CUBA: CASTRO'S PROPAGANDA APPARATUS AND FOREIGN POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87M00539R001702730012-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 60
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 14, 2009
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: March 21, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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Central Intelligence Agency
Mr. Gilbert A. Robinson
Special Advisor to the Secretary
of State for Public Diplomacy
Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
2 8 MAR 1985
Thank you for your letter of 14 March concerning the study on
Castro's propaganda apparatus. We received requests for declassi-
fication of this study last October from the Department of State and
the National Security Council and, therefore, we are able to provide you
with a copy for your use. Assistant Secretary Motley had an effort
underway several months ago to distribute copies of the unclassified
version to Latin American leaders and Constantine Menges of the NSC has
hoped to make it available to European politicians. Similar efforts may
be underway elsewhere. There is a Spanish language unclassified text
available. If I can be of any further assistance, please let me know.
Yours,
Enclosure:
Unclassified Study
Executive- t : iry
85- C 06-7 /1
/s/. WiiUam J. Casey
William J. Casey
Director of Central Intelligence
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STAT
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Cuba: Castro's Propaganda Apparatus and Foreign Policy
This paper is an in-depth examination of Castro's propaganda
apparatus, but it is not all-inclusive. A number of the
apparatus' lesser elements have been omitted for sake of brevity,
and no mention has been made of Havana's extensive use of foreign
aid to enhance the Castro regime's image. The major branches of
the propaganda mill, however, are discussed in sufficient detail
to give the reader an adequate appreciation of the size and
sophistication of one of Havana's most important foreign policy
tools.
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Key Judgments
Cuban President Fidel Castro has long considered propaganda
to be one of the most potent weapons in his foreign policy
arsenal. His use of the few propaganda assets available to him--
personal interviews with journalists, radio broadcasts and
special publicity-seeking operations--during his guerrilla war
against Batista contributed in a-major way to his victory and was
a preview of the methods he would use so successfully after
coming to power.
Immediately after assuming power, he set about creating a
propaganda empire that today is perhaps the most effective in the
h;,^i.sphere and has connections worldwide. The empire is directed
by a clique made up of Castro and his old guerrilla comrades;
this ensures a permanent antipathy toward the US.
This network consists of a global news agency, international
broadcasting facilities, newspapers, magazines, publishing
houses, front groups, "friendship" institutes, sports and
cultural activities, and a wide variety of miscellaneous
organizations.
Cuba's news service has 39 offices around the world,
transmits stories in four languages, and publishes a variety of
magazines and news periodicals that are disseminated to readers
in numerous Western and Third world nations. Cuba's broadcast
fr
facilities include eight transmitters on the island--ranging up
to 100 kilowatts--and two transmitters in the USSR. Shortwave
broadcasting alone exceeds 400 hours weekly in eight languages to
Europe, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. The Cuban Institute
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for Friendship Among Peoples (ICAP) is designed to organize in
foreign countries associations that are responsive to direction
from Havana. There are "now 113 such associations throughout the
world.
The Castro regime constructed a S25 million Palace of
Conventions in Havana to host international gatherings designed
to focus world opinion on specific issues or to promote Cuban
prestige. In addition, Cuban cultural institutions such as the
Casa de las Americas have effectively mobilized many Latin
American intellectuals--many of them prestigious--in support of
the Cuban revolution. Cuba's publishing houses have turned out
some 17,000 titles and over 500 million copies of books and
pamphlets, a significant amount being propaganda. Cuban books
are now distributed in more than 60 countries.
Castro's propaganda successes are impressive. Despite
economic ruin in his country, he has been able to project such?a
favorable image of Cuba that Third World leaders see it as a
model for other developing countries. Despite relentless
meddling abroad, he has been able to convince many influentral
individuals that he is willing to abide by correct standards of
international behavior.
It is clear from Cuban_government statements that propaganda
will continue to be a major priority and will expand in certain
key areas. Although economic constraints will hamper this
effort, we are likely to see'` new investments made to:
-- Improve the availability of Cuban books and magazines
abroad.
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-- Open new bureaus of Cuba's international news agency and
increase the number of subscribers for that news
agency's services.
-- Help allies develop their own.propaganda outlets for
both domestic and international audiences.
-- Train foreign journalists to make the most of their
skills and opportunities in non-Marxist countries.
-- Establish and promote ostensibly independent news-
gathering and professional organizations of leftists to
provide competition for--and reduce the influence of--
Western news agencies, journalists, and radio stations.
In our view, the bitterly anti-US bias-of Castro's
propaganda apparatus will not change because it mirrors his own
deep-seated antipathy toward the United States. He may, from
time to time, have the apparatus temper its invective, but such a
muting so far has always proved to be temporary.- He expects the
propaganda machine to counter US political moves on a day-to-day
basis. In addition, he intends to use it to produce a broad,
permanent body of literature that, through its scholarship,
eloquence, and sheer volume, will influence current and future
generations of Latin Americans. Castro probably expects this
growing body of literature to cause problems for the United
States long after he himself is out of the picture.
Castro's propaganda mills have sometimes made mistakes.
Radio Havana's reporting on Peru's Maoist Sendero Luminoso
guerrilla group, for example, has angered the Peruvian
Government. Despite these occasional lapses, however, the Cuban
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propaganda machine, enjoying close association with its Soviet
counterpart, ample funding, and competent personnel, will remain
an important negative factor working against US interests,
worldwide.
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Historical Perspective: In the Sierra Maestra
Instinct for Publicity.
Fidel Castro's instinct for the value of international
propaganda served him spectacularly as early as February 1957,
two months after his infiltration of eastern Cuba by sea. His
group of 82 insurgents had been reduced through combat and
desertions to a hard core of only 18, and government control of
the media left most Cubans with the impression that. the
insurgency had failed and that Castro was dead. To overcome the
censorship barrier and embarrass the Batista administration,
Castro sent a messenger to Havana to invite a foreign journalist
to meet with him in the Sierra Maestra mountains of eastern
Cuba. The journalist picked for the task was Herbert Matthews of
the New York Times.
In three articles resulting from his brief encounter with
Castro, Matthews gave an almost heroic impression of the Cuban
revolutionary, describing him as "the flaming symbol of the
opposition to the regime" and boldly predicted that "from the
looks of things, General Batista cannot possibly hope to suppress
the Castro revolt"--a judgment made at a time when the insurgent
band consisted only of 18 poorly armed, half-starved men on the
run. _
A political bombshell, the Times articles, with their
photographic evidence of the historic meeting, gave the lie to
Batista's insistence that Castro was dead, overstated the
strength of the insurgent band (thanks to Castro's deliberate
efforts to deceive Matthews), and gave the insurgents vital
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international exposure. Castro's comrade-in-arms, Che Guevara,
recalled two years later: "At that time, the presence of a
foreign journalist, preferably an American, was more important to
us than a military victory." Within a month of the Matthews
interview the band of 18 had grown to about 80. For his support,
Matthews was later decorated by..Castro.
The intermediaries who had-arranged the Matthews trip later
set up a similar propaganda exercise with the Columbia
Broadcasting System. The resulting television documentary, which
included a dramatic interview with Castro-atop the highest
mountain peak in Cuba, further enhanced the rebels' romantic
image.
Radio Rebelde.
The second phase of Castro's propaganda war against Batista
opened a year later on Cuba's independence day when a rebel radio
located at Che Guevara's headquarters in the Sierra Maestra began
nightly broadcasts on shortwave. The use of shortwave, which
meant it could not be heard in eastern Cuba itself, suggests it
was intended as much for listeners abroad as for those on the
island. Castro's first speech on Radio Rebelde suggests the
same; he opened by.appealina to public opinion in Cuba and to
the free peoples of Latin America," and criticized democratic
governments, leaders, and parties of the region for their
tolerance of the Batista dictatorship.
