April 17-19 marks the anniversary of the failed 1961 U.S. invasion of Playa Girón-known as the Bay of Pigs invasion in the United States. The United States had sent a force of U.S. trained and supported Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with the aim of overthrowing Fidel Castro’s government and placing José Miró Cardona as head of a provisional government. Launched barely three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency, the invading forces were defeated within three days. It signaled a major victory for the Castro government and contributed to the deterioration of relations between the two countries.
Cuban writer Dora Alonso established her reputation as a journalist during the invasion, when she found herself in the middle of the attack, as she was covering events for the magazine Bohemia. She was with a fellow journalist, Luis Báez from the newspaper Revolución. He had this to say about the events: I was in Playa Larga when the planes began their attack and was so frightened that I climbed into a commercial refrigerator with my colleague Dora Alonso. Luckily they had not turned it on yet or we would have died. What an awesome thing fear is! I had never seen a man who had just died, like those two North American pilots who were shot down . . .”
For an article on the events of Playa Girón from the Cuban perspective see http://www.habanaenlinea.cu/giron_aniv_48_2009/02.html
Cuban nueva trova singer Silvio Rodríguez sings his famous tribute to the events of 1961 in “Playa Girón”:
