The volume edited by Blight, of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, and Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, provides the transcripts of an extraordinary discussion between many of the key participants in the tragic Bay of Pigs invasion. What is most striking from this fascinating retrospective is the extent to which illusion permeated the thinking of all parties to the plan, and the conclusion that delusion rather than betrayal was the fundamental cause of the disaster. The participants now believe that the fiasco decapitated the growing and widespread opposition to Castro within Cuba itself, and the recourse to an ill-planned intervention only accelerated and provided justification for more repression.