New York Times
April 17, 1961.  p. 1.

U.S. Avoiding Questions On Cuba Bombing Details

By E. W. Kenworthy

        WASHINGTON, April 16--Government officials were avoiding probing questions today on the point of origin of the B-26 planes that bombed three Cuban military air bases yesterday. The questions were prompted by some puzzling circumstances attending the attack and the statement made by one of the pilots, who landed his damaged bomber at Miami International Airport.
        One of the unanswered questions was how the president of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in New York, Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, could have had advance knowledge of the mission if the pilots were all members of the Cuban Air Force and if the decision to make the attacks was made suddenly only last Thursday, as the B-26 flier said in Miami.
        Another question that got no satisfactory answer here is why immigration authorities withheld the name of the pilot who landed in Miami even though pictures were taken and published that clearly showed his features and the number of the plane.
        In his statement, the pilot said he was a pilot of Premier Fidel Castro's air force and had been based at San Antonio de los Banos, which is about twenty-five miles from havana. Two of his fellow pilots who participated in the defection flights and bombings, he said, were based at Camp Libertad on the outskirts of Havana.
        At a military funeral today for seven persons killed in the bomb-and-rocket attack on the airfileds, Premier Castro said that no Cuban Air Force bombers had been stationed at Camp Libertad and that the pilots were not defectors from the air force but foreign mercenaries who had flown from foreign bases.
        The Cuban Premier challenged President Kennedy to present the pilots to the United nations to prove that they had carried out their raids while defecting from the Cuban Air Force.
        Mr. Kennedy was at his Glen Ora home in Middleburg, Va., today. There was no reaction from official sources here to the Castro challenge.
        At the United Nations yesterday, Adlai E. Stevenson, the United States representative, said "these pilots and certain other crew members have apparently defected from Castro's tyranny."
        "These two planes," said Mr. Stevenson, "to the best of our knowledge, were Castro's own air force planes and, according to the pilots, they took off from Castro's own air force fields."
        Authoritative sources here said today it was known that one of the planes was a Cuban Air Force plane and took off from a Cuban field. Consequently there is a good deal of speculation here as to whether the other planes may have been flown from bases in another Caribean or Central American country.
        At the temporary headquarters of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in New York yesterday, one man said that "spectacular things have begun to happen."
        Dr. Miro Cardona has said the council's plans call for "no invasion." Rather, it is believed, the council is placing its hopes for overthrowing Dr. Castro on a succession of small landings by guerrilla forces who would make contact as quickly as possible with anti-Castro groups now operating in Cuba. The expectation here is that there also may be further bombing attacks.
        in his news conference last week President Kennedy said United States forces would not intervene in Cuba "under any conditions." He declared further that Washington would oppose the "mounting" of an invasion from the United States.
        But the President did not say there would be any interference with the departure of small groups, nor did he indicate any change in the policy of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower of supplying anti-Castro groups with funds, materiel and training.
        Therefore the assumption here is that the Revolutionary Council will go ahead with its plans unless a positive decision is taken by the Administration to deny the refugee groups the necessary supplies.