Turning Near-Disaster into Victory

摘要

David Barrett's and Max Holland's Blind Over Cuba is an account of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and U.S. Air Force U-2 overflights of Cuba in the crucial period before the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962, a period in which deep distrust developed between key Kennedy administration officials and the Intelligence Community (IC). Reading the book was a revisit to the Bay of Pigs. Present were the same protagonists, the same trepidations, the same fear of offending others, and the fear of how they might react. With the same people involved, the situation produced nearly the same outcome as the Bay of Pigs; it was a close-miss. Whatever lessons were learned in the first incident were forgotten. It is not a pretty story.