March 11
Cuba and the Limits of Covert Operations

Fidel Castro on the cover of Time less than a month after coming to power. Toppling his regime would produce one of the biggest failure's in the history of the CIA; detecting the Soviet missiles on Cuba would yield one of the agency's greatest successes.

The first paper assignment is now available.

READING:

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*James Blight and David Welch, Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis (all)
  Mark White, The Kennedys and Cuba: The Declassified Documentary History, selections
  Michael Warner, "The CIA's Internal Probe of the Bay of Pigs Affair"

DOCUMENTS:

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CIA expectations on the eve of the Bay of Pigs operation
  Richard Bissell defends his plan
For more on these matters
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The Bay of Pigs, 40 Years Later
  Documents Relating to the Bay of Pigs Crisis
  FRUS, Cuban Missile Crisis
  CIA official site, Bay of Pigs reports
  National Security Archive, Cuban Missile Crisis
  The NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis
  Avalon/Yale Law School and the Crisis

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