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“FEB 17, 1960: A CIA briefing to the National Security Council reports on the visit of Soviet official Anastas Mikoyan to Cuba. ‘The USSR’, it states, ‘has shifted from cautious attitude to one of active support.’ The briefing also indicates that opposition to [Fidel] Castro is growing but that ‘the anti-Castro groups both inside and outside the country lack organization and effective leadership.’”

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu

“FEB 18, 1960: A plane trying to bomb the central España, Matanzas province, explodes in mid-air. The pilot is identified as Robert Ellis Frost, an American who carries a U.S. military identification card.”

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu

“MAR 1960: The CIA begins training 300 guerrillas, initially in the U.S. and the Canal Zone. Following an agreement with President [Miguel] Ydígoras [Fuentes] in June, training shifts to Guatemala. The CIA begins work to install a powerful radio station on Greater Swan Island, ninety seven miles off the coast of Honduras.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu

“On approving a document titled ‘A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime’, March 17, 1960, US President Dwight David Eisenhower established a strategy aimed at overthrowing the young Cuban Revolution as his administration’s official policy. The anti-Cuba program included actions such as the setting up of an exiled Cuban organization to provide a cover for CIA operations; the deployment of international propaganda on behalf of the opposition and the creation inside Cuba of an underground intelligence and action group under the direction of the exiled organization; to set up a small paramilitary force out of Cuba in order to take it into the island to organize, train and lead resistance groups.”

“Washington Launched Program of Covert Action Against Cuba,” The South Journal online, March 17, 2010

“LATE MARCH 1960: David Atlee Phillips, a CIA contract employee who until recently had maintained a public-relations company in Havana, is selected by the CIA as chief of propaganda for the Cuba project. At operation headquarters in Washington, Phillips is told that the Cuba project will go by the Guatemala scenario. (Phillips had performed the same function in PBSUCCESS, the 1954 operation against Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. During the coup by a CIA-directed exile force, Phillips had operated a clandestine station supporting them.) CIA operative E. Howard Hunt, also a veteran of the Guatemala operation, is assigned the position of chief of political action for the project. His primary responsibility is to form a government-in-exile to replace Castro’s government following the invasion.” [The 25th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu

“APR 14, 1960: At a National Security Council meeting, Eisenhower administration officials weigh options for broadcasting propaganda into Cuba. U.S. Information Agency [USIA] Director George Allen reports that USIA is considering establishing a Cuba-directed station in Florida and buying time on commercial stations there. Also under study is a proposal to fly an aircraft over Key West for the purpose of beaming television programs into Cuba. Meanwhile, Allen says, USIA’s short-wave broadcasts to Cuba have been augmented. CIA Director Allen Dulles reports that ‘some Cuban intellectuals [will] soon be broadcasting to Cuba from Boston at night, and that it is likely that a second radio station over which Cuban refugees might broadcast will be installed in five or six weeks.’”

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu

“MID APRIL 1960: David Phillips [Chief of Propaganda for CIA] meets with the CIA official in charge of the Cuba operation, Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell. When Bissell asks how long it will take to create the proper psychological climate, Phillips says it will take about six months. Bissell directs the propaganda chief to have Radio Swan up and running in one month. On Swan Island, a tiny, contested territory located about 100 miles off Honduras; the CIA begins construction of a 50-kilowatt medium-wave radio station. The island had served as a base for CIA broadcasting during the agency’s successful campaign to oust Guatemala’s President Arbenz, and some radio equipment used in that operation is still on the island. Phillips obtains a transmitter from the U. S. Army in Germany, which was preparing to make it available to the Voice of America. A detachment of Navy Seabees constructs a pier at Swan Island to facilitate the unloading of the equipment.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu

“APR 21-22, 1960: [Ambassador] Pedro Martinez Fraga sends a letter to Ricardo Lorie and Manuel Artíme, regarding contacts with the CIA-referred to as ‘Group B,’ and ‘Mr. B’ on political, economic and military support preparing a political memorandum for MRR [Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionaria-Revolutionary Recovery Movement] to present. The letter states that the CIA has requested a meeting in New York the following week; Martinez Fraga recommends preparing a political manifesto to present to the Agency.”

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu

“APR 23, 1960: Cuba’s Foreign Minister Raúl Roa declares that ‘I can guarantee categorically that Guatemalan territory is being used at this very time with the complicity of President [Miguel] Ydígoras [Fuentes] and the assistance of United Fruit [Company], as a bridgehead for an invasion of our country.’”

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu

“APR 25, 1960: The MRR [Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionaria-Revolutionary Recovery Movement] sends a memorandum to the CIA, summarizing the history, motivations, positions and goals of the organization. The document describes six major points of the MRR platform: respect for the dignity of the individual; firm devotion to representative democracy; unbreakable faith in the concept of private property and free markets; the development of capitalism; political pluralism; and the democratic credo against totalitarian communism.”

“The Bay of Pigs Invasion/Playa Giron: A Chronology of Events,” The National Security Archive, NSArchive2.gwu.edu