Reply #3: Not really, according to Gott [View All]

[1932]

Che was always very suspicious of the US and so was Martí, who was their founding father and inspiration. Castro didn't play his hand with the US. However, Castro was never really supported by the US. The Havanna CIA branch wanted him to succeed, but Eisenhower gave guns to Batista instead.

The previous 50 years of Cuban history had been so schizophrenic, it was never clear who was going to become what kind of leader. Batista started off looking liberal, but finished very right wing. The US wasn't really sure how Castro was going to turn out (or if he would even dominate the coalition taking part in the revolution). Since the lines were never so clearly drawn (the daughter of Bacardi's lawyer was one of Castro's representatitves, and Castro himself was from a family entwined in the commercial life of the island), the US was willing to sit back and just hope that US interests would dominate in an environment of chaos.

I think it's fair to say that Castro was willing to work with the US (provided that whatever relationship Cuba had with the US didn't upset Che's hightened sensitivity to imperialism). But I don't get the impression from Gott's book (so far) that the US supported Castro against Batista, and, in fact, the US did the opposite.

The US, Gott notes (IIRC), could have given Battista even better weapons, but they didn't either because they didn't think the Cubans had the training to use them effectively, or because Eisenhower felt the the US's interests would be served if the battle lasted a long time.