Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseCuba is a large island only about 145 kilometres (90 miles) from Florida. For years it had been close to the USA. American companies owned much of its sugar land, its oil refineries, its mines and its telephone and electricity networks. The USA bought most of Cuba's sugar, the island's main export, and had a naval base at Guantánamo Bay.
Cuba's ruler from 1952 was Fulgencio Batista, a corrupt and brutal dictator. The USA supported him because he was anti-Communist and friendly to American business. Most Cubans stayed poor. After a guerrilla war (hit-and-run fighting by small bands of rebels) lasting more than two years, a young lawyer called Fidel Castro and his rebels forced Batista to flee on 1 January 1959. Castro took power.
Castro was a nationalist who wanted Cuba to be free of American control. At first he was not openly a Communist. But the USA now had a revolutionary government on its doorstep, inside what it saw as its own sphere of influence.
Key terms:
Between 1959 and 1961 each side's actions pushed the other further away. It is worth learning this chain, because each step caused the next.
The result was the opposite of what the USA wanted. American pressure was meant to bring Castro into line. Instead, with his main market closed, he depended on the Soviet Union for trade, oil and, before long, weapons. For Khrushchev this was a prize: a friendly state right next to the USA, won without firing a shot.
In March 1960 Eisenhower approved a secret CIA plan to remove Castro. At camps in Guatemala, the CIA trained Cuban exiles who had fled the revolution. They would land in Cuba and, the CIA hoped, set off a popular rising against Castro. Because the invaders were Cubans, the USA could deny it was involved.
Kennedy became President in January 1961 and let the plan go ahead.
The plan was no secret: Castro expected an attack and was ready. The CIA was wrong about a rising, because Castro was popular with most Cubans. Kennedy refused to let American forces join the fighting openly to rescue the invasion. The exiles were heavily outnumbered and had nowhere to retreat to.
Kennedy was humiliated, and the USA was shown to have attacked a small neighbour. Castro was a hero at home and stronger than ever. In December 1961 he declared himself a Marxist-Leninist, in other words a Communist. Sure that the USA would try again, he asked the Soviet Union for weapons to defend Cuba.
Castro's fear was reasonable. Kennedy approved Operation Mongoose in November 1961, a programme of sabotage and plots against Castro's government. In February 1962 the USA widened the embargo to cover almost all trade with Cuba. The prisoners from the Bay of Pigs were only freed in December 1962, in return for 53 million dollars of food and medicine.
In May 1962 Khrushchev decided to place Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba in secret, and Castro agreed. Historians point to several reasons.
Remember the missile gap: in truth the USA was well ahead in long-range missiles. It also had Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and in Turkey, which bordered the Soviet Union. Medium-range missiles on Cuba could reach Washington and other American cities in minutes. This was a quick, cheap way to catch up.
After the Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose, both Castro and Khrushchev expected a full American invasion. Losing the only Communist state in the Americas would be a great blow to Soviet prestige. Nuclear missiles would make an invasion far too dangerous for the USA to risk.
The Bay of Pigs, the Vienna meeting and the Berlin Wall had persuaded Khrushchev that Kennedy was weak and would back down. Missiles on Cuba could also be used to bargain with, for example over Berlin or the American missiles in Turkey.
From the summer of 1962 Soviet ships carried missiles, aircraft and about 40,000 troops to Cuba. In September Kennedy warned publicly that the USA would not accept offensive weapons there. The Soviet government replied that the arms it was sending were purely for defence. What happened when the missiles were found is covered in the lesson Thirteen Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis and Its Outcome.
Don't muddle the Bay of Pigs (April 1961) with the Missile Crisis (October 1962): the first is a cause of the second. American soldiers did not land at the Bay of Pigs. The invaders were Cuban exiles, trained and supplied by the CIA. And Castro did not take power as a declared Communist. He moved towards the Soviet Union step by step as relations with the USA broke down.
Explain two effects of the Bay of Pigs invasion on Cuba. [8 marks]
One effect was that Castro's hold on power in Cuba became stronger. About 1,400 CIA-trained exiles landed on 17 April 1961, hoping to set off a rising against him. Instead, Castro's forces of about 20,000 defeated them within three days and captured nearly 1,200. Because he had beaten an invasion backed by the USA, Castro was seen as a hero who had defended Cuba's independence, so the invasion increased his support instead of removing him.
A second effect was that Cuba moved much closer to the Soviet Union. The invasion convinced Castro that the USA would try again to overthrow him, and Operation Mongoose from November 1961 showed he was right. As Cuba could not defend itself alone, he turned to the USSR for protection. In December 1961 he declared himself a Marxist-Leninist and he asked for Soviet weapons. This led him to accept Khrushchev's offer of nuclear missiles in 1962. The invasion therefore pushed Cuba firmly into the Soviet camp.
What lifts this to the top level: each paragraph names one effect, supports it with precise dates and figures, and then shows how the invasion caused it, using words like 'because' and 'therefore'.
The question says effects on Cuba, so write about Castro and Cuba, not about Kennedy's embarrassment. Don't tell the story of the landing: use only the details that prove each effect. Give two clearly separate effects, because one effect alone cannot score more than 4 of the 8 marks. For more help, see the lesson Paper 1 Question (b): Explain Two Effects.