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THE CUBAN
NATION
1898-1959
by Wesley
Wolfe
The final years of the nineteenth century
shaped the Cuba that entered the twentieth century as a United States
economic dependent and political protectorate. The actions and events
of these years and the resulting conditions contributed heavily to the
political, social and economic disarray manifested as virulent Cuban nationalism
and anti-Americanism throughout the new century. Before reviewing some
factors that shaped Cuba after 1880, we will briefly examine some the
geographic, cultural, demographic, political, and economic factors that
were important to Cuba's development.
Geographically, Cuba is an island nation
in the northern Caribbean. At its northernmost point, Cuba is less than
100 miles from the southern tip of Florida. It stretches southeasterly
750 miles from the eastern Gulf of Mexico through the northern Caribbean
and generally measures fifty to eighty miles wide. The highest elevations
in Cuba exceed 6,000 feet in the Sierra Maestra mountain range of southeastern
Oriente Province. Except for three small areas, the western lowlands range
below 600 feet elevation and cover 60 percent of the island. [Carlson,
p. 443].
Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba on
his first voyage in 1492. Successive expeditions used Cuba as a staging
area. Culturally, Cuba's development followed closely that of other Latin
American nations -- Spanish conquerors claimed the lands for the crown,
subordinated the indigenous population to European governors, exploited
minerals and agricultural resources, and imported African slaves to support
agriculture or mining. Cuban exceptions or variations included remaining
a Spanish colony much longer into the nineteenth century, abolishing African
slavery much later, failing to develop close ties to the Catholic Church,
and developing a landless working class instead of a peasantry. Cuba also
failed to develop the strong Indian culture common to many Latin countries
because the effects of the European invasion eliminated the indigenous
population in the sixteenth century.
Demographically, Cuba is a racially-mixed,
Spanish-speaking society with an estimated 1996 population of eleven million.
The racial makeup is approximately 40 percent black, 30 percent white
and 30 percent mixed. The importation of 600,000 Africans into Cuba between
1800 and 1865 and heavy importation of black labor from Haiti and the
Dominican Republic in the early twentieth century explains Cuba's large
percentage of black and mixed-race persons. [Skidmore, pp. 254-55]
Politically, Cuba was less important to
Spain during the early years because it lacked the mineral wealth that
drove Spanish imperialism. It was important as a staging area for the
exploration and then conquest, and, subsequently, as a guardian of the
entrance to the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
Economically, Cuba developed primarily as
a single-crop, export-import, agricultural society based on African-slave
labor. Cubans began sugar production in the early nineteenth century and
by the 1860's were producing one-third of the world's sugar supply. U.S.
investors plunged into this sugar-based economy and quickly concentrated
land and mills in American ownership. The sugar boom and American investment
created an economy almost wholly dependent upon sugar exports and closely
tied the welfare of the island to the erratic, world sugar market.
This volatile economic market had both immediate
and long-term effects on Cuba. First, the sugar trade played a significant
role in starting the 1895 Cuban Revolution and the Spanish-American War
that followed in 1898. Second, the economics of the sugar trade eliminated
small farms and, by doing so, eliminated or prevented development of a
peasant class, a fact that would become important to Castro's Revolution.
In 1891 the U.S. Congress removed the tariff
on most imported sugar and negotiated trade agreements with Spain that
increased Cuban sugar exports to the United States. This newly opened
market increased Cuban dependency on the U.S. market and supported continuing
increases in Cuba's sugar production capacity. However, in 1894, the Congress
reversed itself and reinstated the tariffs on sugar. The economic whiplash
effect of the rapidly changing U.S. sugar policies devastated the Cuban
economy and led to the economic and social upheavals that set the stage
for twentieth-century Cuba and the end of Spanish dominance.
