Sixty-two years after the Cuban Revolution began and 53 years after they were severed, diplomatic ties between the US and Cuba have been restored. Tom Hayden, a leader in the student, antiwar, and civil rights protests throughout the 1960s talks to WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman about what this new opening might mean.
It has been 62 years since the Cuban Revolution began. Fifty-four years since the Bay of Pigs invasion. Fifty-three years since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Twenty-six years since the end of the Cold War, and 15 years since the Elian Gonzalez incident. And it is just now that we are beginning a new relationship with our neighbor 90 miles away.
President Obama shakes hands with Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s memorial.
A significant part of our population has come of age with absolutely no knowledge of the history of the US / Cuba relationship, what the revolution was about, or what all the hostility has been about. And yet the history of that relationship with Cuba has been a kind of Rosetta Stone for understating the bias, the mistakes, and domestic politics behind so much of American foreign policy, from the mid-20th century until today.
Few have had the access to Cuba to provide the kind of clear and present perspective that Tom Hayden has.
Tom Hayden, a leader in the student, antiwar, and civil rights protests throughout the 1960s talks to WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman about what this new opening might mean.
