From the New JFK Files: Anatomy of the CIA's Expensive Failure in Cuba

A declassified memo reveals the price tag for a losing war: $270 million in today's dollars.

Apr 12, 2025

∙ Paid

Left: Cuban leader Fidel Castro *(Credit: Wallpaper Cave)*; Right: CIA assassination specialist William King Harvey *(Credit: Bayard Stockton)*

A 29-page memorandum fully released on March 18, 2025, highlights concerns among the president’s non-governmental intelligence advisors about what they saw as U.S. spycraft’s declining effectiveness in the first half of the year President John F. Kennedy was murdered. The document, produced by the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) in late winter 1963, focuses heavily on CIA failures in Cuba.

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