The last four years of this period, 1895-98,
were those of greatest political and social upheaval. In 1895, José Martí
and Cuban rebels renewed their efforts to make Cuba "economically viable
and politically independent" with the Cuban War for Independence. Martí's
philosophy that "[a] people economically enslaved but politically free
will end by losing all freedom, but a people economically free can go
on to win its political independence." They killed Martí in the revolution
but he left a martyr's legacy to modern Cuba. Accomplishing Martí's philosophy
has remained a Cuban dream until this day, though neither he, the rebels
nor their successors have attained that dream.
The Cuban Rebellion was a brutal and bloody
war with atrocities common to both sides as each practiced "scorched-earth
warfare." Examples include the Spanish reconcentrado policy and Cubans
shooting Spanish sailors swimming away from burning ships. The reconcentrado
required all peasants to move to a Spanish-held city or be declared rebels.
The peasants flocked to the cities, without food or means of production,
and the Spaniards failed to provide for them. Other claims of cruelty
arose against both sides; some proved and some the possible creations
of the yellow journalism of the Hurst and Pulitzer organizations. [Leckie,
p. 544]
Emerging imperialistic sentiment in the
U.S. combined with biased journalism to promote sympathy and support for
the Cuban rebels against the Spanish government. President William McKinley's
position was that sentiment and sympathy would not push the U.S. into
war. However, the mysterious explosion of the battleship U.S.S. Maine
in the Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, created an American animosity
that overcame his intentions. Despite the fact that the cause of the explosion
was unexplained and that Spain conceded to every U.S. demand except Cuban
independence to avoid war, the Maine was the cause of the U.S. declaration
of war on April 25, 1898. [Leckie, pp. 544-46] It was a short war, lasting
only eight months from declaration to a settlement that totally excluded
Cuban involvement.
The Spanish-American War signaled the end
of the Spanish empire in the western hemisphere. The war also established
a four-year period of U.S. military occupation followed by sixty years
of U.S. dominance of essentially corrupt, unstable, brutal, and incompetent
Cuban governments. President McKinley appointed General John Brooke military
commander on January 1, 1899, but gave him little guidance. Brooke and
his subordinates began by taking care of the people whose lives had been
shattered by a civil war. He fed them and returned reconcentrados to their
lands. The army then began a drive to improve sanitation, discipline,
the judiciary and administrative services. Brooke created considerable
Cuban ill-will when he kept many former Spanish administrators in place.
The Cuban rebel forces did not rebel against
the U.S. occupation as the Filipino Insurrectos forces had done after
the same war on the other side of the world. The rebels created problems
for Brooke by refusing to disband until they paid them. General Maximo
Gómez, to his detriment accepted $3 million to pay and disband the
rebels. This payment amounted to $75 each for "[t]hose who could prove
that they had fought." [Langley, pp.17-19]
General Leonard Wood succeeded Brook as
military commander on December 23, 1899. Wood, despite being a hard-nosed
military governor, gained respect for his methods and accomplishments
if not for his attitude toward lower- and middle-class Cubans. Wood kept
Brooke's staff but replaced Spanish civilian government officials with
Cubans. His occupation forces continued the improvements begun under his
predecessor and expanded them to include public education, roads, bridges
and harbors.
It was Wood who created the Rural Guard,
permitted creation of new political parties, and planned the constitutional
convention that began in November 1900. He also "ended the last vestiges
of Spanish mercantile policy in Cuba and set the stage for the almost
complete domination of the island's trade by the United States by reducing
taxes on U.S. imports and eliminating Spanish preferences." [Benjamin,
p. 10]
It was also Wood who, with Secretary of
War Elihu Root, realized a need for what later became the Platt Amendment.
Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut offered the amendment to the Army
Appropriation Act of 1901. It required the Cuban government to: "maintain
a low public debt; refrain from signing any treaty impairing its obligation
to the United States; to grant to the United States the right of intervention
to protect life, liberty, and property; validate the acts of the military
government; and, if requested, provide long-term naval leases." [Langley,
p. 21]
The Platt Amendment further agitated the
Cubans. So much so, they sent a delegation from the constitutional convention
to Washington to oppose the amendment, only to find that McKinley had
already signed the bill into law. The Platt Amendment, along with its
economic counterpart, the Cuban trade reciprocity treaty, established
the framework of U.S. dominance in Cuba, the source of almost sixty years
antagonism between the U.S. and Cuba. [Benjamin, p. 12]
Afterward, delegates to the constitutional
convention tried to modify the Platt Amendment before adding it to the
Cuban Constitution. This failed as Wood refused to allow modifications
and threatened that U.S. soldiers would remain in Cuba until the convention
enacted the amendment. [Langley, p. 19]
Cubans adopted the proposed constitution
and the limited Cuban electorate chose Tomás Estrada Palma to take
office as Cuba's first president in 1902. Estrada, like most of Cuba's
elite, was a pragmatic proponent of U.S. annexation of Cuba, as he saw
"little advantage and no future for an independent Cuba." Although Estrada
was not anti-American, he generally accepted American intervention into
Cuban affairs, thus drawing the ire of Cuban nationalists who wanted to
remain free from "Yankee dominance." [Skidmore, p. 256] Estrada did show
anti-Americanism by purging Americans from government jobs wherever possible.
[Langley, p. 34] There was little else he could do as he was laboring
under the administrative machinery put in place by the American-style
constitution, including the requirements of the Platt Amendment.
Mid-term congressional elections in 1904
were violent and fraudulent and resulted in the Liberal party's boycott
of the new congress. The results of the 1904 election set the stage for
a 1906 presidential election between Estrada and Liberal candidate, General
José Miguel Gómez. Estrada was elected to a second term in a violent
and fraudulent election in which the Rural Guard and police forces intervened
for Estrada.
The Liberal party's refusal to accept the
outcome of the 1906 election resulted in President Theodore Roosevelt
assigning William H. Taft, former Governor of the Philippines governor
and future U.S. President, as his representative to Cuba. Taft's analysis
confirmed the fraudulent election and resulted in measures that required
Estrada to accept a caretaker role while awaiting new elections. Estrada
and his cabinet, refusing to accept this role, resigned unexpectedly,
leaving Cuba without a government. Roosevelt named Taft U.S. Governor
of Cuba on September 29, 1906, and immediately ordered 2,000 marines into
Havana to begin the second U.S. military occupation of Cuba. [Skidmore,
p.413] Internal violence, besides the election quarrels, also contributed
to the intervention. [Langley, p. 43]
Fourteen days later, Roosevelt named Charles
Magoon, a former governor of the Panama Canal Zone, Governor of Cuba.
The Cubans who accused him of "allowing liberal politicians to raid the
treasury" held Magoon, unlike Wood, in low regard for "opening Cuba to
'Yankee adventurers'." [Langley, p 42] The Army of Occupation under the
Magoon governorship also drew Cuban ire for its heavy-handed control of
the populace. Magoon's most notable accomplishment was the establishment
of a commission to organize and compile Cuban law, previously a morass
of Spanish codes, military orders, and public decrees, into a single canon.
His most disreputable accomplishment was the creation of the Cuban Armed
Forces in 1908; an armed force that "was ultimately politicized and became
a curse for twentieth-century Cuba." [Langley, p. 48]
Magoon served until January 28, 1909, when
José Miguel Gómez entered office as the second Cuban president and
quickly encountered another form of U.S. intervention. Following the second
U.S. military intervention, president Taft and Secretary of State Philander
Knox feared that Americans would not support a third intervention. Their
solution was to opt for a "preventive" [Langley, p. 65] interpretation
of the Platt Amendment that would allow earlier U.S. diplomatic intervention
in hopes of avoiding military intervention. This interpretation violated
Elihu Root's 1901 promise of a narrow interpretation of the Platt Amendment,
a promise that made the amendment more palatable to the Cubans in 1901,
and the new interpretation less pleasing to them in 1909. Gómez'
first challenge came when he signed a contract that the American minister
opposed and Gómez immediately canceled the contract.
