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Fidel Castro's Communism And The Cuban Missile Crisis

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Communism was becoming a big concern as it was making its way towards the United States. A large amount of money was put in for containment to be put in place around the world and keep communism out. One place it did not manage to contain was Cuba. Fidel Castro was culprit in heavily enforcing communism to his own people. Fidel Castro had always had communist values in him when he overthrew Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista, which Castro took the place of. Cuba was not doing well as a country and the people were easily oppressed. Ties with USSR led to stronger communist feelings that the United States did not favor. Fidel Castro contributed to the already high tensions in the Cold War by letting the Cuban Missile Crisis occur, struggling …show more content…

Fidel Castro knew what would happen if he let the missiles stay in Cuba but went along with it in a way to defy the United States. Of course the United States would consider them an enemy if Fidel permits the Soviet Union to put their missiles in Cuba. Cuba was potentially threatening the United States with the help of the Soviet Union and taunting for a war to begin between the United States and Cuba. Any missiles launched from Cuba were seen as a threat to the west by the Soviet Union. The missiles were placed without most of the Cuban people’s consent but Castro backed it up saying “for us Cubans, It didn’t really make much of a difference whether we died by conventional bombing or Hydrogen bomb”(“Castro”). Not only was he endangering the lives of the Americans but also the lives of his own people. Castro relied a great deal on the Soviet Union for economic and military aid and basically did not care if the Cuban people had to suffer any drawbacks. He put pressure on the people as well who might have thought that they could get attacked by the United States for harboring those missiles. Castro was aware of the consequences of those missiles but kept them anyway …show more content…

Operation Mongoose was created to “trigger a reaction from Cubans to overthrow Castro”(“Davis”) This operation was important because if it succeeded it would take out the communist neighbor, Cuba. It would help to stop the spread of communism to most of Latin America while United States assisted. It was a strenuous operation that stressed most of the masterminds of the pentagon. The goal was to intimidate and weaken Cuba using as many resources as they could to make it successful. The operation was on budget of $50 million annually and was taken care of by the CIA “they were to blow up railways… poison sugar exports…destroying oil refineries…”(“Scott”). This would limit the amount of useable resources that Cuba had. The Cubans would be forced to listen and give up their attacks in order for them to be provided again with resources. All of this was done to get the Cuban people to turn on Castro (“Scott”). The operation was successful in some cases as Cuban refugees turned against Castro and gave as much information as they could. The United States saw the cooperation from the Cuban people and used the information their advantage. JFK was ready to exploit a revolt if needed by “Harassing the regime and isolating them”(“Davis)”. By Isolating Cuba, he would get would Cuban rebels to go against Castro without having to use US military troops. They would see Castro

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The Kennedy administration would give it another try in 1961 and 1962 with Operation Mongoose which would even further put strain on the United States and Cuban relationship. During the one year period Operation Mongoose and the Cuban Missile Crisis would take center stage. It was brought to the attention of the administration by way of a U-2 spy plane that the Soviet Union was supplying materials and constructing nuclear missile sites on the island of Cuba. (Figure 2, Atomic Archive)

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The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated the United States’ use of the policy of containment because the United States issued a quarantine of Cuba and also entered in diplomatic talks with the Soviet Union to try to halt the conflict. However the Cuban Missile Crisis also demonstrated how containment was not successful because despite how friendly the two leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States became Cuba still became a communist

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The agreement was that Russia gave oil, machines and money to Cuba in exchange for sugar from the Cuban. The resource agreement alerted the USA and thus increased the tension between the two superpowers because USA felt that USSR was persuading Cuba into joining USSR political ideology which was communism (Source D). This increased the tensions and the USA stop trading with Cuba which then influenced Cuba to join with USSR communism. By the USSR trading and making agreements with Cuba with resources as well as putting missile basses in Cuba, this led up to the Cuban Missile Crisis and one of the factors that increased the tension between the USA and USSR. (Source

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The Cuban Missile Crisis largely was between the Soviet Union and the United States. Their leaders, Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy, most likely felt forced to do what was best for their country. In Kennedy’s situation, the Americans wanted to get rid of the missiles, get rid of Fidel Castro and eliminate Communism from Cuba. Khrushchev and the Soviets wanted to test the USA and prove that the USSR was stronger, but he also wished other countries to feel attracted to

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America, fearing for their own safety, then put a quarantine around Cuba, not allowing any ships with weapons to enter. (Doc D) Tensions were high, with both capitalist and communist nations having the potential to launch a nuclear strike against the other. After some time, the Soviets decided to retreat. They removed their missiles from Cuba and the threat of a nuclear war subsided.

