The Kennedy Assassination – In its examination of the events surrounding the Kennedy Assassination, the renowned book Saving Jackie K scrutinizes the potential motives of various foreign leaders against JFK. Among these figures, considerable focus is placed on Fidel Castro, the entrenched dictator of Cuba. Could Castro have been the mastermind behind Kennedy’s assassination?
During the 1950s, Cuba was under the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, supported by the United States. However, in 1959, Fidel Castro, along with his brother Raul Castro and comrade Che Guevara, successfully led a revolution that ousted Batista and installed Castro’s communist regime.
From the outset of his presidency, Kennedy had ambitions of overthrowing Castro’s regime. Adhering to the Domino Theory, Kennedy feared that the spread of communism in one country would inevitably lead to its expansion in neighboring nations. Moreover, Castro found solidarity with his communist ally, Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of Russia.
The tensions between Kennedy and Castro escalated, particularly highlighted by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961, where CIA-backed Cuban exiles sought to overthrow Castro’s government. Castro’s agreement to allow the Soviet Union to install nuclear launch pads in Cuba, revealed during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, further strained relations. His condemnation of US-led intrusions into Cuban territory, combined with Kennedy’s portrayal of Cuba as a pawn of Russia, only fueled animosity between the two leaders. Less than a week after Kennedy’s address, he was tragically assassinated.