The "colored revolt" threatened Gómez'
government in 1912 when Cuban Negroes excluded from much of Cuba's national
life, organized into the Independent Colored Party. Although, Gómez
gave them government jobs in the Rural Guard and the army, as members
of these organizations, they were unable to participate in politics. They
could trace much of their emotion to their exclusion from national activities
after they fought Spain in the rebellion. The rebellion was primarily
restricted to Oriente province and Gómez dispatched troops there
to quell the fighting. Gómez dispatched 2,000 soldiers to quell
the revolt and Knox, after five days of fighting, ordered American marines
to Daiquiri& acuteto protect American property in the area.
Mario García Menocal succeeded Gómez
as president in 1913 and was reelected in 1917. The 1917 election caused
an American intervention of a sort as the Liberals revolted on the assumption
that the United States would intervene to force a new election as in 1906.
Menocal hastened the revolt, partly with the revocation of his announcement
not to seek office and partly by claims of fraudulent election practices.
However, World War I was on the horizon and the U.S. was concerned with
more serious issues. However, U.S. Marines put ashore at Guantanamo and
their presence soon quieted the rebellion although they were never involved
in the fighting. [Lazo, p. 55]
Little has been written about U.S.-Cuban
relations during the war years although what is written seems to show
that relations seemed to converge on a common goal -- the war effort.
However, shortly after the war, economic crises coupled with political
tensions in Cuba soon demanded the attention of President Woodrow Wilson's
administration.
Menocal's protege, Alfredo Zayas, won the
Cuban presidency in a fraudulent election and, the Liberals, refusing
the results, called on Washington to supervise new elections. Menocal's
threats to destroy American property should the U.S. intervene were ignored
as President Wilson sent General Enoch Crowder to Cuba to mediate the
crisis. Crowder forthrightly dictated the characteristics of the Cuban
president that would be acceptable to the U.S. and impressed upon the
proper judicial tribunals to rule upon the question of new election. The
tribunal ruled for new elections would be held in March 1921. Zayas was
elected in the second election, although not without complaints of voter
fraud.
World War I brought prosperity to Cuba as
the U.S. and its allies purchased each year's entire sugar harvest. They
made this possible, partially, by the 1902 reciprocity treaty that gave
Cuban sugar preference in the American market and allowed it to compete
more favorably in the world market and, partially, by the increased wartime
demand. Trouble lay ahead, however, as in 1920 sugar prices rose to 22
cents per pound, in an era known as "The dance of the millions," and quickly
plummeted to less than four cents per pound. [Langley, p 111]
The impact of "The dance of the millions"
era had significance to the new Cuban president. Plummeting sugar prices
and Menocal's poor management caused Zayas to assume leadership of a bankrupt
government during an economic panic. With U.S. support, Zayas immediately
began an austerity program and to work for a fifty million-dollar loan
from J.P. Morgan & Co. The loan was subjected to severe constraints dictated
by Morgan bank and Crowder, who had been invited, by Menocal, to advise
Zayas on legal and financial matters. Zayas has been credited with pulling
the Cuban government from a two million-dollar deficit in 1921 to a surplus
when he left office in 1925. He also reaped a personal fortune estimated
from two to fifteen million dollars, a matter said to have made the Zayas
administration the apogee of corrupt government in Cuba. Fortunately,
the latter came after Crowder was named Ambassador to Cuba and was unable
to maintain tight control over Zayas while the first was a credit to Crowder.
Cuban nationalism became the cry as 1924
elections approached. One of those crying it to gain office was General
Gerardo Machado. Machado had served as a cabinet official for under Gómez,
held an army command, and managed the General Electric Company that had
bought up Cuban public utilities. He supported a move to revise the Platt
Amendment and "favored social and administrative reform in Cuba." He promised
little that had not been promised by Menocal, but with a better political
organization he gave a "fresh significance to José Martí's cry, 'All for
Cuba, and Cuba for All'."
