The Dove Has Landed – CW 304 (Cuban Revolution #29)
About this episode
The episode discusses Fidel Castro's rise to power following the Cuban Revolution and the challenges he faces in governing a divided country.
It's January 1959, and Fidel Castro has just pulled off the impossible — a ragtag band of bearded rebels from the Sierra Maestra mountains has toppled the Batista dictatorship, and all of Cuba is euphoric. In Episode 304 of A Cold War, Cameron and Ray follow Castro's triumphant five-day journey from Santiago to Havana, tracking the 32-year-old revolutionary as he rolls into the capital on top of a tank, delivers a famously humble speech at Camp Columbia with a white dove settling on his shoulder, and is introduced to 50 million Americans via a very enthusiastic Ed Sullivan. But the honeymoon can't last forever. Behind the jubilation lies a country that needs to be governed, and Castro — equal parts rock star, military commander, and political improviser — is only sleeping two or three hours a night while trying to hold together a fractious coalition of communists, right-wingers, student radicals, and old rebels, none of whom entirely agree on what comes next. The rival Directorio Revolucionario seizes tanks and weapons demanding their share of glory, the new president Manuel Urrutia is already a problem in the making, and Che Guevara is quietly recovering from asthma at a beach…
People in this episode
Hosts: Cameron Reilly, Ray Harris
Topics covered
- Cuban Revolution
- Fidel Castro
- political coalition
- historical events
- Batista dictatorship
- Havana
- Che Guevara
Keywords
- Fidel Castro
- Cuban Revolution
- Batista
- Havana
- Che Guevara
- political coalition
- January 1959
- Directorio Revolucionario
- Celia Sánchez
- Manuel Urrutia
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Directorio Revolucionario, Ed Sullivan
More episodes of Cam & Ray's Cold War Podcast
- Cold War 310: Ice Cream and Ideology (CUBAN REVOLUTION #35)
- The Man Who Owned Everything: Cold War 309: Cuban Revolution #34
- The Land They Were Never Meant To Own – Cold War 308 (Cuban Revolution #33)
- Prime Minister Castro – Cold War #306 (Cuban Revolution #31)
- Revolutionary Justice – Cold War 305 (Cuban Revolution #30)
- Fangio, Fatigues, and the Fall of Batista (CW 303) (Cuban Revolution #28)
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