Wright S. answered • 03/15/19
MIT Political Science PhD candidate; history, politics, literature
The main reason Dulles was forced to resign was the disaster of the Bay of Pigs invasion. As Eisenhower's CIA director, Dulles was instrumental in putting together the plans for the Bay of Pigs and supervising the CIA's efforts to train the Cuban exiles to carry out the invasion. While he was generally associated with a more conservative anti-communist Cold War policy, Kennedy chose to keep him on as CIA director after he was elected in 1960. However, the failure of the Bay of Pigs to successfully overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba and the public humiliation it caused for Kennedy led him to push Dulles, and several senior CIA officials who helped manage and implement the Bay of Pigs plan, out.
