Pat M. Holt, 87; expert’s misgivings about Cuban invasion were ignored

Pat M. Holt, 87, a leading Latin American affairs expert with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations whose misgivings about the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba were ignored, died Sept. 24 of a blood infection at a Virginia hospital.

Holt served on the committee from 1950 to 1977, the last three years as chief of staff. In the spring of 1961, he wrote a memorandum outlining his thoughts on Cuba to committee Chairman J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.).

“The phrase, which has frequently been quoted, we used was that Cuba is a thorn in the flesh; it’s not a dagger in the heart,” Holt said in a 1980 interview.

Fulbright met with President Kennedy and gave him the memo shortly before the ill-fated invasion in April 1961. Later, the president told the senator: “You’re the only guy in town who can say ‘I told you so.’ ”

In retirement, Holt was a foreign affairs columnist for the Christian Science Monitor.

Pat Mayo Holt was born in Gatesville, Texas. He graduated in 1940 from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism and economics and received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1941. He served in the Army during World War II.