A popular Venezuelan. station began taping the rebel
broadcasts and replaying them on.mediumwave--clearly audible in
eastern Cuba at night--which was, according to the insurgent
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radio's engineer, a source of great satisfaction in the rebel
camp. Another important Venezuelan broadcaster later did the
same on both mediumwave and shortwave and eventually stations in
Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, and even Argentina were involved
in the retransmissions.
By late 1458, Radio Rebelde's nightly broadcasts could be
heard throughout the Caribbean Basin and were clearly audible in
Washington. Thus, Radio Rebelde, powered by less than 150 watts,
became a major factor in putting Batista on the defensive
internationally and in creating a heroic portrait of Castro.
Castro's Press Club.
Radio Rebelde was only part of Castro's campaign.
Journalists from a number of countries were invited to repeat the
Matthews experience. One of Buenos Aires' most influential radio
stations sent Jorge Ricardo Masetti to the Sierra Maestra in
April 1958. His "instant" book about his trip, Those Who Fight
and Those Who Weep, introduced Castro to Argentina. Masetti was
so captivated that he later returned to Cuba to organize Castro's
international press agency and, in 1963, using the alias
Comandante Segundo, died trying to launch a guerrilla war in his
homeland.
Masetti was preceded into the Sierra Maestra by reporter
Enrique Meneses, whose reporting on this trip appeared in
articles in Paris Match. The French magazine's greatest
international competitor, Look magazine, had already published an
interview with Castro in which Fidel--with an eye for his US
audience--pledged to hold "a truly honest election" and
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disclaimed any intention of nationalizing foreign investments.
During this same period in early 1958, Castro hosted an
Uruguayan journalist and another New York Times' reporter.
Foreign journalists were visiting with such frequency that a sign
reading "Press Club", in English and Spanish, was placed on the
rude hut where the foreign visitors were received at insurgent
headquarters, and Che Guevara jokingly referred to it as "the
most exclusive press club in the world."
Headline Grabbers.
In addition to entertaining international journalists during,
early 1958, the insurgents carried out special paramilitary
operations designed both to attract the press and to heap scorn
on Batista's security forces. The insurgents' urban apparatus,
for example, kidnaped-world-famous Argentine race car driver Juanl
Manuel Fangio from a Havana hotel in broad daylight. Fangio--in
Cuba for the Gran Premio contest--was released unharmed after the
race had started, but gained points for his captors by commenting
favorably on the treatment he had received.
A second kidnaping, carried out in late June 1958,
involved a busload of about 30 US sailors and marines, who were
held until mid-July. The aims were to pressure Batista to halt
indiscriminate air bombings of villages in guerrilla territory,
to prod the US into making demands on Batista to rescue its
personnel that he could not fulfill and thus to discredit him,
and to alert the US public to the savagery with which the Batista,
forces were pursuing the civil-war.
Through his broadcasts, his careful cultivation of foreign
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journalists, and his propaganda-oriented paramilitary operation:
Castro succeeded in internationalizing the conflict. Besides
arousing broad international sympathy, his efforts yielded
tangible benefits. His propaganda campaign almost certainly
played an important part in the US decision in March 1958 to
suspend arms shipments to Cuba. It also elicited important
support in arms and money from abroad.
The Structure for Media Management
Castro's Personal Control
Once in power, Castro began organizing what is today an
international media empire unmatched in Latin America. As in
other Communist countries, this empire is tightly controlled by
the Cuban Communist Party's Political Bureau, the regime's
highest policymaking body. This network consists of such
organizations as radio stations, a news agency with offices
around the globe, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, fro
groups, "friendship" institutes, professional associations, as
well as ad hoc devices, including international meetings, sham
tribunals, cultural displays, speaking tours, and literary
contests--all of which are dedicated to promoting the Cuban lir
and denigrating the US. Some operate overtly as acknowledged
organs of the Cuban government while others are fronts ostensit
free of Cuban influence. The efforts of this vast party-
controlled apparatus are carefully synchronized with and
supplemented by the personal efforts of Castro and other top
Cuban officials, who use their prerogatives of office and their
considerable powers of persuasion to sway foreign figures of
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PAGES 6-9 WERE A TEXT TABLE AND APPEAR AT THE END OF THE
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influence and exploit the non-Cuban media.
Topping this media monolith is Castro himself. His concern
for propaganda nuances is so great that he sometimes visits the
editorial offices of the party's daily newspaper, Granma, late at
night to review the next day's edition or direct the. exact
placement of a story. Castro also sometimes drops into the
headquarters of Cuba's international news agency, Prensa Latina,
to make a statement that he wants disseminated abroad as a
response to quick-breaking events. On.subjects of extreme
sensitivity--usually dealing with the United States--he does not
hesitate to write unattributed editorials. Over the years he has
consistently demonstrated a keen personal interest in how news is
presented, always trying to gain the maximum political benefit
from it.
Castro's chief political officer, Antonio Perez Herrero, a
Political Bureau alternate member who functions as party
secretary for ideology, oversees day-to-day operations of the
media empire, ensuring that it accurately reflects Castro's
thinking. A guerrilla veteran, he rose quickly in Raul Castro's
Armed Forces Ministry after the revolution to become a vice
minister and chief political officer for the entire military
establishment. _
The Revolutionary Orientation Department.
Perez Herrero exerts control over the media empire through
the Revolutionary Orientation Department, an office of the
party's Central Committee charged with establishing ideological
guidelines and ensuring that they are followed. The department's
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chief, Orlando Fundora Lopez, has served in this position since
September 1967 and is directly subordinate to Perez Herrero.
According to press reports, it is not unusual for either or both
to accompany Castro on trips abroad to ensure that his tight
control of the media is not loosened by distance.
Fundora's department includes Granma, which, in addition to
its daily schedule for domestic-consumption, publishes three
weekly editions--in Spanish, English, and French--for distri-
bution abroad. The department's Radio, TV and Documentary Film
Section controls domestic broadcasting as well as Radio Havana
shortwave and La Voz de Cuba mediumwave for external audiences.
7`s Press Section supervises the international news agency,
Prensa Latina, and its domestic counterpart, Agencia Informativa
Nacional. It also has history, publications, and publicity
sections as well as several others.
The Components of the-Apparatus
Prensa Latina
Perhaps the most effective Cuban propaganda weapon is Prensa
Latina, which not only disseminates a daily stream~of propaganda
hostile to the US, but also serves as a cover for intelligence
collection and operations; on occasion it fills a diplomatic
function by using branch offices as de facto embassies.
According to the authors of a Cuban history of the agency,
the idea for Prensa Latina was born at the time of Operation
Truth in mid-January 1959 when Castro, complaining of a
conspiracy against him and his revolution by the international
news agencies, gathered more than 500 foreign journalists and
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news photographers, mostly from Latin America, in Havana to try
to overcome the bad press that resulted from a wave of executions
immediately following his victory over Batista. The high point
of Operation Truth occurred on 22 January when Castro met with
the assembled army of newspersons.
In condemning the Western wire services, he lamented that
"we don't have (our own) international wire services. You Latin
American journalists have no other choice but to accept what the
(US and European) wire services tell. you. The Latin American
press ought to have the means that would permit it to know the
truth and not be victim to the lie." He urged the journalists to
become involved: "Do you journalists want.to help the
oppressed? Well, you have a formidable weapon in your hand:
continental public opinion. Use it and you will see how you can
help to liberate people and save many lives."
On hand for Castro's spectacular press conference were
Carlos Maria Gutierrez and Jorge Ricardo Masetti, two pro-Castro
journalists whose radical bona fides had been established during
their visit to Che Guevara's "press club" in they Sierra Maestra
in 1958. Responding to a personal invitation from Che, they had
returned to Cuba from Buenos Aires in early January 1959 and had
helped Castro prepare for operation Truth. Following Castro's
plea, they prepared the groundwork for what six months later was
to become Prensa Latina.
