By 1973 Cuba will have the lowest child mortality and the highest literacy in Latin America. In spite of these measures, popular with the majority of the population, the USA puts pressure on its allies to exclude Cuba from various inter-American forums. The USA continues to blockade the country and even attempts to assassinate the president, Fidel Castro.
A UK freighter bound from Cuba to the USSR with 80,000 bags of sugar stops in Puerto Rico for repairs. Agents from the USA CIA contaminate the sugar with a harmless chemical that makes the sugar unpalatable. A CIA official later reveals:
"There was lots of sugar being sent out from Cuba, and we were putting a lot of contaminates in it."
The USA president, John Kennedy, is angry when he hears of the operation because it had occurred on USA territory and could hand the USSR a propaganda weapon.
A Canadian worker in Cuba is paid $5,000 "by an American military intelligence agent" to infect turkeys with a fatal disease; 8,000 turkeys die.
A group of CIA dispatched rebels blow up an industrial facility killing 400 workers.
