those sugar exports to America, Castro establishes a diplomatic relationship with the USSR, who agree to buy all of the sugar off them.

A: Well, they would, wouldn’t they? It’s sort of their thing, spreading communism and pissing off America.

C: What’s doubly concerning to the States is Castro’s call to other Latin American governments to act with more autonomy. There’s now a distinct threat that Soviet influence and communism could spread throughout the entirety of Latin America – and remember how terrified the US was when it was just Western Europe that that was possible for!

A: Right on their very doorstep!

C: And possibly in their own country.

[Both gasp dramatically]

A: NIMBYism at play there.

C: Eisenhower is, predictably, bricking it.

A: [Snorts] Technical term.

C: During Castro’s leadership, the CIA cook up hundreds of plots to assassinate him.

A: Hundreds of pots?

C: [Laughs] Plots.

A: Like, they’re making a lot of stew.

C: Some of these, er, pots or plots if you will–

A: I can’t help it, I’m waiting for the cannibalism!

C: Cartoonishly ludicrous. Here are some of the more well-known ones: an exploding cigar. A poisoned diving suit.

[Alix laughs]

C: An exploding seashell, just in case the diving suit doesn’t get to him first!

[Alix still laughing]

C: Adding poison pills to his face-cream. Alternatively, there are some non-lethal plots that involve just embarrassing him out of credibility, such as sprinkling thallium salt on his shoes so that his iconic beard will fall out… Or spraying an aerosol of LSD on him during a live television broadcast.

[Alix cackles]

C: In 1975, the US Senate Church Commission revealed details of some of these plots, admitting in their report that some of them, quote, “strain the imagination”. [Laughs]

A: I want to see all of them happening at the same time.

C: I just feel like the CIA had read too much James Bond at this point in time. Apparently Kennedy was a big fan. This is Eisenhower, but Kennedy comes up later, so, yeah.

A: See, what that made me think of was the idea of the ‘gay bomb’.

C: [Delighted] Mmmm?! What’s this?

A: It was an idea by the US Department of Defence – a theoretical chemical weapon to create something that would “disrupt enemy morale” and debilitate them, but not kill them.

C: Okay?

A: So they were going to release a pheromone on their enemy to turn them gay!

[Carmella cackles]

A: The gay bomb, I quote, “contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another.”

C: [Laughing hysterically] I mean–

A: Surprisingly enough, the gay bomb was not built, but scientists did suggest adding in aphrodisiacs and nice scents–

C: Just a nice perfume!

A: To, um, make the gay bomb more effective.

C: Yeah, enhance the mood.

A: So that’s what I thought they were gonna try and do to Fidel Castro.

C: Oh, you’ve gotta love the Americans.

A: You’d think it was a parody.

[Carmella laughs]

A: People are wild!

C: It’s almost like, surely it’s just easier just to kill them, right? Anyway–

A: No, we must do something worse! We must make them gay!

C: [Laughs] In any case–

A: Sorry, I know you wanna talk about the Bay of Pigs, but–

C: Nope!

A: We are now a gay bomb podcast… Fidel Castro.

C: Fidel Castro. None of these plots against him worked.

A: Shame.

C: He himself once remarked, “If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.”

A: Modest, too.

C: It does make it sound like he has – by his own prowess – survived the attempts, whereas most of it is based on these ridiculous, like I said, cartoonish things where they poison the diving suit, but he decides not to go diving that day. They put the exploding seashell, but he dives at a different dive site. Like, it’s not him outwitting the CIA. It’s just, like, a Bugs Bunny kind of– [Laughs]

A: I’d also like to think that if I saw and heard a ticking seashell attached to a stick of dynamite, I also wouldn’t pick it up.

C: [Laughs] In March 1960, Eisenhower and the CIA cooked up a less ridiculous plan to overthrow Castro.

A: But everything else has been so sensible.