These cries were enough to win the election
for Machado; but Machado was a chameleon. He was a Cuban nationalist in
Cuba. Machado was pro-American in the United States. On a trip to the
United States before he took office, he impressed both businessmen and
government officials as man with a businesslike attitude.
Machado used the same skills that conned
the Cuban voters and the U.S. government and business officials to take
over the Cuban government. The congress first extended the president's
term in office, then adopted these resolutions as constitutional amendments.
Congress then called upon Machado to "accept a new term of office." Next,
all political parties endorsed his candidacy to elect him to a new and
extended six-year term. He not only controlled the congress and political
parties during this continuismo, he also gained approval of President
Coolidge and Secretary of State. [Benjamin, p. 52] Machado would shortly
become the most hated man in Cuba and one of two Cuban presidents overthrown
by popular revolt.
The sugar depression forced him to take
repressive measures against the working classes, the students, and the
labor movements. It was under Machado that the leftist organization, including
the communist party, made their first substantial inroads in Cuba. This
was to become very important in just a few years. Franklin Roosevelt took
the oath as president on March 15, 1933, and began to deal with the pressing
domestic problems of the great depression. Shortly thereafter, problems
in Cuba confronted his administration as the Cubans began their efforts
to oust Machado. Cuban nationalism reflected a general bitterness over
the Cuban-American relationship embodied in the Platt Amendment, the overall
economic dependence on the U.S., and the effects of the depression. More
critical to the attempted overthrow was the brutality and corruption of
the Machado regime.
Roosevelt appointed Summer Welles, a friend
and experienced Latin American diplomat, as his Cuban ambassador in April
1933. Welles spent the next sixteen months engaged in a political chess
match with Cuba's president Machado and his opposition. Welles, working
under instructions to avoid U.S. military intervention and pursue policies
that would lead to Cuban economic development, gradually moved from a
position of moderate support to one of hard-line opposition to the Cuban
president-come-dictator. Welles attempted to mediate the dispute but,
in reality, ended up coordinating events associated with the overthrow
of Machado. The events that led to Machado's resignation included student
and labor opposition and declining support from the U.S. government and
the Cuban military. Machado resigned and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
was named president on August 12, 1933.
Known as the Revolt of the Sergeants, this
change set the stage for a turbulent time in Cuban politics as seven presidents
and one committee would officially govern the country in a 40-month period.
In reality there was essentially one power, Sergeant Fulgencio Batista
y Zaldivar, who would directly or indirectly, rule Cuba for twenty-five
years.
A period of turmoil followed the coup as
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes held power for three weeks, followed by
a five-day interregnum when a Council of Five (The Pentarchy) ruled. Ramón
Grau San Martín, leader of the Pentarchy, assumed the presidency
for a four-month period on September 10, 1933 with the support of Batista
and his sergeants. Grau, a University of Havana professor, was the hero
of the student leftists and longtime enemy of Machado. He declared a socialist
revolution with the simple mission to fulfill "the dream of 1898." [Langley,
p. 143]
One of his first actions was to unilaterally
annul the Platt Amendment. He also passed new labor legislation limiting
work days to eight hours and requiring 50 percent of all employees in
Cuban industry and commerce to be native, new land distribution laws,
abolished Machado political parties, and granted women the right to vote.
Washington reacted by Grau's actions by
putting ships on-station of the Cuban coast and U.S. intervention seemed
near. [Skidmore, p. 262] Grau's short administration has often been overlooked
as a 'pseudo revolution' but it created a new nationalism in Cuba. Over
the next eleven years many reforms made in Grau's short administration
were institutionalized in Cuba's government and society. Although they
formalized these advances as part of the 1940 Cuban constitution regarded
as one of the most advanced in Latin America, Grau made enemies with his
programs. With each new move he alienated another faction. Reduced support
for the Grau government and increasing disorder caused Batista and reduced.
We know now that the revolution of 1933 was a spark to the Castro revolution
of 1959.
