# Could the U.S. have befriended Cuba right after the Revolution? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 31, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929 "2009-07-31T23:27:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/21 "2009-08-06T16:52:48Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > A significant segment of the Republican party (while of course decrying his excesses) thought that McCarthy had had it right, particularly in our “losing China”. Tricky Dick was one of these who played the Dem=pinko card thruout his political career. I think it fair to say that Nixon would never have reached the world stage had it not been for Tailgunner Joe. I think you have your timeline backwards. Nixon had anti-communist credentials before anybody had heard of McCarthy. Nixon had achieved national prominence in 1948, when he was able to prove that Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. McCarthy didn’t jump on the anti-communist bandwagon until the Wheeling speech of 1950, and he burned himself out four years later through his wild accusations. But if anything, McCarthy was riding on the coattails of people like Nixon, not the other way around. > [@](#): > > Well, you’re entitled to your opinion (if you’re actually serious). We’re getting off topic and I swear this will be the last time I “defend” Castro in this thread. > > From my Cuba Timeline cite above: > Self-determination, American style, which any patriotic Cuban would take exception to. Maybe, but what does that have to do either with the fact that the deterioration of Cuban-American relations was due to Castro’s nationalization of American businesses (of which, as you pointed out, we had a lot of in Cuba), or more generally, that Castro is a nasty guy? ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/22 "2009-08-06T17:46:26Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I think you have your timeline backwards. Nixon had anti-communist credentials before anybody had heard of McCarthy. Nixon had achieved national prominence in 1948, when he was able to prove that Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. McCarthy didn’t jump on the anti-communist bandwagon until the Wheeling speech of 1950, and he burned himself out four years later through his wild accusations. But if anything, McCarthy was riding on the coattails of people like Nixon, not the other way around. Again, off-topic but what I am saying is this. Nixon and HUAC made McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations plausibly respectable. Until he was ultimately discredited, McCarthy spewed fear of the world and Democrats and anchored the idea of the Cold War in the public mind which made Nixon as a hard-liner on communism an attractive candidate. It was more of a synchronicity. > [@](#): > > Maybe, but what does that have to do either with the fact that the deterioration of Cuban-American relations was due to Castro’s nationalization of American businesses (of which, as you pointed out, we had a lot of in Cuba), or more generally, that Castro is a nasty guy? IMO, the first case is not a specific of the second. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/23 "2009-08-06T19:51:37Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > He won. > > The rebels had defeated the army pretty soundly, had taken over large portions of Cuba, and, on January 1, 1959, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic, and on Jan. 8, Castro took control of the capital. I remember seeing the Che Guevara movie, and the scenes where the rebels landed in Cuba, from Nicaragua. The rebels were ambushed by a Batistas army group, and largely slaughtered. Was Batista too gentle? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/24 "2009-08-06T21:32:20Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > IMO, the first case is not a specific of the second. I didn’t necessarily intend it to be (although, of course, taking somebody’s property without their permission or compensation isn’t generally considered to be a nice thing to do.) I meant that Castro is the bad guy both in the specific sense that his nationalization of American property pretty much guaranteed that the US and Castro’s Cuba wouldn’t be allies, and in the general sense that Castro is just a bad person. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/25 "2009-08-06T21:36:57Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I remember seeing the Che Guevara movie, and the scenes where the rebels landed in Cuba, from Nicaragua. The rebels were ambushed by a Batistas army group, and largely slaughtered. Was Batista too gentle? No, far from that. It was a combination of things. Batista was unpopular, especially in the countryside, army morale was low, the revolutionaries used propaganda to good effect, and the US, which had in the past supported Batista, turned against the regime, and wouldn’t sell him weapons or supplies. