Bay of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs (Spanish: Bahía de Cochinos) is a bay on the southern coast of the Matanzas Province in Cuba. The translation of "Cochinos" is not "pigs", although pigs are also called cochinos. Cochinos is the name of a fish, hence the bay of the fish Cochinos.

It is the site of the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion during John F. Kennedy's presidency, a 1961 US-backed invasion by Cuban exiles intent on overthrowing Fidel Castro. The invasion took place at a beach called Playa Giron. The Kennedy Administration had banked on the Cuban population rising up to help the American fighters take down Castro; but when they received no such help, the mission became a horrible failure. The incident may have been a driving force behind the Cuban Missile Crisis that took place the following year between Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.

In his book The Ends of Power, President Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman claimed that the term 'Bay of Pigs' was used by Nixon as a coded reference to the Kennedy Assassination in White House conversations recorded on the Watergate tapes.

Fiction

The Bay of Pigs invasion is a significant plot element in James Ellroy's 1995 novel, American Tabloid. It is also the main event of the 2000 comedy film, The Company Man.

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Fiction

See also