My thoughts are: 1) there was enough opposition to the Nationalist Government among our "intellectuals" and "progressives" (sympathizers maybe but not card-carrying Communists, com-symps) for Mao's "agrarian reform," that even without Soviet influence in government and elsewhere Mao would have had Washington's support and 2) Batista's government was not popular here (most of us probably never heard of him) and Castro was wildly popular in the media and among the usual "intellectuals" suspects ("wildly" maybe is a bit too much but the networks did compete with one another).
(There was the usual "our fault" claims, we made Mao and Castro turn to the Soviets.)
The key IMO is the silenced majority; to wit, no Internet and nothing like modern talk radio. Though even with both, the miracle of TV was fascinating and many of the journalists there had built their reputations in the War; maybe even with both the Internet and modern talk radio we would have lost the battle for public opinion.
I remember writing to the networks with complaints about bias only to receive a reply stating "We're professionals and you're not."
As the Contra-Sandinista war raged I realized that I did not know who were the good guys and who were the commies. I had by that time given up on network (and other) news. But I knew that it would take only a few seconds to get an answer to my question, I'll watch how the TV networks cover the two sides. Sure enough Sandinistas were hailed as heroes and the Contras were war criminals, the Sandinistas were the Communists.
It doesn't take American card-carrying members of our enemy's forces. We have plenty of "Americans" like the famous Professor Nicholas "I hope for a million Mogadishus" De Genova and his ideal world where "the U.S. would have no place." I am sure that the professor is not a jihadist.
The minnows grew up to be the Rat Party (formerly the traditional, patriotic Democratic Party) leaders and stalwarts. The old crew fled from the Party.
We now have the tools to fight the traitors with everything including blood; our America, their blood.
My preference however is to leave the actual combat up to the professionals. "Get on the damn horse, already!"
I would add that the effort of your "Com-symps" would not have, in my opinion, amounted to so much as they turned out to without the aid of out and out communists/soviet agents working within our own government to help us formulate our foreign policy. (It isn't as if there were not at the time true patriots trying to warn us off but who were shouted down by those more powerful forces in government.) This is particularly true with regard to events leading up to Batista's overthrow in Cuba.
I otherwise agree and PRAY that will use the tools now available to us have to rid ourselves, once and for all, of this enemy within.