The United States is finally making relationships it deserves in it's own hemisphere.

President Calvin Coolidge and his wife, first lady Grace Coolidge (left in picture) are shown with the President of Cuba General Gerardo Machado y Morales and his wife, Elvira Machado, walk on the estate of President Machado in Havana, Cuba, Jan. 19, 1928.

The deteriorating relationship between the two countries occurred when the coupe occurred in 1959.

...Relations between the United States and Cuba (click here) had been steadily declining since Castro seized power in early 1959. U.S. officials were soon convinced that Castro’s government was too anti-American to be trusted, and they feared that he might lead Cuba into the communist bloc. Early in 1960, following Castro’s decision to sign a trade treaty with the Soviet Union, the Eisenhower administration began financing and training a group of Cuban exiles to overthrow the Cuban leader. Castro responded by increasing his program of nationalizing foreign property and companies. In return, the United States began to implement cutbacks in trade with Cuba. The diplomatic break on January 3, 1961 was the culmination of an increasingly acrimonious situation....

The US intelligence was correct, in that Fidel Castro would nationalize the private sector throughout Cuba. It was after that the first Cuban refugees came to the USA. They were displaced business people and academicians. They had assets they brought with them. Their experience with the USA was very different than the Cubans that occasionally travel by boat to southern Florida.

But, Cuba under Castro turned to communism and Russia. Nikita Khrushchev (click here) would become fast friends with Fidel Castro. Khrushchev over estimated the ease of which Russia could establish their most western nuclear site. He made his decision May 1962 in Bulgaria where he spoke about possibly losing Cuba and the spread of Marxism and Leninism.

President Kennedy called the Russians on their nuclear missiles (click here) and the Cuban Missile Crisis was over. But, the relations with Cuba had never healed since. It has been bizarre to say the least to think dissidents were in Cuba and exist to establish freedom since 1962. That is 54 years and the dissidents were never successful. Why then have them believe democracy would return all those decades? It is the worst USA blunder since the cold war; holding dissidents as example of USA power in the hemisphere and never doing anything except fly a hot air balloon over the island country in hopes a Spanish channel would be seen on Cuban televisions.

Amazing.

Then, there were the submarines that traveled to near shore locations of Cuba under "W" to use a radar (click here) that exploded the ears of marine mammals. But, that was the only time dissidents thought they were exonerated in their suffering. They and "W" must have had a good chuckle over the idea a USA submarine could get that close to Cuba. What a waste of lives for them to hold false hopes all those decades.

Today, the First Family arrived in Cuba under a cloud of drizzle for a historic trip that should improve the relationship between the two countries. 

May 20, 2016
By Alexander Mallin 

President Obama and the first family (click here) have arrived in Cuba, for the first visit to the island nation by a sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years.
The visit comes just 15 months after the announcement that the U.S. and Cuba would be restoring diplomatic ties.
As Air Force One was still on the runway, Obama tweeted that he was "looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people."...

The people are always the place where USA foreign policy should focus. The dissidents have existed because of false promises that the USA never delivered on. The people of Cuba have suffered enough and need an economy be returned to them.

I am proud of my President and the First Family to represent the United States of America in a new relationship that will improve the lives of Cubans and seek a better relationship with country's leadership. I hope the First Family enjoys their visit to this country that is still primarily a mystery to most Americans.