Historically significant 35 x 13 map of Cuba, hand-annotated in blue ballpoint by Fidel Castro to represent the Bay of Pigs operation, signed below, "Fidel Castro, Enero 30, 76." The map, which is intended to provide information on daily rainfall, has been copiously annotated by Castro to show the Bay of Pigs invasion from his perspective: at the top, he writes dates from April 14–17, with brief notes on what happened each day in 1961; at the bottom, he draws a diagram of the US fleet off the Cuban coast; and at the "Bahia de Cochinos [Bay of Pigs]" he sketches the route of the invasion force. Nicely double-matted and framed with the passport page that allowed the recipient (William C. Moyers) to travel from the United States to Cuba in 1977, as well as an image of Castro being interviewed, to an overall size of 51 x 21. In fine condition, with scattered light creasing and light overall wrinkling.
Accompanied by a notarized letter of provenance from William C. Moyers, the son of noted journalist and political commentator Bill Moyers, who traveled to Cuba in January 1977 as part of the crew shooting a documentary on relations between Cuba and the United States, during which time the team secured interviews with Fidel Castro. In part: "In January of 1977 I traveled with my father, Bill Moyers, to Cuba. He was shooting a documentary for CBS News called 'The CIA's Secret Army.' It was about U.S. efforts to overthrow Fidel Castro. We spent several days in Cuba shooting at the Bay of Pigs site and other locations. At the same time, dad was seeking an interview with President Castro. However, nothing came of those efforts until late one evening, when we were suddenly summoned to the presidential palace in Havana.
There we met Fidel Castro. He spoke to us for several hours, and then met with us over the course of the next few days. At one point dad asked him about the Bay of Pigs operation. Castro turned to an aide and asked for a map. The only map the aide could find was used to measure rainfall on the island nation. For the next hour or so, Castro sketched the invasion from his perspective. The lines at the bottom of the map, furthest from shore, he drew to depict the U.S. Fleet. The lines along the shore he drew to depict the invasion force coming ashore. At the top of the map is the day-by-day listing, in his hand, of what transpired.
Finally, after Castro was done with his detailed description of the invasion, I asked him to sign the document. He did. But when he dated the signature he slipped and wrote the wrong date ('76). We were there in January of 1977. Goes to show that even communist dictators make mistakes! Apparently his internal clock had not yet caught up with the new year. One more thing: getting the document back into the United States was not easy, as the INS agents at the airport in Miami were Cuban exiles and did not take kindly to the fact that we had been in Cuba (this was many years before travel back and forth became commonplace again). Our backs were checked thoroughly and the agents went so far as to expose several rolls of film that I had taken of the people and countryside. But the autographed map was tucked in a very private place and the immigration agents missed it."
Additionally includes a notarized letter signed by Bill Moyers, attesting to the accuracy of his son's story and offering further background on the Bay of Pigs fiasco and his work for CBS. Moyers recalls the moment that Castro marked up this map, in small part: "Late one evening, as we returned to the hotel from a long day of filming in the countryside, there was a knock on the door. A Castro courier was waiting to tell us El Jefe would see us: Get dressed and bring your camera crew. We hastened to the palace. Castro took a particular interest in William Cope, getting down on the floor with him to draw a map of how his forces were deployed to meet the invaders and demolish them." Interestingly enough, Moyers was reportedly being considered by the newly inaugurated Jimmy Carter to fill the vacant CIA director position at the time he was in Cuba, meeting in person with one of the agency's prime targets for assassination. Of course, Moyers would remain with CBS News, and Castro would die of natural causes at age 90.
Conceived by Eisenhower and executed by Kennedy, the Bay of Pigs invasion was designed to covertly and quickly displace Fidel Castro and his communistic government from power. The secret offensive was in response to Castro’s overthrow of Cuba’s former US-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and his ever-increasing diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union, America’s principal Cold War opponent.
The first of two planned airstrikes occurred on April 15, 1961, but with news breaking that Cuban bases were under attack by disguised American planes, President Kennedy called off the second air assault in an attempt to deny US involvement. Two days later, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles traveled on a seaborne force from Guatemala to the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. The exiles, known as Brigade 2506, were met with heavy fire and then badly outnumbered, with Castro advancing 20,000 troops to the beachhead. The US-sponsored forces retreated within 24 hours, with over 1,200 exiles captured and nearly 500 either wounded or killed. The botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs embarrassed President Kennedy on the international stage, and uplifted Castro as a national hero in Cuba while bolstering Cuban-Soviet relations. A large, remarkable document offering Castro's personal perspective on a major event of the Cold War and Kennedy administration, bolstered by its rock-solid provenance and amazing backstory.
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