Why didn't the US intervene during the Cuban Revolution?

So, I recently watched The Godfather Part II, and that has got me thinking: why didn't the US intervene during the Cuban Revolution? I mean, there was a lot of American investment in Cuba and the island was just 90 miles away from the US. It would be logic for the US to intervene against the Marxist rebels, after all, they wouldn't want what was basically their colony to become a pro-Soviet state. Also, what would Cuba look like if the US had intervened?

So, can anyone answer me this? Thanks in advance.
 
So, I recently watched The Godfather Part II, and that has got me thinking: why didn't the US intervene during the Cuban Revolution? I mean, there was a lot of American investment in Cuba and the island was just 90 miles away from the US. It would be logic for the US to intervene against the Marxist rebels, after all, they wouldn't want what was basically their colony to become a pro-Soviet state. Also, what would Cuba look like if the US had intervened?

So, can anyone answer me this? Thanks in advance.

The US had actually largely abandoned Batista within the last year of his regime. Castro was also not initially believed to be a communist (and may in fact not have been) — though the involvement of Che Guevara and the Cuban Communists was known, the revolution was also supported by a broad swathe of liberal and democratic opposition parties spanning the political spectrum. Many of the initial leaders of the revolution, and initial post-revolution political officers, were non-communists who were later purged.

Castro in fact made significant outreach to the US early on. He made a widely publicized visit to the US shortly after taking power, was interviewed on American TV, proclaimed his admiration for American democracy, and angled for American aid. So, in short, the US probably felt that it could deal with Castro.
 

Cook

Banned
I mean, there was a lot of American investment in Cuba and the island was just 90 miles away from the US. It would be logic for the US to intervene against the Marxist rebels, after all, they wouldn't want what was basically their colony to become a pro-Soviet state.

Because Batista was well known as a particularly unpleasant dictator, and the July 28th movement was not Marxist, most of its members were liberal in the European sense of the term. It was only after he'd secured control that Castro started eliminating those that had only shortly before been his allies.
 
Castro in fact made significant outreach to the US early on. He made a widely publicized visit to the US shortly after taking power, was interviewed on American TV, proclaimed his admiration for American democracy, and angled for American aid. So, in short, the US probably felt that it could deal with Castro.

I've seen old copies of Reader's Digest circa 1960 containing articles supporting of the Cuban Revolution, and giving Castro's professed non-Communism the benefit of the doubt.

To what extent that represented establishment conservative opinion in the USA, I don't know. But still. Reader's Freaking Digest supported Castro.
 
So, I recently watched The Godfather Part II, and that has got me thinking: why didn't the US intervene during the Cuban Revolution? I mean, there was a lot of American investment in Cuba and the island was just 90 miles away from the US. It would be logic for the US to intervene against the Marxist rebels, after all, they wouldn't want what was basically their colony to become a pro-Soviet state. Also, what would Cuba look like if the US had intervened?

So, can anyone answer me this? Thanks in advance.

Like everyone else has said, basically Batista's supporters consisted of himself and his barber. Everyone wanted to see him go, it was just that Castro caught the US by surprise when he threw his lot in with the Soviets.

A fun POD/AHC/TL/whatever would be having a Cuban Revolution that doesn't go Red (I dunno, Che falls off his motorcycle and dies or something).
 
Like everyone else has said, basically Batista's supporters consisted of himself and his barber. Everyone wanted to see him go, it was just that Castro caught the US by surprise when he threw his lot in with the Soviets.

And the only reason we know the barber did was he was the only man in Cuba who had the opportunity to slash his throat, but didn't. But I concur with the others. There were plenty of opposition groups, all of which would've been better for the Americans (except the Mafia) than Batista. I actually JUST did an update on Cuba in my TL (see signature), which covers quite a lot of the opposition groups.
 
I've seen old copies of Reader's Digest circa 1960 containing articles supporting of the Cuban Revolution, and giving Castro's professed non-Communism the benefit of the doubt.

To what extent that represented establishment conservative opinion in the USA, I don't know. But still. Reader's Freaking Digest supported Castro.

Jesus. When Reader's Digest is giving you an OK, that means the Right in America REALLY didn't see this coming. In defense of that magazine, they were the only people denouncing what was going on in the Killing Fields (or even REPORTING on it) while it was actually happening. The rest of the media didn't "discover" the story until the Vietnamese Liberation of Cambodia from the KR.

