Congressional Digest

Excerpt

Only 90 miles of water separate the island of Cuba from the United States, but for the last five decades, relations between the two nations have been far from neighborly.

In the 1940s and 1950s, under President Fulgencio Batista, who had close ties with the U.S. Government, Cuba — known for its glamour, music, casinos, and cigars — was a magnet for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ernest Hemingway, and Nat King Cole. The dispute began during the Cuban revolution of 1959, when guerrilla leader Fidel Castro took power, nationalized the island’s major industries, seized $1.8 billion of U.S. assets, and establish…