ABSTRACT
The Eisenhower administration, having just lost Cuba to the USSR, would not allow Congo to go the way of Cuba. The Cuban takeover by international communism was to have long-lasting effects in US foreign policy, even to this day. The first true Cuban international military operation under Castro took place on June 14, 1959, when 56 soldiers flew from Manzanillo, Cuba to Constanza, Dominican Republic in an attempt to topple the right-wing Trujillo government. Comparing Castro's actions in Latin America with those in Africa during his first two years in power, it appears that Castro was undecided as to whether it made more sense to join in liberation movements in Latin America, in Africa, or in both. The opportunity to test Cuba's military as well as Castro's African strategy presented itself in October 1963, during a border dispute between Algeria and Morocco.
