In 1965, the Cuban government arrested two Southern Baptist missionaries and several Cuban Baptists and charged them with multiple crimes, including espionage. Almost immediately, a backlash to the arrests swept across Baptists in the United States. During the four years between the missionaries’ imprisonment and their release, W.A. Criswell, conservative pastor of the massive First Baptist Church of Dallas, incorporated the missionaries’ testimonies into his own agenda. This thesis examines Herbert Caudill’s experiences as a part of rising conservatism in the Southern Baptist Convention in the late nineteen sixties and explains the role of anti-communism and the Cold War as a subject of Baptist debate. It also places the U.S. South in a global context by examining the transnational nature of the Cuban Baptist mission and in Herbert Caudill’s identity. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection