U.S. policymakers have coveted Cuba since the days of John Quincy Adams. Now, the island might finally fall into their lap. What has brought us here? Chart the long history of intimate yet bitter relations between the United States and Cuba, from the 19th to the 21st century. Emphasized is the mid-twentieth century, when U.S. fears clashed with Cuban yearnings for freedom and set up ideological and political dynamics still at play today.