Castro, Fidel

Castro, Fidel (1927–) a Cuban statesman, Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976, and President since 1976 born near Birán, Cuba. In 1953 he organized a rebel force to remove Gen. Fulgencio Batista from office, and he was arrested when the force attacked the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26. He was sentenced to a fifteen-year imprisonment but was released in 1955 in a political amnesty. In December 1956 he landed on the coast of Oriente province, Cuba, with an armed expedition, most of whom were killed or captured. Castro and the remaining force retreated to the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, where they organized a guerilla campaign that eventually overthrew the Batista regime on January 1, 1959. Castro became the commander in chief of the armed forces of the new Cuban government, and in February 1959 he became premier. He nationalized Cuba's private commerce and industry, instituted land reforms, and expropriated U.S. businesses and agricultural estates. In April 1961 at the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Castro defeated an attack by Cuban exiles equipped by the U.S. government to overthrow his government. In the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962–63), the Soviet Union withdrew its nuclear weapons from the island in exchange for a U.S. pledge that included and end to attempts to overthrow Castro's regime.