They needed weapons, so Soviet Union started to sell their old Soviet tanks and some fighters, airplanes.

 

The Soviets also supplied them with oil, which US-owned refineries in Cuba refused to process.

 

Che had a public face and a clandestine existence, which was understood and encouraged by Fidel

 

And rewarded by him, Che is given an important new role in the Cuban government, as head of the industrialization department, and is appointed president of Cuba's national bank.

 

He showed his disdain for the mercantile world and money, by merely signing the Cuban bank bills, Che

 

To me it's an insult to the Cuban people, when he signed the first currency, like, and he signed, Che Guevara. That was an insult.

 

The capitalist structure of Cuba is coming to an end

 

Castro, he decreased the standard of living, so instead of making richer, everybody, he made poorer, everybody

 

Fidel Castro signs an agrarian reform bill, and on May 7th 1959, the first seizures of large agricultural landholdings are made.

 

The people, they start to see the reality, what’s coming on, and very soon the Cubans, they start the exiles to Miami

 

As thousands flee Cuba, Che takes on an even more radical plan

 

The favorite argument of Che’s, was that, in order for Cuba to become truly politically sovereign, it had to become economically independent of the US, and the only way to do that, was to sever all economic links with the US

 

The US has billions of dollars invested in Cuba; everything was owned by the US, the electricity company, the ports, the mines, the twice daily, airline shuttle to Miami, the television stations.

 

With America’s refusal to refine Cuba's oil, Fidel Castro responds by nationalizing all foreign oil companies, in retaliation, the US breaks all diplomatic relations.

 

Less than 10 months later, all US-owned companies are seized, Washington fights back, and announces a trade embargo on all exports to Cuba. As tensions rise with the US, in Cuba, any opposition to the regime is viewed as counter-revolutionary, and a crime, even the practice of religion’s frowned upon. Several dozen Catholic priests are expelled from the island

 

Over a Bible, they promised to fight until we had Cuba free, or until death, and mainly the founders of our organization, my organization, they died in front of the firing squad

 

The killers were terrible, everywhere

 

I didn't want to live under a regime like that, and my wife didn't want too

 

As thousands flee Cuba, the stage for confrontation with the US is set. Fidel Castro's revolutionary government can no longer be tolerated

 

Frankly, he is uncontrollable and that was the key, we can not control him, you see a clear CIA memorandum saying, ''Fidel Castro has to be eliminated, and Cuban revolution has to be rolled back, and we need to go forward a plan to overthrow the Castro government''

 

As Che Guevara's vision for a socialist Cuba becomes a reality, President Eisenhower meets behind closed-doors, the time for action has come, a secret war is about to begin