Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, about 780 miles long west-to-east, and between 19 and 119 miles wide. It is made up of mountain forests and equatorial jungles – but at least two-thirds of its territory is good farming land. At its nearest point, it is only 90 miles from the tip of Florida.
In 1898, the US fought a short war with Spain to support the Cuban struggle for independence against its colonial ruler. This ushered in a long period in which Cuba was closely linked to the United States, almost becoming another state of the Union. Big American companies invested heavily in the sugar and tobacco industries. Three-quarters of its fertile land was owned by American corporations. American banks dominated the economy. American stores were everywhere, and the ubiquitous Coca-Cola was often mixed with Cuban rum. Americans flocked to Cuba, as a Caribbean paradise, to drink in its bars, to enjoy its beaches, and to gamble in its casinos. By the 1950s, the island had become the playground for many rich Americans, just a short hop from Miami.
For many years, the country was run by a brutal and corrupt dictator, Fulgencio Batista. But, in the mid-1950s, a Cuban lawyer by the name of Fidel Castro began a guerrilla campaign to overthrow the unpopular president. A prominent member of Castro’s rebel group was the charismatic revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. In January 1959, Batista fled, and Castro led his forces into the capital, Havana. At first, the new government of Castro was seen as more nationalist than left-wing, and was initially welcomed in Washington. But, in 1960, Castro signed a trade deal with the Soviet Union, and announced the nationalisation of a billion dollars’ worth of US investments.
