FIDEL CASTRO
(Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz)
During the Cuban Missle Crises, Fidel Castro recommended that the Russians use the nuclear weaponin based in Cuba which would have assured that all Cubans and many Russians would die with the American retaliation.
This quotation was used by the Goldwater campaign in 1964 to make the point that Fidel Castro was an evil and that the Democrats had not done anything about him. Four decades later Castro was still in place but neither party would chastise the other on this issue since both had their chance and neither succeeded.
The Bay of Pigs
This was the first American initiative for the assassination of Fidel Castro.
The CIA had attempted to employ the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro, the strongman of Cuba, and Castro found out about it. He then warned that U. S. leaders could be assassinated in retaliation. Although LBJ appointed the Warren Commission to investigate the JFK assassination and the commission concluded that Castro and Cuba had nothing to do with it—Oswald was a gunman acting alone. Johnson privately never believed that but only confided his believes to his closest confidants lest there would be public pressure to retaliate against Cuba and Johnson had no hard proof—just a suspicion.
A major fan base for the Miami teams were Cuban Americans who react badly to any statement that could be favorable to Fidel Castro. This quotation is an example of a grey and evolving area in American law—the political freedom of speech rights of employees of employees of private corporations. See {627664} for his later statement.
Fidel Castro polarized Cubans. Most loved him as a leader and accepted his left wing, communist policies. Many opposed him and have feared any leftward government policies and practices.
This advice made Kennedy more amenable to the Central Intelligence Agency plan and recommendation later for the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba. Eisenhower was not endorsing the Cia plan for the Bay of Pigs—just opining on the desirability of overthrowing the Castro government.
In April of 1962, President Kennedy convened a meeting of top advisors at the State Department to discuss the proposed CIA plan for the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The senator was the lone dissenter from the plan:
Johnson tasked Clark with finding out what the FBI knew of this story. The story was true. Worse, the CIA had hired members of the Mafia to do the assassination. (The Mafia resented Castro as he ended the Gambling Mecca that Cuba had been when his revolution succeeded. Before the Castro revolution, he Mafia got a “piece” of the profits from each Cuban casino for “protection.”) It might have been that the Kennedy Assassination was retaliation by Castro. However, the CIA withheld this from the Warren Commission and Robert Kennedy never revealed it even though he was a member of the Commission and the Commission had security clearance. See {637465}.
See {637464} for the trigger for the FBI to write this report. It was the report that verified that the CIA had hired the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro which President Johnson had heard but the CIA never revealed it to Johnson or the Warren Commission investigations JFK’s assassination. The full document was kept secret and was not yet declassified in 2014 when this quotation was entered in the collection.
26 years after the Castro led Cuban Revolution Although the Cuban economy tanked under Castro’s communism, the progress in health, nutrition and education were amazing—the greatest progress in the least time that occurred in history except for the possible exception of Israel. Castro, however, accomplished these achievements trampling over people’s individual rights. If a Cuban was literate, it mattered not whether he/she wanted to teach others. This was a requirement with no pay provided.
Oswald was the assassin of President John F. Kennedy.
It was later disclosed that some in the CIA had, working with some Cuban exiles, arranged with American organized crime for them to assassinate Fidel Castro. They failed, and the CIA then tried to cover up the truth. They even lied to the Warren Commission investigating John F. Kennedy’s murder. See {642341}.
Cuba was not Communist under Castro in the Russian style of Communism. However, Castro operated Cuba with many of the key Marxist & Leninist Communist Principles {636672} (some of which the Russians were hypocritical about). Cuba was very much a Marxist, Socialistic State with few of the democratic reforms that characterized European Socialism. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian Communist aid propped up the Cuban economy, and that was another motivation for Castro not to criticize Russian Communism so he often appeared to be in agreement with Russian Communism even when he wasn't.
And as the leader of the exploited, after his revolution he became a dictator himself, albeit a very popular one amongst most Cubans.
In his early days as a revolutionary he was tried and jailed for an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Batista dictatorship of Cuba:
- Born: August 13, 1926
- Died: November 25, 2016
- Nationality: American
- Profession: List Awards
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz better known internationally as Fidel Castro, was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
