Date of Award

December 2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

History

First Advisor

Aims McGuinness

Committee Members

Joseph Rodriguez, Rachel I Buff, Aims McGuinness

Keywords

Bay of Pigs, Castro, CIA, Cuba, Foriegn Policy, State Department

Abstract

This thesis examines how the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. State Department differed in their approaches to dealing with the Castro regime from 1959 through the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Using declassified documents from the CIA and State Department, I argue that the approaches of the CIA in dealing with the Castro regime were more aggressive than the approaches of the U.S. State Department. Many of the primary sources used in this work were accessed in the CIA electronic reading room and on the office of the historian website. The office of the historian is an official government office within the Bureau of Public Affairs responsible for publishing declassified historical documents related to U.S. foreign policy. The thesis contributes to the historiography of U.S.-Cuban relations by exposing tensions and rifts inside the U.S. government during a pivotal era in the history of both nations.

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