It's taken over 50 years, but President Obama's move toward normalizing affairs with Cuba has interesting sidebars. Even though Canadian naval and air forces were shoulder to shoulder with the Americans during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it was Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada who later remained in close touch with Fidel Castro.
And now Conservative PM Harper has facilitated meetings between the American and Cuban diplomats.
Meanwhile, ex-pat Cubans in Florida are at loggerheads over the issue.
Most Canadians, Americans, and Cubans were not alive in 1962. But for a look at those terrifying days in a Canadian submarine, check out "Terror on the Alert".
2 comments:
I wasn't alive in 62, not arriving on the scene until the following year, but, like most average Americans I suspect, I'm really glad to see relations restored. The ongoing thesis that a lack of diplomatic relations was going to achieve anything was obviously bankrupt.
I hope that trade will now be restored, and yes of course I know that Cuba is still Communist. Still, our embargo doesn't seem to achieve much other than giving the Castro brothers an excuse for failing to allow greater liberty to their citizens. As for Cubans in the US, they should realize that.
Commercial enterprise seems to have done away with the West's paranoia about communism for the most part--witness trade with the country we all used to refer to as Red China.
Post a Comment