60 years after the Bay of Pigs invasion, many Cuban Americans' distrust of the Democratic Party...

[DonViejo]

60 years after the Bay of Pigs invasion, many Cuban Americans' distrust of the Democratic Party still affects national politics

By Boris Sanchez, CNN

Updated 7:11 AM ET, Sat April 17, 2021

(CNN) - For many, it is a historical footnote. A bit of trivia from a bygone era. A failed Cold War operation known as one of the biggest blunders in the history of US intelligence operations.

But for those who stormed a small stretch of Cuban coastline on April 17, 1961, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion was a turning point in the fight against an oppressive communist dictatorship -- one that, some argue, still carries an outsized impact on national elections in the United States, even 60 years later.

"Today, we're still hopeful that we can bring freedom to the people in Cuba," said Johnny Lopez de la Cruz, a retired US Army Colonel and president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association. "We cannot really rest until we see that situation taken care of."

Lopez de la Cruz was a teenager during Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution but could almost immediately recognize Cuba was headed for totalitarian dictatorship as Castro revoked property rights, stifled free expression and brutally squashed any form of dissent.

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/17/politics/bay-of-pigs-60th-anniversary-effect-national-elections/index.html

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. No matter the 50 years of oppression and disastrous policy by the repuq party

[48656c6c6f20]

2. It's really no wonder they love repiglicants

Throughout the 1950s, Havana served as "a hedonistic playground for the world's elite", producing sizable gambling, prostitution and drug profits for the American mafia, corrupt law-enforcement officials, and their politically elected cronies

[atreides1]

3. Interesting

Colonel de la Cruz, has forgotten the history of Cuba. Fulgencio Bautista, suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike.

He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. Eventually it reached the point where most of the sugar industry was in U.S. hands, and foreigners owned 70% of the arable land.

As such, Batista's repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with both the American Mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large U.S.-based multinational companies who were awarded lucrative contracts. To quell the growing discontent amongst the populace—which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots and demonstrations—Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while also utilizing his Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities secret police to carry out wide-scale violence, torture and public executions.

These murders mounted in 1957, as socialist ideas became more influential. Many people were killed, with estimates ranging from hundreds to about 20,000 people killed.

Bautista had already done all of the things that de la Cruz accuses Castro of doing...not to mention that Bautista allowed foreigners to own 70% of arable land...

Perhaps it's time that Cuban/Americans learned the real history of Cuba...not the sugar coated version that has been passed down through the generations.

Not saying that Cuba was good under Castro...because for many it wasn't! Much like Russia trading a Romanov Tsar for one named Stalin, Cuba traded one capitalist dictator for a communist dictator...there really weren't any "good old days" , and no real "situation" to take care of!!!

[Budi]

4. K & R This is what's often missed in the telling of Cuba's complicated history

Appreciate your post.

[abqtommy]

6. +100

[elevator]

8. Castro was a pragmatist first and attempted to have relations with the US.

He was rebuffed and turned to support where he could get it. The Soviets were only too happy to oblige. No doubt, he committed human rights abuses and made some poor decisions. But, he also did more for the people of Cuba than any right wing puppet in Latin America ever did for the poor people of their countries. Due to the decades long embargo by the US the Cubans struggled to sustain a middle class, but they turned out Doctors and well-educated professionals at a rate that was incredible. They supplied humanitarian aid to countries all around the globe way out of proportion to their resources. Yes, they were poor, but no one was starving or lacking in education or medical care.

My wife and I visited Cuba a few years ago, because we live in Mexico and their were no restrictions. We were expecting, at least from older Cubans, some resentment of Americans. But, it was quite to the contrary. They were welcoming and understood the difference of what our government had done and the American people. There is music everywhere you go in Cuba and an energy that is contagious. And because of the embargo by the US no new cars entered Cuba after 1960. However the Cubans have kept the old US autos in incredible condition and there are literally hundreds of classic cars all over the cities. I crossed at a traffic light one day and there were three 157 Chevy's lined up at the light.

Castro was also incredibly canny. The CIA and the mafia had tried separately to assassinate him and finally joined forces and made innumerable attempts on his life over many years. Some were bumbling and comical in their tactics. Not many people survive attempts by those two organizations, but he did. Look to JFK as an example.

In the last year prior to his assassination Kennedy had opened secret backchannel
talks with Castro, and Kruschev as well. They helped lead to his death. The best, and most accurate book, regarding these matters is "JFK and the UNSPEAKABLE" by James Douglas.

[rampartc]

12. like most communist revolutions .....

as bad as the communists were, the brutal and corrupt dictators (including the czar) that were replaced were worse.

[edhopper]

5. While Kennedy okayed it

it was an Eisenhower plan and completely backed by the Republican establishment. All the work for it was done under Eisenhower.
The American Cubans, who still equate Democrats with Communist, are out of their fucking minds.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. CIA Dulles thought Nixon would be President in 1961.

BoP invasion wasn’t intended to work. It was a pretext for war.

Dulles and JCS Chairman Lemnitzer lied to JFK’s face and said it would work — believing the new President would have to go along with the US military invasion.

