The Kennedy Assassination – In its exploration of the Kennedy Assassination, the acclaimed book Saving Jackie K delves into potential grievances held by various foreign leaders against JFK. Among these figures, considerable attention is directed towards Fidel Castro, Cuba’s entrenched dictator. Was Castro the architect behind Kennedy’s assassination?
During the 1950s, Cuba found itself under the rule of the US-backed military dictator and president, Fulgencio Batista. However, in 1959, Fidel Castro, alongside his brother Raul Castro and comrade Che Guevara, led a successful revolution that ousted Batista and established Castro’s communist regime.
From the onset of his presidency, Kennedy harbored aspirations of toppling Castro’s regime. Embracing the Domino Theory, Kennedy believed that the spread of communism in one country would inevitably lead to its proliferation in neighboring nations. Furthermore, Castro found common ground with his communist ally, Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of Russia.
The rift between Kennedy and Castro reached a boiling point, notably with the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961, where CIA-backed Cuban exiles attempted to overthrow Castro’s government. Castro’s allowance of the Soviet Union to install nuclear launch pads in Cuba, uncovered during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, exacerbated tensions. His condemnation of US-led incursions into Cuban territory, coupled with Kennedy’s characterization of Cuba as a pawn of Russia, only intensified hostilities between the two leaders. Less than a week after Kennedy‘s address, he was tragically assassinated.