Cold War Cuba

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Operation Mongoose
Bay of Pigs
Missle Crisis
Angola

 

US-Cuba Relations during the Cold War

A bomb shelter outside of a school in case the US should attack. Che sought liberation through popular revolution Cuba supplied arms and men to Africa and C. America The Russian embassy played a major role. Maxist-Leninist books are still on sale in Old Havana
(click one of the images to see an enlarged view)

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Since Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, that country has been transformed socially, economically, and politically. Cuba's alignment with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was seen as a threat to both the safety and democracy of the United States by many US politicians and citizens. A country less than 90 miles off the southern coast of Florida aligned with an unfriendly country in the Nuclear Age posed a real challenge to our Foreign Policy makers.
We as a nation have been conditioned over the years to make communism synonymous with depravity and associated with mal intentions.  From this fear coupled with intense anti-Cuban propaganda, has come the current status of the United States-Cuban relationship.  This relationship is among the most evident examples of United States foreign policy in the Americas, for it demonstrates the distrust, as well as the severity of our country's actions against those we deem to necessarily be under our influence.

Cuba's Role in the Cold War

We as a nation have watched such occurrences as the Bay of Pigs incident, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the more recent threat in Angola bring our nation as well as our globe to a state of   astonishment.  These occurrences have played a part in the formulation of our foreign policy.
Link to our fact sheets for more detail:
Operation Mongoose
Expatriates Fail in the Bay of Pigs Invasion
U.S. - Soviet Brinkmanship over Missiles in Cuba
Cuba's Involvement in the Angolan Civil War
The enactment of United States foreign policy in Cuba is complex historically and economically.  It began with the colonialism of the 1500's and continues today.

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Bibliography
Books:
Thirteen Days/ Ninety Miles by Norman H. Finkelstein
The missile crisis by Elie Abel
American Foreign Policy Since 1945 edited by Robert A. Devine
Websites containing more information
Cuban missile crisis:
The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis
Bay of Pigs:
The Bay of Pigs Invasion, by Mark C. Hunter 1995
CIA Takes Blame for Bay of Pigs
Angola:
Angola- A Country Study

This page created by The Learning Community team of:
Sonia Valdez and Nora Vujhovic-Cvijin

 

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