Getting through the Cold War

After the successful revolution, relations soured between the US and Cuba, which officially became a communist state in 1961 and began developing close ties with the USSR (Cuba is now one of only five remaining communist states, along with China, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam). That same year the US backed the unsuccessful ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion, so named after the inlet on the island’s south coast where a group of Cuban exiles landed in an attempt to topple Castro and his regime. In October 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war: in a bid to protect Cuba from further American threats, Castro had allowed Soviet premier Khrushchev to station nuclear missiles on the island, from where the USSR could potentially hit New York or Washington. When the US spotted the missiles, they imposed a naval blockade on Cuba, and after tense negotiations they were removed in return for American missiles being withdrawn from Turkey. After this narrowly averted crisis, Cuba continued to benefit from aid and trade with the USSR until its collapse in 1991.