C: Ten former Cuban military officers were recruited to a secret training facility on Useppa Island, just off Florida’s west coast near Fort Myers. They were shortly joined by 60 more exiles, and here they would prepare to serve as officers in a D-Day style invasion, backed up by strikes from the US Airforce. Their aim was to occupy the landing zone and resist for enough time to establish a rival government by exiled leaders that would be supported by the US, of course.

A: You know, listening to this objectively, it is so wild that the US is just like ‘I don’t like that government; we’re gonna put a new one in.’ Like, it’s not your country!

C: Yeah. And like, ‘We don’t like this dictator, because unlike the last dictator-’ [Laughs]

A: ‘They don’t like us.’

C: Yeah. It was believed that anti-Castro revolutionaries within Cuba would take this invasion as a sign to rise up and support the invading force. José Miró Cardona, the leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Council – an exile committee in the States – was poised to take over the presidency of Cuba if the invasion succeeded.

A: This is where it gets a bit complicated, because to begin with, Fidel Castro was the revolutionary. Counter-counter-counter-pro-anti-revolutionaries.

C: It’s a coup upon a coup upon a coup. Around 1,500 exiles in total were trained up in assault landing and guerilla warfare, moving from Useppa to the mountains in Guatemala as their numbers grew. They named themselves Brigade 2506, after the identifying number of Carlos Rodriguez Santana, who died during a training accident in September 1960. So the first member of their brigade to die, they name themselves after him.

A: Kind of sweet.

C: Yeah. Johnny López de la Cruz is the current prespresident of the Association of Veterans of the 2506 Brigade. Speaking to the BBC in 2021, he explained his reason for joining: “In the beginning I supported Castro. He never said he was a Communist. […] But soon afterwards, people started to be executed. […] We would distribute pamphlets and write ‘Down with Fidel’ on walls. But then, two members of my group were arrested. People close to me told me that I was next. So I went with three friends to Havana and flew out to Miami with fake papers. When I arrived in the US in 1960 I already knew that other exiles were being trained by the CIA in Guatemala to invade Cuba. I made my way over there a few days later.”

A: He is not messing about.

C: No! One wonders how he knew that exiles were being trained by the CIA in Guatemala. It makes you think that maybe it wasn’t as secret as they hoped.

[Alix snorts]

C: Right?

A: A bit of an open secret.

C: In fact, Cuban intelligence seemed to know of the existence of this training camp as early as October 1960. So… They kind of expected that something was coming.

A: ‘Those unexpected deliveries of ticking cakes have stopped arriving, signed from the CIA. They must be up to something.’

C: [Laughs] Prior to the invasion being launched, one little change: US President.

A: Ah, that thing.

C: John F. Kennedy was inaugurated on 20 January 1961, and was very soon after briefed on the CIA’s invasion plan. That must be a fun conversation to have when you step into the presidency. ‘Eisenhower hasn’t quite finished this job, so… this is what we’re gonna do.’

A: So the first one is: ‘Right, here are the keys’. The second one: ‘Here’s the truth about aliens’.

C: Yep.

A: And then, ‘Oh, by the way, we’re about to go to war in half an hour.’

C: [Laughs] Exactly. Actually I would say three months is the timescale he has here: the invasion is planned for April that year.

A: Ah, that’s plenty of time.

C: So, what does Kennedy make of this? His foreign policy stance was that democracies need to be uncompromisingly harsh with aggressive dictatorships. The pre-World War II policies of appeasement with Hitler hadn’t worked… obviously.

A: Spoilers.

C: Spoilers. And Kennedy, he’s not up for that. He’s also taken a strong stand against Castro in his presidential campaign, pledging to take action to overthrow him, unlike his opposition candidate Nixon.

A: Well that’s convenient for him.

C: So, going along with the CIA’s plan is a way of delivering on this promise, and ultimately he decides to green-light it.

A: That would have been awkward if he hadn’t, wouldn’t it?

C: Yeah.

A: They’d have done all this work…

C: However, he does want to make a few changes.

A: Put his own spin on it.

C: Yeah. To avoid aggravating the USSR, America’s role in the operation should be as concealed as possible. From the outside, Kennedy wants it to look like an un-backed attempt, initiated by the Cuban exiles themselves.

