President Kennedy Fights the Cold War: The Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis

*Includes pictures. *Includes quotes from participants, including declassified CIA files. *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading. Within just a month of becoming President, the issue of communist Cuba became central to John F. Kennedy and his administration. On February 3rd, 1961, President Kennedy called for a plan to support Cuban refugees in the U.S., and a month later, he created the Peace Corps, a program that trained young American volunteers to help with economic and community development in poor countries. Both programs were integral pieces of the Cold War and were attempts to align disadvantaged groups abroad with the United State and the West against the Soviet Union and its Communist satellites. Meanwhile, covert operations were laying the groundwork for overthrowing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and he knew it. Castro railed against CIA involvement among Cubans trying to overthrow him and his still young revolution. Matters came to a head that April, when