Fidel Castro was also wide awake, as was usual for him at this hour in the morning. As the minutes ticked by, he became ever more pessimistic about the chances of avoiding an American invasion. The historical analogy that troubled him most was Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Stalin had received numerous intelligence reports about a Nazi invasion, but he ignored them all. Fearing a provocation to trap him into an unwanted war, he refused to mobilize the Soviet armed forces until it was too late.