A: But then, how is that a democracy being forthright in the face of dictatorship?

C: Yeah, it’s a democracy being sneaky.

A: Naughty democracy.

C: Speaking to his confidant Clark Clifford in April 1961 – so this is post-invasion now.

A: Can we have this in a Kennedy voice, please?

C: Kennedy said [in a poor American accent]: “Let me tell you something. I have had two full days of hell – I haven’t slept – this has been the most excruciating period of my life. I doubt my presidency could survive another catastrophe like that.” So, little preview of how this story’s going to go! The invasion was scheduled for 17 April 1961.

A: Not that it’s an invasion, of course. It just so happens to be a people going home.

C: Yes, sorry. The Cuban exiles have independently decided that on 17 April 1961, they will aggressively re-enter Cuba, with no involvement from the US whatsoever. Eisenhower’s initial plan had been for the brigade to leave from Nicaragua, and land near the city of Trinidad, in southern Cuba. This would put the invaders near the mountains, where there were already members of an anti-Castro group hanging around.

A: If in doubt, guerilla fighters are in the mountains.

C: Yes. So either they can join the invading troops, or, if everything goes pear-shaped, the invading troops can retreat into their wilderness anti-Castro area.

A: That’s what it’s labelled on the maps.

C: [Laughing] Yeah. ‘Here there be anti-Castro guerilla fighters’. Prior to that landing on the 17th, 16 American aircraft are going to go and bomb Castro’s main aeroports, destroying his airforce to protect the invaders on the ground.

A: [Incredulously] How are they going to spin that one as not being involved?

C: Oh, well, just you wait! Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuba Documentation Project at the US National Security Archive, later explains: “The operation had to be as secret as possible and Kennedy gave the CIA three days to re-elaborate a plan that had been under preparation for a whole year.” Classic.

A: You had three months.

C: Three days! So here’s the quick change of plan: instead of invading Trinidad in broad daylight, the men are gonna land before dawn at the Bay of Pigs.

A: Eyy! They said the name of the thing.

C: Yeah! Now, the Bay of Pigs is an inlet on the island’s south coast, roughly 100 miles away from the capital Havana. The area’s coastlines are hostile. There’s a swampy region with mangroves and sharp reefs. It’s the last place you’d expect someone to start an invasion – and at night! So that makes it a stroke of genius, yeah?

A: [Unsure] Yeah…

C: Yeah, no one’s gonna- No one expects the Spanish Inquisition at the Bay of Pigs. Etc.

A: I mean, if they’re all dressed up as the Spanish Inquisition, that would really throw Castro for six.

C: [Laughs] But you asked about the American B-26 bombers.

A: Yeah, how are they going to explain away accidentally bombing all of Castro’s airforce?

C: First of all, we’re going to reduce them to eight planes, and we’re going to disguise them as Cuban planes.

[Alix laughs heartily]

C: For their first planned strike on 15 April, they head out and drop their bombs over the airfields of Santiago de Cuba, in the east of the country east, and over Ciudad Libertad and San Antonio de los Banos, both in Havana. They cause seven deaths (that’s not really many), but only damage a few Cuban aeroplanes, some of which were already out of service. Castro’s airforce also manage to shoot down one of the US planes.

A: And did they notice that they are not, in fact, Cuban planes that have gone rogue?

C: It is very obvious to them. And also – as a fun extra bit of subterfuge – after the bombardment, another plane bearing Cuban insignia lands in Key West, Florida. Its pilot climbs out and claims to be a deserter from Castro’s armed forces. Of course, he’s actually been planted by the CIA to hide America’s involvement, to make it look like the uprising has started in Cuba. However, no one in Cuba – or in America – is convinced that these planes belong to Castro. While Castro does have some B-26s, his have a different design, and reporters on the scene in Florida notice that the plane’s guns haven’t been fired: they’re completely shiny and clean.

A: And that it’s the most picture-perfect American pilot who’s stepped out. It’s Tom Cruise as Maverick.

