◆ SpookStack

Communications between the Headquarters area and the vessels carrying the anti-Castro Brigade toward Playa Giron were never in doubt at the time when the question of possible recall carne up--on the e~ening of D-l following the President's cancellation of the D-Day strike. There was no question but that the recall message could have been received. The only question was whether the Cubans might refuse to obey such an order and attempt to go it alone--infeasible as that would have been. As noted earlier, there were rumors that the Brigade had been encouraged to take such steps, perhaps even by one of their principal American advisers. Such communications problems as did develop occurred only on D-Day following the sinking of the Rio Escondido by Castro's aircraft. At no point, however, was communication completely cut off from those on the beach. Finally in his retrospective newspaper article, General Taylor suggested: "One would hope that at a proper time President Carter would conduct a post-mortem review of the rescue mission as President Kennedy did of the Bay of Pigs." The value of doing post-mortems of operations is an established fact, but one might question the wisdom of undertaking such an analysis on a crash basis before the final results are really known. That the Taylor Committee began its hearings even as rescue operations were still underway in the Bahia de Cochinos and for practical purposes had reach~d its conclusions-- faulting the Agency principally and JCS secondarily-- 229