Stephen Kinzer on the rise of Fidel Castro

Castro was a pure product of American policy toward Cuba.  If the United States had not crushed Cuba's drive to independence in the early twentieth century, if it had not supported a series of repressive dictators there, and if it had not stood by while the 1952 election was canceled, a figure like Castro would almost certainly not have emerged.  His regime is the quintessential result of a "regime change" operation gone wrong, one that comes back to haunt the country that sponsored it.

~ Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq, p. 91