C: [Laughs] Jonny Lopez de la Cruz says: “It was not a good fake. Nobody was fooled.” Before long, it was global knowledge that the bombers had been American – it gets picked up in the press – and beyond that, that Kennedy is trying to conceal that the bombers are American, right?

A: Yeah, that didn’t work out so great for you, mate, did it?

C: In a panic, Kennedy cancels all the other air strikes. Not the invasion: just the initial air strikes.

A: [Sarcastically] Because that’s totally gonna convince everyone.

C: [Pretending to agree] Yeah, yeah.

A: ‘Yes, okay, we tried to blow up all of their planes, but we’ve got nothing to do with this invasion. Don’t look at the guns.’

C: When Brigade 2506 land on Larga beach, at the end of the Bay of Pigs, at 1am on 17 April, they are practically unprotected from aerial attack. They do have a handful of B-26 aircraft with them again now, but, if you recall, few of Castro’s aeroplanes have been taken out.

A: And those that had, half of them were already damaged anyway.

C: Yeah. The landing is also far more delayed than they’d originally planned. A troop ship runs aground on a sandbar after taking fire from Cuban troops, and the battalion aboard swim for their lives, abandoning their guns and ammunition in the process.

A: I predict this is going to be a shit-show.

C: An unexpected coral reef, which had been misidentified from aerial photos as seaweed, slows down all of the landing ships.

A: Fucking hell…

C: Humberto López Saldaña, one of the invading men, told the BBC in 2021: “We started to fight too soon. This delayed the landing. Besides, our boats were all too small. Every time they hit one of the reefs they ended up practically destroyed. Many sunk […] At around 6:00 in the morning Castro’s aviation appeared. Bombs fell right next to us. Our boats shook like they were made of paper.” Eduardo Zayas-Bazan, a frogman who’d come ashore ahead of the invasion– [Pause] Not a man who is half frog, don’t pull that face!

A: I know!

[Carmella laughs]

A: I know, I know a frogman’s a diver; I just think it’s really cute that they keep calling them frogmen.

C: [Laughs] So the frogmen come ashore ahead of the invasion. He remembers that when he saw Castro’s own B-26 bombers flying overhead, “We assumed it was one of ours […] We couldn’t believe it. We’d been told Castro’s air force had been destroyed.” So no one had passed on the message to them that the planes were still there.

A: Well, you wouldn’t want to disrupt morale, would you?

C: No. On top of this, because Castro’s realised that something like this was coming, he had already mobilised 200,000 men, and had militia’s patrolling every beach on the island.

A: 200,000… 1,000.

C: Hmm, yes. He’s also had 100,000 suspected dissidents rounded up within Cuba. So you know that uprising that’s gonna happen internally to support the invasion? Nah.

A: And we haven’t even got to the cannibalism yet!

[Carmella laughs]

A: Remember, this is a cannibalism podcast.

C: Before long, one of Castro’s patrols catches the invading men and opens fire. The element of surprise – which wasn’t really there in the first place – is now completely gone. With Castro’s airforce still mostly intact, the invading B-26 planes are easily picked off. The supply boats carrying aircraft fuel are also lost, or forced to retreat to open sea.

A: I’d also imagine that if they’re boats carrying fuel, they’re gonna go up quite effectively with fire power.

C: Hence why they retreat quickly. This means that the remaining planes have to fly a four hour round trip back to the base in Nicaragua to refuel, and then they have less than an hour to carry out the bombings in Cuba before they have to go back to refuel again.

A: So they’re still doing bombings?

C: They’re still doing bombings, but instead of the efficient go to the ship, refuel, come back, they’ve gotta fly all the way back and then forth again. So it’s nine hours round trip with only one hour bombing. Not very effective.

A: None of this has been very effective so far. If it ain’t broke, why fix it.

C: Within 24 hours, the invaders had lost two of six ships, and half of their air fleet. The ground force were dealing with poor weather, they’re working with soggy equipment, and they have insufficient ammunition because those ships were also carrying all their backup ammunitions.

A: And some of them have left their guns on the ships after they were wrecked.

