Reply from Arthur Schlesiger
Schlesinger replied (October 19, 1992) that he was "too busy at the moment to refresh my memories of Bay of Pigs details." Nevertheless, he was "sure that the cancellation of the air strike is much overrated as a factor in the outcome." He explained:
Castro had dispersed his planes after the first strike. Canceling the later strike made no great difference; there would still have been a tiny invading force facing 200,000 or so of Castro's troops and militia. Success required either defections from Castro's army and uprising behind the lines or a US invasion force. I agree with you that Dulles probably counted on direct US intervention when the invasion faltered; but I don't think for a moment that the CIA people purposely sabotaged the invasion.
In other words, Schlesinger agrees that Dulles secretly not only wished for but counted on JFK doing precisely the thing that he had told everyone he would not do: send in the troops. It would make perfect sense, then, to make sure the invasion failed, in order to force Kennedy's hand, but Schlesinger's faith in the CIA's moral probity excludes the possibility of sabotage!
It is difficult to believe a man like Schlesinger could be so naive. His response here, though, parallels his reaction to the Stone film (cf. Chap. 2), where he admits that Johnson reversed JFK's withdrawal policy but cannot imagine that this could have a relationship to the assassination.