CBS Radio presents is Cuba Going Red.

Good evening.

The inescapable fact is brutally simple.

The island of Cuba 90 miles off our shores,

sight of the American naval base that guards us other defenses,

anchor for our defense of the Panama Canal

and key to the political future of Latin America.

This Cuban island is today a totalitarian dictatorship

and is rapidly becoming a communist beachhead in the Caribbean.

Cuba is today a one-man government held together by promises and fear.

That is why this report will be told in my voice

rather than the voices of Cubans themselves.

Welcome to Blowback.

I'm Brendan James.

I'm Noah Colman.

And this is episode three, new normal.

We started off there with a clip from CBS in May of 1959,

asking is Cuba going red and calling it a totalitarian dictatorship?

We'll see in a little bit why that broadcast might have aired in that month of that year.

Because last episode we traced the origins of Cuba's relationship with the United States,

which culminated in the uprising, the revolution against Fohensio Batista and his cronies.

Now in 1959, the first year of the Cuban Revolution,

...