sophisticated and sustained secret war against Cuba that involved weekly landings by Cuban exiles based in Florida. The exiles sabotaged Cuban factories poisoned food supplies, destroyed transportation and communication facilities and sent aid to counter revolutionary organizations. (Brenner, 134) Castro knew about the Bay of pigs invasion plans, but apparently thought that the attack was coming in December 1960, or February 1961. On December 31st foreign minister Raul Soa had called for a Security Council meeting on the subject. Castro cleared the Sierra de Escambray of most of the peasants living there. He sent in the rural militia and Rebel army forces, which he had organized. They cleared out of the region within a few weeks of the Bay of Pigs invasion. (Brenner, 211) In April 1960, the US conducted LANTPHIBEX, a mock assault on the Puerto Rican Island of Vieques. From April to May, the US Navy carried out operation Quick Kick V maneuvers involving 79 ships, and 40,000 troops off the south east-coast of the US Swift Strike II was conducted in August in the Carolinas. Also in August, the defense department announced plans for PHILBRIGLEX-62, which involved another mock assault on Vieques and the simulated overthrow of a leader named Ortsac, Castro spelled backwards. So the Soviets sent missals to Cuba, and the United States flipped out. Realistically, however, it was the United States which prompted Russia to send missiles to Cuba, both to protect Cuba and protect themselves, since the US had placed missiles in Turkey. The media however, as they often do, warped everything around to make it seem as if the entire ordeal was the Russians fault, and that their horrible regime of communism (a form of government that was actually created to do away with the injustices embedded into democratic capitalism) forced the righteous United States to protect their citizens from untimely doom. The real truth here isnt a pretty one. The real truth...
