The first major foreign policy decision in which Bundy participated became the signature failure of the entire Kennedy administration.

The new administration inherited a covert plan to topple the Cuban leader Fidel Castro with an invasion force of 1,300 exiles being trained in Guatemala.

It was a CIA plot actively incubated under the Eisenhower administration—which had recently broken off diplomatic relations with Cuba—and then presented to the new president for execution within the first months of his administration.

The code name for the invasion was “Operation Zapata.”

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