The Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story.

WYDEN, Peter.

Item Number: 109247

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

First edition of this history of the Bay of Pigs. Octavo, original half cloth, cartographic endpapers, illustrated. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on Simon & Schuster letterhead, which reads, “Dear Mrs. Heiskell- 5/14 Knowing of your early interest in the subject, I thought you might be interested in a pre-publication copy of this book. Sincerely Peter Wyden.” Very good in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Lawrence Ratzkin.

In this suspenseful narrative, Wyden describes how the CIA acquired its private air force for this ill-fated and ill-judged attempted invasion of Cuba in 1961, and how the planners ignored coral reefs almost dooming the invasion from the start. He details the bizarre CIA preparations for the invasion, the staging of a dummy invasion to confuse Castro, the fake crash landing of a phony Castro warplane in Florida, the exclusion of Cuba's government-in-exile from the final planning, and many other details about this so called planned war.