On this day in 1961, the US broke diplomatic relations with Cuba. It happened at the end of the Eisenhower administration. We assume that it had the consent of the incoming Kennedy team taking over in 2 weeks.
My father, who passed away in December 2015, told me that most people were very disillusioned at this point with the Castro regime: No elections, Political prisons, shortages of this and that. What came to be known as The Bay of Pigs invasion was around the corner or April 1961. And last but not least, the Kennedy-Nixon debates a few months before had raised some expectations about a change coming to Cuba soon.
My guess is that most thought that breaking diplomatic relations would lead to a change in Cuba. Unfortunately, opportunities were missed at The Bay of Pigs and The Missile Crisis.
In the end, another anniversary in January and more misery for the Cuban people, specially the ones who stayed behind.
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The botched Bay of Pigs invasion was not a missed opportunity but a criminally wasted one, which led to the Missile Crisis, an exceedingly dubious “diplomatic victory” for the exceedingly overrated “Camelot” crew.
As for JFK, he was a prototype for Vil Clinton, only more expensively educated and with a more exalted view of himself. But, in a sense, he was more pretentious and ultimately more a fraud than Bubba.
The photo is interesting. Eisenhower was probably too old for the job, and Kennedy was simply not up to it.