Fidel Castro's Communism And The Cuban Missile Crisis

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

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

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