In April 1959, Mexican industrialist Guillermo Castro Ulloa
arrived in Havana to conclude the preparations for the agency,
later becoming its first president. On 9 June, it was formally
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inaugurated and on 19 June--with Masetti as its director
qeneral--Prensa Latina began its first transmissions to
subscribers abroad.
By the end of the year, Prensa Latina had, in addition to
its service in Spanish for Latin America, a transmission in
English for Egypt's Middle East News Agency and Yugoslavia's
Tanyug news agency. Its Spanish transmissions were also directed
to Czechoslovakia for CTK and to Poland for PAP. A year after
its creation, Prensa Latina had branch offices in Washington, Newl
York, London, Paris, Geneva and Prague, as well as in all
countries of Latin America except Haiti, the Dominican Republic,
end Nicaragua. By the end of 1972, it boasted of two national
and 12 international radio circuits and an average daily
transmission total of 2,500 news dispatches. In 1975, it began a'
Quechua Indian language news service for Ecuador, Peru, and
Bolivia.
Today, Prensa Latina transmits in four languages--Spanish,
Portuguese, English and French--on shortwave to all parts of the
world--its news in Spanish is on the air 18 hours a day--and
provides additional transmissions in undetermined languages on
satellite facilities. It has 36 branch offices in major cities
of the world from Tokyo and. Luanda to Moscow and Buenos Aires.
It boasts a special services department that offers a variety of
journalistic support materials, including: photographic packages
of events or personalities; compilations of basic data for
background presentations; recorded interviews with leading
political, cultural, and sports figures; political or economic
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commentaries on a .single country or an entire region by
experienced observers; and feature articles on virtually any
.subject that a newspaper or magazine would be interested in
publishing. These made-to-order services can be provided in
Spanish, French, or English.
Prensa Latina also publishes its own magazines and news
periodicals. Its monthly 64-page Prisma Latinoamericano, with a'
format designed to compete with Time, has a Spanish edition sold
in Spain and nine countries of Latin.America, and a Portuguese
edition for Portugal, Brazil, and five African countries.
Prisma's news items and illustrations invariably have an anti-US
slant intended to condition its readers to view the US as the
source of all the world's ills. Its half- and full-page
advertisements for products of major Spanish and Portuguese
manufacturers lend it respectability.. Begun in May 1975
(Portuguese edition in 1981), Prisma is staffed by some of Prensa
Latina's most professional and effective propagandists. An
English-language version of Prisma first appeared in September
1982. Printed in Prague through agreement with CTK, it is
avowedly aiming for distribution in the US, Canada, Great
Britain, Japan, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica,
Trinidad and Tobago, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, South
Yemen, Tanzania, Nigeria, Libya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
A companion to Prisma is Cuba Internacional, a large-format,
72-page monthly in Spanish that relies on illustrations and
feature articles, many of which are devoted to presenting an
optimistic picture of life in Cuba or lauding- the exploits of
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Cuban aid missions abroad and Cuban sports teams in international
competition. Like Prisma, it is consistently anti-US. Cuba
Internacional is distributed in Spain, Portugal, Angola, and nine
countries of Latin America. It also has a Russian-language
edition for the USSR.
In addition, Prensa Latina publishes Pel, or Panorama
Economico Latinoamericano, a 16-page, fortnightly publication in
Spanish that provides articles on "the principal international
economic problems. . .with special attention to themes related to
Asia, Africa, and Latin America." The Prensa Latina office in
Prague, Czechoslovakia, publishes Latin American Roundup
!Fintesis Latinoamericana), a twice-weekly wrap-up of events in
Latin America in both an English and a Spanish edition. Also in
English and Spanish editions is Direct From Cuba, a fortnightly,
30-page Prensa Latina product that aims "to place at the reach of
progressive publications all over the globe the most important,
? permanent, and current information from our network of
correspondents in Cuba, Latin America, and other parts of the
world." Prensa Latina and the Soviet Novosti news agency office
in Havana jointly publish Integracion Economica Socialista, a
monthly, 12-page collection of articles on the economic
activities of the countries, of the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (CEMA); it is basically a public relations vehicle for
Prensa Latina facilities are not used exclusively for
journalistic purposes. When Havana closed its embassy in Caracas
in 1980 and withdrew its diplomatic personnel from Venezuela, for
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example, the Prensa Latina office there assumed diplomatic
functions. The same occurred in Bogota in 1981 when Colombia
suspended relations with Cuba.*
International Broadcasting.
Before Castro came to power, Cuba had no international
shortwave broadcasting service. Today the Castro regime has
Radio Havana, an official government entity that, according to
regular observations, broadcasts over 400 hours per week on
shortwave in eight languages to the countries of Europe, the
Mediterranean, Africa, and the Americas. From a single low-
powered transmitter inaugurated in 1951, Radio Havana has grown
into one of the leaders of the Third World in the field of
international broadcasting. It now has at least eight
transmitters in Cuba ranging up to 100 kilowatts in power, and
also uses.two transmitters in the USSR. (The use of Radio
Moscow's transmitters to beam Cuban broadcasts to Europe, the
Mediterranean, and Africa complements Soviet use of two Cuban
shortwave transmitters for Radio Moscow transmissions to Latin
America.) No other government in Latin America has a comparable
international broadcasting service.
Radio Havana's service on shortwave is supplemented by La
Voz de Cuba, on mediumwave,-which broadcasts approximately 38
*Prensa Latina, in addition to collecting intelligence, is
sometimes used for covert operations. In Caracas in 1977, for
example, Prensa Latina officials worked to.help form a committee
to support the Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua. This front
solicited contributions for the guerrillas and. tried to give the
impression that the guerrillas enjoyed broad popular support in
Venezuela.
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hours per week for Spanish-speaking listeners in the US and in
the countries bordering the Caribbean. A parallel service in
English--The Voice of Cuba--and retransmissions of Radio Moscow's
English service for North America were broadcast by some of
Cuba's strongest mediumwave transmitters, including at least one
of 150 kilowatts, until late 1981 when both were taken off the
air; their removal presumably was intended to deny Washington the
opportunity to use retaliation as grounds for justifying the
initiation of US broadcasts to Cuba on mediumwave over the
proposed Radio Marti.
The Castro regime has a long history of involvement in
s' versive broadcasting efforts. Castro's victory over Batista
was less than a month old before Cuban commercial broadcasting
stations began beaming programs abroad calling openly for
revolution in Haiti, the. Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. As
Castro's sponsorship of querrilla warfare in other countries grew
in 1959-1963, clandestine insurgent radio stations
proliferated. Their links to Cuba were virtually impossible to
prove, but circumstantial evidence frequently indicated Cuban
involvement. For example, one short-lived clandestine shortwave
station--Radio Rebelde de Nicaragua--carried little else but
slanted news provided by Pcensa Latina.
On other occasions, Cuban complicity was obvious. In one
such incident, for example, one of Radio Havana's shortwave
transmitters was temporarily taken out of service, and on its
frequency there appeared a "clandestine" radio that displayed
technical characteristics that were unique to the Radio Havana
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transmitter. The station's pretense that it was broadcasting
from the Dominican Republic was belied by its inability to
provide timely news of fast-breaking events taking place there.
When the radio ceased its transmissions, Radio Havana resumed its
broadcasts on the same frequency.
More recently, Cuba has been linked to broadcasters in Costa
Rica and, until recently, Grenada, as well as to clandestine
radios associated with Salvadoran. insurgents. Radio Noticias del
Continente, a shortwave radio that broadcast openly from San Jose
until closed by the Costa Rican government in early 1981,
regularly attacked the governments of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay,
Guatemala, and El Salvador--at the time, all standard targets of
Cuban propaganda. On the air for over a year, Radio Noticias was
eventually found to be a propaganda outlet of the Montoneros, an
Argentine terrorist group that, for years has had close ties to
Havana. Radio Noticias' closure evoked a bitter attack from
Radio Havana, which suggests that the Castro regime had placed a
high value on--and was secretly involved in--its operation.
