John F. Kennedy's Cuba Policy. From the Bay of Pigs to the Missile Crisis

This book analyzes the U.S. policy toward Cuba adopted by President Kennedy and executed during the two first years of his presidential period (1961-1962). Based on governmental sources, as well as other sources from both the U.S. and Cuba, it is stressed that the Kennedy administration inherited the hostile U.S. Cuban policy from the Eisenhower administration and that this manifested itself in the failed U.S. supported invasion at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. It is shown that after the Bay of Pigs different plans towards Cuba were elaborated within the diplomatic, economic, subversive and military fields, for instance Operation Mongoose, that planned for a direct U.S. military invasion of Cuba in the fall of 1962. It is emphasized that these plans had the same agenda, namely, to overthrow the Cuban Revolution, but that they had different mechanisms that implied a dangerous escalation of the problematic relationship between the two nations. It is shown that the Cuban leadership needed to defend the revolution and the independence of Cuba in the face of these aggressions, and how this led to tighter bands with the USSR. The Cuban leaders accepted the USSR proposal to install nuclear weapons in Cuba, and this led to the Missile Crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in October 1962. Thus, the book describes the hostile and aggressive policy towards Cuba that was the hallmark of the Kennedy administration's first two years. Furthermore this book is unique since it is written from a Cuban perspective that will complement and enrich the knowledge of the U.S.-Cuban relationship during the beginning of the 1960s.