DECISION FOR DISASTER: BETRAYAL AT THE BAY OF PIGS, by Grayston L. Lynch, 1998. The author was the CIA case officer on the command ship, leading the first combat team ashore. He is also the only surviving American of the operation, and from his perspective the operation was betrayed by the Kennedy administration and the follow-on cover-up. The book incorporates recently declassified information, and is, in the words of Seymour Hersh, "not a book for those who love Camelot." Much, perhaps too much, has already been written about the Bay of pigs. Most charitably it can be said that no field operative can ever know all the elements upon which top command decisions are based. It has been written that the President may well have expected that Castro would have been assassinated at the time of the invasion - he had approved the attempt - but the assassin did not succeed, and the invaders paid the price. For clandestine operations history buffs, an action-packed story by a field operative. (RJ)

Reviewed in AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #26-98, 13 July 1998

AFIO Central Office
6723 Whittier Avenue
Suite 303A
McLean, Virginia 22101-4582
Telephone: 703 790 0320
Facsimile: 703 991 1278
Email: afio@afio.com
© 2006 AFIO
Copyright and Privacy Notice