BTW, a Marxist-Leninist does not "find his way" to turning his country into a strategic missile base, puts the survival of World Revolution over that of his own country, turn his country into a slavish client-state of the USSR to a degree that would have embarrassed any other communist state this side of Bulgaria, and do everything short of asking to be annexed as the Soviet Socialist Federated State of Cuba all because of Uncle Sam. Granted, Eisenhower and Kennedy went cuckoo themselves over Cuba, but I would suggest that at best America and Cuba fed off each other in the Cold War. At worst, Castro was going to do what he did anyway. Just perhaps with more political problems at home had he done so.

I would point out that with a dictator holding absolute power (including over the media) they can have little difficulty fostering pathological hatred against Uncle Sam even with minimal to no provocation (see the Kims). Mind, many a right wing dictatorship during the Cold War did the same with communism. See the 1970s Argentine Junta, and many others in South America, at the behest of the USA.
 
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Like everyone else has said, basically Batista's supporters consisted of himself and his barber. Everyone wanted to see him go, it was just that Castro caught the US by surprise when he threw his lot in with the Soviets.

A fun POD/AHC/TL/whatever would be having a Cuban Revolution that doesn't go Red (I dunno, Che falls off his motorcycle and dies or something).

I really think you're being too generous regarding Che's influence, but that's just my opinion.
 
I would point out that with a dictator holding absolute power (including over the media) they can have little difficulty fostering pathological hatred against Uncle Sam even with minimal to no provocation (see the Kims). Mind, many a right wing dictatorship during the Cold War did the same with communism. See the 1970s Argentine Junta, and many others in South America, at the behest of the USA.

Not to be a Castro apologist, but it didn't exactly take the work of a master propagandist to foster anti-Americanism in Cuba. It was a blatantly exploitative relationship, pre-revolution.

I'm not convinced Castro always intended to split with the US, but I will grant that his fuse when dealing with the US was always going to be pretty short. The narrative I'm aware of is that things were tentatively moving forward when Castro refused to bend significantly on nationalizing American assets in Cuba, and then the wall came down.

What prompted him to take a hard line, I don't honestly know. But a fair case can be made that it was the innate frustration Cubans had with the US after 50 years of poor treatment. The situation OH-SO QUICKLY got ridiculous, but I don't think you can say it came from nowhere.

But even before the Missile Crisis (but probably after Bay of Pigs- maybe because of it) Castro's ideology could've been characterized as anti-American above all else. The metaphor I'm inclined to employ here is really condescending...but here it is anyway: he was just behaving like a teenager. His parents are scared and revolted by punk rock? Guess who's getting a mohawk. The big oppressor next door goes all Scooby Doo over Marxist-Leninism? Well, I guess Cuba's Marxist-Leninist now. THE MOST Marxist-Leninist!
 
Not to be a Castro apologist, but it didn't exactly take the work of a master propagandist to foster anti-Americanism in Cuba. It was a blatantly exploitative relationship, pre-revolution.

I'm not convinced Castro always intended to split with the US, but I will grant that his fuse when dealing with the US was always going to be pretty short. The narrative I'm aware of is that things were tentatively moving forward when Castro refused to bend significantly on nationalizing American assets in Cuba, and then the wall came down.

What prompted him to take a hard line, I don't honestly know. But a fair case can be made that it was the innate frustration Cubans had with the US after 50 years of poor treatment. The situation OH-SO QUICKLY got ridiculous, but I don't think you can say it came from nowhere.

But even before the Missile Crisis (but probably after Bay of Pigs- maybe because of it) Castro's ideology could've been characterized as anti-American above all else. The metaphor I'm inclined to employ here is really condescending...but here it is anyway: he was just behaving like a teenager. His parents are scared and revolted by punk rock? Guess who's getting a mohawk. The big oppressor next door goes all Scooby Doo over Marxist-Leninism? Well, I guess Cuba's Marxist-Leninist now. THE MOST Marxist-Leninist!

That's a pretty fair assessment, if you ask me. Even though the US hated Batista, we didn't exactly mind all the great deal we were getting at the time. It didn't help that a generation beforehand the US went all "FREEDOM FOREVER!" and liberated Cuba from the Spanish, only to turn around and make it a de facto US protectorate.

