Intro

On 17 December 2014, United States president Barack Obama and the leader of Cuba, Raúl Castro, announced the normalisation of their countries' relations, ending 54 years of hostility.

The announcement was a shock to most except a few trusted aides who had worked for 18 months to make it happen.

Alejandro Castro, Raúl Castro's son, represented the Cuban side, while Ben Rhodes, Obama’s speech writer, was sent by the US.

Speaking to Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty in 2024, Ben explains how he and Alejandro found common ground whilst hashing out decades of bad blood.

They eventually flew to Vatican City to officially commit to a new co-operative future.

In 2017, President Donald Trump partially rolled back on the deal, tightening rules affecting travel and on sending funds to the Caribbean island nation.

Ben says: “The US government made a liar out of me. I felt betrayed.”

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

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We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.

(Photo: Barack Obama shakes hands with Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in 2013. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)