WI: 1947 Havana Bombing

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Deleted member 67076

One of the interesting footnotes Ive recently found was that back in 1947, Cuba and the Dominican Republic almost went to war with each other.

Basically, exiles from the Dominican Republic were planning to launch an invasion to topple Trujillo, and obtained support from Venezuela, Haiti, Guatemala, and especially Cuba (and also a ton of Spanish Civil War + WW2 veterans). They got funding, planes, arms, and troops and were hosted in Cuba where they spent training. Over 1000 armed men were at hand by 1947 when the invasion was supposed to be launched (The Dominican army at this time was about I believe 3-5,000 men). Incidentally, a young 21 year old Fidel Castro was involved in this.

Now the plan was foiled because Trujillos moles in Washington found it out and he knew the invasion route and the plan got shelved before anything happened. But he straight up threatened to bomb Havana if the invasion landed.

Suppose it did land there then. Either the invasion route is changed, or no information leaks out. Invasion happens (don't know about likelihood of success), and Trujillo makes good on his threat. Now we have a major dipomatic crisis in the Caribbean that involves at least 5 countries.

What happens next?
 
There would be no need to bomb Havana. There was just no way to keep an operation as large (and as full of talkative types) as Cayo Confites a secret, and if it hadn't been cancelled, the landing party would quickly have been destroyed--and Fidel Castro with it. He almost perished anyway, btw:

***

1947--the Cayo Confites Expedition. This was an attempt to overthrow
Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, organized by Dominican exile Juan
Bosch, and supported by President Grau. Bosch put together an
expeditionary force consisting of men from several Latin American
countries--the Cuban contingent being organized by the MSR. This would
seem to rule out Fidel's participation; but Bosch liked Fidel so much that
he got Manolo Castro and Masferrer to agree that Fidel could go on the
expedition and that while there, he would be safe, at least from them.

Fidel's parents were furious with him for agreeing to go, warning him:
"If Trujillo doesn't kill you, Masferrer will." Fidel may have shared
this belief--at this time he made out a "Last Will and Testament." But he
insisted that it was his duty to try to liberate the Dominican Republic,
since a Dominican, General Maximo Gomez, had helped to liberate Cuba. In
any event, the proposed expedition became far too well-known (to Trujillo
among others) to succeed. President Grau called the expedition off, even
though some of the men were already en route to Santo Domingo. Under
Fidel's agreement with Manolo Castro and with Masferrer, the ending of the
expedition meant that the truce was at an end; for that reason, and to
avoid arrest by Grau's navy, Fidel jumped from the ship and swam back to
Cuba--carrying his Thompson submachine gun through several miles of shark-
infested waters...

https://soc.history.what-if.narkive.com/z3bwYNCe/killing-fidel-castro-pre-1959-part-one-1947-53
 
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