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Introduction: Cuba from 1959 was a Dictatorship under the control of Fidel Castro. Castro’s Cuba was a communist Cuba, he nationalised all the companies that America owned and made them Cuban, as well as finding friendship in the Soviet Union, leading to the Americans to enforce a trade embargo with hopes of it forcing Cuba into becoming a democracy and not a communist state which many believed to be the reason behind the Cuban Missile Crisis between America, Cuba and the Soviet Union in 1962. Fidel Castro’s rule started off in 1959 by benefitting the people; in the first years he increased the literacy rate to a state where illiteracy was virtually eradicated, he abolished legal discrimination, provided full employment, electricity to the

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Cuba became a communist country under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro, the united states did attempt to stop it but they failed. (Doc D) The United States late on discovered that there was a range of nuclear missiles sites in Cuba, the United States responded to this by announcing a quarantine. (Doc D) A quarantine is a place of isolation in which people or even animals are placed after coming from somewhere else, this was usually practiced to stop pesticides and other infections.

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The Soviets did this to scare the United States, during this time the U.S. and the Soviets came very close to starting another world war. Luckily the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missile sites in Cuba. The Soviet Union chose to fight for communism, in the hope of spreading the Soviet Union choose actions that would make an impact on others

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None the less Khrushchev, felt victorious as he had forced Kennedy to make concessions – by removing the Jupiter’s from Turkey and the promise from Kennedy not to invade Cuba delighted Khrushchev. Khrushchev's scheme of introducing missiles in Cuba paid off as this action constrained Kennedy into making concessions that under normal circumstances he would not have considered let alone made. It was at this point that Khrushchev had figured out how to maintain a strategic distance from direct meeting with the USA, he did this by declaring that the Cuban missiles served as prevention to US intrusion, which we now know that it was actually a feign. Defending Cuba was not critical to the USSR Khrushchev did not believe that it was worth sacrificing the USSR for Cuba. He was also very aware that they had a huge disadvantage in that the USSR’s military strength was considerably inferior to the USA.

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The United States was in war against communism and boycotting Cuba for supplying weapons to Venezuela and other countries for the purpose of aiding communist initiatives. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and not only was the United States

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An invasion of Cuba would place the U.S in the position of the aggressor, and a bigger, more developed country, attacking a much smaller country would not look good on the world stage. As Robert Kennedy stated, “The strongest argument against the all-out military attack, and one no one could answer to his satisfaction, was that a surprise attack would erode if not destroy the moral position of the United States throughout the world (pg. 49).” This course of action was brought up multiple times as well. First in the initial findings of the weapons, and again after the U-2 was shot down. Both times though, President Kennedy took time to understand all the risks and prepare as necessary.

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The Cuban Missile Address is delivered October 22nd, 1962 in the Presidential office through a major radio and television address (Podell, Anzovin, and States United 705). Historically, it is worth mentioning that United States had attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro, who was at the time Prime Minister of the Republic of Cuba, in at least two occasions known as the Bay of Pigs Operation and Operation Mongoose, because of his communist regime and close relationship with the Soviet Union (Pious). Then, after the Bay of Pigs incident, Fidel Castro urged Nikita Khrushchev, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to send support and weapons to Cuba, because of the fear of another attack to his person/regime, Nikita did by sending missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, hence, this major crisis that lasted 14 days ending October 28, 1962 (Deinema and Leydesdorff). In addition, the target audience for this speech is the American people as President starts his speech with the phrase, “Good evening, my fellow citizens” (Kennedy); however, the secondary audience would be the Cuban people, whom he describes as captive people, the Soviet Union leaders, whom he directly addresses and even quotes, and Fidel Castro of course (Kennedy). As noted above, the cultural, socio-political context is important to understand the seriousness of this crisis and

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Nothing changed things got worse and worse and worse. Cuba remained the same as it did earlier with Batista; a poor country in debt whose livelihood depends on sugar production. At first the United

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Fidel Castro and his communist dictatorship have had a huge negative effect on Cuba and its people. Fidel Castro's rule has limited the economic growth in Cuba and has made it one of the poorest nations in Latin America. Also, Fidel Castro was a brutal dictator that has no remorse for his actions. Finally, Fidel Castro has taken a lot of freedoms away from the Cuban people like freedom of speech and press.

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Late president Nikita Khrushchev (from USSR), agreed to assist Castro and took immediate action. He installed missiles in Cuba, which the US thought was a threat to the security of their nation. In summary, I think that this was a defensive move by the Cubans. I most definitely agree with

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