How Did The Cold War Affect The Bay Of Pigs

Blanca Lopez
Professor Joan Conrad
English 102
2 may, 2015 The Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis happened during the Cold War. This was a tense event following World War II. This almost caused Russia and US to be involved in a nuclear war. Another symbol of the Cold War was the Iron Curtain which divided the Soviet Union after World War II from Europe by the Berlin Wall. Soviet Union built this this wall to prevent people from leaving the Soviet Union and prevent interaction with Europe. People were segregated from the rest of the world. This tension between the United States and Russia caused the expansion of the Cold War through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, and the Berlin Wall.
The Cuban Missile Crisis impacted the already rising conflicts between the two nations.
This is proven in the article as the root of the conflict when stating, "The roots of this conflict lay in long-standing Soviet and U.S. antagonism and insecurities. Therefore conflicts such as antagonism lead fear in Americans. For example, insecurities caused for this crisis to be such a strong turning point in history. This article also mentioned another crucial event that lead to the threat of nuclear war." If Cuba should "become an offensive military base of significant capacity for the Soviet Union..." (The Cuban Missile Crisis 16).
The Cuban Revolution was the background for the crisis in 1959. A Marxist regime in Cuba had seemed unlikely to the Communist party in Cuba because Fidel Castro seemed irresponsible and stubbornly conformist. In 1943, President Bautista appointed a communist to his cabinet, but loyalty transferred gradually to Castro completely by
1958.
Most Cubans idolized Castro, supporting his government and at least following his rules. To get elected, he had said he would help the poor, and when he was elected said he found it impossible to follow his own words and became a dictator. His first actions in power was to reduce all rents on the islands of Cuba making the land owners, many of who were Americans, unhappy. In 1960 Castro started pushing Cuba to the left, and as a result many Cubans left along with the American investors. In December 1958, Castro showed himself as a Marxist and told his people he is a revolutionary, studying Das Capital, by Karl Marx.
In the beginning Castro improved life in Cuba with communism: he managed to solve the problem of unemployment, put in place public schools, provided free medical services, almost completely got rid of malaria and polio which had been very common in Cuba. Despite all this great outcome, the effect of the revolution on America left the U.S. sour toward Cuba. (Castro Fidel).
Americans lost position of the benefits the revolution had bought to Cuba and concentrated on being angry with Cuba for stealing American properties. The revolution has severed connections between U.S and Cuba which led to the Bay of Pigs invasion later on.
In 1960 the US trained and armed Cuban exiles in which U.S thought will be a win invasion. The refugees were expected to pull support from the island, and back at the time Fidel Castro was not popular and inefficient, unstable government would failure almost instantly however, the Americans never thought the failure of the invasion will be a failed. Castro was much more popular than the CIA had thought, and an army American sponsored attack would actually anger most Cubans, at the same time improving the position of the leader, Castro. Even anti-Castro habanero's in Cuba would defend Cuba out of nationalistic pride. This, the Americans had all misjudged. The Bay of Pigs Invasion created tension by the President Eisenhower, but John. F. Kennedy approved the CIA planned a head soon after taking control. The thought of Fidel Castro becoming communism worried Kennedy, (Conspiracy theories in American History)
Fidel had learnt from the invasion at 3:15am that day and prepared an army and rounded up CIA agents and reporters. By the next day, the invasion was a totally failed the crew begged with Kennedy for in-flight support but he declined. The loss of the Americans came on the 19th, with 1,100 prisoners left in Cuba. The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failure. Fidel retained support of the people and Khrushchev though Kennedy was imprudent and immature for a disorganized invasion, the Soviet leader believed him weak for not succeeding to finish the invasion. Kennedy was self-conscious at such a loss he worried that Khrushchev thought he was immature. If he thought this then Russia might become hostile and possibly end up at war. Kenned appear to be strong but also maintain an distant political stance, however, Castro's continued success could only weaken the New Frontier. (The Cuban Missile Crisis).

The US's anticommunist committee was worried about communism Kennedy said, "Our objection isn't to the Cuban Revolution; it is to the fact that Castro has turned it over to the communists."(One step from the Nuclear War). Americas would never accept communism, they believe being democratic. They knew what happened in Russia earlier, and the success communism had there and now this just added more tension. Dealing with Russia as communist government was hard, Americans could not imagine two communist governments. This situation