THE US AND THE CARIBBEAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600420039-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 26, 1999
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: June 19, 1961
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

NEW i ..i i _1C
Sanitized - Approved For R c9:1g ?P7Ab3
5 5
.
The US an&the Caribbean
by Danielti'1, Triedenberg
CPYRGHT
7MIlough the o son Zf the lite enera ss o
Rafael Trujillo is,a"s of this writing, formally in eotn+},
mand of the Dominican Republic's armed. forces, there f
is little reason for confidence that he will hold power"'
,without challenge. A strong underground is reported
operating in the island and some 20,000 refugeeit,`
s%,arn enemies of the Trujillo family, are actively seek-
;r%; a radical change in the regime. Though split into
anti- and pro-Castro elements, the left-wing Dominican
`.Iteration Movement will without doubt take a major
part in any new revolutionary attempt and is con-
ndered the most militant and best organized of the
apposition forces. The young leaders in exile, sooner
or later, must move to fill the vacuum left by the assas-
,.,tta:ion of the Dictator.
As a sympathizer in the' fight against Batista and
[ ruiillo, I visited both Cuba),and the Dominican Repub-
c,veral times over the past three years, talking with
~,lcr?;,,round leaders in both countries. I traveled by
.no the Sierra Maestra mountains of Cuba in 1958,
through the blockade, and stayed at Santiago de Cuba
lucre I was arrested by the Batista forces. I wrote and
..ra:r.rigned for funds to aid the cause of Fidel Castro
o:, my return to the United States.
I can state from personal contact that the attitude of
it-,any Dominicans in exile or in the underground today
is similar to that of the early Fidelistas. And I would
like, therefore, to try and review the tragic evolution of
the Ca .tro movement in the hope that all -of us, Domini-
c'an friends included, might learn from the mistakes
aria miscalculations that were made by the Cubans.
Perhaps one of the major miscalculations was that
in,tcad of using Russia to counter US influence, instead
,r 1,~lding- up a strong 26th of July Movement na-
'.wnni party, instead of proclaiming a doctrine of social
democratic neutrality for all Latin America, Fidel Cas-
tio !,c: rime an official member of the socialist bloc (a
:t r.,icm for Soviet satellites), gave the Cuban Com-
muni t Party a monopoly on politics and, as a result,
fmm,i~,iimd for many years the prospects for effective
: "' democratic revolutions in Latin America.
\poIOgists say that what has happened in Cuba was
M. F RIriJI Nill KG, a `Spartislr-sircaking busi-
,,has written ev-tensii'ely on Latin America dur-
:w t several years. His articles have appeared irr
Commentary azrrd The New Leader, as cell as
an inevitable reaction to power, in the same way
some theorists said that the US would intervene when
Mexico nationalized its oil, or that Stalin would destroy
Yugoslavia when Tito broke loose. But to embrace this
doctrine of inevitability,. one must close one's eyes and
mind to the realities of Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Ghana,
Egypt - even Finland and Albania. The young Cuban
revolutionaries brought themselves to where they are
now by hardening certain truths and half-truths into
rigid doctrine and then acting as though the doctrine
were the only truth. They thought that previous revo-
lutionary activity, in Mexico and especially Guatemala,
set a pattern which would be typical for all Latin
.America, and that any revolution which did not folloti.,
this pattern was a facade for reaction.
Latin America, however, is enormous and hetero-
geneous, with many languages and cultures and peo-
ples. Argentina, for example, bears as much relation to
Panama as Germany does to Kenya. There are Indian
cultures like those of Bolivia and Guatemala and spe-
cific white European cultures like Costa Rica and Uru-
guay. There are miserably poor countries, such as Bo-
livia and Guatemala again, and countries like Chile and
Argentina with a strong middle-class. There are ar-
dently Catholic countries, most especially Colombia,
and places like Brazil where the Church is desperately
searching for priests. In terms of US imperialism, there
are Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and the
banana republics, where our financial interests are
enormous, and others like Colombia and Paraguay
where they are almost nonexistent. US investment de-
clines as one gets farther away from geographical prox-
imity to our borders.
In general, we might say that the areas where white
settlement was dominant- Argentina, Chile, Uruguay
and Costa Rica - have evolved a middle-class society
which more or less resembles the culture pattern of the
United States. Another group of countries is still to a
large extent Indian and frightfully poverty-stricken -
Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and the Central
American pockets. In a third group - and that which
may determine the future of Latin America - are Indian
lands, including Negro enclaves, with a white elite
which has to some degree successfully integrated itself
into the life of the nation. Here we find Brazil, Colom-
bia, Venezuela and Mexico. Still another group is domi-
nantly Negro and outside the main stream Haiti,
Jamaica and the smaller Caribbean islands. The race