[edhopper]

9. Yep

the history is pretty clear. Yet the Cubans here still blame Kennedy. And they give him no credit for the Missile Crisis.
The Florida Cubans have always been assholes. The joke there when I was growing up is that if you combine all the land they claimed to have lost when they left, it would be the size of Australia.

[Kid Berwyn]

11. The hate is professional grade.

E Howard Hunt of Plumbers fame knew how to trigger certain reaction.

Richard Nixon's Greatest Cover-Up: His Ties to the Assassination of President Kennedy

Don Fulsom
Crime Magazine, Oct. 15, 2003 (updated March 22, 2009)

Excerpt...

As for Nixon's stated compassion for the Kennedys, let's not forget that he deeply despised them. So much so that, as president, he ordered chief White House spy E. Howard Hunt to forge diplomatic cables to make it look like President Kennedy ordered the murder of South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem. He sent another spy, Anthony Ulasewicz, to Chappaquiddick, Mass., to investigate the 1969 crash of a car driven by Edward Kennedy that killed the senator's female companion. He placed Sen. Kennedy under a 24-hour-a-day Secret Service surveillance in an effort, in Nixon's phrase, "to catch him in the sack with one of his babes." And Nixon pressed aides to plant a false story in the press linking Sen. Kennedy to the 1972 assassination attempt against Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

Snip...

Back in the Eisenhower years, Vice President Richard Nixon and CIA agent E. Howard Hunt were principal secret planners of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba that failed so miserably when it was later launched by President Kennedy. Some historians are convinced Nixon was a prime mover in an associated — and also ill-fated — plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. For example, onetime Nixon aide Roger Morris says Nixon "had been an avid supporter of the Eisenhower administration's covert operations to overthrow Castro, including the alliance with organized crime to assassinate the Cuban leader." For his part, Hunt has readily admitted his role in efforts to murder Castro.

For the "executive action" mission, potential assassins were recruited from Mafia ranks, so that if any of their activities were disclosed, organized crime could be blamed.

Nixon confidant Robert Maheu fronted for the CIA on the Mob plots. A high-end private eye (and ex-FBI undercover operative) who functioned in the shadowy realm between U.S. intelligence services and the national criminal syndicate, Maheu had performed previous "dirty tricks" for both Nixon and Giancana. Hoffa had also been a client of Maheu, who would eventually become the top aide to Mob-and CIA-connected billionaire and Nixon financial angel Howard Hughes.

Snip...

E. Howard Hunt, of course, went on to become President Nixon's chief dirty trickster and secret intelligence operative. In 1972, five Hunt-recruited former CIA men — all veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion planning — were caught by police while burglarizing Democratic headquarters at the Watergate office building in Washington. Fearing that Hunt's role would soon be learned — and the burglary traced back to the White House —Nixon immediately set out to blackmail g an FBI investigation of the break-in. He had his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, tell CIA Director Richard Helms that Hunt, if apprehended, might spill the beans about a major CIA secret. On one of the original Watergate tapes, the president rehearsed Haldeman on exactly what to tell the intelligence chief: "Hunt knows too damned much ... If this gets out that this is all involved ... it would make the CIA look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs thing ... which we think would be very unfortunate for both the CIA and the country ... and for American foreign policy."

Continues...

http://www.crimemagazine.com/richard-nixons-greatest-cover-his-ties-assassination-president-kennedy

In addition to unexplained edits, Mr. Hunt’s resume must hold a hell of a lot of redactions.

If our Cuban friends knew the whole story, they might change their minds. Going by the effectiveness of the Big Lie and confirmation bias, probably not.

[rampartc]

14. e howard hunt uttered a deathbed confession

hunt claimed to have been on the team that killed jfk.

https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-last-confession-of-e-howard-hunt-76611/

[LessAspin]

15. Frank Sturgis

Cuban-American Frank Sturgis interviewed by fascist-hippie Bill O'Reilly..

[Hortensis]

10. Bosh! "Cubans" like Repubs and don't like Dems because they're CONSERVATIVE.

Very strongly in general and culturally. Several decades of living under a socialist dictatorship that upended the previous class hierarchy didn't erase the underlying culture or people's basic natures, and it certainly didn't in the wealthy, conservative expats who became a power in South Florida.

Same as in Russia, which is traditionally extremely conservative culturally.

With the end of communist socialist control of Russia and beginning of an attempt at democracy, it was Russia's conservatives who longed to have the central state control they'd "always" had back, and it was their conservatives who helped replace their baby democracy with Putin's authoritarian kleptocracy cum faux democracy.

Conservatives generally speaking dislike and resist change; and since equality of all men is not something most conservatives feel in their bones, advances in equality cause increased resistance and anger instead. They don't agree with liberals, and in strong conservatives that equates to fear and dislike of, even rage at, Democrats.

For decades the upper classes in FL have been trying to return to Cuba and restore both their previous holdings and their quasi-aristocratic social status. You bet they don't like Democrats.

[Sneederbunk]

13. Many Democrats distrust Cuban Americans.

[Javaman]

16. Ironic really

They left Cuba to get away from authoritarianism, and choose to follow repukes who are the party of authoritarianism.