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The Cold War in Latin America

(1950s-1970s)

The Cuban Revolution

After the Spanish-American War, Cuba won independence from Spain. However, Cuba was controlled by the United States under the Platt Amendment to the Cuban Constitution until 1935. During this time, American investors brought up Cuban plantations and mills, and the United States became the chief buyer of Cuba’s sugar. It continued to support military dictators, like Fulgencia Batista, who promised to allow the U.S. to maintain its sugar interests in Cuba.

Castro: In the 1950s, Fidel Castro rallied forces opposed to the corrupt Batista regime. Fulgencia Batista was the unpopular dictator of Cuba during the 1950s. Batista had gone to great lengths to maintain the country’s traditionally subservient relationship with the United States and especially with US sugar companies that controlled Cuba’s economy. By 1959, Castro led his tiny guerilla army to victory. Cubans cheered the rebel as a hero. Castro had promised the Cubans land and economic independence from the United States by taking the sugar mills back. For many, the joy soon wore off as Castro turned Cuba into a Communist state. Castro nationalized foreign-owned sugar plantations and other businesses. He put most land under government control and distributed the rest to peasant farmers.

While Castro imposed harsh authoritarian rule, he did improve conditions for the poor. During the 1960s, Cuba provided basic healthcare for all, promoted equality for women, and increased the nation’s literacy rate. But communist dictatorship angered middle-class Cubans. Critics were jailed or silenced, and hundreds of thousands fled to the United States.

Cold War Tensions: The Cuban Revolution alarmed the United States, especially as Castro turned to the Soviet Union for aid. In 1961, the United States backed a plot by anti-Castro exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. An invasion force landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba but was quickly crushed because it failed to start an internal uprising. The Bay of Pigs failure diminished the U.S.’s prestige and strengthened Castro’s position in Cuba. The next year, the United States imposed an embargo on Cuba. An embargo is a ban on trade. Castro sought closer ties to the Soviet Union. He let the Soviets build nuclear missile bases in Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida. The threat of nearby Soviet nuclear bases outraged the United States and touched off a dangerous crisis (Cuban Missile Crisis).

In October 1962, President John Kennedy declared a naval blockade of Cuba and demanded that the Soviets remove the weapons. For several days during the Cuban missile crisis, the superpowers stood on the brink of nuclear war. In the end, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev backed down. He agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba.

Document 1– Kennedy on Cuba

Recent Trends: When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, Cuba lost its chief ally and trading partner. Without Soviet financial aid, Cuba’s economy fell into shambles. In response, Castro encouraged tourism, allowed some features of a market economy, and welcomed foreign investment. At the same time, however, he vowed to preserve communism.

The United States refused to negotiate with Castro, despite the urgings of the United Nations and Latin American leaders, who argued that Cuba no longer posed a threat. Still, as American businessmen visited the country and baseball teams competed, it seemed less likely that either Cuban Communism or the American embargo would last much longer. But, relations are still tense to this day.

Civil War in Nicaragua

Just as the United States had supported Batista in Cuba, it supported the dictator Anastasio Somoza and his family since 1933 in Nicaragua. By 1979, Communism had emerged in Nicaragua led by the group called the Sandinistas. The Sandinistas were led by a man named Daniel Ortega. Initially, both the Soviet Union and the United States sent aid to Ortega. However, the Sandinistas soon helped their communist brothers in El Salvador. The United States decided to help the El Salvadoran government by supporting Nicaraguan anti-Communist forces called the Contras.

The civil war in Nicaragua was fought between the Communist Sandinistas versus the anti-Communist Contras (supported by the U.S.). It lasted more than a decade. In 1990, Daniel Ortega decided to hold free elections. Ortega was defeated. The Sandinistas were defeated again in 1996 and 2001.

Like many other Latin American countries, the governments alternate between military dictatorships and civilian rule.

Document 2 - Sandinistas

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The Cold War in Latin America

1. Why would the US support military dictators in Cuba?

2. How did Castro take over Cuba?

3. How did Castro change Cuba?

4. Was Castro a good or a bad leader for the Cuban people? Explain.

5. What was the goal of the Bay of Pigs invasion? Did it succeed?

6. What led to the Cuban missile crisis?

7. According to the two maps, why should the United States have been worried about the relationship between the Soviet Union and Cuba?

8. Summarize Kennedy’s address to the nation on Cuba.

9. How did Castro have to change his policies after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s?

10. Who did the United States support in Nicaragua?

11. Who was Daniel Ortega? What group did he lead?

12. Why did the United States support the Contras?

13. Who won the civil war in Nicaragua?

14. What struggles do Latin American countries face to this day?

15. According to the document on the Sandinistas, why was the United States fearful of the EPS?