[dgut]

My point is simple: If the US had not severed ties with Cuba and instead engaged with Fidel (as he initially tried to do with the US), chances are Cuba wouldn't have alienated itself with the Soviet Union, and Christians (and everybody else) would have been much better off.

Repression of the Church didn't happen until years after the revolution and the Soviet Union had become its main ally.

Cuba is worse off today than it was 60 years ago by the way, so in that sense, they aren't "stuck in the 60s".

What did the US lose? An ally and a potentially strong economy to trade with a few miles from US shore. Cuban music had quite some influence on the music of New Orleans, particularly jazz. Cuban musicians would regularly travel back and forth from Havana to New Orleans before the revolution (and the other way around).