Contextual Essay

Ever since Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba, the United States opposed his rule. They tried everything and anything to stop his influence and ideas from spreading, but there was a point at which the tensions between the two sides escalated. However, Cuba was not the only country the United States wanted to cease being communist. President John F. Kennedy believed it to be in the United States’ best interests to keep southern Vietnam from “turning communist”, and so troops were sent, as well as tanks, advisors, and the infamous chemical Agent Orange. While meant to wipe out crops and tree cover aiding the Viet Cong, the side effects of the herbicide on humans have been shown to be ghastly since its introduction to Vietnam. However, this did not deter the United States’ push against Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese communists. Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s successor, only escalated the war, resulting in the years-long conflict truly ending in the 1968 Tet Offensive, despite it “technically” ending in 1973. American interference in Vietnam did not stop communism; if anything, it increased global hatred for the United States and sympathy for the Vietnamese. The Vietnam War did not increase the United States’ power, instead demonstrating that it could, indeed, falter when the country was taken off-guard. With these losses, the 1960s turn into the rise of Fidel Castro spelled trouble for the United States.

The Castro government’s dealings with the United States cannot be studied without at least once citing Fidel Castro himself. His impassioned speeches to the Cuban people, even the world, were part of what made him such a prominent figure for communism both then and in modern times. In his Second Declaration of Havana, delivered in Havana, Cuba in 1962, Castro rails against the immorality of the West and how unfairly it has treated Latin Americans. He is disgusted by the ruling class and views the United States in modern times as only an extension of its past: “The lust for profit was the incentive of their behavior throughout its history.” By then it had been three years since the Cuban Revolution, and the United States was throwing support behind exiled Cubans willing to oppose the direction their home country was headed. The United States was determined to stop any efforts towards installing and spreading communism anywhere whatsoever, no matter the costs. This meant that Castro was a threat, as he had managed to win the hearts of Cubans “despite” promoting communism. The 1960s were an important time period for records of the United States’ anti-communist efforts, and despite insistences that Cuba was no match for their power and things along those lines, Cuba was a large worry on their minds.^​*​

            One of these things was Operation Zapata, or the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. It is infamous for having failed in its goals and having 1100 men captured within a week of their landing onshore. In one of hundreds of documents on the operation, Narrative of the Anti-Castro Operation Zapata, Zapata is stated to have been considered the “most feasible” option out of other possible ones. This makes one wonder how much worse any other invasion would have gone if Operation Zapata had not been the plan selected. The document is full of suggestions on how to improve an unattached draft of how to discuss Operation Zapata on the United States government’s terms. One particular section states that they do not want the perception that the generals fully approved of the plan, but merely went over some of its details, and were unable to stop the forces from departing to Cuba on April 15^th while they were still reading over the full plan itself. As the title itself makes clear, the United States wanted its own narrative out in public view, not what was reported in Cuban or international press. They wanted to say that they hadn’t fully revised their strategy, so of course the landing in the Bay of Pigs had gone awry. It reads as though they are trying to convince themselves that the plan was destined to fail without their revisions, and we will never actually know if that would have been the case.^​†​

    The same year Fidel Castro delivered his Second Declaration of Havana, Nikita Krushchev, the Soviet Union’s First Secretary of the Communist Party at the time, was delivering a letter to John F. Kennedy. He makes it clear that the Soviet Union would continue to assist Cuba, and that their nuclear weaponry was protected in Soviet hands. Building off of that, he is rather insulted that the United States frets over Cubans attacking them from many miles away, yet right next door to the Soviet Union is Turkey, a country where the “land of the free” has stationed rockets pointed directly at the Soviet Union. Khrushchev “pointed out how ridiculous were the allegations that Cuba, that small country, posed a threat to U.S. security. It is rather that the United States is finding it hard to accept socialism as a neighbor. The time has passed when the capitalist states influenced the destinies of the world as they wished.” He was correct in at least one regard: the United States did not like having an anti-capitalist neighbor. As stated before, they were willing to do a great many things in order to take out what they perceived to be an ideological threat.^​‡​

    In a Smithsonian-provided news clip, the Cuba Missile Crisis tensions are described to a terrified populace. President Kennedy discovers through aerial photographs that Cuba has allowed the Soviet Union to store nuclear missiles on their land. Kennedy decides to quarantine Cuba, or block them off navally so that Soviet materials can no longer reach them. Castro retaliates, calling Kennedy a “pirate” and threatens military retaliation if the United Nations attempts to inspect missile sites. He also encourages the anti-imperialist rallies taking place across Cuba. There is no bias to be seen in the news segment, and it is unclear when it was recorded specifically, but it appears to be somewhere between October 16th-29th , 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis took place. This can be inferred because it does not mention how the crisis was able to end, which was Kennedy secretly making a deal with the Soviets, where he agreed to remove his own nuclear missiles from Turkey, their proximity to themselves the Soviets had long been worried about. However, it does bring up arguments brought up beforehand, with Krushchev stating that he would not stop shipments to Cuba unless the United States withdrew its vessels. Likewise, the United States states that were the Soviet Union to dismantle its missiles and stop shipments, the naval quarantine would be lifted. One can see how this would worry anyone watching from around the world: the two most powerful countries at the time were at a standstill with each other, the threat of total nuclear annihilation looming overhead, and Cuba right in the middle.^​§​

    As one can see, a number of events occurred during the early half of the 1960s. From the rise of Fidel Castro, to his nationalization of foreign assets, to the Bay of Pigs invasion, to the anger and pushback of Castro himself and Nikita Khrushchev, neither Cuba nor the United States was willing to give in. On the Cuban side, there was frustration, a want to finally begin to live outside the police state that was Fulgencio Batista’s. On the American side, fear of communism, fear of losing even more of a grip on their global power than they already were. If they showed weakness when dealing with Cuba, there was worry of capitalism and its results in American society being questioned. Whichever side one ascribed to, losing to the other was not an option, leading to the decades-long standoff that has lasted until today.