Plus, once Cuba started to slide over to the USSR's side of the table, we weren't exactly subtle about how upset we were. I mean, the CIA fucking tried to train sharks to eat Castro, and slip him chemicals that would make his beard fall out (apparently they thought he was Samson). We played right into his hand, and then we blockaded the goddamn country, giving him a "Get out of violent uprising" card for life.
 
There was a very admiring article in Life magazine about Castro just after Batista's overthrow that portrayed him as a pro-democracy champion, including heroic photos of him in the jungle. I was only nine and ten at the time, but I remember how shocked everyone was when Castro declared his communist affiliation. The 180-degree turnaround in media coverage of Cuba was almost instant, with stories about firing squads and mass rapes suddenly surfacing. The general (public) consensus was that Castro had double-crossed America, using the U.S. for aid and support until he could declare for the USSR.

The real story is probably closer to Expat's explanation.
 
Castro was a Communist who found it convenient to hide his affiliation.

Despite people being upset about old US support for Batista earlier, it's important to note that the Communist Party of Cuba did support Batista during his first Presidency (1940-1944). Clearly, support for Batista at some point did not translate into permanent hatred by the Cuban people.

The main reason for anti-Americanism in Cuba was the pure dominance of America in Cuba. American companies owned most of the country. The US controlled or supplied almost half of the sugar plantations, the vast majority of the cattle ranches, mines, utilities, oil, and most of the imports. It is understandable that this would rankle a lot of proud Cubans. It created the impression that the US had more influence in Cuba than native Cubans, and in many ways the US did.

I don't think it was particularly exploitative however. Cuba enjoyed a very high standard of living. It was not a poor country; it was not a peasant country. It was a diversified economy whose per capita wealth at the time was greater than Japan or Spain. Living standards were the third highest in Latin America, and almost as high as Italy's. Not a bad peer group.

It was either first or second in all of Latin America in terms of automobiles, radios, and telephones per capita. It had the highest wage rate for industrial workers in Latin America and 9th highest in the world. It had the highest agricultural wages in Latin America. It had the lowest mortality rate in Latin America. It was very well positioned to join the ranks of developed countries in the next 20 years.

This is not the description of a particularly "exploited" country. There were of course problems. Sugar plantation work was seasonal, and the countryside remained poor. All of these problems though were not particularly bad compared to Cuba's peer group, and could have been remedied with a modest welfare state combined with policies to improve economic development - all of which the US would have gladly supported.

While Castro refused to become President early on in the post-revolutionary government, this is a common tactic of Communists. Instead, he did what the Communists always did - take over the critical areas of police and defense, and once having done so remove the anti-Communist politicians. Castro was against democratic elections from the very start. He knew elections would provide a strong democratic credentials to the non-Communists and complicate his ability to take over the government. Castro took these anti-democratic steps in 1959. The nationalization of US companies did not begin until the summer of 1960. Therefore, US reaction against the nationalization could not explain the reasons for Castro's consolidation of power. Cuban officials throughout 1959 repeatedly reported the rise of Communist influence and propaganda. I firmly believe Castro intended to lead a Communist take over from the very beginning, and nothing the US could have done would have changed his mind.
 
Would it be inaccurate to say that part of the reason was also out of pragmatism.

namely that Castro sorta knew based on previous examples of US behavior, that anything he did short of bending over backwards would incur the US' wraith and so, better to hitch your wagon to the only person who can hold them off?

Like even if he only adopted social democratic reforms and that was it, the US would still find reason to consider him a socialist, or if he just called himself a socialist and nothing else the US would still immediately plan to remove him.
So her sorta just figured "well they eventually find a excuse to get rid of me, might as well run with things."

Cause that honestly seems to be the case with a lot of revolutionaries the US went up against. They tried to appeal to the US for aid in removing dictators and were rebuffed and sorta hitched themselves to the USSR because they were the only major power that could/would support them and that came with the price of going soviet styled communist.
 
There was a very admiring article in Life magazine about Castro just after Batista's overthrow that portrayed him as a pro-democracy champion, including heroic photos of him in the jungle. I was only nine and ten at the time, but I remember how shocked everyone was when Castro declared his communist affiliation. The 180-degree turnaround in media coverage of Cuba was almost instant, with stories about firing squads and mass rapes suddenly surfacing. The general (public) consensus was that Castro had double-crossed America, using the U.S. for aid and support until he could declare for the USSR.

