US-Cuba Relations, U.S.-Cuba Relations Quotes

In terms of the nature of the continuation of the Cold War, which has gone on so long between Cuba and the United States, I applaud the president for aggressively trying to end it and I hope we will have not only full diplomatic relations, but that the trade embargo will end.

Direct aggression against Cuba would mean nuclear war. The Americans speak about such aggression as if they did not know or did not want to accept this fact. I have no doubt they would lose such a war.

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

I think a policy of isolationism toward Cuba is misplaced and hasn't worked.

You Americans keep saying that Cuba is ninety miles from the United States. I say that the United States is ninety miles from Cuba and for us, that is worse.

In 1962, President Kennedy expanded an earlier trade embargo put in place by a predecessor, President Eisenhower, to a total economic blockade, which pushed the Cubans further in Moscow's direction.

In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he was about to begin a huge military buildup - reluctantly, or so he said, as he puffed on a cigar liberated by a friend from Castro's Cuba.

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.

Hostility toward Iran may not be the silliest of all American foreign policies - that would probably be the continuing trade embargo of Cuba - but it is undoubtedly the most self-defeating.

You don’t have a democracy. Most Americans want good relations with Cuba, but a few thousand Cuban-American right-wingers control U.S. policy and make everything between us bad.

[The Cuban embargo is:] … not just a policy tool [but] a moral statement.

Maybe if you had printed more about the [Bay of Pigs] operation, you would have saved us from a colossal mistake.

[Fidel] Castro was gifted leader who engineered social improvements that benefitted most Cubans, a statesman who placed Cuba at the center of world politics, and a masterful tactician who outlasted ten hostile U. S. Presidents…

Exploring Castro's pawns in Cuba and exposing anything negative also makes you a pawn to all his enemies 90 miles away. Both sides don't have much of a track record for nuance of opinion.

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

The U.S. is re-establishing relations with Cuba. But before President Obama can lift the embargo, it will need approval from the Republican-controlled Congress - or as Republicans who called Obama said, 'Close, but no cigar.'

The annexation of Cuba to our federal republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself.

The CIA's official history of the Bay of Pigs operation is filled with dramatic and harrowing details that not only lay bare the strategic, logistical, and political problems that doomed the invasion, but also how the still-green President John F. Kennedy scrambled to keep the U.S. from entering into a full conflict with Cuba.

The Castro regime is a thorn in the flesh, but it is not a dagger in the heart.... I have no evidence that the Cuban people are able and willing at this time to assist any invasion from the outside.

One of the most depressing things about President Donald Trump's decision to roll back elements of the Cuba opening is how predictable it was.

Our Cuba policy was a major obstacle to getting things done in the hemisphere and a source of tension around the world.

In 1995, the Clinton Administration reached an agreement with Cuban government that any refugee caught at sea would be sent back to Cuba while any refugee who reaches the United States shores would be allowed to begin the process to citizenship after one year.

It’s about time we talked to Cuba instead of fighting a war that is 40 years old.

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.

In 1958, I was shooting a movie in Florida, and I decided to go to Havana, Cuba, to see what it was like.