The U.S. Attempts to Contain Cuba

1. Why was Cuba so important to the United States?
Cuba is so important to the U.S. because the U.S. owned most of the businesses on the island and they have a huge naval base there on there allies soil.

2. Why do you think the Americans chose to equip Cuban exiles rather than invading themselves?
They did not want to get involved with Castro so they had anti-Castro exiles do the job for them.

3. Why did the invasion fail?
The Cuban exiles were inexperienced, outnumbered, and they did not have modern weapons.

4. Compare Source 17 on page 345 (in the Arms Race.pdf reading) with Source 24 on page 348. Describe how the Soviet Union missiles on Cuba changed the Cold War balance of power.
The Soviet Union set up Nuclear missile sites and had ICBM's in Cuba which scared the U.S. greatly because of nuclear war.