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1C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2016 CONTACT US Rebecca Sedlak | Weekend Editor rsedlak@dailyastorian.com WEEKEND BREAK FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorian Castro’s death made history come alive again NASA TASS via AP, File President John F. Kennedy presents astronaut Alan Shepard Jr. with NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal Award on May 8, 1961. Shepard was the first American in space. In this May 1, 1963 file photo, Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro, left, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev clasp hands at the Le- nin mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square in Moscow, Russia. Events showcased strengths, weaknesses of U.S. presidents By DAVID PERO The Daily Astorian T he death of Fidel Castro at age 90 last week is a reminder that history often happens around us on a daily basis, even just as an observer. It was May 1961, and I was a youngster standing with my family on a crowded beach in Indialantic, Florida, with nearly everyone in town. Schools and businesses were closed — we were all there watching America’s first manned space shot. It was a day of won- derment and thrills as the Redstone rocket blasted Alan Shepard into space on a 15-min- ute suborbital ride. It launched the U.S. firmly into the space race with the Soviet Union, and the Cold War heated up. Only a month before, unbeknown to many on the beach, and especially youngsters like myself, another history-making event occurred — the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by CIA-trained Cuban exiles on a mis- sion to overthrow Cuba’s new leader, Castro. That event, like Shepard’s space shot, had ramifications for Florida and the nation that continue today. Castro’s rule of Cuba endured so long that his antagonism for the U.S. spanned nearly five decades. It became a laboratory test in America diplomacy, expos- ing the strengths and weaknesses of three par- ticular presidents. The Cuban Revolution Castro came to power as Cuba’s prime minister after guerrillas led the Cuban Rev- olution in 1959. In the U.S., John F. Ken- nedy was inaugurated as president in January 1961, not long before the Bay of Pigs fiasco. After Castro assumed power, according to those who later left Cuba, enormous human rights violations began. Thousands of oppo- nents of the revolution were jailed and some- times executed, and it increased greatly after the Bay of Pigs. Cubans who wanted to leave the country couldn’t, and sometimes families were separated when some escaped to free- dom any way they could. An immediate ramification of the Cuban Revolution was a trade embargo the U.S. ini- tiated, which has been the longest enduring U.S. embargo in history. Meanwhile, Castro aligned Cuba with Soviet socialism, and his country essentially became a puppet state of the U.S.S.R. and its premier, Nikita Khrushchev. Castro contin- ually feared a U.S. invasion and supported a plan to put Soviet nuclear missiles on his island country 90 miles off the Florida coast. The combined actions of Castro and Khrush- chev created the Cuban Missile Crisis, which put the U.S. and Soviet Union frighten- ingly on the brink of nuclear war. Historians acknowledge it as the closest the two super- powers ever came to all-out war. ‘Duck and Cover’ During the 13-day crisis, Kennedy stood strong in his resolve against the missiles, and the Soviets removed them after receiving a public promise that the U.S. would never invade Cuba. Throughout the crisis, and even in the months that followed, Florida school- children, myself included, learned to “duck and cover” during silly daily drills that taught us to use our wood-and-metal school desks as protection in the event of a nuclear strike. History recorded that Castro was left out of all negotiations to end the crisis while Kennedy’s hard-line handling of it became a diplomacy-with-strength model for future AP Photo/Javier Galeano, File In this May 1, 2006 file photo, Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro speaks on International Work- ers Day in Revolution Plaza in Havana, Cuba. He died Friday, Nov. 25 at the age of 90. W riter’s N otebook presidents to follow. Afterward, Kennedy wanted the Bay of Pigs and the missile crisis in the rear-view, and he galvanized America around the space program. The country united and responded. On the booming Space Coast, where we lived, nearly every job was connected to NASA in some way. It set the foundation for giant leaps and achievements to come. In the years that followed, my family and I moved to South Florida, first to the Miami area, and later north to Fort Lauder- dale. South Florida, which even early on had a large Cuban population, remained teeming with rage and anger toward Castro and the human rights violations he sanctioned. Rou- tinely there were emotional, vocal demon- strations against him, and ending Cuban repression was always a goal within South Florida’s Cuban community. But the nation was focused on civil rights, the Vietnam War and in fulfilling Kennedy’s challenge of put- ting a man on the moon by the end of the ’60s. We did, in July 1969, and two years later — 10 years to the month after he became the first American in space — Alan Shepard walked on the moon as commander of Apollo 14. But throughout that time, America’s focus had shifted away from Florida, Cuba and Castro’s tyranny. The Jimmy Carter Years In 1975, Cuba restructured. Castro became president and solidified his rule as both head of state and head of government. By then the Cuban economy was crumbling. Castro remained preoccupied with export- ing his vision of communism to other parts of the world through his military. The next year America elected Jimmy Carter, whose pres- idency was marked by what seemed to be a non-stop series of crises that included infla- tion, an energy shortage, Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and the taking of American hos- tages in Iran. Then came Castro — again. Carter had taken a softer approach with Castro than previous presi- dents, and Castro, seeking to end the still ongoing embargo, took advantage. As more of Cuba’s population became dis- enchanted with the economy and the des- potic leader, Castro began allowing them to leave the country. They left in small numbers at first, but then in April 1980, in the middle of Carter’s re-election bid, Castro opened the gates, allowing anyone on the island to leave by way of Cuba’s Mariel Harbor. Cubans in South Florida tearfully rejoiced, celebrating the news wildly in the streets. They rushed to get boats in the Florida Keys and head to Cuba to help bring family, friends and anyone they had space for to U.S. shores. The Mariel Boatlift lasted until October, and brought 125,000 Cubans to the U.S. It overwhelmed immigration and other agencies with the sheer number of refugees. The refugees were located in secure government-run camps, many hastily built under interstate bridges because of a lack of facilities to house the tens of thousands who were without sponsors to help in their immersion into the U.S. The nation learned later that as part of the boatlift Castro had also emptied his prisons and men- tal institutions. Castro’s Marginalization Although he never lifted the trade embargo, the boatlift destabilized Carter, and Ronald Reagan won 44 states and became the 40th U.S. president. Like Kennedy, Reagan took an immediate hard line against Castro, and in 1983 when American interests were threatened by the presence of Cuban military on Grenada, the U.S. invaded and quickly secured the island. Other presidents who fol- lowed Reagan also took the hard-line with Castro, essentially marginalizing him after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Castro left power in 2006 and officially retired in 2008. Some of the same scenes of celebrations in South Florida last week of Castro’s death were a vivid reminder of the scenes of cele- brations at the beginning of the boatlift. The boatlift, like the missile crisis, changed South Florida and had a lasting impact. The aftermath of the missile crisis launched America to vast technological achievements through the space program. It’s hard to imag- ine that the computers that powered the lunar lander had less processing power than an everyday cell phone, and it helped launch the computer revolution in the U.S. along with advances in medicine, transportation and consumer products. And while the boat- lift caused initial problems by the sheer num- ber of refugees, it began that region’s wide- spread change of its demographics that turned South Florida into much more of a rich melt- ing pot, especially from the Caribbean and Latin America influences. The South Florida of today is far different — and many there say far better — than that of the 1980s. For me, it’s all a reminder that the mem- ories from one’s youth are often life-long, especially when you realize you observed history in the making. David Pero is editor and publisher of The Daily Astorian. NASA The Redstone booster carrying Mercury astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 9:34 a.m. East- ern on May 5, 1961. His 15 minute sub-or- bital flight made him the first American in space.’