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/26 "2009-08-06T21:40:55Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Nixon had achieved national prominence in 1948, when he was able to prove that Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. N.B.: [He almost certainly wasn’t.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger_Hiss#Later_evidence.2C_for_and_against) ---
**Author:** ![Jerseyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/27 "2009-08-06T21:41:37Z")
I think the US was exceptionally stupid and has a history of that kind of stupidity in supporting dictators and denouncing social democratic movements as Communist so that it handed them to the Soviets. Castro has always played more on Jose Marti, the great Cuban liberator from Spain and Cuba in general has never forgotten that the US then first supported the liberation movement and then fought against it to back a series of corrupt dictators making it their Mafia-controlled playground. Castro would have been too Socialistic for much American liking (there is also that Cubans are Hispanic-Black mix and knew how well that went down at the time across the water in Florida), but he and others could have made good propaganda for the US as supporting liberty and democracy even if of a different variety from their own, instead of being seen to support any dictator who’d make life easy for US business interests no matter what they did to their people. It always backfires eventually. CIA involvement in destroying Allende’s Chilean democracy for Pinochet’s barbarous dictatorship was yet another reminder of whose side the US has not been on. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/28 "2009-08-06T22:32:46Z")
Castro would never have been an ally of the U.S. He really hated the U.S. and blamed it for much of the problems in Cuba. He looked at Batista as the U.S. puppet and had no desire to be under the U.S. thumb. The current Communist Party of Cuba was a merger of Castro’s organization, the old Communist party, and another radical left wing group. Castro’s people took all the top spots in this organizaion and ran the Politburo. This newly formed Communist Party of Cuba was actually quite inactive for almost a decade. There were no meetings of the Central Committee, or any congresses. Castro is no democrat. His main belief is in action and struggle, and he never had much tolerance for decent. To Castro, his military victory was enough of a mandate to govern. He immediately not only nationalized American firms, but also killed dozens of people who also fought against the Batista regime. There was no chance of any positive U.S.-Cuban relations and no chance for a democratic Cuba after the 1958 revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/29 "2009-08-06T22:58:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > N.B.: [He almost certainly wasn’t.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger_Hiss#Later_evidence.2C_for_and_against) He almost certainly was, as the segment of your very link about the Venona intercepts makes clear. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/30 "2009-08-06T23:41:14Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I didn’t necessarily intend it to be (although, of course, taking somebody’s property without their permission or compensation isn’t generally considered to be a nice thing to do.) I meant that Castro is the bad guy both in the specific sense that his nationalization of American property pretty much guaranteed that the US and Castro’s Cuba wouldn’t be allies, and in the general sense that Castro is just a bad person. Naughty, naughty. Trying to goad me into breaking my pledge? > [@adhay](#): > > … > > Well, you’re entitled to your opinion (if you’re actually serious). We’re getting off topic and I swear this will be the last time I “defend” Castro in this thread. My idealization of Castro was well covered/rebutted in the thread noted in the OP. You will find there a complete statement of my thoughts on the subject. Now, where were we? ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/31 "2009-08-07T00:06:16Z")
> [@Jerseyman](#): > > I think the US was exceptionally stupid and has a history of that kind of stupidity in supporting dictators and denouncing social democratic movements as Communist so that it handed them to the Soviets. Castro has always played more on Jose Marti, the great Cuban liberator from Spain and Cuba in general has never forgotten that the US then first supported the liberation movement and then fought against it to back a series of corrupt dictators making it their Mafia-controlled playground. This is just the kind of inflammatory nonsense I believe. Of course, \*I \*won’t talk about it here.🆒 Again, back to the OP.🙂 In spite of all, IMO, Castro would have allowed himself to be accepted as a neighbor if the US had been willing. That would have required a complete reversal of our foreign policy with regard to emerging nations and was a no-starter for us. