The action by President Obama to move toward the normalization of US-Cuba relations is long overdue. The US ruptured ties with Cuba in early January 1961, under President Eisenhower, not only in the context of the cold war with communism and the Soviet Union but in the run-up to the Bay of Pigs invasion. That invasion, by anti-Castro Cuban exiles armed, equipped, organized, trained and financed by the US government (i.e., the CIA and Pentagon), had been approved in principle by Eisenhower in March 1960 but was carried out under the new president, John F. Kennedy, in April 1961.
That operation failed disastrously; and contrary to claims by some, it’s far from likely it would have succeeded had JFK ordered direct air support which he refused to do. Castro’s armed forces and militia far outnumbered the invaders.