C: Very true. Zayas-Bazan remembers, “the moment I knew we’d lost. It was the second night. I was sitting on the beach with another frogman. He turned to me and he said, ‘Eddie, the Americans have abandoned us. We’re going to die here.’”

[Pause]

A: He turned to me… and said… ‘Ribbit.’

C: [Laughing begrudgingly] I’m not- I’m not dignifying that with a response!

[Alix cackles]

C: At dawn on 19 April, Kennedy authorised an air umbrella of six unmarked American fighter planes.

A: Can you make up your mind! You have already been caught doing this once.

C: Yeah.

A: You’ve said you’re not doing it. Now you’re still doing it, and authorising more.

C: So, the pilots of the planes get confused by the change in time zones between Nicaragua and Cuba–

A: Oh, for fuck’s sake.

C: And arrive an hour later than planned. Castro’s forces soon shoot them down. With around 114 dead and 100 wounded, no munitions, no aircraft, no escape routes, the brigade retreat into the swamps. They surrender at 5:30pm on 19 April. The invasion attempt had lasted less than 72 hours. By the end, Kennedy was reportedly calling his father for advice every hour. Joseph Kennedy apparently told his son [in an American accent]: “Oh hell, if that’s the way you feel, give the job to Lyndon” – Vice President Johnson.

[Both laugh]

C: Some great paternal sympathy there. But also, when you’re the elected president, you probably shouldn’t be just asking your dad for advice! It’s hard to say how many people were killed on the Cuban side (as in Castro’s Cuban side, not the invading Cuban side). Oh, that’s confusing. On Castro’s side–

[Alix snorts]

C: As the surviving invaders don’t like to talk about it. Humberto López Saldaña – as I said, a former member of the brigade – told the BBC: “The truth is that I would rather not say. We knew we were going to war, but nobody will ever tell you that we enjoyed killing people. Deep down, we were all brothers […] It is true that we were all Cubans.” An estimate from one of Castro’s commanders, José Ramón Fernández, estimated that there had been 176 deaths on their side. So, in terms of ratios, that’s not a bad innings, but there are just so many more of Castro’s forces.

A: I’m going to call it a catastrophic failure in terms of a successful invasion.

C: Yeah. Veteran Democrat Dean Acheson told Kennedy: “It was [not] necessary to call Price, Waterhouse [an accountancy firm] to discover that 1,500 Cubans weren’t as good as 25,000 Cubans. It seemed to me that this was a disastrous idea.” Back to Brigade 2506–

A: The remnants of.

C: Hoping to escape, 22 men swim out under gunfire to a small fishing boat they’ve spotted, called the Celia. She’s 20 feet long and has been floating abandoned since the fighting began. The escapees can still see some of the American supply ships anchored off-shore, so they’re confident that they can reach them, and therefore safety. However, the following morning, the ships had disappeared from the horizon. Back on shore, nearly 1,200 soldiers are rounded up and imprisoned by Castro’s forces. We’ll come back to them later, let’s stick with the Celia men for now. These guys decide to head west to Yucatan in Mexico, more than 30 miles away by sea. None of them are experienced sailors, and there are only meagre provisions on the boat. Hungry and thirsty from combat, they drink their small amount of freshwater almost immediately, and the food doesn’t last much longer. Plus, beneath the sweltering Caribbean sun, they are getting thirstier and thirstier. Men dive into the sea to cool off. Some of them drink saltwater. The classics.

A: They seem to be almost speed-running this.

C: They have spent almost three days – well, 72 hours – in gruelling combat, I guess.

A: Yeah.

C: The swimming only exhausts them, and the saltwater dehydrates them.

A: As we know.

C: Men start to die of dehydration. The first casualty is buried at sea, and is a big hit to morale, as one can assume. José Dausa, who was one of the leaders of Brigade 2506, later told the documentary Cannibalism: Secrets Revealed: “When I saw that fellow, to go in the sea with the arms open, I said ‘No, no more. I don’t want to see anymore.’”