The real story is probably closer to Expat's explanation.

Actually, it probably has more to do with the legendary incompetence of the American media in accurately reporting foreign affairs. US international reporting has always been abysmal, driven more by domestic politics being the lens that interprets events in foreign countries rather than understanding the local conditions and context. Very few international correspondents know the local history. The few that do are priceless, but they're too busy learning the foreign culture and personalities than hobnobbing with the publishers and editors, so they are less published in the top magazines and newspapers than the blowhards.

If you read the actual history of the Cuban Revolution and the timeline of 1959-1960, it is very obvious Castro always intended to create a Communist dictatorship.
 
Also, what would Cuba look like if the US had intervened?

If the US overthrew Castro early on, Cuba would probably be between the level of Portugal or Spain ($20-30k per capita) and the lower level of the G7 like Italy or UK ($35-40k per capita). Cuba had a richer economy than Spain and Portugal in the 1950s. Combined with massive US investment, Cuba would develop quite well. Spain and Portugal would be laggards until they joined the EU (then the EEC) in 1986, after which they started receiving large EU subsidies to modernize their economies. So depending on how one envisions the specifics, Cuba is more or less at their level although I'd expect Cuba to have done substantially better - the per capita income might be 10-50% more.

It would be a stable democracy, and probably the leading country in Latin America in terms of development. The US would likely have ceded Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba decades ago.
 
If the US overthrew Castro early on, Cuba would probably be between the level of Portugal or Spain ($20-30k per capita) and the lower level of the G7 like Italy or UK ($35-40k per capita). Cuba had a richer economy than Spain and Portugal in the 1950s. Combined with massive US investment, Cuba would develop quite well. Spain and Portugal would be laggards until they joined the EU (then the EEC) in 1986, after which they started receiving large EU subsidies to modernize their economies. So depending on how one envisions the specifics, Cuba is more or less at their level although I'd expect Cuba to have done substantially better - the per capita income might be 10-50% more.

It would be a stable democracy, and probably the leading country in Latin America in terms of development. The US would likely have ceded Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba decades ago.

Or more of the same, high level of inegalities, etc - it is days of hard anti-communism, and even social-democratic 'weaksauce' bouts would have been judged suspects. A pet autocratic leader, repressed movements of poors and landless by example, etc... Like other rightwing Latinamerica places.

just less... evident than Batista. As long a line is not crossed..
 
If the US overthrew Castro early on, Cuba would probably be between the level of Portugal or Spain ($20-30k per capita) and the lower level of the G7 like Italy or UK ($35-40k per capita). Cuba had a richer economy than Spain and Portugal in the 1950s. Combined with massive US investment, Cuba would develop quite well. Spain and Portugal would be laggards until they joined the EU (then the EEC) in 1986, after which they started receiving large EU subsidies to modernize their economies. So depending on how one envisions the specifics, Cuba is more or less at their level although I'd expect Cuba to have done substantially better - the per capita income might be 10-50% more.

It would be a stable democracy, and probably the leading country in Latin America in terms of development. The US would likely have ceded Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba decades ago.

That might be a bit optimistic. I'd expect Cuba to have the same GDP per capita as it does now, maybe a little higher ($11-$15k). It just wouldn't have the crazy repression that it has now.
 

Jbenuniv

Banned
That might be a bit optimistic. I'd expect Cuba to have the same GDP per capita as it does now, maybe a little higher ($11-$15k). It just wouldn't have the crazy repression that it has now.

That's a bit too pessimistic. Cuba's growth has been hampered because it's largest natural trading partner, the US, has been off limits to it for 50+ years. I'd say we're looking at a significant increase in GDP per capita in any situation which sees Castro removed early.
 
That might be a bit optimistic. I'd expect Cuba to have the same GDP per capita as it does now, maybe a little higher ($11-$15k). It just wouldn't have the crazy repression that it has now.

Yeah, the sugar market's collapsing whether they're communist or not. Unless the entire island's cane crop is bought by Coca-Cola and the US never loses cane sugar coke. But that's probably also too utopian a scenario.:D
 
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