Brendan I. Koerner Quotes

Ten Presidents have tried to do something about Cuba and the statis is quo.

In the 1960s, after the Cuban Revolution, CIA and FBI agents often coordinated their activities with anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

The U.S.S.R. had absolutely nothing to do with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

For the last 60 years, dictator Fidel Castro was America's most persistent adversary. Although Castro formally handed off to his brother, Raul, eight years ago, the communist leader was a symbolic force in Cuba and around the world.

I have very liberal parents. People forget that Fidel Castro was on the cover of 'Time' magazine, and the one that I remember the most - it's not necessarily my favorite - was when they dressed me as Castro when I was eight years old. I was in fatigues, camouflage hat, beard and cigar. I don't think I did that well with candy that year.

If you're setting a game during the Cuban Missile Crisis, look through a library. find out what people were wearing, what other issues were in the news, how houses were furnished, what cars were being driven. Especially include things which now seem foreign.

A great many people simply do not at this moment see that Cuba presents so grave and compelling a threat to our national security as to justify a course of action which much of the world will interpret as calculated aggression against a small nation.

To the developing world, Cuba has been a symbol of sovereignty and resistance and a supporter of revolution - for good or bad. From the Missile Crisis to the anti-apartheid movement, from the Kennedys to Obama era, this small island has put itself at the center of world events.

For a man who likes to talk, Fidel Castro does very few interviews.

The consequence of the Bay of Pigs failure wasn't an acceptance of Castro and his control of Cuba but, rather, a renewed determination to bring him down by stealth.

The Bay of Pigs is one of America's most infamous Cold War blunders, and it has been studied, debated, and dramatized endlessly ever since.

The revolutions of my century, the 20th century - the Soviet revolution, or the Chinese, or the revolutions that were fomented in Latin America, such as in Cuba - failed for the most part, a failure which was completely clear by the end of the century.

From the moment he took office in January of 1961, Kennedy had been eager to settle the Cuban problem without overt military action by the United States.

Our Cuba policy didn't make much sense during the Cold War and makes even less sense now.

Few living figures could contribute as much as Castro to our understanding of the second half of the 20th century.

I spent a great deal of time with Che Guevara while I was in Havana. I believe he was far less a mercenary than he was a freedom fighter.

Despite the President's orders that no American forces be used, the first two people who landed in the Bay of Pigs [in 1961] were Americans. The CIA sent them in.

Thorough consideration should be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro

Everyone knows now that it was Nixon who wanted me liquidated. For a long time, the Americans dreamed of doing to me what they failed to do against Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs incident.

If the CIA did find out what we were doing this would have trickled down to the lower echelon of activists, and Cuban exiles, and the more gung-ho CIA people who had been involved since the Bay of Pigs….I can understand why they would have reacted so violently. This was the end of their dreams of returning to Cuba, and they might have been impelled to take violent action. Such as assassinating the President.

Che Guevara was a racist.

Fidel Castro, whatever people may think of him, is a hero in Latin America, primarily because he stood up to the United States.

For more than fifty years, the United States pursued a policy of isolating and pressuring Cuba. While the policy was rooted in the context of the Cold War, our efforts continued long after the rest of the world had changed.

My grandparents and my mom came from Cuba back in the '60s because they were fleeing from communism and Castro. I wouldn't be here otherwise.

The Elian events were shocking to Cubans because we were the fair-haired boys of the Cold War. The problem is, the Cold War ended.