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the testimony of Secretary McNamara, General Wheeler was very positive about the importance of control of the air. He stated: At every' [JCS] ·.meeting there were pros and cons on how important the first air strikes would be and how important it would be to the success of the operation. I feel that the sense of Chiefs throughout the meetings was that air support was critical to the success of the operation. ill In terms of detail, however, General Wheeler appears to have been as confused as various of the earlier witnesses had been about specifics of the anti-Castro invasion. As with Secretary McNamara, General Wheeler opined that the only real difference between Trinidad and Zapata was that it changed the place of the landing and changed the pattern of the .landing of the invasion force. What the General ignored was that from a single landing site the invading forces were to be scattered over a distance of 36 miles or more at three separate landing sites, that Zapata required air operations not begin until two B-26s had touched down on the airstrip at Playa Giron, and that all tactical targets (i.e., airfields) were off limits. In comparing Trinidad and Zapata, General Wheeler was another one of the witnesses who volunteered a comment about the inability of B-26s to operate off of the air field at Trinidad. Again the reader is reminded that before the B-26 pilots had finished their training at Retalhuleu in r..o \'. :" .. ' ,," "'~