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CRITICIZING BAY OF PIGS INVASION
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EISENHOWER, DWIGHT D. Typed Letter Signed, “Ike,” to former Atomic
Energy Commissioner Lewis L. Strauss, stating that the Supreme Court’s decision on
Dixon-Yates was a “blunder,” criticizing the actions of President Kennedy’s “[New]
Frontiersmen” including the Bay of Pigs invasion, and revealing his struggles in maintaining
a quiet post-Presidency life. 3 pages, 4to, rectos only, personal stationery; staple holes at
upper left corners, horizontal folds. (TFC)
Palm Desert, 16 February 1963
[2,000/3,000]
“. . .
Joe Dodge wrote me a letter to which was attached a copy of a letter he had sent to Lucius Clay
about the latter’s role in collecting the $2,900,000 in cash as part of the ransom for the survivors of
the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Joe was astonished that Clay would have gotten mixed up in such an affair.
Actually, there is no explanation for the ‘ransom’ efforts of the Administration except the existence of a
guilty conscience. While the Administration has tried to avoid any admission of a blunder in that
unhappy incident, the fact that it has twice tried to arrange through allegedly private sources for the
ransom of those who had to remain for months in Cuba prisons shows not only that it had a very def-
inite responsibility in the matter but is trying to remove this very sensitive item from the memory of
the public.
“
The Frontiersmen not only operate roughly, they do so on the theory that the hand is quicker than
the eye.
“
. . . Respecting the item about the Kennedy speech of 1959, I find many statements of his ranging
from the late 1950’s to the very present that are contradictory one with the other. Politics in the capital
now seem to be best described as conniving.The statement he made about your ‘negative and ever-sus-
picious spirit’ is taken by you I am sure as a definite compliment. . . .”
Lucius D. Clay (1898-1978), a then-retired general and former military governor of occupied
Germany, voluntarily headed an advisory board to provide aid for the families of hostages at the Bay
of Pigs. He was eventually called upon by Attorney General Robert Kennedy to use his business
connections to raise the additional $2.9 million that Fidel Castro demanded in order to release
the hostages.