Birmingham resident Joe Shannon, 86, who flew a B-26 bomber into combat at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961 while working for the CIA, is the subject of my cover story in the current issue of the Weekly.

However, Shannon gave me so much juicy behind-the-scenes information and dropped so many names that I felt duty-bound to commandeer a piece of the Weekly’s cyber-space and bring my fellow cloak-and-dagger freaks a little more of this amazing story.

LIFE IN THE AGENCY

I was particularly intrigued by Shannon’s involvement with the CIA. “It was a new world to me, the way the CIA operated,” he says. “The CIA operated on a first-name basis only, and the first name might be a bogus first name.” According to Shannon, this often seemed to include the other personnel he and Major Riley Shamburger met and worked with in D.C.

For example, I asked him if he recalled meeting the legendary Richard Bissell, the Agency’s Deputy Director/Plans, or DD/P (a purposely bland euphemism, according to journalist Evan Thomas, for “Director of Clandestine Services”). Bissell was in charge of the Agency’s efforts to overthrow Castro and lost his job, along with Director Allen Dulles, a few months after the Bay of Pigs invasion blew up in Jack Kennedy’s face. “I don’t know that I did,” Shannon says. “If I did, I wouldn’t have been told this was Richard Bissell.”

While in D.C., Shannon and Shamburger worked at the command post for the CIA’s clandestine operations in Central America, just two or three blocks from their hotel, the Willard. “We had the whole 7th or 8th floor in an ordinary office building in downtown Washington,” Shannon says. “We got off the elevator, and there was a metal door and a guard. We had to go through that. And then a little further down you go through another one. So we had double security.”

In addition to helping to plan the use of the B-26s in the invasion, Shannon and Shamburger had other duties at the command post. “We had some Cubans who were making clandestine flights over Cuba, dropping arms, ammunition, communications equipment, and even some instances personnel,’ Shannon says. “This was supporting the guerrillas in the Escambray Mountains prior to the Bay of Pigs.”

The flights, mainly using C-54 transports, originated in Central America. “We monitored weather conditions and stuff like that, and maintained contact with the crews and get them to the point where we gave them a go or no go,” Shannon says.

These flights were part of a strategy the CIA employed in 1960 to put pressure on Castro. It gradually became apparent that this strategy was not effective — according to Warren Trest and Donald Dodd in their book, Wings of Denial — so the Agency began planning an invasion.

“I’m not sure of the planning background there,” Shannon says, when I asked whether he was aware of when and how this decision was made. “The way the CIA operates, they tell you only what you need to know.”

The CIA prepared phony documents and cover stories for Shannon and Shamburger before they went to Guatemala. After all these years, Shannon has a tough time remembering much of his cover. He says that he had a phony profession, but he can’t remember it. “I was actually from Kentucky, I know that,” he says. He does recall part of his phony name. “My first name was the same, and the initials were the same. The last name was an ‘S.’”

A POPULAR MOVEMENT AGAINST FIDEL?

Numerous analysts have questioned the CIA’s belief in a widespread popular discontent with Castro that could be exploited by the invasion. Shannon, however, remains a believer in the soundness of the CIA’s plan — especially before the landing site was moved from the city of Trinidad to the Bay of Pigs.

“One of the first things that landing at Trinidad could do was liberate 6,000 political prisoners,” Shannon says. “So the 1,200 personnel would suddenly be expanded by 6,000 people, and the invasion fleet had guns and ammunition for all these people and more.”

“There’s no question in my mind, if they had had a 7,000-man force, instead of just the invaders, they could have overpowered Castro and marched on in,” Shannon says. “There was enough anti-Castro feeling throughout Cuba that there was no question they would have all joined in the forces.”

Shannon expresses confidence in the CIA. “I understood their motives, their reasoning, and I agreed with everything they did, and I feel like the CIA got a bad rap on the whole operation.”

“THEY DESTROYED EVERYTHING THAT MOVED”

Shannon still speaks with great pride of the two Cuban pilots, Gonzalo Herrera and Gustavo “Gus” Ponzoa, he trained for a raid on Castro’s airfield at Santiago de Cuba two days before the invasion.

“Those two airplanes destroyed everything that moved on that airfield,” Shannon says. “I had never seen an operation as successful as they were. They were two real tigers.”

WHY NO AIR COVER, UNCLE SAM?

As I mention in the cover story, the U.S. Navy task force in the waters off Cuba, including the carrier U.S.S. Essex, did not provide fighter cover for the invasion. Many participants in the operation had hoped that the U.S. would provide air support if necessary to salvage the mission.

Shannon, Shamburger and the other Americans who flew into combat on April 19th had no expectation of fighter support, however. “I knew that there was a navy task force down there, but I had no knowledge of any support being authorized,” Shannon says.

The White House eventually gave the navy permission to give one hour of fighter cover, but they came at the wrong time, perhaps because exhausted CIA planners forgot the one-hour time difference between Nicaragua and Cuba when requesting the strike.

“That’s a story that we were told,” Shannon says. “But if there was any official notification that the navy would give support for an hour, I knew nothing about it. It came after Riley and I took off.”

BAY OF PIGS 20th ANNIVERSARY – “A STRANGE CROSS-SECTION”

I told Shannon I would give anything to have been present at the Bay of Pigs 20th anniversary; about 1,200 people attended the black-tie affair held at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach in 1981.

“They had 12 Americans on the stage, honorees, and of the 12, four of them were Watergate burglars,” Shannon says.

The Watergate alumni present included G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis. Shannon was also among the 12 honorees.

Shannon doesn’t recall meeting Liddy, who is better known to a younger generation as a right-wing radio talk-show host. “Liddy is a smart individual, but he’s somewhat of a freak,” Shannon says.

Hunt was a legendary figure in American espionage, who many credit with developing the original idea for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Shannon recalls chatting with Hunt, though he can’t remember specifics. He does have a souvenir of the encounter. Shannon had a copy of Peter Wyden’s book, The Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story, with him that night, and he had Hunt autograph his photo in the book.

Over drinks at the bar in the Fountainbleau, Shannon had an interesting chat with Sturgis, an ex-Marine who fought with Castro as a mercenary before switching sides and helping to train the exiles in Brigade 2506. “I had him right at the point where he was going to tell me what they were looking for at the Watergate, and someone came up and interrupted the conversation, and I never could get him back to that point again,” Shannon says.

“It was a strange cross-section of people,” Shannon says.

FURTHER RESOURCES

If you’re interested in learning more about the role of the Alabama Air National Guard at the Bay of Pigs, check out Wings of Denial: the Alabama Air National Guard’s Covert Role at the Bay of Pigs by Warren A. Trest and Donald Dodd (New South Books).

Albert C. “Buck” Persons, another Alabama pilot, penned a book of his own in 1990: Bay of Pigs: a First-person Account of the Mission by a U.S. Pilot in Support of the Cuban Invasion Force in 1961 (McFarland Press). The book is out of print, but copies are available here.

Also recommended, a visit to the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, which has a small but moving Bay of Pigs exhibit. For information, call 205-833-8226 or visit www.southernmuseumofflight.org/