he United States When the Castro government expropriated an estimated $1 billion in U.S.-ownedproperties in 1960, Washington responded by imposing a trade embargo. Acomplete break in diplomatic relations occurred in January 1961, and on April 17of that year U.S.-supported and -trained anti-Castro exiles landed an invasionforce in the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba. Ninety of the invaders were killed, andsome 1200 were captured (see Bay of Pigs Invasion). The captives wereransomed, with the tacit aid of the U.S. government, in 1962, at a cost of about$53 million in food and medicines.American-Cuban relations grew still more perilous in the fall of 1962, when theUnited States discovered Soviet-supplied missile installations in Cuba. U.S.President John F. Kennedy then announced a naval blockade of the island toprevent further Soviet shipments of arms from reaching it. After several days ofnegotiations during which nuclear war was feared by many to be a possibility,Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed, on October 28, to dismantle andremove the weapons, and this was subsequently accomplished. For the rest ofthe 1960s U.S.-Cuban relations remained hostile, although, through thecooperation of the Swiss embassy in Cuba, the U.S. and Cuban governments in1965 agreed to permit Cuban nationals who desired to leave the island toemigrate to the United States. More than 260,000 people left before the airliftwas officially terminated in April 1973.Despite several efforts by Cuba in the United Nations to oust the United Statesfrom its naval base at Guantnamo Bay, leased in 1903, the base continues tobe garrisoned by U.S. Marines.Period of Isolation Many of Castro's policies alienated Cuba from the rest of Latin America. Thecountry was expelled from the OAS in 1962, and through most of the 1960s itwas persistently accused of attempting to foment rebellions in Venezuela,Guatemala, and Bolivia. In fact, Che Guevara, a key Castro aide, was capturedand summ...
