Engagement and Enlargement: Why Not Cuba
Abstract
Since his consolidation of power following the 1959 Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro has been the focal point of a consistently hostile U.S. foreign policy. Any opportunities for rapprochement evaporated once Castro openly embraced Communism in 1961 (having declared to Members of the U.S. Congress during an April 1959 visit to Washington that he had no such intentions) and the relationship became a permanent building block in the Cold War edifice. That Cuba was located only 90 miles from Key West served to magnify far beyond its relative size or military might its importance in this ideological struggle and inspired a resurgence in American passion for Monroe Doctrine principles. In the first half of the 1960's, the flight of hundreds of thousands of the Cuban elite to the United States primarily South Florida served as a tangible manifestation of the travesty unfolding in Cuba and served to lend popular support to the argument that what was happening in Cuba was entirely negative. If the situation could not be reversed inside Cuba (and attempts were subsequently launched by exile groups from the US with tacit USG approval to accomplish this goal), it was absolutely necessary to prevent any more "Cubas" in the region. Once solidly in power and allied with the USSR, Castro did, of course, seek to "spread the good news" about Communism both in the region and internationally, thus proving the U.S. with another strong reason to seek his removal from the scene. The attempt by the USSR to install nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962, thereby upsetting the strategic balance, contributed further to the U.S. view that Cuba and Castro specifically constituted a major problem for the U.S. Passage of the subtly-titled "Trading With the Enemy Act" in that same year served to remove any residual doubt that the U.S. had been provoked and was more inclined to act against, than talk with, its island neighbor to the south.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 17, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA442580
Entities
People
- Terry Rusch
Organizations
- National War College