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/32 "2009-08-07T01:20:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > N.B.: [He almost certainly wasn’t.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger_Hiss#Later_evidence.2C_for_and_against) Funny, the KGB thought he was. Codename ALES. > [@Anatoli V. Gorsky](#): > > Recently ALES [Hiss] and his whole group were awarded Soviet decorations. After the Yalta conference, when he had gone on to Moscow, a soviet personage in a very responsible position (ALES gave to understand that it was Comrade Vyshinsky [Deputy Foreign Minister]) alledgedly got in touch with ALES and at the behest of the military NEIGHBORS [GRU] passed on to him their gratitude and so on (The Sword and the Shield, The Mitrokhin Archive and the secret history of the KGB, Vasili Mitrokhin. A book written by the KGB’s archivist, who defected, with notes) Can you provide a better cite contradicting this? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/33 "2009-08-07T01:53:38Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Funny, the KGB thought he was. Codename ALES. > > (The Sword and the Shield, The Mitrokhin Archive and the secret history of the KGB, Vasili Mitrokhin. A book written by the KGB’s archivist, who defected, with notes) > > Can you provide a better cite contradicting this? [Like I said, “almost certainly wasn’t.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger_Hiss#Venona_and_.22ALES.22) > [@](#): > > **Venona and “ALES”** > > In 1995, the existence of the Venona project was revealed to the public. This project had resulted in the decryption or partial decryption of thousands of telegrams sent to the Soviet Union from its U.S. operatives in the years 1942 to 1945. FBI Special Agent Robert Lamphere identified the Soviet spy known by the codename “ALES” in one decoded cable as “probably Alger Hiss”.[33] In 1997, the bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, chaired by Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, stated in its findings: “The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled. As does that of Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department.”[34] In his 1998 book Secrecy: The American Experience, Moynihan wrote, “Belief in the guilt or innocence of Alger Hiss became a defining issue in American intellectual life. Parts of the American government had conclusive evidence of his guilt, but they never told.”[35] In addition to Moynihan, the identification of Hiss as ALES has been accepted by many other authors, including John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr.[36] National Security Agency analysts have also gone on record asserting that ALES could only have been Alger Hiss.[37] In the second edition of his book Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, Allen Weinstein calls the Venona evidence “persuasive but not conclusive.”[6] Former KGB operative Alexander Vassiliev, who researched Soviet intelligence files alongside Weinstein, testified in court, “I never saw a document where Hiss would be called Ales or Ales may be called Hiss.”[38] > > The Venona transcript with the most relevance to the Hiss case is #1822, sent March 30, 1945, from the Soviets’ Washington station chief to Moscow.[33] This transcript indicates that ALES attended the Yalta conference and then went to Moscow. Hiss attended Yalta and then traveled to Moscow in his capacity as adviser to Secretary of State Edward Stettinius.[39] > > However, the Venona evidence on Alger Hiss is disputed by some. John Lowenthal has challenged the Hiss-ALES identification in Venona #1822 by the following: > > ALES was said to be the leader of a small group of espionage agents; Hiss was accused of having acted alone, aside from his wife as a typist and Chambers as courier. > ALES was a GRU (military intelligence) agent who obtained military intelligence, and only rarely provided State Department material; Alger Hiss in his trial was accused of obtaining only non-military information and the papers used against him were non-military State Department materials that he allegedly produced on a regular basis. > Even if Hiss was the spy he was accused of being, it’s unlikely he would have continued being so after 1938 as ALES did, because in that year Hiss would have become too great a risk for any Soviet agency to use. In that year, Whittaker Chambers broke with the Communist Party and then went into hiding, telling his Communist Party colleagues he would denounce them if they did not follow suit. At this point therefore, ALES’s cover would be in extreme jeopardy if he were Alger Hiss. > Other recent information places ALES in Mexico City at the same time when Hiss was known to be in Washington.