THE WAR THAT NEVER WAS: A Participant's Memoir of CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba

by Bradley Earl Ayers ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1976

In the spring of 1963, Ayers writes, he was picked to be an Army advisor to the secret paramilitary operations against Cuba still being organized after the missile crisis by the CIA. A ""bureaucratic hot potato,"" Ayers threw himself into starching up the ill-trained, Florida-based Cuban commandos who ran little sabotage and rescue missions against the island, and was permitted on occasion to accompany them. His wife launched drunken tirades against his absence and the CIA, while he turned to a beautiful, idealistic Cuban ""refugee."" Already inflamed by what he considered inefficiency and foot-dragging in getting rid of Castro, Ayers was allowed in the fall to mount an operation against a Cuban refinery previously off limits: at the last minute, he says, the deployment was cancelled by the assassination of the President. The introduction darkly suggests that these experiences had something to do with the assassination and also with Watergate, but the book itself is a self-contained adventure, ending with Ayers' resignation from the Army after Barry Goldwater's electoral defeat and a call to ""continue the struggle for Cuban freedom.

Pub Date: June 1, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bobbs-Merrill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION