"The U.S. government measures went beyond the retaliation warranted by the injuries American citizens and interests had up to that time suffered at Castro's hands" (Welch 58). The author further contests that the problem was only furthered when Kennedy took the matter to be personal and put into act Eisenhower's counterrevolution invasion force that created the Bay of Pigs blunder. "Eisenhower's authorization of March 1960 combined with the machismo requirements of the new frontiersmen to make probable, if not inevitable, the Bay of Pigs" (Welch 68). With the events of the revolution put on the table the author moves to the American social reaction to the revolution, which proves to be the book's strongest analytical aspect.
The author's examination of the various sections of American society during the revolution is the books" greatest source of data in support of its thesis. Society in the book is broken up into three groups: the Right, the Left, and the coffeehouse campus culture. While none of these groups escape the author's scrutiny the Right by far is portrayed as the worse of the three and as one concerned with "inciting popular fears" in the American people. The Left on the other hand ideologically gains the author's blessing, but proves to be too broad of a group and in the end is dismissed and at best ineffective in changing U.S. policy. The Left also proves to be the most thought out section of the book, simply because it was the most representative of American culture at the time, showing the U.S. to be a land of mixed emotions. The coffeehouse group however, lacks clarity and turns out to be a redefinition of various factions within the Left. This section while relevant proves to be the books weak point and could most likely b left out and not missed. While the author attempts to distinguish the group as an entity in itself, Welch ends up referring again to the same Academics that he did in the Left section and made no attempt to distinguish a separate train of thought.
