Cuba

Abstract

After Fidel Castro came to power at the beginning of 1959 it seemed possible for a time that a reasonably amicable relationship with the United States might be established. The US almost immediately recognized the new government. In April Castro, having made himself Prime Minister in February, paid a visit to Washington and announced that Cuba was looking for a ‘good relationship’, and a ‘good economic understanding’. He said that he had no intention of abrogating the Guantanamo naval pact, and would continue to adhere to the Rio pan-American collective defence agreement. In June, however, a new Cuban agrarian reform law was published providing for the expropriation of US sugar companies, with what they regarded as inadequate compensation. The economy generally increasingly came under state control. There were growing reports of human rights abuses. Many opponents of the regime were imprisoned or executed as ‘counter-revolutionaries’. And an increasing number of Cubans defected to the US, including some who had for a time been close colleagues of Castro.