Probably better phrased as "the same way they did Korea."

1. Initially, the leftist credentials of the Cuban Revolution were in question. Castro visited Harlem right after winning, even. There was a real question of whether this was a government that would be friendly to U.S. business interests or not.
2. There were no airstrikes called to aid the Bay of Pigs invasion (which occurred before the USSR stationed nukes there) because the civilian leadership (Kennedy) didn't want a full war, and didn't want to be seen as overtly knocking off a national liberation movement. This was when the U.S. still had a pretty positive image throughout the developing world. They didn't want another Korean War. The civilian leadership of the U.S. didn't really want the actual Korean War; that was (like the Bay of Pigs) more driven and escalated by the budding military-industrial complex (a term coined by Eisenhower, who had to delicately manage public dissatisfaction with the war during his '52 campaign).
3. The U.S. had plenty of success with covert ops or small invasions in Latin America before, and would continue to do so throughout the Cold War, so an isolated Cuba was more of a hassle than a threat. Unlike Korea and later Vietnam, there was no strategic need to encircle China, or maintain an imperial foothold in mainland Asia.