By
The Associated Press
BAY OF PIGS, Cuba - Breathtakingly gorgeous with its blue seas and white sands, the Bay of Pigs looks more like a billboard for a Caribbean vacation than an old Cold War battleground.
The beach where tourists now sip daiquiris was the stage for one of the most memorable chapters in the struggle between Washington and Havana 40 years ago: the invasion of Cuba by a CIA-trained band of armed exiles.
As the April 17 through 19 anniversary approaches, top Kennedy administration officials and even members of the Bay of Pigs invasion force were returning to the same beach this week for a very different kind of encounter with Jose Ramon Fernandez, then the leader of the defending force, now one of Fidel Castro's vice presidents.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger, a special adviser to President John F. Kennedy during the disastrous invasion, was among about 60 Americans who arrived in Havana yesterday.
Several Kennedy relatives also came along, including William Kennedy Smith, nephew of the late president. So did Alfredo Duran, a member of the 2506 Brigade invasion force.
"The Bay of Pigs occurred in the context of the Cold War," said Duran. "The Cold War is over... but there are conditions we would still like to see changed in Cuba."
At a conference beginning today, they hope to shed new light on the invasion and view hitherto classified U.S. and Cuban documents.
The invasion remains a delicate subject, bound up in the 40 years of U.S.-Cuban hostility. Even on the eve of the conference, neither side would name the participants, apparently fearing that premature publicity would make them drop out.
