Was there ever a time when Cuba got the better of the deal with America?

Cuba

THE UNITED STATES stood behind Fulgencio Batista as caudillo and as Presidente of Cuba even though he legitimized the Communist Party in Cuba and instituted progressive reforms that might have caused concern among American businessmen. Even though these same acts by Fidel Castro would incur the wrath of Washington, President Roosevelt and his Administration overlooked them. The Americans didn't think they were anything more than political show, and Batista became a valuable ally in World War II.

Cuban WWII-era warship Antonio Maceo (click to enlarge)

German u-boats were the scourge of shipping along the shores of North and South America, and throughout the Caribbean. They were attempting to cut the pipeline of strategic supplies to the Allies fighting in Europe and North Africa. Operational cooperation between the United States and Latin American countries allowed America to deploy the greater part of its forces to the front lines. A fleet of U.S. Navy blimps patrolled the coast of South America where merchant fleets from Argentina and Brazil passed before transiting the Atlantic. Their crews coordinated attacks by the Brazilian Air Force and Navy on the u-boats. The American Coast Guard helped the Argentinian Navy patrol its nation's ports.

Batista increased his military: He augmented the army to 14,000 soldiers, the marines to 3,000, the Havana police to 3,000, and the rural police to 3,000. The United States provided him with warships. During World War II, the Cubans helped patrol and protect the strategic shipping lanes from Galveston and New Orleans as well as the waterways to the Panama Canal. A lieutenant in the Cuban Navy, who served on one of these warships and helped sink a u-boat, later became a member of the Fidelistas and piloted their invasion from Mexico to Cuba aboard the motor yacht Granma.

Even Ernest Hemingway, a long time Havana resident, got in on the act. He and his drinking buddies used Hemingway's fishing boat, El Pilar, to mount patrols searching for German u-boats. Their exploits, some contended floating drinking parties, mirrored patrols mounted by American civilians on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. (I think that I, too, would have been drinking before I went to sea piloting a 30 foot cabin cruiser, armed with Tommy Guns, searching for German warships.)

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Ultimately, Cuba received more than $7 million in arms and ammunition. Furthermore, to offset the loss of trade with Europe during the war, the United States guaranteed a scheme to purchase the entire 1942 sugar crop through the Federal Loan Agency. At least in war, Cuba benefited more from its commercial ties to the United States than at any other time.