ABSTRACT
"The United States (US) never remembers and Latin America never forgets" is a well-known Latin American aphorism that succinctly explains the depth of Cuban distrust of the US and the continuing surprise North Americans manifest about Cuban behavior. The seemingly insignificant difference in name reflects a deeper tendency in the US to see Cuba and Cuban events as an extension of the US and US interests. There continues to be a debate about whether the US "pushed" Cuba into the arms of the Soviet Union, or whether the revolutionary leadership had long been committed to Marxism-Leninism. By the early 1970s, several factors coalesced to reduce the tension between Cuba and the US, The Richard Nixon administration had fashioned as its hallmark detente with both the Soviet Union and China: Anticommunism was less in vogue. Cuba had curtailed its practice of supporting armed revolution in the hemisphere and had begun to develop state-to-state relations with several Latin American countries.