While Havana's links to Radio Noticias were covert, the
Cuban association with Radio Free Grenada was open. Cuban
communications technicians arrived in Grenada in May 1979, only
two months after Maurice Bishop seized power, and, according to
press reports, in June 1980 the two countries arranged for Cuban
assistance in the repair and upgrading of Radio Free Grenada.
Cuba provided a 75 kilowatt mediumwave transmitter--more powerful
by 50 percent than the strongest commercial mediumwave
broadcasting station in the US--and Cuban technicians installed
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it along with a 400-foot transmitting tower and ancillary
equipment. Havana provided scholarships for training Grenadian
students who were to maintain and operate the new equipment,
which was inaugurated on 13 March 1982, the third anniversary of
Bishop's take-over.
Presumably to support Radio Free Grenada's newscasts, Havana
inaugurated Prensa Latina press-transmissions in English to the
eastern Caribbean. According to a press release from the Cuban
Embassy in Georgetown, the Cuban Radio-Television Institute also,
provided Radio Free Grenada with programming in the fields of
culture, sports, the sciences, and music. The extent of Cuban
support for Radio Free Grenada suggested a high degree of
confidence in Havana that the station would function as a Cuban
propaganda surrogate in the eastern Caribbean.
Cuba's interest in clandestine broadcasting stations is
currently evident in its collaboration with the Salvadoran
insurgents. According to an analysis by an agency that regularly
monitors Havana and the insurgent radios, "Havana regularly
provides a forum for the rebels' three clandestine radio stations
by replaying the radios' political commentaries, military
communiques, and news bulletins." Cuban foreknowledge of these
radios' operations over the past two years has been proved on
three occasions: the Cuban media gave advance publicity for the
guerrillas' Radio Venceremos before it began broadcasting in
January 1Q8l,'for Radio Farabundo Marti before it came on the air
in January 1982, and for Radio Guazapa before it started
broadcasts on 21 February 1983. Last February, Radio Havana
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admitted openly that Radio Venceremos maintains a representative
in Havana.
In light of the high value the Castro regime has always
placed on insurgent broadcasting and considering the material
support it has provided the Salvadoran rebels for years, it seems
safe to assume that Cuba's guerrilla warfare training schools
have been used to teach Salvadorans to operate and maintain
clandestine radios and that Cuban party schools have provided
instruction on the techniques of propaganda.
ICAP
The Cuban Institute for Friendship Among Peoples (ICAP) was
established on 30 December 1960 in the midst of.a major Cuban
campaign to mobilize popular sentiment in Latin America and
Europe against the anticipated counterrevolutionary invasion from
the United States. The new organization,' according to the law
creating it, was founded "to stimulate and facilitate the visit
to Cuba of the representatives of the popular and progressive
sectors.of all. the countries of the world that show interest in
learning first hand the economic and social chanqes and the works
carried out by the Cuban revolution" and to assist the groups--
such as the US' own Fair Play for Cuba Committee--that had been
formed in other countries to publicly demonstrate support for the
Castro regime.
One of ICAP's first tasks was to organize foreigners in Cuba
into associations based on country of origin, such as the union
of Peruvians in Cuba, the Cuban-Spanish Friendship Society,'the
Cuban-Venezuelan Institute of Revolutionary Solidarity, the
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Cuban-Brazilian Friendship Committee, and the Association of
Guatemalans Residing in Cuba. This provided Cuban intelligence
services with a registry of aliens who might prove useful in
intelligence collection efforts and operations in their
homelands, and served as a structure for mobilizing foreign
nationals in demonstrations against the policies of their own
governments. Every Latin American diplomatic mission in Havana
knew it could face an ICAP-sponsored parade of its own nationals
marching and shouting outside the embassy walls if frictions
developed with Cuba's revolutionary government.
Subsequently, ICAP, establishing contacts with intellectuals
abroad, arranged for them to form local "friendship" associations
responsive to directives from Havana. Colombian author Leon de
Greif, for example, organized the Colombian-Cuban Friendship
Association in Bogota and was its first president, while Culture
Ministry official Robin Ravales "Dobru," touted as the "national
poet of Suriname," heads the Suriname-Cuba Friendship Association
in Paramaribo.
There are now 113 such associations throughout the world,
according to ICAP President Rene Rodriguez Cruz. In a statement
last year, he described them as being made up of writers,
artists, journalists, civil rights workers, student and labor
leaders, politicians of various ideological stripes, men and
women in the religious life, and others. They "are those who are
charged with refuting in their respective countries the distorted
version that North American imperialism presents of our social
work and our internationalist assistance to other peoples."
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Rodriguez Cruz boasted that through these associations "we
are related to the broadest social, political, cultural, and mass
sectors in every part of the globe." ICAP's goal, he said is "to
establish a mechanism of communications between the various
social strata of a given country, a mechanism that is quick and
flexible, without formality or protocol". ICAP, then, is highly
opportunistic, eagerly welcoming. propaganda support from all
sources, even those that might be ideologically incompatible.
In his interview, Rodriguez Cruz admitted openly that ICAP-.
sponsored friendship associations carry out their propaganda
activities according to prearranged work plans coordinated with
ana and depend on Havana for material support. He stressed
the "fluid and systematic interchange " that Cuban officials had
with the leadership of these associations. He also confirmed
Havana's links with--and catalytic role in--the West European
peace movement by saying that: "....we have directed the
(friendship) associations abroad to....establish broad links with
the whole movement that is promoting actions in defense of
peace. And we can say, without fear of error, that many of them
are carrying out precisely those instructions." He bragged that
"when a great peace movement began in West Germany, the. first
banner that waved, carried by the demonstrators, had the initials
of ICAP printed on it." Cuba thus acknowledges that in effect
the 113 friendship associations abroad are directed from Havana
and act on its instructions.
In addition to aligning themselves with broadly based
political organizations such as the peace and.anti-nuclear
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weapons movements, the friendship associations distribute Cuban-
supplied propaganda, publish their own pro-Cuban literature,
serve as unofficial spokesmen for the government in Havana,
defend Cuban policy in the local press, and carry out marches and
other demonstrations to focus local attention on issues that
Havana wants to exploit. Even when these activities involve very
few people and have no measurable impact locally, they are duly
reported throughout the hemisphere by Radio Havana, Prensa
Latina, and Cuban newspapers and magazines, and thus promote an
exaggerated impression of substantial popular sentiment in favor
of Cuban policy and against US interests.
Bringing foreign groups to Cuba for propaganda exploitation
is another part of ICAP's job. The Nordic Brigade made up mostly
of young Scandanavians, the Venceremos Brigade from the US, the
Antonio Maceo Brigade of.vounq Cuban exiles most of whom live in
the US, and the Jose Marti Brigade of West Europeans all make
regular pilgrimages to Cuba to engage in "constructive work"--
usually symbolic cane cutting or manual labor in the field of
construction--and be rewarded with a guided tour of the island.
The groups from the US are usually portrayed by the Cuban media
as typical of the idealistic youth who have rejected the anti-
Castro political judgments of Washington; in reality, according
to accounts by some of these younq visitors, Cuban authorities
are wary of the drug problem these
people sometimes bring with
them to Cuba and considerable effort is made to isolate the
members of the brigades to keep them from "contaminating" the
Cuban population.
