Cuba So Long, Amigos

Moscow's planned troop pullout and embrace of free trade intensify Havana's political and economic isolation

The Bay of Pigs invasion. The Cuban missile crisis. Communist adventurism in Africa and Central America. Some of the hottest moments of the cold war were the result of the Soviet Union's three-decade-long military presence in Cuba. But with the superpower face-off a fading memory and postcoup Moscow desperate for Western aid, it seemed well past time to say goodbye to all that -- which is what Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev finally did last week. Flanked by ^ Secretary of State James Baker, who was in Moscow on a fact-finding mission, Gorbachev announced that thousands of Soviet servicemen stationed in Cuba...

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