America's History of Failed Attempts at Intervening with Foreign Governments

Most people believe the United States is afraid of Castro. Although the United States hates him, they are more afraid of what would happen it communism got to close to their borders. Having the Soviet Union so close to

The planning for the Bay of Pigs began under President Eisenhower’s administration. President Eisenhower approved the CIA’s Bay of Pigs plan to oust Fidel Castro and overthrow Cuba’s communist government on March 17, 1960. The planning and preparation continued throughout the rest of the year. On January 20, 1961, John F Kennedy became the President of the United States. He had learned of the Bay of Pigs plan months earlier, and now as President, after consulting with his advisors, also approved the CIA planned Bay of Pigs

After it became officially globally acknowledged that Cuba was in fact a communist state and was being led through a dictatorship run by Castro, it did not take long before powerful enemies and essential allies were formed. The act of seizing all foreign land with none or very little compensation was received with great hostility amongst those who lost in their property through this process, and probably the reaction that had the biggest impact on Cuba’s economy was that of the US. Castro’s communistic policies did not of course help calm this resentment and also took part in leading to the establishment of trade embargos with Cuba from the US. This meant that Cuba would now lose a very valuable buyer of their precious sugar, [5] but they did however gain another one, a powerful nation that shared quite similar Marxist ideals and were quick to form an alliance with the Cubans, the USSR.

On April 17, 1961, 1400 CIA-backed Cuban exiles launched a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. This invasion was called The Bay of Pigs Invasion. This invasion "Was intended to provoke popularity for an uprising against Fidel Castro, who had overthrown American-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista" (Web).The goal of the unfortunately failed invasion was the overthrow of Castro and the establishment of a non-communist government friendly to the United States. Before John F. Kennedy took office, he was informed of this plan by the CIA. Developed during the Eisenhower administration, the plan was to train Cuban exiles for an invasion of their

Since Russia did not own any land or power in the US/Cuban region, Castro offered the Russians a chance to extend their sphere of influence. An opportunity which was not refused. Of course, the American government did not accept this situation readily. A plan to train and arm Cuban exiles who would return to Cuba to overthrow Castro was contrived.

In 1959, Fidel Castro came into power by overthrowing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and from that moment on the United States was very skeptical about him. They felt this way because they were very much aware of Castro's relationship with the leader

The foreign policy of the United States toward Cuba over the past fifty years has caused many problems for the Cuban society and its people, and relations between the two nations have been at odds for decades due to the harsh foreign policy stance of the United States toward Cuba. The United States has considered Cuba as its enemy ever since July 1960 when Fidel Castro’s new revolutionary government changed everything. Castro seized privately owned land in Cuba, nationalized several privately owned companies (most of which were subsidiaries of U.S. businesses), and heavily taxed American products which led to U.S. exports being reduced greatly,

The U.S.’s relationship with Cuba has been arduous and stained with mutual suspicion and obstinateness, and the repeated U.S. interventions. The Platt agreement and Castro’s rise to power, served to introduce the years of difficulty to come, while, the embargo the U.S. placed on Cuba, enforced the harsh feelings. The two major events that caused the most problems were the Bays of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis.

Fidel Castro and his followers later began a series of successful attacks against the Batista government (Sherrow). At first the United States did not agree with Castro in any way and refused to help his cause, financially or otherwise. But a few years later, in an attempt for Castro to portray all of the wrongdoings of the Cuban government, the United States finally "placed an embargo on all arm deliveries to the Fulgencio Batista government" (Goldston). "The Twenty-Sixth of July" movement helped, in that sense. The United States finally did not support the Batista

Shalom also states that “General Maxwell Taylor and attorney General Robert Kennedy in June 1961 reported the consensus that there would be “no long term living with castro as a neighbor.” This tell us that the United States tried to kill Castro, they knew that Castro was a heavy cigar smoker so the U.S. wanted to find a way to get one of his cigars to explode on him and kill him. Another thing that created tension was the blockade. In Shalom’s article he also states “Rejecting the air strike and invasion options thus seems like a minimal definition of sanity. What is amazing however, is that the blockade option was nearly as reckless: that is, most of it’s adherents believed it carried substantial risk of war.”

The key reason for the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba was for the radical change to communism. On 1/1/1959, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista escaped the country for the safety of the Dominican Republic (Goode, Stephen 75). Allowing Fidel Castro and his guerrilla soldiers to overthrow the previous government dictated by Batista. In just the next couple of weeks, Castro was able to establish a new government, and on 2/16/1959, he was officially stated as premier (Finkelstein, Norman H. 127). The United States at first accepted this new regime because it was a relief from the corrupt, harsh, and unpopular government of Fulgencio Batista. Shortly after everything settled down, Castro took advantage of his situation and made a rapid move to change Cuba’s political course. He broadcasted his transformation to Marxism-Leninism and declared his friendship with the Soviet Union (Goode, Stephen 75). These actions upset the US and there were growing concerns about Castro becoming too powerful. One reason was that the friendship Castro had with the Soviet Union was proving to be damaging because Cuba was receiving armed forces to improve and expand its army. Cuba was receiving 31,000 tons of arms a year, which included SU-100 assault guns, Soviet JS-2 51-ton

The Cuban people have been under the harsh dictatorship of both Felgenico Batista and Fidel Castro. They both had very strict policies and gave the Cuban people limited or no freedom at all. Batista and Castro were similar but yet different. One major difference that they had was that Batista was friendly with the United States and he had respect for American interest. On the other hand Fidel Castro hasn’t been as friendly with the United States, so the U.S has a trade embargo that restricts and American company to do business with Cuba and also U.S citizens are prohibited from traveling to Cuba unless for special circumstances.

Fidel Castro and the United States of America have a very tense relationship. Castro is a very powerful leader who speaks for the people, in general, of Cuba. Since the 1960’s when Castro took power US relations with Cuba have decreased. After another brutal attack by the Batista against Castro’s rebels, America gradually stop supporting Batista due to increasingly unrestrained corruption, greed, brutality, and lack of organization within the government. America backed out of military support for Batista, and Batista eventually fled Cuba, but it meant nothing to Castro.

From a global standpoint, the situation between Cuba and the United States was only increasing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. As Castro became more communist, he began to develop a strong economic and military relationship with the Soviet Union. As Castro and the Soviet Union developed this relationship, one might ask why Cuba was willing to give up some of its autonomy to the Soviets. After all, the Cubans had just broken free from United States’ control and finally had full and complete sovereignty; why after this revolution would Cuba immediately revert back to a system where a superpower had power over them? From a realist perspective, Cuba had much to gain in terms of relative power from this relationship. Not only did they become allies with one of the world’s largest superpowers, thus giving them increased security, they also received several weapons shipments from the Soviets. Hence, Cuba came to look stronger and have more relative power by this relationship with the Soviets. Realists also note that the USSR benefitted from this relationship; in a time when the US and USSR were going tit-for-tat in terms of power and arms, the USSR successfully expanded their power bases to the Western Hemisphere, bringing communism and the Soviets closer to the US and expanding their power relative to the United States. This

In 1940 to 1944, communist Fulgencio Batista withheld power as the president of Cuba and then from 1952 to 1959, United States backed dictator until fleeing Cuba because of Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement. Socialist Fidel Castro governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Fidel Castro’s intent was to provide Cuba with an honest democratic government by diminishing the corrupt way in which the country was run, the large role the United States played in the running of Cuba as well as the poor treatment & the living conditions of the lower class.