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The Casa de las Americas
Judginq from their own writings and statements, Latin
America's intellectuals--including many who had been persecuted
by dictatorial regimes in their.own countries--took vicarious
satisfaction from Batista's downfall and constituted a continent-
wide supply of literary and artistic talent waiting to be tapped
on revolution's behalf. To help harness the considerable
propaganda potential of this influential segment of Latin
American society, Castro founded the-Casa de las Americas in
April 1959, less than four months after he assumed power. The
Casa quickly established itself as an influential literary
-stitution. For its first 12 years, it sponsored annual Latin
American theater festivals and in 1965 began publishing a
theatrical journal called Con-iunto. In September 1959, it
organized the "Festival Comprension Cuba" for Latin American
writers and used the occasion to publish five books. That same
month, it established its own ,Jose Antonio Echeverria Library,
which specializes in Latin American studies, and held a series of
conferences on the "American Policy of the Revolution" attended
by prominent cultural and political figures.
In 1960, the Casa organized what we believe has become one
of its most important political vehicles, the annual literary
contest that awards monetary prizes to Latin American poets,
writers, and playwrights in various categories of literature.
The "testimony" category for autobiographical writings, for
example, has been particularly useful for calling public
attention to memoirs of those in. the region willing. to relate the
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experiences of urban or rural guerrilla fighters. The 1970
prize, for example, went to Argentine journalist Maria Esther
Gilio for her book The Tuvamaro Guerrillas. Prize-winning works
are often published by the Casa, giving added prestige and
exposure to the author. In the mid-1970s, when the Castro regime
began paving greater heed to the former British colonies in the
Caribbean, the Casa added to the annual competition'a special
category for authors from the English-speaking Caribbean
territories and still later included a French-language category
for authors from Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana.
In June-July 1960, the Casa began publishing its literary
journal, Casa de las Americas, which serves_as a vehicle for
shorter works by the region's poets and writers. Published six
times a year, it also has a book review section that publicizes
books with the appropriate political slant and, conversely,
provides a platform for challenging those not favored. A lengthy',
news column alerts the reader to coming cultural events and
details those that have already taken place; as with the magazine
in general, political content--an anti-US bias--appears to be a
major criterion for selection of material appearing in the
column.
In addition to Publishinq the works of some of the winners
of the annual competition, Casa publishes book-length material by,
authors whose literary efforts are deemed worthy of broad
exposure. Perhaps the most famous example was Regis Debray's
Revolution within the Revolution?--published in 1967 just in time
for the failure of the guerrilla operation it was meant to
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complement--Guevara's Bolivian disaster. Other Casa books, such
as Gerard Pierre Charles' Haiti: The Uninterrupted Crisis, are
designed to establish the historical justification for a
rebellion that destroys all political, economic, and social
institutions in a country and replaces them with "socialist"
institutions.
Until her suicide in 1980,-the president of the Casa was
Haydee Santamaria, a self-effacing heroine of the Cuban
revolution who always maintained that she herself was not an
intellectual. If her cultural bona fides were wanting, her
credentials as a revolutionary were impeccable. She was a member
of Castro's rebel force that attacked the Moncada army barracks
on 26 July 1.953--a futile assault that left both her brother and
her fiance dead of torture and herself a prisoner--and later
worked in the underground in support, of Castro's guerrilla war.
Her daring revolutionary experiences and her tragic personal
losses made her a particularly appealing, dramatic figure for the
region's intellectuals, many of whom could relate to her
sufferings.
During her tenure as its President, the Casa served the
Castro regime effectively by marshalling supportive cultural
activity and helping create acceptance of Cuban revolutionary
ideology. It made a major contribution to the formation of a
sizable body of literature that helped to reshape popular
conceptions of armed struggle, dramatize it, and try to make it
respectable. Revolution became synonymous with idealism, and
intellectuals, caught up emotionally, left their normal pursuits
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to take up guns.
Author-journalist Jorge Ricardo Masetti, for example, left
Cuba to die in Argentina in 1963 at the head of a guerrilla band;
Peruvian poet Javier Heraud and a group of young Peruvian
intellectuals, according to Havana's own admission, left Cuba to
die in their homeland in 1963 while tryinq to rendezvous with a
guerrilla group; Guatemalan poet Otto Rene Castillo, according to
an account published by the Casa, died in 1967 while serving as a
propaganda officer for the Guatemalan Rebel Armed Forces
guerrilla group; noted Salvadoran poet-author Roque Dalton, who
had a long and warm association with the Casa, died in 1975 in
internecine fighting within his rebel movement; Nicaraguan
priest-poet Ernesto Cardenal, another friend of the Casa, became
an active member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front and
was given a cabinet post, after the ouster of Somoza; and many
others over the years who had links to the Casa contributed in
some form to the fulfillment of the Cuban armed struggle
doctrine. Many more have willingly aided Cuba in less dramatic
but perhaps more useful pursuits; the staffs of the Casa, Prensa
Latina, and Radio Havana, in particular, have profited in this
fashion.
Never quite confident_of her role as a cultural personality,
Haydee Santamaria, according to accounts by knowledgeable
observers, left much of the Casa's day-to-day business to others
whose personal prestige helped it develop into one of the most
influential cultural organizations in Latin America. Noted Cuban
leftist intellectuals who staffed it-or linked their reputations
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to it were joined by foreign intellectuals such as Argentine
Marxist philosopher Ezekial Martinez Estrada and Guatemala's
Manuel Galich. The latter, a leader of the Guatemalan Communist
Party who was Foreign Minister during the Arbenz government, was
appointed Assistant Director of the Casa and also headed the
Casa's Theater Department. Noted Uruguayan leftist author Mario
Benedetti became director of the Casa's Center for Literary
Research when it was created in 1967 and later gave way
temporarily to Colombian writer Oscar Collazos.
One observer, who in 1977 wrote a sympathetic study of the
Casa and interviewed several of its top figures, noted that the
Casa's history "is the chronicle of the efforts.by Cuban and
Latin American vanguard intellectuals to ally, unite, and
integrate intellectual support for Cuba and the Latin American.
revolution," and credited the Casa's.magazine with serving as a
forum for Latin American writers and as a mobilization center 'for
the region's more militant intellectuals. This description of
the Casa's mission remains true today.
The Performing Arts
It appears that any element of the performing arts in Cuba
is considered an appropriate vehicle for disseminating
propaganda--an ostensibly innocent messenger that, through its
polished performances, conveys a favorable impression about the
Cuban social system. The Cuban National Ballet, captained by
prima ballerina Alicia Alonso, is the flagship of this segment of
the propaganda machinery, and has performed in many parts of the
world from Hanoi and Moscow to the Kennedy Center in Washington.
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Alonso, who is about 60 years. old and almost blind, is the
ballet's director and principal choreographer. She earned
international acclaim in the 1950s and 60s and she has shaped the
National Ballet into a respected representative of the Castro
regime. Her statements and actions over the past 24 years
indicate clearly that she is deeply committed to Castro's
revolution and she continues 'to-lend her personal prestige to
Other performinq groups that are sent abroad to enhance
Cuban prestige include the National Folkloric Ensemble, the
National Symphony Orchestra, and, more frequently, smaller teams
of actors, singers,. and musicians such as the-Cubana de Acerb
theater group; the Moncada musical group; the Camaguey Ballet
Company, the Aragon Orchestra; the Irakere jazz rock band; the
Papines popular music quartet; the Nueva Trova musical group; and
others. Their mission is to help erase the image of the Castro
.regime as a promoter of subversion and revolution, and convince
their audiences that Cuba merits closer bilateral ties. It
appears that anti-US themes are usually worked into performances
only where the audience is likely to be receptive and where they
are not likely to interfere with the primary goal of a favorable
impression. of Cuba.
