Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution - Softcover

Paterson, Thomas G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195101200 ISBN 13: 9780195101201

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Today they stand as enemies, but in the 1950s, few countries were as closely intertwined as Cuba and the United States. Thousands of Americans (including Ernest Hemingway and Errol Flynn) lived on the island, and, in the United States, dancehalls swayed to the mambo beat. The strong-arm Batista regime depended on Washington's support, and it invited American gangsters like Meyer Lansky to build fancy casinos for U.S. tourists. Major league scouts searched for Cuban talent: The New York Giants even offered a contract to a young pitcher named Fidel Castro. In 1955, Castro did come to the United States, but not for baseball: He toured the country to raise money for a revolution.
Thomas Paterson tells the fascinating story of Castro's insurrection, from that early fund-raising trip to Batista's fall and the flowering of the Cuban Revolution that has bedeviled the United States for more than three decades. With evocative prose and a swift-moving narrative, Paterson recreates the love-hate relationship between the two nations, then traces the intrigue of the insurgency, the unfolding revolution, and the sources of the Bay of Pigs invasion, CIA assassination plots, and the missile crisis. The drama ranges from the casino blackjack tables to Miami streets; from the Eisenhower and Kennedy White Houses to the crowded deck of the Granma, the frail boat that carried the Fidelistas to Cuba from Mexico; from Batista's fortified palace to mountain hideouts where Rau'l Castro held American hostages. Drawing upon impressive international research, including declassified CIA documents and interviews, Paterson reveals how Washington, fixed on the issue of Communism, failed to grasp the widespread disaffection from Batista. The Eisenhower administration alienated Cubans by supplying arms to a hated regime, by sustaining Cuba's economic dependence, and by conspicuously backing Batista. As Batista self-destructed, U.S. officials launched third-force conspiracies in a vain attempt to block Castro's victory. By the time the defiant revolutionary leader entered Havana in early 1959, the foundation of the long, bitter hostility between Cuba and the United States had been firmly laid.
Since the end of the Cold War, the futures of Communist Cuba and Fidel Castro have become clouded. Paterson's gripping and timely account explores the origins of America's troubled relationship with its island neighbor, explains what went wrong and how the United States "let this one get away," and suggests paths to the future as the Clinton administration inches toward less hostile relations with a changing Cuba.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas G. Paterson is Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including On Every Front: The Making and Unmaking of the Cold War, Kennedy's Quest for Victory, and the popular textbook A People and a Nation.

Review

"Succeeds admirably...in telling a story that is crucial to understanding the frigid standoff that has defined relations between the United States and Cuba for the last 30 years."--New York Times Book Review

"Well-written [and] soundly documented....Riveting."--George McGovern

"Well-told, insightful look at U.S. relations with Castro--private and public--up to triumphs of Revolution."--Max Friedman, University of Colorado

"His research in American and English-language sources is exemplary....Paterson is at his best in delineating the complicated processes by which American policy was formed and in tracing the events that led inexorably to the failure of that policy."--The Journal of American History

"An engaging, lively, well-written account of U.S.-Cuban relations in the broadest sense, between 1956-59. Brings together a lot of disparate and interesting information. A good overview."--Professor Richard J. Walter, Washington University

"[A] well-constructed, persuasively written, and richly detailed account of two governments and political cultures from the early 1950s until the victory of Fidel Castro's guerrilla forces in 1959."--The Americas

"[A]ccess to previously classified information (patchy though this may be at times) has enabled Professor Paterson to write incomparably the best account of why the United States was unable to respond to the Cuban challenge except negatively, and thus came to be saddled with its most intractable foreign policy problem....[S]uperb, thorough and judicious study."--International Affairs

"[C]omprehensive, masterful diplomatic history"--Florida Historical Quarterly

"He succeeds admirably...in telling a story that is crucial to understanding the frigid 'standoff' between the two countries."--The New York Times Book Review

