Page 7 - Social Science.docx

Kennedy, Cuba, and the Origins of the Cold War
Everest Maya-Tudor
With a history of involvement stretching back to the proclamation of its control over the Western Hemisphere via the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, its efforts to exert power over the newly-liberated Cuba through the 1901 Platt Amendment following the Spanish-American War, and its establishment of domination over Cuba’s sugar market during the turn of the 20th century, the United States’ influence over both Cuba’s political and economic sphere grew exponentially in the 1900s.1
After originally assuming power in 1933 in a coup against the long-standing dictator Gerardo Machado dubbed the Revolt of the Sargeants, Fulgencio Batista regained power in Cuba through another coup in 1952. Following US-recognition in March of the same year, Batista’s Cuba became saturated with private U.S. companies as, by 1959, “United States companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands - almost all the cattle ranches - 90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions - 80 percent of the utilities - and practically all the oil industry - and supplied two-thirds of Cuba's imports.” To advance American interests and secure private profits, the U.S. government began to back Batista’s administration in the years following his coup. With most American support being in the form of weaponry, Batista’s promises of a democratic Cuba quickly
Everest Maya-Tudor ‘21, will study health and human biology at Brown University. 1
David C. v
"Cuba," In Gale World History Online Collection (Detroit, MI: Gale, 2020), Gale In Context: World History;
"Monroe
Doctrine," In Gale U.S. History Online Collection (Detroit, MI: Gale, 2020), Gale In Context: U.S. History;
Carlson, "Platt Amendment," Cuba, ed. Alan West-Durán, Scribner World Scholar Series,
3
ol. 2 (Detroit,
MI: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2012), pp. 738-742.