The progressiveness of the revolution did
not extend to the political system. Batista used de facto or actual presidential
powers to quickly change Cuba. A most important change transferred the
military from civilian to military control. Batista institutionalized
the military into his presidency and used it to consolidate his power.
This led to a liberal-conservative split between Grau and Batista and
essentially ended any cooperations between the two factions. Batista used
this split further to consolidate his power as he espoused a conservative,
nationalistic line.
While others held the presidency, Batista
was the power behind the presidencies of Carlos Hevia (January 15-18,
1934), Manuel Márquez Sterling (January 18, 1934!), Carlos Mendieta
Montefur (January 18, 1934-December 11, 1935), José A. Barnet y Vinageras
(December 11, 1935-May 20, 1936), Miguel Mariano Gómez Arias (May
20-December 24, 1936), and Fédrico Laredo Fru (December 24, 1936
- October 10, 1940). Batista ruled in his name from 1940 until 1944 and,
counter to many claims, he ruled as a constitutional president, not a
dictator. This was to come later.
Batista moved in the background again from
1944 to 1952. Grau San Martín returned to the presidency for the
1944-48 term but, under Batista's power, he was not the idealist that
they overthrew in 1934. Carlos Prío Socarrás succeeded Grau
and Batista returned to the presidency in a 1952 coup. Afterwards he ruled
as a dictator until they overthrew him in the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
Batista's regime was brutal and corrupt and the Cuban national psyche
reached its greatest depths. The stage was set for the Castro revolution
of 1959.
July 26, 1953, marked the first public activity
of the most pending revolution. It was on this day that a group of revolutionaries
led by Fidel Castro Ruz attacked the Cuban army barracks at Moncada. Castro
was the talented and well-educated (lawyer) son of a successful peninsular
who chose to use his talents to revolutionize Cuba. Castro had been deeply
involved in student politics and exposed to nationalism, leftism and revolutionary
thought. They have described Castro as "strong-minded, articulate, and
ambitious." He was "[p]assionately nationalistic" but he "steered clear
of the communists who were the best organized of the student groups" [Skidmore,
p. 263].
Following graduation, Castro traveled through
Latin America to meet other revolutionaries and to learn their politics.
His first direct contact with revolution came in 1948 in Bogotá, Colombia.
He was in Bogotá when the assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitán
triggered two days of rioting which led to city authorities abdicating.
Castro is said to have recognized the possibilities of and gained a "taste
for the possibilities of popular mobilization" while in Bogotá [Skidmore,
p 263].
Castro spent the next five years traveling,
learning more about revolution, and raising funds to recruit and train
revolutionary soldiers that he led in the ill-fated Moncada barracks attack.
One-half of the attackers were killed, wounded or captured and the government
acting quickly, executed many. Castro and his brother, Raúl Castro
Ruz, were captured, tried, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. At
his trial, Castro gave his long, passionate and rambling "History Will
Absolve Me"speech that later became the doctrine of the revolution. Castro
was fortunate. Batista, whose regime was coming under fire for its brutality,
granted amnesty to many political prisoners to "court public opinion and
improve his dictator's image" [Skidmore, p. 264]. It was a tactical error
that allowed Castro to flee to Mexico to plan and organize the revolution.
In Mexico, Castro gained partial support
of former Mexican and Cuban Leftist presidents, Lazardo Cárdenas
and Carlos Prío Socarrás. He returned to Cuba in 1956 with
Raúl and Ernesto "Che" Guevara as leaders of the 86-member "26th
of July" revolutionary movement. The invasion was supposed to be part
of an anti-Batista uprising. When the expected revolutionary uprising
failed to develop, Castro and his surviving revolutionaries fled to the
Sierra Maestra mountains to regroup and build a base for traditional guerilla
warfare against the Batista regime.
While in the mountains Castro gained "international
status overnight" and Batista was placed on the defensive by a series
of New York Times' articles by Herbert Matthews. The articles appeared
in 1957 when Batista was claiming Castro was dead and the revolution destroyed.
