Why did the Bay of Pigs operation fail ? Was this entirely the CIA's fault?

Question

My understanding is the blame went all the way to Allen Dulles.
This plan had to be poorly thought out and badly executed.

Answer 1

No air support.

The CIA wrote a detailed internal report that laid blame for the failure squarely on internal incompetence. A number of grave errors by the CIA and other American analysts contributed to the debacle:
The administration believed that the troops could retreat to the mountains to lead a guerrilla war if they lost in open battle. The mountains were too far to reach on foot, and the troops were deployed in swamp land, where they were easily surrounded.
They believed that the involvement of the US in the incident could be denied.
They believed that Cubans would be grateful to be liberated from Fidel Castro and would quickly join the battle. This support failed to materialize; many hundreds of thousands of others were arrested, and some executed, prior to the landings. (see also Priestland 2003; Grayston, 2000).

Answer 2

"The failed Bay of Pigs invasion severely embarrassed the Kennedy administration, and made Castro wary of future US intervention in Cuba. As a result of the failure, CIA director Allen Dulles, deputy CIA director Charles Cabell, and Deputy Director of Operations Richard Bissell were all forced to resign. All three were held responsible for the planning of the operation at the CIA. Responsibility of the Kennedy Administration and the US State Department for modifications of the plans were not apparent until later.

The Kennedy administration continued covert operations against Cuba, later launching the Cuban Project to "help Cuba overthrow the Communist regime". Tensions would again peak in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

The CIA wrote a detailed internal report that laid blame for the failure squarely on internal incompetence. A number of grave errors by the CIA and other American analysts contributed to the debacle:

The administration believed that the troops could retreat to the mountains to lead a guerrilla war if they lost in open battle. The mountains were too far to reach on foot, and the troops were deployed in swamp land, where they were easily surrounded.
They believed that the involvement of the US in the incident could be denied.
They believed that Cubans would be grateful to be liberated from Fidel Castro and would quickly join the battle. This support failed to materialize; many hundreds of thousands of others were arrested, and some executed, prior to the landings. (see also Priestland 2003; Grayston, 2000).
The CIA's near certainty that the Cuban people would rise up and join them was based on the agency's extremely weak presence on the ground in Cuba. Castro's counterintelligence, trained by Soviet Bloc specialists including Enrique Lister,[7] had infiltrated most resistance groups. Because of this, almost all the information that came from exiles and defectors was "contaminated." CIA operative E. Howard Hunt had interviewed Cubans in Havana prior to the invasion; in a future interview with CNN, he said, "...all I could find was a lot of enthusiasm for Fidel Castro."[13]

Many military leaders almost certainly expected the invasion to fail but thought that Kennedy would send in Marines to save the exiles. Kennedy, however, did not want a full scale war and abandoned the exiles.

An April 29, 2000 Washington Post article, "Soviets Knew Date of Cuba Attack", reported that the CIA had information indicating that the Soviet Union knew the invasion was going to take place and did not inform Kennedy. Radio Moscow actually broadcast an English-language newscast on April 13, 1961 predicting the invasion "in a plot hatched by the CIA" using paid "criminals" within a week. The invasion took place four days later. According to British minister David Ormsby-Gore, British intelligence estimates, which had been made available to the CIA, showed that the Cuban people were predominantly behind Castro and that there was no likelihood of mass defections or insurrections following the invasion.[1]

The invasion is often criticized as making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the support for his economic policies. Following the initial B-26 bombings, he had declared the revolution "Marxist-Leninist". After the invasion, he pursued closer relations with the Soviet Union, partly for protection, which helped pave the way for the Cuban Missile Crisis a year and a half later.

There are still yearly nation-wide drills in Cuba during the 'Dia de la Defensa' (defense day) to prepare the entire population for an invasion."

Answer 3

My understanding is that the blame went all the way to JFK, who refused to send reinforcements, because he wanted to prevent an out and out war with Cuba and, by association, Russia.