"""The Cold War Games of a Colonial Latin American Nation: San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1966."

Sotomayor, Antonio

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Description

Title

"""The Cold War Games of a Colonial Latin American Nation: San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1966."

Author(s)

Sotomayor, Antonio

Contributor(s)

• Johns, Andrew
• Dichter, Heather

Issue Date

2014-09

Keyword(s)

• History
• Cold War
• Sport
• Central American and Caribbean Games
• Olympism
• Puerto Rico
• Cuba
• Colonialism
• National Identity

Geographic Coverage

• Puerto Rico
• Caribbean
• Latin America

Abstract

This chapter discusses the political events surrounding the Central American and Caribbean Games of 1966 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It demonstrates how the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico became dangerously entangled within Cold War tensions by denying invitation to, and visas for, the Cuban delegation to the Games. Citing security concerns over tens of thousands of Cuban exiles in Puerto Rico, sports leaders on the island travelled the tense Cold War and Caribbean politics in an effort to underplay their de facto colonial status with the United States. The negotiations, which meant the first visit of a Communist Cuban delegation into U.S. territory, included the Puerto Ricans, Cubans, the United States, the International Olympic Committee, and the Soviet Block, all claiming to salvage the Games from politics. In the end, their actions, words, and decisions speak of familiar Cold War innuendoes, but with a Caribbean hue.

Publisher

University Press of Kentucky

Series/Report Name or Number

Studies in Conflict, Diplomacy, and Peace

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/72656

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