Castro, Cuba, and Capitalism
It was exactly forty-three years ago that the political significance of the island nation of Cuba changed radically. As the world's last truly communist state, Cuba remains important to US foreign policy. US/Cuban relations during the last four decades represent a textbook example of things US Presidents should and should not do regarding their diplomatic efforts towards other states.
During the 1950s while gambling and decadence pervaded the culture of Havana, guerrilla warfare pervaded other parts of Cuba. That quasi-civil war ended on 1 January 1959 when Fidel Castro ousted the dictator Batista. Castro did not begin political life as a strict communist. During the first year his government featured more of a social democratic tendency. In 1961 things changed, and Marxism emerged as the dominant ideology of his government. This shift came at almost the same time as the disastrous Bay of Pigs assault conducted by CIA-trained Cuban exiles who received no direct US military support during the hours of the failed invasion.
Then the US realized Castro had good relations with communists in high places. His ideological masters in Moscow sent several shipments of nuclear missiles to aid in the defense of Cuba. In 1962 US President Kennedy established a strict but unilateral embargo of Cuba in an attempt to prevent more nuclear missiles from arriving on the island. European states and Canada did not join this embargo and continue to trade with Cuba.
While Soviet Russia bank-rolled the Cuban domestic economy and Cuban adventurism in Latin America and Angola, the Cuban people became increasingly dissatisfied with their government. Cubans took to the seas on rafts built from anything that would float. The first massive influx of refugees arrived in the US from 1960 until 1962. In 1966 the US Congress adopted the Cuban Adjustment Act which gave all people fleeing Castro's Cuba automatic status as political refugees. In 1980 Castro purged the prisons of murders, other criminals, and anyone else who wanted to leave the island. Again there was a significant influx of refugees. As many as 1500 to 2000 refugees a day were retrieved from the seas near South Florida. These new arrivals were sent to detention centers throughout the country to be processed. Thousands of refugees camped out in the Orange Bowl stadium for several weeks while waiting to be processed.
In 1990 as the Soviet Union dismantled itself, the already shortage-plagued Cuban economy entered very difficult times. During the next four years 50,000 Cubans fled communist tyranny.
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