[38] > Lowenthal also suggested an interpretation of the transcript that differs from Lamphere’s reading. Lowenthal’s reading does not put ALES at the Yalta conference at all, but rather refers to the presence at Yalta of Andrey Vyshinsky,[40] the Soviet deputy foreign minister. According to Lowenthal, the entire point of paragraph 6 of Venona #1822—that the GRU asked Vyshinsky to get in touch with ALES to convey thanks from the GRU for a job well done—would have been unnecessary if ALES had actually been in Moscow, because the GRU could have easily contacted ALES with no need of Vyshinsky.[32] Others, notably Eduard Mark, dispute Lowenthal’s analysis on this point.[41] In the opinion of intelligence historian John R. Schindler, the original Russian text of Venona #1822 (released in 2005), removes some of the ambiguity present in the English translation and confirms ALES’s presence at Yalta. Schindler concludes “the identification of ALES as Alger Hiss, made by the U.S. Government more than a half-century ago, seems exceptionally solid based on the evidence now available; message 1822 is only one piece of that evidence, yet a compelling one.”[42] > > Also in rebuttal to Lowenthal, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr noted the following: > > None of the evidence presented at the Hiss trial precludes the possibility that Hiss had been an espionage agent after 1938 or that he had only passed State Department documents after 1938. > Chambers’s charges were not seriously investigated until after the revelations made by the defection of Elizabeth Bentley in 1945, so Hiss and the Soviets could in theory have considered it an acceptable risk for him continue espionage work, even after Chambers’s defection. > Vyshinsky was not in the U.S. between Yalta and the time of the Venona message and the message is from the Washington KGB station reporting on a talk with Ales in the U.S., thus making Lowenthal’s analysis impossible.[43] > There is one Venona cable, #1579, that includes the name “Hiss.” This partially decrypted cable consists of fragments of a 1943 message from the GRU chief in New York to GRU headquarters in Moscow. The reference reads: “…from the State Department by name of HISS…” The name “Hiss” appeared “Spelled out in the Latin alphabet” according to a footnote by the cryptanalysts. In the cable, “Hiss” goes without a first name, so it could possibly refer to either Alger or Donald, since both were at the State Department in 1943. Lowenthal argues that for the GRU to name Hiss openly, not by a codename, would be highly unorthodox if he was, indeed, a spy.[32] Once Soviet intelligence assigned a codename to an agent, it would be highly unusual for their actual name to be used in a coded transmission.[36] > > At an April 2007 symposium, authors Kai Bird and Svetlana Chervonnaya presented evidence that a U.S. diplomat named Wilder Foote was the best match to ALES, based on the movements of all the officials present at the U.S.-Soviet Yalta conference.[44] In particular, Bird and Chervonnaya noted that Foote had been in Mexico City at a time when a Soviet cable placed ALES there, whereas Hiss had left Mexico several days earlier (see above). Other authors have disputed the likelihood that Foote was ALES, noting that Foote doesn’t fit known information about ALES, and saying that the author of the Soviet cable could have been mistaken in stating that ALES was still in Mexico City.[45][46] It’ll never be settled, I suppose. From [_An Incomplete Education,_](http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Education-Revised-Judy-Jones/dp/0345391373http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Education-Revised-Judy-Jones/dp/0345391373) by Judy Jones and William Wilson, p. 52: “The upshot: To this day, nobody quite believes that Hiss was entirely innocent. On the other hand, they’re _sure_ Nixon wasn’t.” ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/34 "2009-08-07T01:56:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It’ll never be settled, I suppose. From [_An Incomplete Education,_](http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Education-Revised-Judy-Jones/dp/0345391373http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Education-Revised-Judy-Jones/dp/0345391373) by Judy Jones and William Wilson, p. 52: “The upshot: To this day, nobody quite believes that Hiss was entirely innocent. On the other hand, they’re _sure_ Nixon wasn’t.” Well, Lowenthal was one of Hiss’s lawyers. It’s not “almost certainly wasn’t.” It’s “almost certainly was, but Lowenthal wouldn’t admit he was wrong.” ---
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/35 "2009-08-07T13:48:49Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I remember seeing the Che Guevara movie, and the scenes where the rebels landed in Cuba, from Nicaragua. The rebels were ambushed by a Batistas army group, and largely slaughtered. Was Batista too gentle? Correction, the rebels came from Mexico, not Nicaragua. A boat designed for 12 carried 82 people on the trip to Cuba in 1956. When they landed they were immediately attacked by Cuban troops, and all but 14 were killed or captured. The 14 remaining took to the mountains, and two years later had overthrown Batista’s government. ---
