ABSTRACT
A military assistance pact between the governments of Cuba and the United States had been signed 72 hours before Batista’s coup d’etat on March 10, 1952. Article 2 of the pact 1 stated that the United States would supply the Cuban government with arms for the purpose of “implementing defense plans under which the two governments will participate in missions important to the defense of the Western Hemisphere.” What kind of “missions” the Cuban government was to conduct that could be important to the defense of the Western Hemisphere was never explained. The fact was that the military equipment which was received under the military assistance pact was being used to fight a civil war, and the pact provisions clearly stated that such military assistance was not to be used for “purposes other than those for which it was furnished,” without prior consent of the U.S. government. Thus U.S. support of the Batista regime was clearly implied.
