President Jimmy Carter Visits Cuba

History Daily

Airship | Noiser | Wondery

History

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

May 12, 2002. Jimmy Carter becomes the first current or former U.S. President to visit Cuba since 1959. This episode originally aired in 2022.

Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.

History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.

Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad-free.
0:04.1	Listen with Wondry Plus in the Wondry app.
0:06.0	As a member of NoisorPlus at noisor.com or in Apple Podcasts,
0:10.5	or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at IntoHistory.com.
0:30.6	It's the morning of April 17th, 1961, on the southwestern coast of Cuba in the Bay of Pigs.
0:36.2	Commander Jose Perez San Ramon grabs his rifle as he storms onto the beach.
0:42.5	After fleeing Cuba in 1959, San Ramon is back on the island with 1,400 other men.
0:46.6	They are here to overthrow the country's socialist leader, Fidel Castro.
0:49.3	San Ramon's heart is pounding in his ears.
0:52.7	He shouts to be heard over incoming Cuban planes.
0:58.3	He tries to radio his second in command, who's leading an offensive on another beach across the bay.
1:03.2	But the radios are down, damaged by water during the chaotic beach landing.
1:08.5	San Ramon looked behind him and seized the boat that dropped him off, disappearing into the distance.
1:11.5	He understands there's nowhere to go but forward.
1:18.5	San Ramon yells at his fighters to get into position. He sees Cuban tanks and hundreds of pro-Castra militia approaching. San Ramon grips his rifle and shouts at the top of his lungs,
1:24.4	Viva Cuba Libre, long-lived-free Cuba. His men join him in the battle cry as they
1:30.1	charged forward into a hail of gunfire. Prior to this invasion, San Ramon and the men of Brigade
1:38.3	2506, as they're called, spent a year training under the guidance of the American Central Intelligence Agency.
1:45.4	With support from the United States, San Ramon and his fellow mercenaries hoped to spark a
1:50.0	revolution across Cuba and take out Fidel Castro, who seized control of the island two years
1:55.1	earlier through a violent revolution. But the invasion stalls. The mercenaries managed to hold out on the beach of the Bay of Pigs for three days, but in the end, almost all of the 1400 fighters are captured or killed.
2:09.4	The failed revolution, which will come to be known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, is a disaster for the United States and an international embarrassment for the new administration
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Airship | Noiser | Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Airship | Noiser | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.