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/36 "2009-08-07T13:52:36Z")
> [@Jerseyman](#): > > Castro would have been too Socialistic for much American liking (there is also that Cubans are Hispanic-Black mix and knew how well that went down at the time across the water in Florida)… Close to two million Cubans, almost 20% of Cuba’s population has come to the US since 1959 most of them to Florida, so I don’t think consideration of race relations played any role at all in support for or against Castro. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/37 "2009-08-08T17:21:46Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > … > In spite of all, IMO, Castro would have allowed himself to be accepted as a neighbor if the US had been willing. **That would have required a complete reversal of our foreign policy with regard to emerging nations and was a no-starter for us.** [emphasis mine] Anyone actually interested in what US policy toward emerging nations has been for the past 100 years or so should find[this](http://www.flagrancy.net/timeline.html) informative. One example from over 100 cited. > [@](#): > > # 1898-1914: The Phillipines > > ``` > U.S. Brig. Gen. Jacob H. Smith: "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better you will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States." > Major Littleton W. T. Waller: How young? > Smith: Ten years and up. > --Exchange on October 1901, quote from the testimony at Smith's court martial by the New York Evening Journal (May 5, 1902). General Smith, a veteran of the Wounded Knee massacre, was popularly known as "Hell Roaring Jake" or "Howling Wilderness". > > The "Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation" of the McKinley presidency in 1899 annouced America's intention to be the benevolent dictator over various foreign nations that just happened to all be filled with ruthless, pagan savages. > > In a savage conflict America repressed the Filipino independence movement. As in most cases of massacre on the part of the US the number of casualties remains a matter of debate; in this instance 5,000 (of some 120,000 involved) Americans killed with additional casualties later due to disease contracted in the Phillipines, but anywhere between 16,000-20,000 Filipino soldiers and 200,000-600,000 civilian Filipino deaths resulted due to the war, war induced famine, disease, and multiple atrocities, but one would be mistaken to describe the conflict as characterized by brutality. The US continued occupying the Phillipines for another 48 years. > > US military involvement in the Phillipines continues to this day, much to the advantage of foreign investors, who continue to maintain economic hegemony. US troops may not enjoy their stay quite as much as the last time, nor as the first time. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/38 "2009-08-10T00:45:44Z")
> [@lalenin](#): > > Close to two million Cubans, almost 20% of Cuba’s population has come to the US since 1959 most of them to Florida . . . That many?! Cite?! I know Florida isn’t that much larger than Cuba in land area, and there aren’t that many Cubans visible outside metropolitan Miami (and Tampa – but our Cuban community dates from the 1890s). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/39 "2009-08-10T03:41:13Z")
I think 2 million might be an overestimation, but according to this [Pew study](http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/23.pdf) 913,000 Cuban Americans are foreign born. ---
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929/40 "2009-08-10T14:25:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That many?! Cite?! I know Florida isn’t that much larger than Cuba in land area, and there aren’t that many Cubans visible outside metropolitan Miami (and Tampa – but our Cuban community dates from the 1890s). From [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_American): "US Census and ACS In the most recent census in 2000 there were 1,241,685 Cuban Americans, both native and foreign born and represented 3.5% of all Hispanics in the US. About 85% of Cuban Americans identify themselves as being White, mostly Spanish, which is the highest proportion of all other major Hispanic groups. In Florida, Cuban Americans have cultural ties with the state’s large Spanish American or European Spanish community. In the 2007 ACS, there were 1,611,478 Americans with national origins in Cuba. 983,147 were born abroad in Cuba, 628,331 were U.S born and of the 1.6 million, 415,212 were not a U.S citizen.[23]" Keep in mind that’s just the ones **living** the US in 2000. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-u-s-have-befriended-cuba-right-after-the-revolution/504929.md?page=3)