QUESTION: Bay of Pigs,

question / pregunta: 

What did congress know about this invasion

Answers

This was a CIA/Joint Chiefs of Staff operation, so was under the control of the Executive branch, but was long enough in the planning (going back to the Eisenhower administration) to have been shared to some extent both officially and unofficially with congress.

According to Jim Rasenberger's book The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed invasion of the Bay of Pigs, p. 150 "[Alan] Dulles and [Charles] Cabell [Director and Deputy Director of the CIA] had been keeping Congress vaguely informed of the plan in intelligence briefings." Rasenberger notes that chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee J. William Fulbright knew enough about the planned invasion to use a shared ride with the President on Air Force One to counsel strongly against the plan (pp. 151-152).

See also: Bay of Pigs declassified : the secret CIA report on the invasion of Cuba
and
Bay of Pigs : the untold story

Are you looking specifically

Are you looking specifically for only intelligence that Congress had, or would you also be interested in information that other branches of the U.S. government had prior to invasion (i.e., the CIA)?

Bay of Pigs and Congressional Knowledge

I have never read of any type of approval from Congress (or for that matter, foreknowledge, surrounding the Bay of Pigs.

Did the White House/CID/Bobby Kennedy ever confer with them as a group or committee or member, IN ANY formal documented way.

I can not believe The President went forward and left them in the dark other than what they read in the newspapers after the fact.

I know the news media started "telling the story" prior to the invasion.

Thanks for both your interest and any possible help/assistance you can offer...

Kurt

Thanks for clarifying, Kurt.

Thanks for clarifying, Kurt. I'll see if I can find anything to supplement the answer above.

I'm sorry, Kurt. I wasn't

I'm sorry, Kurt. I wasn't able to find any additional information. Perhaps someone else on the site will have more luck.

above sources

The above-cited sources will have more information, and reference lists pointing to more beyond that. All are widely held books in public and academic libraries, readily availble directly from your local library or with their help via interlibrary loan. Let me know via a comment here or through through the contact link attached to my user name if we can be of any further assistance.

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