I always thought US policy in Cuba was utterly bizarre to say the least. When Castro toppled Batista's government, the Americans were very uneasy because Castro claimed he intended to nationalize business interests in Cuba (such interests of course were essentially controlled by the Americans, for whom Cuba had been something of a plaything for the wealthy since the 1920s). So they decided that the best course of action was to try and kill the embryonic Cuban government by placing an embargo on it. Of course, that was ridiculous. While Castro hadn't (prior to that point) made any specific declaration of leaning toward a Marxist doctrine, the US embargo essentially propelled him into the arms of the USSR. The Soviets knew this was an opportunity they couldn't pass up. The Americans had essentially poured unlimited money into ICBM technology and consequently the USSR was lagging greatly in range capability. They could turn Western Europe into a burning wasteland if they wished, but they did not have the capacity to strike the continental US with ICBMs, whereas the Americans had the ability to strike Moscow. Leningrad, Odessa, etc. To have an ally and consequently a potential missile base 80 miles off the US would completely level the playing field. In other words, the fact that the Americans decided that they could smoke Castro out of his hole via economic sanctions essentially created the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cubans had no choice but to seek alliance with the USSR. The necessity of such an alliance was compounded by numerous CIA-backed assassination attempts on Castro. Then in 1961, before the missile crisis, they tried to topple Castro with an invasion by exiles at the Bay of Pigs, which might have worked had not Kennedy's commitment of American resources to it (especially in terms of air support, which he withdrew), been so half-hearted. The result was only a hardening of Cuban opinion toward the US and a consequently increased dependancy on the USSR. Then in 1962, Cuba became basically a pawn in the chess game between the superpowers when U2 spyplanes detected the construction of Soviet MRBM sites in Cuba, which brought the world to the brink of complete destruction, a fact which in turn was in turn largely a consequence of American attempts to dislodge the Cuban government. Put simply, the degree to which the Americans managed to achieve the opposite effect to that which they desired in Cuba, was astounding.

My greatest hope is that this will finally allow for a proper restructuring of Cuba's civil rights laws. Castro has said some optimistic things in the last 24 hours, and I'm hoping it's not just giddyness at such a major policy shift, but real intent to change.

For my money, it was the KGB (who largely had American intelligence under their thumb until the very last years of the Soviet Union).