Anatomy of a Failure: The Decision to Land at the Bay of Pigs

Abstract

Graham T. Allison's Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most influential works of political science in the last decade. Yet the author took pains to specify that he presented only a tentative account of foreign policy decision-making; he called for more testing of his propositions and left the door open for the refinement of his models of decisionmaking.' Since these models have been so helpful in understanding what passes for the Kennedy administration's finest hour, the Cuban missile crisis, it seems appropriate to respond to Allison's call for further case studies by applying his concepts to John F. Kennedy's worst hour, the Bay of Pigs. This article therefore tests Allison's concepts by applying them to the decision to land a brigade of anti-Castro exiles in Cuba on 17 April 1961. This investigation comprises several parts that correspond to Allison's three conceptual models. Each part