Fidel Castro: How One Man With A Cigar Dominated America
Fidel Castro: How One Man With A Cigar Dominated American Foreign Policy
In 1959, a rebel, Fidel Castro, overthrew the reign of Fulgencia Batista in Cuba; a small island 90 miles off the Florida coast. There have been many coups and changes of government in the world since then. Few if any have had the effect on Americans and American foreign policy as this one. In 1952, Sergeant Fulgencia Batista staged a successful bloodless coup in Cuba . Batista never really had any cooperation and rarely garnered much support. His reign was marked by continual dissension. After waiting to see if Batista would be seriously opposed, Washington recognized his government. Batista had already broken ties with the Soviet Union and became an ally to the U.S. throughout the cold war. He was continually friendly and helpful to American business interest. But he failed to bring democracy to Cuba or secure the broad popular support that might have legitimized his rape of the 1940 Constitution. As the people of Cuba grew increasingly dissatisfied with his gangster style politics, the tiny rebellions that had sprouted began to grow. Meanwhile the U.S. government was aware of and shared the distaste for a regime increasingly nauseating to most public opinion. It became clear that Batista regime was an odious type of government. It killed its own citizens, it stifled dissent. (1) At this time Fidel Castro appeared as leader of the growing rebellion. Educated in America he was a proponent of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy. He conducted a brilliant guerilla campaign from the hills of Cuba against Batista. On January 1959, he prevailed and overthrew the Batista government. Castro promised to restore democracy in Cuba, a feat Batista had failed to accomplish. This promise was looked upon benevolently but watchfully by Washington. Castro was believed to be too much in the hands of the people to stretch the rules of politics very far. The U.S. government supported Castro's coup. It professed to not know about Castro's Communist leanings. Perhaps this was due to the ramifications of Senator Joe McCarty's discredited anti-Communist diatribes. It seemed as if the reciprocal economic interests of the U.S. and Cuba would exert a stabilizing effect on Cuban politics. Cuba had been economically bound to find a market for its #1 crop, sugar. The U.S. had been buying it at prices much higher than market price. For this it received a...