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Batista controlled an army of well over 20,000, along with an air force and a navy. A 7,000-man police force also upheld the dictator’s will. Nevertheless, the island nation of Cuba, the largest country in the Caribbean, was nearing a tipping point. The Republic of Cuba Cuba had been a Spanish possession from the 1490s until 1898. That year, Spain was forced to relinquish control of the island after suffering defeat at the hands of the United States in the Spanish-American War. In 1902, after several years of U.S. military occupation, the island officially became independent as the Republic of Cuba. There was one major condition, though: the United States compelled Cuba to accept a measure passed by the U.S. Congress, known as the Platt Amendment. Among other pro- visions, the Platt Amendment gave the United States the right to intervene militarily in Cuba under certain circumstances— including when American officials deemed that necessary for “the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty.” In response to political and social unrest on the island, and to protect American commercial interests there, American troops were dispatched to Cuba four times under the Platt Amendment (in 1906, 1912, 1917, and 1920). The amendment was officially repealed in 1934. Still, the United States retained considerable influence in Cuba. In 1934 the American ambassador encouraged Fulgencio Batista, the chief of staff of Cuba’s army, to oust a provisional president whose proposed reforms might cut into the profits of

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Cuba Under the Castros