Past & Present

The 1950s was the decade in which the U.S. stepped into the role of world superpower, and learned the hard way the limits of that power. The hot wars within the Cold War taught such lessons, but so too did the Cuban Revolution. It was this week that Fidel Castro and his guerrillas traveled triumphantly from their original base in the east of Cuba to Havana. The victory was triggered by the decision to flee by the dicatator Fulgencio Batista, who had recently lost the support by the U.S.

 Admirably but not surprisingly, the Miami Herald  is doing a deep examination of Cuba and the history of this revolution. Here is how they paint the moment of triumph in one of their stories:

At 12:35 a.m., Batista quit. At dawn, a plane with 44 people aboard, including Batista, took off for the Dominican Republic, triggering a mad scramble in Havana. Batista’s allies fled by plane or yacht as the news spread by shortwave radio. They were in mortal danger, and they knew it.

The fact the U.S. failed in its overt attempt at overthrow at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and then failed for decades after to topple Castro, highlighted the obstacles in fighting the Cold War. Castro’s own failures to bring an open society and political system is also ironic, given his pronouncements against Batista’s tyranny before the revolution. But Castro’s social reforms were significant and a revolution-sized improvement over life under Batista and colonizers before. That’s the side of Castro you won’t hear much about in the U.S., given that we still wage an impotent information war against him now 50s years on.

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