315
The Bay of Pigs invasion was
a disaster for the United States,
and many anti-Castro forces were
captured during the conflict.See also: Bolívar establishes Gran Colombia 216–19 ■ The October Revolution
276–79 ■ Stalin assumes power 281 ■ The Cuban Missile Crisis 308–09 ■
The military coup in Brazil 341 ■ Pinochet seizes power in Chile 341THE MODERN WORLD
Castro must go
After World War II, Latin America
became a proxy battleground for
two competing ideological systems:
capitalism and communism. The
US was determined to eradicate
communism and supported right-
wing dictators with anti-reformist
regimes in countries such as Cuba,
Honduras, and Guatemala.
During the 1950s, corruption
and brutality within the Cuban
Batista government forced a slow
withdrawal of US support. When
Castro defeated Batista in 1959,
the US government had misgivings
over Castro’s communist leanings.
By 1960, Castro had nationalized
all US interests in Cuba without
compensation and had broken
diplomatic ties. To protect their
economic assets and defeat
communism, US policy-makers
decided that Castro must go.
Within a year of Castro
taking power, several counter-
revolutionary groups were formed
by Cuban exiles in Miami. The
American Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) took an interest
in these groups, providing them
with training and equipment to
topple the Cuban government.The failure at the Bay of Pigs was
largely down to poor planning and
President Kennedy’s reluctance to
become too involved.Pro-Cuba demonstrations
Castro forged a closer alliance with
the Soviet Union, its ally against
American aggression, enabling him
to export his ideals across Latin
America. The invasion incited
pro-Cuba anti-US demonstrations
from Chile to Mexico. Castro
actively supported guerrilla
warfare, and thousands of Latin
American guerrillas went to Cuba
for training. The revolution in Cuba
inspired similar uprisings through
the 1960s and 70s in Nicaragua,
Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela,
where there was disaffection with
illiteracy, inequality, and poverty.
Latin America continued to
preoccupy US foreign policy. The
US intervened several times in an
effort to contain communism. They
supported military coups in Chile
in 1973 and Argentina in 1976 and,
fearing a communist takeover,
funded the El Salvadoran military
in the late 1970s to prop up their
regime. In 1983, the US invaded
Grenada; and in 1989, Panama. ■Fidel Castro
To his supporters, Fidel Castro
(b.1926) was a revolutionary
hero who stood up to the US.
To his detractors, he was a
dictator whose close ties with
the Soviet Union brought the
world close to nuclear war.
Jailed as a student in 1953
for his revolutionary activities,
Castro was released two years
later and went into exile in the
US and Mexico. He returned
to Cuba in 1956 with a small
guerrilla band, among them
the Argentine Marxist
revolutionary Ernesto “Che”
Guevara, and set to work
undermining the regime of the
dictator Batista. On January 1,
1959, he assumed absolute
power. Castro was determined
to improve literacy, offered
free healthcare, and instituted
land reforms.
Castro saw himself as a
leader of the world’s oppressed
people and helped train
anti-Apartheid forces in South
Africa. In the 1970s, he sent
troops to support communist
forces in Angola, Ethiopia,
and Yemen.
In 2008, wracked by ill
health, Castro stood down
as president of Cuba, leaving
power in the hands of his
brother Raúl.Cuba must not
be abandoned to
the communists.
John F. KennedyUS_314-315_Bay-of-Pigs.indd 315 15/02/2016 16:45