"The Perfect Failure&quot

There was another urgent matter on President Kennedy’s mind as he con­sidered options for the future in space. Kennedy had inherited Eisenhower

administration planning for an invasion of Cuba, since 1960 under the control of Fidel Castro, by CIA-trained Cuban exiles. Kennedy had reluc­tantly given the go-ahead to the plan a few days before April 14, and bomb­ing of Cuban airfields by what were characterized as airplanes flown by the exiles but actually flown by U. S. pilots began on April 15. The exiles went ashore at the Bay of Pigs on the morning of April 17. Within thirty-six hours, it was clear the plans had been ill-conceived, and that the invasion was a “perfect failure.”26

The fiasco in Cuba greatly distressed Kennedy; Sorensen describes him on the early morning of April 19, after the failure was evident, as “anguished and fatigued” and “in the most emotional, self-critical state I had ever seen him. He cursed not his fate or advisors but himself.” The days surrounding the failed invasion were “the worst week of his public life.” In the follow­ing days, “Kennedy’s anguish and dejection were evident to people around him.” Not only John Kennedy but also his brother Robert was affected. One account of a top-level meeting in the aftermath of the failure reports that Robert Kennedy, just after the president stepped out of the room, “turned on everybody,” saying, “All you bright fellows. You got the president into this. We’ve got to do something to show the Russians we are not paper tigers.”27

How much Kennedy’s emotional state and competitive character deter­mined or merely reinforced his resolve to proceed rapidly in space cannot be definitively known, but most evidence suggests that they were influential but not decisive factors. The failure was never explicitly linked to the review of the space program that took place in the days following the Bay of Pigs; Edward Welsh maintains that the fiasco was “not a factor at all” in that review. But Wiesner says of the Bay of Pigs, “I don’t think anyone can mea­sure it, but I am sure it had an impact. I think the President felt some pres­sure to get something else in the foreground.” He adds that, although the failed invasion was never explicitly linked to space, “I discussed it with the President and saw his reactions. I’m sure it wasn’t his primary motivation. I think the Bay of Pigs put him in a mood to run harder than he might have.” JFK’s national security adviser McGeorge Bundy suggests that “it is quite possible that, if the Bay of Pigs had been a resounding success, the President might have dawdled a little longer on the space decision.” Sorensen adds that Kennedy’s attitude toward the acceleration of the space program was influenced by “the fact that the Soviets had gained tremendous world-wide prestige from the Gagarin flight at the same time we had suffered a loss of prestige from the Bay of Pigs. It pointed up the fact that prestige was a real and not simply a public relations factor in world affairs.”28

One certain impact of the Bay of Pigs failure was to heighten White House concern regarding a possible failure of the first human launch in Project Mercury, which at that point was scheduled for May 2. A mission failure, especially if it resulted in the death of the Mercury astronaut on live televi­sion, was a possibility that the president and his advisers viewed with great concern.