A: It’s understandable, but also these men were prepared to go to war. I suppose the reality of death is quite different between fighting for survival, and having absolutely no choice in your survival or not.

C: Well, in the first one they were fighting to liberate Cuba from Castro, as they saw it.

A: Yeah.

C: They were fighting and dying for a reason; whereas when you’re just stuck at sea, you’re dying for no reason, right?

A: Yeah.

C: Bad luck, basically. Around this time, one of the men, Alejandro del Valle Martí, aged 22, reportedly “dived into the ocean armed with a knife to kill a nearby shark so that he and his comrades in the boat could eat its flesh and drink its blood, but the shark swam away”.

A: I didn’t think it was going to be ‘but the shark swam away’; I thought it was gonna be that the shark ate him.

C: Yeah. What’s even more misleading was that this sentence is on his death record, and I was like, ‘So the shark ate him? Oh, no, he died of dehydration.’

A: [Wincing] Oh.

C: Sorry, spoilers. But–

A: And I know we have said it before, and we will say it again, but you know what could have lured a shark to you?

C: That body.

A: That body. I know you don’t wanna think about it.

C: Probably more efficient than diving into the sea to fight it with a knife.

A: [Snorts] Yes. Don’t bring a knife to a shark fight.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Oh, and don’t punch them on the nose. That’s stupid.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Because, do you know what a shark’s nose is really near?

C: Its teeth?

A: Its teeth.

C: Yeah.

A: Go for the gills, if you’re going to try and fight a shark. But, do you know what?

C: You probably don’t need to.

A: Don’t– You’re not– You won’t win!

C: It won’t come up in your life, most likely, so don’t go out searching for it. Over the next nine days, more men die of dehydration and starvation, Alejandro among them. The bodies are kept on board for one or two days as a mark of respect, then buried at sea. I don’t know the exact timeline of deaths, but I can give you the details of some of the men who were recorded as dead:

• Ernesto Ibrahín Hernández Cosío, aged 20. He was studying to become a lawyer.
• Jesús Vilarchao Quintana, aged 16.
• Manuel J. García Rosales, aged 43.
• Jorge García Villalta y Espinosa, aged 33.
• Rubén Vera Ortíz, aged 20.
• Marco Tulio García Turino, aged 24.
• Julio Caballero González, aged 22.
• José García Montes y Angulo, aka Pepito, aged 42.
• Raúl García Menocal Fowler, aged 21. He was a baseball athlete and had been a law student. His grandfather had been the Cuban democratically elected president, Mario García Menocal.

C: So, as you will find out, we have 14 survivors from the boat, and with all these names, that adds up to more than 22. That’s because the records are uncertain on some of those death records whether they die in combat or after reaching the Celia. So those are a sort of list of names for which some of them died on the Celia, but not 100% which ones.

A: But all of them died from the Bay of Pigs invasion?

C: Yep. Exactly. After two weeks at sea, most of the 14 surviving men made the decision to cannibalise one of the dead. Four allegedly refused to participate, or at least refuse to admit that they’ve participated now.

A: That’s about a standard length. What was that, 14 days?

C: Yeah, two weeks at sea, 14 days.

A: Ten days to 14, that’s quite universal.

C: One of the brigade leaders, Julio Pestonit, speaking to Fox News in 1998, said, “I did eat some of the interior (of the dead body) that was extended to me. It was crazy. It was like being in hell.” The survivors also drank the blood of their dead comrades. “We were desperate, people (were) dying one after the other.”

A: Sometimes I stop and remember that I know these things and this is not a normal sentence to say. But if you’re drinking the blood after they’ve already died, then it’s starting to congeal, so it’s not exactly adding more liquid nutrition.

C: It’s not as efficient as just killing them and drinking their blood, but maybe they didn’t want to do that, Alix!

A: I’m not judging, I’m just commenting.

C: Two days after eating that first body, one of the men spots a ship. At first, the others don’t believe it’s true, but sure enough, there we have the US cargo ship Atlanta Seaman. They are rescued 100 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River, which is almost 700 miles from the Yucatan where they’d been aiming.

