CASTRO TAKES AWAY THE GUNS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200320015-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 18, 1999
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: September 1, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

THE INDEPENDENT
Sanitized - Approved For i13 ohmser. QJSTATINTL
CPYRGHT
untra Takes Away The Guns
By Robert Tabor
The subject is guns.
Fidel Castro is currently disarming the Cuban populace, including
militia members not on active duty. Senator Dodd seeks to disarm citizens
of the United States, and damn the Constitution.
There is a distinct relationship of ideas there, and although I am not
unduly concerned by the hysteria implicit in the Dodd Bill, currently be-
fore Congress, I am concerned- let us say that I have been close enough
to the Cuban Revolution to have reason-about what is happening in
Cuba.
Time was when Fidel Castro boasted
that the common people of his revolu-
tionary country were armed. Their rifles
were the guarantee of their freedom, the
token of his overwhelming popularity. lie
walked freely among them. If the people
chose to depose a regime grown despotic
or for whatever reason unpopular-bang[
off with his head.
In the most literal way, Fidel staked
his life on his popularity. lie bet his life
that he was right.
Now the bet is reneged. Why? What
has gone wrong? Something, surely, for
Castro was correct in the first instance:
a. country whose citizens are armed is a
free country. Bullets hack up ballots-
it is not a question of one or the other.
if the ballot box fails, and the courts
fail, and the parliament and the popular
assembly fail, the rifle is-as Che Gue-
'varn has noted-the court of last resort.
The founding fathers of these United
States understood the principle very well
--they had just finished testing it on,the
British -and they wrote it into the U.S.
Constitution,
Connecticut's Senator Thomas Dodd-
sometimes registered agent of the Ydi?
gorns tyranny In Guatemala, grand' in-
quisitor of the Eastland Committee-is
(busily trying to write it out..'
"The right of the people to bear arms
a bow and arrow. The hysteria abou
weapons could easily extend that far.
unmotivated murder of Jack Kennedy I
only a pretext for outlawing rifles. Th
truth is that what Senator Dodd renll
really fear, is not presidential assassina-
tion, not crimes of passion or insanity or
common venality, but armed rebellion-
the violent assertion of natural rights by
those to whom the ballot box has always
been a mockery.
I am thinking of the recent Watts in-
I surrection in Los Angeles. I am thinking
of the black rebellion still to come-and
shall not be infringed." I suspect that Dodd is thinking similar
The Constitution says nothing of arms thoughts.
above a certain caliber, or arms that may In the so-called Watts district, a vast
tainea ny mail order. It says "arms," pe-
riod.
It stands as a natter of common sense
that honest men ought to be able to arm
themselves in order to protect themselves
and their families against lawbreakers-
who will obtain weapons whether legally
obtainable or no.
But that is not the primary purpose of
the Constitutional amendment which
guarantees the right of the people to bear
arms. Its primary purpose was to back
up an idea that Thomas Jefferson pro-
pounded: the right of the people to resist
tyranny by force of arms. It was summed
up in a sentence on the Jefferson seal:
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
Senator Dodd, like most. reactionaries,
fears weapons In the hands of ordinary
citizens-and if I were In his shoes I
might be terrified, too.
To Outlaw Mail Order Weapons
(The assassination of President' Kennedy
has given impetus to Dodds- legislative
which the unemployment rate stands at
30 percent and miser
i
dail
y
s
y company
,
I a small corps of Negro snipers, armed
with weapons looted from pawnshops, the
very symbol of poverty, held an army at
bay for six days.
Property damage from fires set by
bursting Molotov cocktails rose to $200,-
000,000. (But how to outlaw gasoline?)
Insurance companies all over the country
felt the impact. Shudders were felt in
every great city with a sizeable Negro
ghetto, and ran up and down Dixieland.
Armed Negroes, on the rampage. liorrorsl
Personally, I am not inclined, despite
the tragic toll of human life in Los An-
geles, to count the Watts uprising an un-
mitigated evil, It was, in fact, long over-
due.
The evil lies in the social system that
has kept 20 million black people-and
not a few million white poor-under the
grinding heel of poverty in the world's
richest nation.
The staccato rattl
ifl
f
fi
L
I
e o
r
e
re
n
os
effort to outlaw mail-order weapons, and Angeles delivered a message. The ballot
most other firearms. Kennedy was murd- box, had failed, the Congress had failed,
ered with a mail-order rifle. Ergo, mail- the courts had failed, and it was time for
order rifles are things of evil. Happily# he a change.
I suggest that that is what rifles are
for. And at the risk of seeming to incite
to riot (which is not my purpose), I would
: like to see the Dodd Bill killed.
I would like to see it killed because I
believe that an armed citizenry inspires
CPYRGHT
a certain respect in its civil servants
which does not obtain where the people
are disarmed (e.g., the Soviet Union,
China).
If the authorities fear an armed citiz.
enry, then they, the authorities, need to
examine their consciences.
Memo to Senator Dodd.
i Cuban press please copy.
Sanitized - Approve For.ReIease : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200$20015-2