I met Jack Hawkins, now 91, for the first time in the fall of 1996 while researching my book, ''The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba 1959-1965''. I quickly came to the conclusion that he had one of the sharpest minds I had ever met. A decorated World War II colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, he was to become the paramilitary chief for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, some 47 years ago on April 17. ...