Athletes and Sports Teams
Cuban sports teams and athletes.are also sent abroad as good
will emissaries and as evidence of the alleged superiority to the
Cuban system. Because of the stress Havana places on the
politics of international competition, there is great pressure on
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Cuban participants to win, especially when matched against US
athletes. A loss to a US amateur baseball team, for example, is
.a source of great embarrassment. The Castro regime invests
heavily in its athletic programs and its huge representations at
the central American and Caribbean Games, a regional competition
held every four years, dwarf the delegations from neighboring
countries. The acquisition of masses of medals is given high
priority because the Cubans realize that the country that
dominates such athletic extravaganzas usually gets the broadest..
press coverage.
Because international-class athletes such as boxer Teofilo
Stevenson and runner Al-berto Juantorena cam capture headlines in
the US press by defeating US competitors, they are looked upon as
important national assets by the Castro regime. Like their
counterparts in the performing arts,. they establish links with
the "outside world," earn international respect for Cuba, pave
the way for increased contacts, and help to overcome the Castro
regime's isolation. They also help to destroy the myth that the
Colossus of the North is invincible, an iconoclastic twist that
has great appeal in many sectors of Latin America and Europe.
Losers, on the other hand, are politically untenable. Even
though Cuban athletes won 173 gold, 17 silver, and 40 bronze
medals during the Central American and Caribbean Games in Cuba in
August 1982, there was high-level disappointment in Havana
because the baseball team won none.. As a result, the regime
cancelled plans to send the" team to the world amateur baseball
championship competition in South Korea the following month.
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Fielding no team at all was considered better than fielding one
that would likely lose and thus stain Cuba's reputation.
The Cinema
While athletes and performing artists help to create a
general impression that Cuba's system promotes artistic
expression and athletic excellence, the cinema industry is much
more directly propagandist. Cuban films pointedly address
political themes and film festivals as a matter of course base
the awarding of prizes on political content. A third-rate film
that endorses violent revolution or disparages the US is certain
to find favor over a first-rate production that is apolitical.
At the Fourth International Festival of the New Latin .
American Film, held in Havana in December 1982, politics and
ideology played the dominant role as usual. First prize for a
documentary film, according to the Cuban media, was awarded to
"Cartas de Morazan" (Letters from Morazan), a war movie prepared
by the Radio Venceremos propagandists of the Farabundo Marti
Liberation Front, the Salvadoran insurgent group. A similar
award in the animated cartoon category was given to "Cronicas del
Caribe" (Chronicles of the Caribbean), a film jointly produced in
Mexico and Puerto Rico that allegedly exposed the economic
penetration of "Yankee imperialism" in the Caribbean. A US-
produced film, "Americas in Transition," also got a first prize
for "analyzing US meddlinq" in Latin America in the 20th
century. Fir.st prize for fiction went to "Tiempo de Revancha"
(Time for Revenge), a film that attacked big mining consortiums
in Argentina as exploiters of the working class.
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This annual festival, first held in December 1979, is a
production of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and
Industry (ICAIC) of the Ministry of Culture. Its anti-US mission
is clear; ICAIC has stated publicly that the festival's purpose
is, in its own verbose description "to promote the regular
meeting of Latin American film stars who with their work enrich
the artistic culture of our countries, contributing to the
redemption and affirmation of our identity and the defense of
national values and common characteristics of our peoples in the.
face of imperialist cultural domination and deforming
penetration. . .
Films produced in Cuba provide much the same diet of
politically slanted material designed to justify armed struggle,
glorify violent revolution, provide ideological indoctrination,
bolster Cuba's international standing, and undermine US
influence. The film entitled "No," for example, is a documentary
denouncing alleged US plans to manufacture the neutron bomb; "And
the Night Became a Rainbow," by top Cuban film maker Santiago
Alvarez,_ covered the visit of'Fidel Castro to Ethiopia in 1978;
"Fifty-five Brothers" is a full-length film about the return to
Cuba from the US of a group of young Cuban exiles; "Pablo,"
portrays in heroic terms.the exploits of one of Cuba's first
Communists in the 1920s and 30s; "The Survivors" describes how
the bourgeoisie theoretically disappears as a class in
revolutionary society.
The distribution of Cuban films is probably limited,
although they are shown in European and some US theaters, as well.
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as in Latin America, and some have. even received awards at such
noted forums as the Cannes.Film Festival. In addition, Cuban
films on occasion are shown privately by various Cuban diplomatic
missions or Friendship Institutes for selected audiences.
Nevertheless, they do not have to reach a mass audience to
provide a noteworthy return on Havana's investment. The Castro
regime is probably satisfied that the films receive significant
exposure among foreign intellectuals, many of whom can influence
public opinion either through the media or through their own
writings or other cultural activities.
International Meetings, Conferences, and Symposia
Havana often hosts international gatherings of various kinds
to focus world opinion on specific issues or to promote Cuban
prestige. To accommodate such events, the Castro regime in the
late 1970s built a Palace of Conventions in a Havana suburb at a
cost of over 23 million pesos, according to the Cuban media.
These meetings, manipulated to generate propaganda and
create.a favorable image of Cuba, range from small affairs--for
example, a modest regional conference of professionals in a
narrow field--to major conclaves such as the sixth Nonaligned
Movement summit in 1979, the eleventh World Festival of Youth and
Students in 1978, the Havana Cultural Congress of 1968, and the
Trincontinental Conference of 1966. Some, like the
Tricontinental and the subsequent conference of the Latin
American Peoples Solidarity Organization--which were held to set
the stage for Che Guevara's guerrilla war. in the Bolivian Andes
in 1967--have very specific goals; others, such as those Havana
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co-sponsors with the United Nations, the Nonaligned movement, or
other international agencies, have the more general aim of
bolstering Cuban prestige, presenting Cuba as a model for
development, and developing common anti-US themes that range from
the vituperative to the subliminal.
In meetings where Cuba does-not control the invitations,
such as those of international organizations, Havana adapts by
abusing its position as host to.neutralize potentially
uncooperative delegations. One troublesome delegation to the
Nonaligned summit in 1979, for example, was assigned housing so
remote-from the Palace as to hamper seriously its liaision with
other delegations.
Because to the Cubans these meetings have political
rationale, cost apparently is a secondary consideration.
1979, for example, Cuba sent one of its passenger-cargo ships,
the XX Aniversario, to St. Vincent, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia;
Montserrat, Grenada, and Guyana to bring 211 artists, performers,
and intellectuals to Cuba for the Third Caribbean Festival of the
Creative Arts (CARIFESTA 79). The Cuban national airline also
made charter flights to Venezuela, The Bahamas, Belize, Trinidad
and Tobago, and Mexico on. similar missions. In all, 29 countries
and island political entities, by Havana's count, participated in
CARIFESTA 79, and over a quarter of a million people attended its
724 performances in Havana alone. The Cuban press claims it had
over 500 journalists, photographers, and technicians covering the
festivities.
Until the Cubans sponsored the event, CARIFESTA had been an
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apolitical cultural affair, sponsored every three years by
various Caribbean governments. Havana, however, used it to
organize a "Symposium on Caribbean Cultural Identity" and issue a
declaration denouncing various facets of imperialism. Although
some 2,100 artists, performers, and intellectuals took part in
CARIFESTA 79, only 21--four Cubans and 17 visitors--actively
participated in the symposium arid all appear to have been
carefully picked to ensure the anti-US bias of the declaration.
Another meeting to enlist the support of intellectuals on
behalf of Cuban policy was the "Meeting of Intellectuals for the
Sovereignty of the Peoples of 'Our America,"' held in Havana from
4 through 7 September 1981 under the sponsorship of the Casa de
las Americas. According to Havana's own description of the
event, some 300 delegates from Latin America, the Caribbean, the
US, and Europe "denounced the deforming cultural penetration--of
which the great American fatherland is a victim--by the
imperialist government of the United States, which is the
creator, manipulator, and financier of various sophisticated
means of interference that reduce and aim to destroy the
sovereignty of the majority of our countries. . .
