ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Fidel Castro’s attitudes toward and relations with the United States (US). It shows that he conceives of himself as a patriot of all Latin America and strives to build solid opposition there to the political, economic, social, and cultural incursions of “the empire,” as he calls the US. The chapter deals with countries that have attracted a great deal of Fidel’s attention. It shows that his thinking on the seemingly unsolvable debt problems that plague the Latin American states. Prior to the Revolution, Cuba was, after Panama, the most neocolonial state in Latin America. During the preliminary stages of the Revolution, Castro promised that the US would eventually pay dearly for its past interference in Cuba. From the inception of his government, the US authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to destabilize Cuba. On April 16,1961, when a group of US-sponsored and CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba’s Playa Giron, Fidel called the attack a treacherous crime.