A: They’ve not really had much steering, have they, on this?

C: No. That’s a total of 16 days afloat. The survivors on the rescue ship made a pact never to admit to the cannibalism and, above all, never to reveal the name of the man that they’d eaten, out of respect to his family.

A: That’s fair. Clearly hasn’t worked, but I respect the not saying who, more than the implicit idea that cannibalism is bad. But I can see how they got there, and why. Okay, let’s see how we in fact find out about the cannibalism.

C: Almost 40 years later, Julio Pestonit goes public to the Miami Herald on 16 April 1998. He wants to hold Kennedy accountable for withdrawing the air cover. I mean, it’s a bit late, because Kennedy’s famously dead–

[Alix laughs]

C: But I guess he wants to shine a light on his legacy.

A: Shame his memory.

C: Yeah. He believes that that withdrawing of air cover is what led to their misfortune, and I think that’s a pretty– It’s maybe not the only thing that led to their misfortune, but it’s a fair assessment of a contributing factor.

A: It would have probably been more effective to shame Kennedy with it while he was still alive, though.

C: He said: “‘We were betrayed[…] we were dumped over there like a bunch of trash”. The remaining survivors of the 2506 Brigade – those ones back on Cuba, imprisoned – are released more than a year later, in late 1962, following a public trial for treason, and then intense negotiations with the US. The release is made in exchange for $53 million USD in medicines and food to be distributed among the Cuban people. Humberto López Saldaña, one of the men who had been imprisoned, told the BBC in 2021: “People say that they exchanged us for cans of baby food, but we did not feel humiliated. Because of our release, Cuba received a lot of clothing, food and medications that the government distributed there”. A positive way to look at it.

A: So in a way, they did do something to help the people of Cuba.

C: Yeah.

A: Sort of.

C: Kennedy did publicly accept blame for the disastrous events at the Bay of Pigs.

A: He kind of had to!

C: The invasion had completely backfired. At a cocktail party in August 1961, Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara spoke to one of Kennedy’s advisors and “went on to say that he wanted to thank us very much for the invasion – that it had been a great political victory for them – enabled them to consolidate – and transformed them from an aggrieved little country to an equal”.

A: I don’t remember that line from Evita.

C: The USSR leader Khrushchev would later send nuclear weapons to Cuba to deter another US invasion of the island, because, you know, Kennedy had already tried it once, why wouldn’t he try it again?

A: [In agreement] Hmm!

C: Which, of course, sparked–

A: Is it a little thing called the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’?

C: That will be the one!

A: Where the Cold War heats up.

C: Indeed, and world nearly comes to nuclear destruction.

A: Hooray.

C: Although the US involvement in the invasion, and the cannibalism aboard the Celia, have since become public knowledge – I mean, the US involvement was pretty public knowledge at the time, it just took them a while to officially declassify that. To this day, the survivors have still never revealed the name of the man who’d been eaten.

A: Good for them.

C: As José Dausa puts it: “What is not known, and will never be known, is who was the man whose body nourished us. It was only one, but his name will never be spoken.”

A: Having said ‘good for them’, I’m torn. I know we’re biased, but that is sort of ‘what an amazing gift, this one man’s saved all of us, and that could in itself be a comfort to his family’. But also I can see that that fucks with your head a bit, and they don’t want to. But they could stop going about how they’re not gonna say who it was.

C: It sounds a bit like taunting?

A: Yeah.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Well, you say that it’s public knowledge. Before doing the preliminary research, I didn’t know there had been Bay of Pigs survival cannibalism.

C: Okay, public but not widely-publicised knowledge?

A: [Pause] You’re welcome!

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Thank you for listening to today’s episode on the Bay of Pigs. Go on, honestly, did any of you know that the Bay of Pigs invasion ended in survival cannibalism?

C: I did!

A: You don’t count.

C: Join us next time for a choose-your-own-adventure tale of shipwreck and mutiny.

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Riley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]

A: Well, that wasn’t in ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’.

C: [In time to the song] ‘Bay of Pigs, cannibalism’. There we go.