Havana used the meeting to organize the "Standing Committee
of Intellectuals for the Sovereignty of the Peoples of 'Our
America,'" a front group that, was founded to perpetuate the
impression that the region's leading thinkers are solidly united
against the US. The group is chaired by the president of Cuba's
Casa del las Americas and meets periodically to issue what have
become standard denunciations, of US policy.
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Jawboning
Officials of the Castro regime make effective use of the
personal attention they grant to visiting individuals and small,
specialized groups of people--industrialists, legislators, media
luminaries, religious leaders, academicians, government or party
officials--whose rank or position makes them useful to Cuban
interests. This special attention is often designed to
complement propaganda compaigns and generate favorable press
coverage.
Castro, for example, has on many occasions met with US and
other foreign personages to explain Cuban policies with apparent
Sincerity and reasonableness that he expects will influence his
visitors' views. He is a consummate actor who, especially when
dealing with visitors on an individual basis, can put on a
remarkably convincing display of candor and idealism that rarely
fails to make a deep impression on his guests. With favored
.visitors who may be particularly useful to him, he engages in
special activities such as hunting or spearfishing intended to
create a sense of familiarity that he hopes will pay dividends.
On several occasions, Castro has done special favors--releasing
specific prisoners from Cuban jails, for example--to establish
good will with influential people. (U)
Such visits with Castro and other high-ranking Cuban
officials frequently yield good press coverage. Several of the
17 Costa Rican legislators who spent a week in Cuba in mid-
January in 1183--a visit highlighted by an interview with
Castro--made comments favorable to Cuba upon their return home,
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Jawboning: Castro's Personal Touch
Former President of Colombia Alfonso Lopez Michelsen,
according to press reports, spend 10 days in Cuba in January 1983
on a.trip arranged by Colombia's.Nobel Prize winning author
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. During his-visit, Lopez Michelsen and
his wife and son went on a two-day cruise around the island with
President Castro followed by a tour of the interior that Castro
himself had planned for them. Subsequently, in an interview for
a Bogota newspaper, Lopez Michelsen gave a favorable impression
of Cuba, made light of Cuban links to Colombian guerrillas and
drug traffickers, and indicated he was flattered by receiving
treatment that normally was reserved for incumbent
chiefs-of-state. Upon his return to Colombia, he met with
President Belasario Betancur to discuss the trip.
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and.thereby gave Radio Havana ammunition for its broadcasts
promoting the Cuban position on Central America and on the
resumption of normal relations between Havana and San Jose. The
visit and the favorable media attention it precipitated put the
Monge administration on the defensive and cast Castro in the role
of a responsible chief-of-state-reluctant to offend his
neighbors. A Spanish news agency, for example, reported that, in
discussing frictions between Costa Rica and Nicaragua with the
legislators, Castro "asked to be excused from interceding with
the Sandinista government" on Costa Rica's behalf because "he
cannot-interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries."
The Castro regime has been using this intimate type of
person-to-person propaganda freely in its efforts to generate
pressure on Washington regarding-Central America. At the same
time that a Cuban campaign for negotiations on El Salvador was
getting under way, Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, a
member of the party's ruling Political Bureau and Castro's chief
foreign.policy adviser, headed a team of foreign policy officials
who played host to a group of US academicians and journalists in
April 1982 to create an impression that Cuban was willing to
contribute to and abide by a negotiated political solution in
Central America. Havana had no intention of abandoning the
insurgents in El Salvador, but recognized the need to mobilize
world opinion and channel it in such a way to prevent a perceived
drift of the US toward intervention not only in El Salvador but
in Nicaragua and, perhaps,:Cuba as well. Subsequently, articles
by the visiting journalists appeared in a number of.US newspapers
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reflecting the Cubans' propaganda line. One such article, by two
respected academicians, argued strongly for accepting a Cuban
call for a Havana-Washington dialogue. This is exactly what the
Cubans expected their hospitality to produce.
More recently, Havana has been trying to improve formal
relations with Colombia. Castro invited former President Alfonso
Lopez Michelsen, head of Colombia's Liberal Party, to Cuba and
spent several days vacationing with him in mid-January. In
giving the ex-President his personal attention, judging from
subsequent Colombian press accounts, Castro assured himself of
access to influential figures in Colombian politics.
Castro's desire to maintain excellent relations with the
government of Socialist Prime Minister. Olof Palme in Sweden,
according to a Western press report from Havana, is one of the
reasons why the Cuban President has developed such a warm
personal relationship with the Swedish Ambassador in Havana,
Anders Sandstrom. Not long after they first met in 1980,
Castro's yacht came upon Sandstrom as he was scuba-diving in
waters south of Cuba and the Swedish envoy was invited aboard.
Castro and Sandstrom went diving together and afterwards spend 17
hours together discussing a variety of subjects. They
subsequently went scuba-div-ing and spearfishing on several
occasions; Sandstrom is one of the few ambassadors who has direct
access to Castro and has had the unique privilege of having a
six-page article published in Cuba's most important news
magazine.
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Miscellaneous.Propaganda Organs
The Castro regime has a variety of other propaganda agencies
and vehicles. One is the Executive Secretariat of the African,
Asian, and Latin America Peoples Solidarity Organization
(AALAPSO), founded at the Tricontinental Conference in early
1966. Although it purports to be an independent international
organization, its staffing and activities over the years leave no
doubt that the Secretariat is actually an agency of the Cuban
government used as an outlet for propaganda aimed at
strengthening Cuba's links to revolutionary movements abroad and
perpetuating the Che Guevara guerrilla cult.
Every other month, AALAPSO publishes for worldwide
distribution a book-length magazine--with editions in English,
French, and Spanish--containing articles by representatives of
the Palestine Liberation Organization, the South West Africa
Peoples Organization, the African National Congress, the Frente
Polisario, and other revolutionary organizations and Communist
parties. The AALAPSO is headquartered in Havana, and is headed
by Cuban Communist Party Central Committee member Melba
Hernandez, a heroine of the Cuban revolution. In addition to the
magazine, the AALAPSO sponsors "solidarity" meetings in Cuban
factories and ministries, issues statements to the press, sends
representatives to international meetings of an anti-US nature,
and entertains foreign radicals when they visit Havana. It also
prints and distributes colorful posters that glorify armed
struggle and attack the US.
A similar propaganda agency is the Continental, Organization
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of Latin American Students (OCLAE). OCLAE operates out of Havana
and publishes a monthly magazine with articles supporting
revolution and discrediting the US. Much of OCLAE's propaganda
focuses. on promoting independence for Puerto Rico. Like AALAPSO,
OCLAE had its origin in the Cuban effort in the mid-1960s to
organize international support for the Guevara operation in
Bolivia. With the death of Guevara and the failure of his
expediton in 1967, however, both agencies lost their
international character and became little more than Cuban
propaganda mills, which is their current status.
On 31 March 1959, within three months of assuming power
Castro established the Imprenta Nacional de.Cuba, a publishing
house created to spearhead the new government's propaganda
efforts in the field of literature. The organization, according
to the Cuban media, has since grown into a major industry
consisting of a number of large publishing houses that have
turned out some 17,000 titles and over 500 million copies of
various kinds of books and pamphlets over the past 24 years. The
giants of the industry are the Juan Marinello Polygraphic Combine
in Guantanamo, which opened with equipment from East Germany in
1977, and a similar plant in Palma Soriano, which began
operations in early 1983. The former has a capacity to produce
20 million books per year while the latter has a capacity for 30
million. These expanded capabilities now so exceed Cuban needs
that Havana is soliciting printing business from abroad.
While much of the output of these plants consists of
textbooks, technical manuals, and other materials for domestic
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consumption, a significant amount is, propaganda, much of it
intended for consumption abroad; by Havana's own claim, Cuban
books are now distributed in more than 60 countries. Some are
the traditional works by Marx, Lenin, and other ideologues, and
some are by such typically anti-US Latin American writers as
Argentina's Gregorio Selser, Uruguay's Eduardo Galeano, and
Guatemala's Guillermo Toriello and Manuel Galich.