The publicity did what Castro had hoped. It helped erode Batista's foreign
support. It also gave new hope to Cuban Leftists and helped Castro recruit.
As he built up his revolutionary army, Castro moved to a conventional
guerilla warfare, one that depended upon the support of the rural people
for subsistence, protection, and intelligence.
The revolution gained new hope in 1958 when
the U.S. government placed an embargo on arms shipments to Batista forces
and the Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter calling for a "government
of national unity." However, when a planned general strike failed to materialize,
Castro changed his strategy to that of traditional guerilla warfare. Batista
responded to this goading in the expected manner, striking at any target
and increasing Castro's support with each strike.
Batista called an election for November
1958 in a last ditch effort to placate his opponents. The voters abstained
and the U.S. support waned. After his defeat, Batista did not plan to
ride out a losing cause. On the last day of December 1958, Batista designated
a successor and exiled himself to the Dominican Republic. The move caught
the rebels by surprise but on January 1, 1959, on Castro's orders, Guevara
and Camilo Cienfuegos entered led the rebels into Havana. Castro did not
enter Havana until January 7, after he had become a worldwide, revolutionary
hero.
U.S. concern and worldwide debate focused
on the issue of the kind of revolutionary government Castro would ultimately
establish. Castro initially established a triumvirate with Manuel Urrutia
as president, José Miro Cardona as prime minister and Castro as commander-in-chief
of the armed forces. The triumvirate was destroyed in February when Miro
Cardona resigned because of a lack of real power. Castro formally assumed
the duties of prime minister and commander-in-chief.
Castro increased the armed forces from 50,000
to approximately 600,000, one-half active and one-half reserve, and made
plans to conduct one national mobilization each year from 1959 to 1963
[Morley, p. 367]. Castro turned to the problem of the Batistas. Over 500
were executed in a six-month period of "ordinary justice" administered
by revolutionary courts. This created concern within and without Cuba,
especially in the United States. Castro, however, had clearly established
his power over the nation.
References
Benjamin,
Jules R., The United States and Cuba: Hegemony and Dependent Development,
1880-1934, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, 1977.
Burns, E. Bradford, Latin America: A Concise Interpretive History (sixth
ed.), Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1994.
Carlson, Fred A., Geography of Latin America, New York, Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1952.
Gellman, Irwin F., Roosevelt and Batista: Good Neighbor Diplomacy in Cuba,
1933-1945, Albuquerque, New Mexico, University of New Mexico Press, 1971.
Greer, Thomas H., A Brief History of the Western World (fifth ed.), New
York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1987.
Jenks, Leland H., Our Cuban Colony: A Study in Sugar, New York, Arno Press
& The New York Times, 1970.
Kennedy, Robert F., Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis
(with afterword by Richard Neustadt and Graham Allison), New York, W.W.
Norton & Co., 1971.
Langley, Lester D., The United States and the Caribbean: 1900-1970, Athens,
Georgia, University of Georgia Press, 1980.
_____, The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900-1934,
Lexington, Kentucky, The University of Kentucky Press, 1983.
_____, The United States and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century (Revised),
Athens, Georgia, University of Georgia Press, 1985.
Lazo, Mario, Dagger in the Heart: American Policy Failures in Cuba, New
York, Twin Circle Publishing Company, 1968.
Leckie, Robert, The Wars of America: From 1600 to 1900, New York, Harper
Perennial, 1992.
Morley, Morris H., Imperial State and Revolution: The United States and
Cuba, 1952-1986, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Nitze, Paul H., From Hiroshima to Glastnost: At the Center of Decision,
New York, Grove Weidenfeld, 1989.
Paterson, Thomas G., Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph
of the Cuban Revolution, New York, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Plank, John (Ed.), Cuba and the United States: Long-Range Perspectives,
Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 1967.
Skidmore, Thomas E. and P.H. Smith, Modern Latin America (third ed.),
New York, Oxford University Press, 1992.
Williams, Eric, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean,
New York, Vintage Books, 1970.
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"The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the
page author.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by Mississippi
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