By Edward T. Folliard
Staff Reporter
Wednesday, April 21, 1999; Page C16

Excerpts from "the first rough draft of history" as reported in The Washington Post on this date in the 20th century.

Despite some tough talk by President Kennedy, the attack on Cuba by anti-Communist Cuban exiles, known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, was an unmitigated disaster, with every man on the beachhead either killed or captured. Only later was it revealed that the CIA had trained and sponsored the attacking forces in hopes of fomenting a general uprising against Fidel Castro's regime. Kennedy later assumed "sole responsibility" for the fiasco. An excerpt from The Post of April 21, 1961:

President Kennedy said yesterday that the United States does "not intend to abandon" Cuba to the Communists. He told the Nation's leading editors that should this country's security be endangered, the United States would intervene alone if necessary to thwart "outside Communist penetration" in the Western Hemisphere.

And if that time should ever come, he said, the United States does not intend to be lectured on intervention "by those (the Russians) whose character was stamped for all time on the bloody streets of Budapest."

Mr. Kennedy disclosed that he had talked the day before with Jose Miro Cardona, who was once Prime Minister under Fidel Castro in Cuba and who now heads the anti-Castro Revolution Council of Cubans which has engineered the invasion of the island. Cardona and five of his associates flew up on Miami and called at the White House about 5 p.m. Wednesday.

White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger said the Cubans told the President "what they knew of the situation" in Cuba and asked Mr. Kennedy to use his influence with the Organization of American States to have OAS try to prevent executions of captured rebels and obtain assurances for aid to wounded.

In his speech, Mr. Kennedy said that the news from Cuba "has grown worse instead of better." But guerilla fighters in the mountains there, he said, are determined that Cuba must not be abandoned to the Communists.

"And we do not intend to abandon it either," he said.

The Chief Executive said that for the United States to have intervened in Cuba, "in the absence of an external attack" would have been contrary to America's traditions and its international obligations.

"But let the record show," he continued, "that our restraint is not inexhaustible."

"Should it ever appear that the inter-American doctrine of non-interferance merely conceals or excuses a policy of nonaction -- -if the nations of this hemisphere should fail to meet their commitments against outside Communist penetration -- then I want it clearly understood that this Government will not hesitate in meeting its primary obligations which are to the security of our Nation."

He did not spell out just what would constitute "outside Communist penetration."

"Let me make it clear as President of the United States," he said, "that I am determined upon our system's survival and success, regardless of the peril."

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