Place Against Cuba As Fidel Castro example essay topic

In the early 1900's, Cuba was a stomping ground for many of the rich and famous from the United States. Many famous movies stars and wealthy business entrepreneurs spend their vacations there along with a substantial amount of money. Trade and commerce between the United States and Cuba flowed freely and abundantly. Even with the Dictatorship-like regime of Batista, the countries benefited from the economic trade between them. This was all about to come crashing down as revolts against Batista occurred and Fidel Castro came to power within Cuba. It was after Castro took power that the United States changed its way in which it dealt with Cuba dramatically.

The United States decided it would place major sanctions against Cuba and would try to cut Castro off of dealing with not only the United States, but any other country the US dealt with as well. It was during this time that the Cold War was in its adolescence stage and the United States was doing everything in its power to make sure that smaller, third world countries did not become communist or even associate themselves with the Soviet Union in any way. One of the reasons sanctions were placed against Cuba was that during the revolution against Batista, research was done into Castro's background and it was shown that two of his lieutenants; Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Fidel's brother Raul, were said to be communists. The research also led one to believe that even though Castro might not be a Marxist-Leninist, he was a Soviet sympathizer.

After more in-depth research into Castro's background, it was shown that he had no ties in any way to the Communist nor did he even have much sympathy for it. These sanctions were put into place against Cuba as Fidel Castro came into power in 1959 and have not seen any real changes up to the present time. The reason the United States implemented these sanctions against Cuba were for a couple of reasons. One was because of the research that showed Fidel Castro had leanings toward communism. Another reason behind the sanctions was because of how Castro was handling himself as the new leader of Cuba. As he came into power, the country was well off compared to other third world nations but the people were living near poverty level and the country was facing major economic problems.

The peso was dropping in value like a rock and other countries, mainly the United States, were demanding monetary compensation for the property that its citizen's owned but were appropriated by the Cuban government for its own citizens. These problems along with the GNP of the country also dropping substantially caused Castro to start to look at how Communism might be able to help him out of these troubles. The United States did not just put sanctions on Cuba after Castro came to power but also was trying to exert it's power over the country when Batista was in power. The US wanted Batista to give up his leadership of the country so a new government could take over but the State Department was unsure how to go about accomplishing this since there wasn't enough information to show what group could lead the Cuban people. These decisions that were made follow, albeit loosely, along the line of two decision models we have studied: the Presidential model and the Administrative Model. When the revolution in Cuba started, Dwight Eisenhower took the lead in telling his advisors what he wanted done.

First off, arms were given to Batista's militia through Eisenhower's orders and then after Batista turned them upon his own countrymen, it was Eisenhower's decision to place arms sanctions against them. This meant that they would not be sent anymore of the US's artillery. The President only made decisions when there was a heightened awareness of what was going on in Cuba and it affected the US in some way. Another time this model was shown was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy took matters into his own hands when it was discovered in 1962 that Soviet missiles were being constructed in Cuba. He had his closest advisors, those that are not involved in the political model, figure out what to do and then announced the discovery to the world.

He handled the crisis without outside help and made all the decisions himself (with the input of his advisors). The other model used in dealing with Cuba is the administrative model. In the Administrative model, it is the bureaucracy that makes the decisions with just the president as the ratifier of what was decided. Ways in which this was done was through the research into Fidel Castro's background when it was show he was a communist sympathizer and when the United States was trying to figure out how to handle the revolution against Batista. Groups within the US government set up shop and did their own independent research into ways to solve the problems that they had to deal with.

One way this is shown is by the Bay of Pigs Invasion. A group (Central Intelligence Agency) decided the best way to get rid of Castro was have Cuban exiles do their dirty work. This idea was given to the President and he agreed with it and it was implemented without the knowledge of congress or any other government agency. These models do not have many "inputs" that we have looked at but there were a few groups that tried to influence decision making.

Some of the groups that tried to influence the decision making process were big businesses that had buildings and a workforce in place in Cuba. One of these was the casino, gaming industry. Casinos were a popular nightspot for well-to-do Americans when they visited Cuba and very profitable for the casinos. After the casinos were nationalized by the government, the businesses wanted the US to do something to help them recover the monetary losses they incurred.

Another group that tried to exert their influence on the decision making were Cuban exiles that wanted to see their homeland go back to being a country that was starting to break out of being a third world country. These were usually affluent Cubans; doctors, lawyers, writers, and politicians that were exiled for one reason or another by the government in place. In practice, the sanctions the US has placed on Cuba has had an effect on the country. Whether it is the desired effect or not remains to be seen. The country is in disarray to this day and the monetary help that flowed into the country from the Soviet Union is almost non-existent.

Even though there is still a high level of poverty in Cuba, it has not affected how the average layperson thinks about Castro. He is still well-liked among the working class and the prevailing mindset is only starting to think that, maybe, Castro has done more harm than good. This attitude is coming from the younger generation in Cuba that only sees poverty and what they could achieve with help from the US. The sanctions placed on Cuba are not as stringently guarded as they were when first implemented. In today's society, many US businessmen bypass the sanctions placed on Cuba by traveling to another country first and then into Cuba to entertain business ventures and find quality cigars. It could be said that the goals of the sanctions were met, since Castro's regime is slowly dying, but this was not due to the sanctions themselves but instead to the lack of monetary income from the Soviet Union.

Bibliography

Dominguez, Jorge L. "Cuba; Internal and International Affairs" Sage Publications, 1982.
Foner, Philip S. "History of Cuba and Its Relations With the United States Volumes I" International Publishers, 1962.
Foner, Philip S. "History of Cuba and Its Relations With the United States Volumes II" International Publishers, 1963.
Perez, Louis A. Jr. "Intervention, Revolution, and Politics in Cuba 1913-1921" University of Pittsburgh Press, 1978.
Plank, John. "Cuba and the United States; Long-Range Perspectives" The Brookings Institution, 1967.
Smith, Wayne S. "The Closest of Enemies" W.W. Norton & Company, 1987.