In exploring the events surrounding the Kennedy Assassination, the acclaimed book Saving Jackie K meticulously investigates the potential motives of various foreign leaders against JFK. Fidel Castro, the entrenched dictator of Cuba, receives considerable scrutiny in this regard. Could Castro have been the orchestration behind Kennedy’s assassination?
During the 1950s, Cuba was under the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, backed by the United States. However, in 1959, Fidel Castro, accompanied by his brother Raul Castro and comrade Che Guevara, led a successful revolution that ousted Batista and established Castro’s communist regime.
Since the outset of his presidency, Kennedy had aspirations of overthrowing Castro’s regime. Embracing the Domino Theory, Kennedy feared that the spread of communism in one country would inevitably lead to its expansion in neighboring nations. Additionally, Castro found solidarity with his communist ally, Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of Russia.
The tensions between Kennedy and Castro heightened, notably underscored by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961, where CIA-backed Cuban exiles attempted to overthrow Castro’s government. Castro’s decision to permit the Soviet Union to install nuclear launch pads in Cuba, uncovered during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, further strained relations. His condemnation of US-led incursions into Cuban territory, combined with Kennedy’s portrayal of Cuba as a pawn of Russia, only exacerbated animosity between the two leaders.
Less than a week after Kennedy‘s address, he was tragically assassinated.