ABSTRACT
The Cuban revolution was the single most important development in inter-American relations in the twentieth century. Not only did the “success” of the revolution against U.S. pressures provide inspiration for other insurgent movements in the Americas but the orientation of Cuban foreign policy made it possible for the Soviet Union for the first time to establish a definite strategic presence in the area. In the process the Cold War preoccupations in Latin America that had previously seemed only marginally threatening, in spite of John Foster Dulles’s blustering over Guatemala in the 1950s, now assumed major proportions. Clearly the most dramatic and real threat of conflict occurred with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, but even in the decades following that major crisis, Cuban-Soviet engagement in the Caribbean region remained a major preoccupation of the United States.
