COLD WAR HOTLINE

A leftist revolution in Cuba installed Premier Fidel Castro as head of a new socialist government. With Cuba's close proximity to the United States, this raised alarm for acting President Eisenhower. He, and his advisors, were scared that communism would spread from Cuba to its surrounding countries and, eventually, to the United States. The USA's tense relationship with the USSR, a competing superpower with a communist policy, only served to enforce these fears... A plan was formulated by the CIA which entailed an invasion of Cuba to overthrow Castro's regime. This plan enlisted exiled Cuban counter-revolutionaries called Brigade 2506. The Bay of Pigs Invasion, as it was called, took action under President Kennedy's administration in 1961.