Latin America
Ninety Miles and Counting
America’s maximum pressure campaign against Cuba has achieved something remarkable: it has made the island’s misery someone else’s problem.
Read more →Cuba: U.S. Department of State Pamphlet, April 1961
Released two weeks before the Bay of Pigs invasion, the April 1961 U.S. State Department ‘White Paper’ outlined the official case against Fidel Castro, arguing that he betrayed the 1959 revolution’s democratic goals, aligned Cuba with the Sino-Soviet bloc, and sought to subvert neighboring Latin American democracies. Originally drafted by the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, the 36-page document was extensively revised in the White House by presidential aides Arthur Schlesinger and Richard Goodwin.
Read more →Indictment as Stagecraft: Washington's Move on Raúl Castro
A federal indictment of Cuba’s 94-year-old former president lands on the anniversary of the end of US military occupation. It is both a real symbolic blow to the Cuban regime and a piece of carefully staged political theater. Reading the difference matters for assessing what comes next.
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