A COLD WAR

Like he had before Tehran, FDR refused the idea of an Anglo-American bloc when he and Churchill met briefly in Malta before the conference.

He's trying hard to avoid putting Stalin on the defensive.

Because he knows that in the game of wartime diplomacy, the player with the most troops on the ground had the loudest voice.

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Following the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Occupation Government of Cuba forced elections. They tried to engineer Cuba into voting to become one of the United States - instead the Cuban people chose independence. So the U.S. introduced the Platt Amendment, aimed at long term control over Cuba's military and economy while declaring them to be a sovereign nation.

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We look at the complexities surrounding America's occupation of Cuba at the dawn of the 20th century - General Leonard Wood’s appointment as governor, his controversial educational and economic reforms favoring American interests, and the racial tensions arising from imported labor practices. We look at America's strategic objectives behind colonial expansion, comparisons to Britain's occupation tactics in Egypt, and the intricacies of Cuba's manipulated elections aimed at ensuring American influence persisted post-occupation - the realities of imperialism, independence movements, and geopolitical manipulation, setting the stage for understanding the roots of the Cuban revolution.

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Towards the end of 1899, a new American governor was appointed in Cuba - General Leonard Wood, the recent commander of the Rough Riders along with Teddy Roosevelt. He set up thousands of free schools and introduced economic reforms - which caused a massive wave of dispossession and bankruptcy and enabled an American land grab. 

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So, it's 1898, the Spanish have evacuated the island of Cuba after 400 years of rule, and the United States have taken their place. They ran Cuba as a military dictatorship. General Brooke, the first U.S. governor of the island, said, "There is not a sensible man who thinks we can leave for a long time." 

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When the U.S. troops landed in Cuba, it changed the nature of the war. The old racism returned. Of course, when the war was over in July, the U.S. had no intention of letting the Cuban people have their independence. As the commander of US forces in Cuba said: "Why, these people are no more fit for self-government than gunpowder is for hell." In the fight for freedom, lives had been lost and the country had been wiped out economically. Yet the Cubans still weren't going to get their independence.

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So in January of 1898, the Cubans were on the verge of victory in their battle for independence against Spain. And while the US government was happy to see Spain out of the picture, they had no intention of allowing Cuba to be independent. Since the days of Jefferson back in the 1790s, almost every presidential administration in Washington had imagined Cuba would eventually be US territory. The newly elected President, William McKinley, wanted to take Cuba without war if possible. But some, like future President Teddy Roosevelt, couldn't wait to turn it into a war. 

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In this episode we introduce one of Cuba's greatest heroes - José Martí. Castro frequently referred to Martí as the “intellectual author” of the Cuban revolution. He fought to free Cuba from Spain and to protect it from the hungry ambitions of the United States. Meanwhile, the creation of "Yellow Journalism" invented the modern American propaganda playbook - how to convince the country to go to war to protect the commercial interests of a few rich men. 

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It's finally time to talk about the Cuban Revolution. But of course before we can do that story justice, we need to explain some back story. Everything needs to be understood in context. Let's go back in time to when Spain still had its American colonies. 

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Some people have said 1983 was the most dangerous year in human history. On four separate occasions, the U.S.A. and the USSR nearly ended up in a hot nuclear war. Soviet leaders apparently became deeply worried that the US was preparing to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the USSR under the cover of a NATO exercise titled ‘Able Archer.’ Brian J. Morra is a former U.S. intelligence officer and a retired senior aerospace executive who took part in the events of 1983 and has written an excellent and terrifying book on the topic, "The Able Archers". He's our guest today.

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