A thorough and well-documented analysis by Paterson (History/U of
Connecticut) of how Castro came to power in Cuba and why the United
States failed to stop him. Drawing on U.S., Canadian, and British
records, as well as considerable research in private American
archives, Paterson launches an unqualified assault on the notion
that Fidel Castro was a Communist prior to his accession to power:
"That Castro later - after victory and repeated crises with the
United States - declared himself a Communist cannot erase the
pre-1959 record of minimal contact" between the Cuban Communist
Party and Castro's movement. Indeed he argues that Castro's
movement "actually distrusted the Communists because of their
one-time sordid alliance with Fulgencio Batista." Nor, he notes,
was the State Department neglectful of the possibility that Castro
might be hiding Communist sympathies. On the contrary, they
repeatedly looked into the matter, and the failure of the United
States to act more decisively against Castro was in part a
reflection of the failure to find any connection between him and
the Communist Party or the Soviet Union. A variety of American
officials found in him, rather, "gargantuan ambitions,
authoritarian tendencies, and not much in the way of an ideology of
his own." Paterson believes that the United States showed "a deadly
combination" of "ignorance and arrogance" in dealing with the
situation and that its failure to show an evenhanded approach to
the civil war in Cuba further stimulated Castro's already lively
anti-Americanism. Paterson says that there have been three views of
Castro: that he was a "power hungry manipulator," a "supremely
pragmatic politician," or, most charitably, that he was a leader in
training, feeling his way to a world view. Favoring no one theory,
Paterson does show how skillfully Castro maneuvered to achieve his
objectives. Paterson does not approach this matter without his own
biases (against "right-wing ideologues" and officials "fixated on
the Communist issue"), nor did he have access to the Cuban or the
Soviet archives; but this is a careful, well-constructed,
well-argued, and essential source. (Kirkus Reviews)
Paterson tells the fascinating story of the love-hate relationship that has grown between Cuba and the USA, from Castro's early fund-raising tours in the USA to support his revolution to Eisenhower's failed efforts to maintain support for Batista.
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