Cuba–United States relations to advance the interest and increase the profits of private U.S. companies instead of helping Cuba to achieve economic progress, saying that Americans dominated the island's economy and had given support to one of the bloodiest and most repressive dictatorships in the history of Latin America. "We let Batista put the U.S. on the side of tyranny, and we did nothing to convince the people of Cuba and Latin America that we wanted to be on the side of freedom". In 1961 Cuba resisted an armed invasion by about 1,500 CIA trained Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. President
USS Invade (AM-254) by Savannah Machine & Foundry Co., Savannah, Georgia; launched 6 February 1944; sponsored by Miss Thayer C. Allen; and commissioned 18 September 1944, Lt. H. H. Silliman in command. After shakedown in Chesapeake Bay, "Invade" steamed to Casco Bay, Maine, for training 24 November 1944. Following these operations and additional drills out of Norfolk, Virginia, the minecraft assumed duties there as towing ship for aircraft targets and as an experimental minesweeper. She remained on this important duty through the end of the war and reported 21 September 1945 to the Mine Warfare School at Yorktown, Virginia, as a training ship.