Cuban Missile Crisis colonies and European affairs but holding that the Western Hemisphere was in the US sphere of influence. The Kennedy administration had been publicly embarrassed by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in May 1961, which had been launched under President John F. Kennedy by CIA-trained forces of Cuban exiles. Afterward, former President Dwight Eisenhower told Kennedy that "the failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do." The half-hearted invasion left Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and his advisers with the impression that Kennedy was indecisive and, as one Soviet adviser
Day of the Cuban Armed Forces Havana. The parade has been held with breaks since 1963, and is presided by the President of Cuba in his capacity as commander in chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and (at times) First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (from 2006 to 2008 and from 2017 onwards, the posts have been held by separate people). With the veterans of the Revolution, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the international deployments of the Armed Forces during the Cold War, active personnel of the armed forces and their families, the diplomatic corps, citizens of Havana