"Thomas Paterson's fine new book takes us back to the beginning, when Cuba, under Batista behaved as a good little semicolony should, and all was more or less right with the world. Paterson then reconstructs the twists and turns in U.S. policy from 1956 to 1959 and concludes with a terse summary chapter covering the period from 1960 to the present....Contesting Castro is the best available account of U.S. policy toward the Cuban revolution."--American Quarterly

"[A] judicious and thoughtful book....Paterson...makes good use of now-declassified U.S. State Department documents; he supplements them with interviews, exchanges of correspondence and documents from other archives. For the most part, the story is already familiar, but Paterson gives it flesh and blood and the necessary detail missing from previous works....[F]ast-moving and engaging."--The Miami Herald

"A well-written diplomatic history of U.S.-Cuba relations from the Batista era to the triumph of Castro's revolution."--The Texas Observer

"A thorough and well-documented analysis by Paterson of how Castro came to power in Cuba and why the United States failed to stop him....This is a careful, well-constructed, well-argued, and essential source."--Kirkus Reviews

"What distinguishes Paterson's book from a plethora of recent works on Castro and Cuba is its reexamination of the role of the United States in how Castro came to power. Using thorough documentation, much of it obtained from Freedom of Information Act requests, the author explores the Cuban revolutionaries' perceptions of the United States and U.S. officials' views of Castro....Highly recommended."--Library Journal

"This well-written, soundly documented narrative--characteristic of Professor Paterson's work--describes in full 'a deadly combination of U.S. ignorance and arrogance' that has characterized American policy toward Cuba and Fidel Castro since the 1950s.
As one who has long believed that America's Cuba policy could scarcely have been more ill-informed and self-defeating from Eisenhower and Kennedy to the present day, I urge all American patriots to read this riveting, realistic account. Professor Paterson tells the truth about one of the most embarrassing and costly chapters in U.S. diplomatic history."--former Senator George McGovern

"A magnificent study. Paterson has made an important contribution to the understanding of an important period in Cuba-U.S. relations. The book is especially timely, and required reading for all who contemplace the past and the future of Cuba-U.S. relations."--Louis A. Perez, Jr., author of Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy

"Central questions of U.S. foreign policy--how and why does the United States define and react to revolutionary upheavals--are explored in Contesting Castro by one of our most highly respected and widely read diplomatic historians. Paterson asks the specific questions: what can we learn from Fidel Castro's astonishing rise to power in a country long known as an informal U.S. colony? Paterson answers in a book that will become standard on the subject, a book--based largely on previously classified sources--that demonstrates a sure grasp on this fascinating, instructive story."--Walter LaFeber, author of Inevitable Revolutions: The U.S. in Central America

"[A] well-documented study."--Publishers Weekly

"Meticulously researched and well-argued....Fresh and invaluable insights....An exceptional work that deserves to be widely read and distributed."--Canadian Journal of History

"[A] long anticipated and highly instructive examination of Castro's rise to power in 1959. Paterson demonstrates that U.S. policy toward Cuba reflected the pathologies that, by contaminating much of the globe's periphery, poorly served America's national intereest. It supersedes popular and scholarly accounts and will remain the standard for years to come. Paterson brings to the study his wide-ranging expertise in the history of U.S. foreign relations, analyzes Cuban dynamics and actors as well as American, and writes in careful and lively prose. Paterson's research is likewise outstanding."--Richard H. Immerman, American Historical Review

"[A] meticulously researched and well-argued study. One of the strong points of Paterson's book is his use of previously unknown documentation. Fresh and invaluable insights are shared by Paterson into the way in which U.S. policy-makers sought desperately to stop Fidel Castro's taking power. An exceptional work that deserves to be widely read."--John M. Kirk, Canadian Journal of History

"Will remain the standard for years to come. This is because Paterson brings to the study his wide-ranging expertise in the history of U.S. foreign relations, analyzed Cuban dynamics and actors as well as American, and writes in careful and lively prose."--Richard H. Immerman, American Historical Review

"This book enlightens and is a pleasure to read at the same time."--Charles D. Ameringer, Pacific Historical Review

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0195101200
• ISBN 13: 9780195101201
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384