Cuban books are distributed through direct sales from the
Cuban Book Institute in Havana; cultural agreements with other
governments, universities, or cultural institutions; printing
arrangements with foreign publishers; and in various other
ways. In late 1982 and early 1983, for example, the ICAP
arranged for its Venezuelan-Cuban Friendship Institute to hold
Cuban book exhibitions in Caracas, Maracaibo, and San
Cristobal. Some 600 titles were available and, according to the
Cuban press, the exhibits were attended by well'over 120,000
visitors.
The Castro regime also uses other organizations and
publications to carry its propaganda message. Some are
ostensibly independent but, judging from their activities and
political bias, are under, Havana's strong influence if not
outright covert control. The Latin America Federation of
Journalists (FELAP), for example,. was formed as a result of
vigorous Cuban lobbying with leftist journalists of the region toi
counter the influence of the independent Interamerican Press
Association. FELAP, which has close links to such Soviet front
groups as the Prague-based International Organization of
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Journalists and the World Peace Council, is used by Havana to
focus international attention on abuses of freedom of the press
by rightist governments of the hemisphere as well as to attack
the US.
Another front group is the Managua-based Anti-Imperialist
Tribunal of Our America (TANA). -Founded on 23 September 1981 as
the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal of.Central America and the
Caribbean (TACC), the organization did not have overt links to
Cuba until mid-1.982 when a local chapter was established in
Havana. Havana's influence, however, is clear. TANA's president
is Guatemalan Guillermo Toriello, who has had close ties to the
Castro regime for more than two decades, and its executive
secretary is Venezuelan Freddy Balzan, who for.years worked in
Cuba's Prensa Latina office in Caracas. TANA publishes the
monthly-magazine Soberania devoted to "denouncing imperalism and
its crimes" and "identifying the agents of the CIA" in the
region. The magazine's editorial board includes Phillip Agee, a
US citizen noted. for his efforts to expose CIA employees, as well
as several Cubans and a claque of leftist writers and cultural
figures.
Havana has close ties to the Mexico City-based monthly
Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo,_a stridently anti-US magazine that
never deviates from the Cuban policy line. Its English-language
edition was short-lived but it continues to publish in Spanish
(printed in Mexico City and Lima) and Portuguese (printed in
Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro).with distribution in Europe, Africa,
and Latin America.
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Training Foreign Journalists
In 1976, the head of Cuba's professional organization for
newsmen, Ernesto Vera, announced the founding by the Cuban
Journalists Union (UPEC) of a journalists, "improvement school"
that would accept newsmen from all of Latin America.. By 1982,
candidates' from Africa were also being accepted and in mid-1983
group of 1.1 Angolans who had been attending a year-long course
graduated and returned home. Their course, according to a Luanda
newspaper, "emphasized political training and journalistic
techniques . . . The problems entailed in the realm of the
ideological struggle between decadent capitalism and ascending
socialism in this important field were also examined."
The Cuban Communist Party's Nico Lopez National Cadre School'
also has a variety of courses including two entitled "Political
Training for Journalists" and "Political Training for
Propagandists." The July 1981 graduating class, according to the
Cuban press, included 69 foreign graduates from 17 countries of
Africa and Latin America. Press reports also indicate that one
of the measures Havana took to gain influence in Grenada and
Suriname after the two countries' respective "revolutions" was to
bring teams of local journalists to Cuba for training. The
courses were offered either at the UPEC.school or the party's
Nico Lopez school. .
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Havana has long had close contact with leftist Mexican
journalist Mario Menendez Rodriguez. Menendez' magazine Por Esto.
claims to he an independent weekly, but its links to Havana are
readily apparent from its generous Cuban advertising and its list
of Cuban-associated staff personnel and "collaborators".
Conclusions
Fidel Castro's skillful use of the few propaganda assets
available to him during his guerrilla war against Batista, in our
opinion, contributed in a major way to his victory and was an
augury of the methods he would use so successfully after coming
to power.
It is clear from the statments of Antonio Perez Herrero and
other top spokesmen for the Castro regime that a major effort
will continue to be made to expand the propaganda apparatus in
certain key areas. Although economic reality will hamper this
effort, important investments are likely to be made to:
-- Improve the availability of Cuban books and magazines
abroad.
Open new Prensa Latina bureaus and increase the number
of subscribers to Prensa Latina services.
-- Help allies develop their own propaganda outlets for
both domestic and -international audiences.
-- Train foreign journalists so as to utilize their skills
and opportunities on behalf of Cuba in non-Marxist
countries.
-- Establish and promote ostensibly independent news
gathering and professional organizations of leftists to
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provide competition for--and reduce the influence of--
Western news agencies, radio stations, and
journalists.
Havana probably has placed high priority, for example, on
helping Nicaragua organize an international shortwave
broadcasting service and on promoting such.group,s as Salpress--
the news agency of the Salvadoran insurgents--and similar
organizations formed to publicize.the activities of insurgents
and serve as progaganda vehicles for leftist exiles. Salpress,
according to Havana Radio, was formed in Mexico City in December
1980 just prior to the start of the January 1981 insurgent
offensive, and now boasts branch offices in-six other countries,
five correspondents serving with guerrilla groups in El Salvador,
and membership in the Nonaligned Movement's news agency
organization. It presumably has already received considerable
Cuban assistance and guidance.
in addition, we expect Cuba will try to use its membership,
in the Latin American Features News Agency (ALASEI)--formed in
1983--to ensure that the agency's output has a radical left,
anti-US slant. ALASEI, which is based in Mexico City, is a joint
effort by 12 countries of the region to form a news agency, which
many of them feel will focus greater attention on the area than
have US and European agencies. According to Prensa Latina's
ranking commentator, ALASEI "will enable the region to confront
with its own mechanisms the systematic deformation and
disinformation of Latin American reality that exists today," a
clear signal that Havana expects ALASEI to counter, if not
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displace, UPI, AP, AFP, Reuter, and other Western agencies in
Latin America.
Some of Havana's future ventures in propaganda are certain
to be joint efforts with other. Communist countries, which will
ease some of the economic burden on Havana. This is in keeping
with a resolution approved at the last Party congress stating
that "In view of the breadth and complexity of the ideological
struggle, it is ever more important to coordinate our information
activities with those of the Communist parties of the other
sister socialist republics." The Cubans will look to the
International Organization of Journalists and other Soviet front
groups for support and may succeed in getting some Latin American'
governments to contribute to agencies and publications that have
an anti-US bias.
Castro may have the propaganda apparatus temper its
invective toward the US from time to time for tactical
reasons--this sometimes happens while he assesses the intentions
toward Cuba of incoming adminstrations in Washington--but such a
muting has always proved to be temporary. He invariably finds an
excuse to revert to normal animosity.
Castro depends on Pr,ensa Latina, Radio Havana, ICAP, and the,
various newspapers and news-magazines of his propaganda machine
to counter US political moves on a day-to-day basis. It is
clear, however, that he is also intent on using other elements of,
the machine--the Casa de las Americas and his other publishing
houses, for example--to create abroad, permanent body of '
literature that, through its scholarship, eloquence, and sheer
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volume, will influence current and; future generations of Latin
Americans and peoples of the Caribbean. The aim of this long-
term propaganda effort is to establish a record of an
irremediably flawed US. Castro probably expects this growing
body of literature to cause problems for the US long after he
himself is out of the political picture. (U)
Castro's propaganda empire, however, does make mistakes.
Radio Havana's slanted coverage of the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla
group, for example, has created frictions between Cuba and
Peru. Influential visitors attending international meetings in
Havana--including, according to press reports, some chiefs-of-
state at the Nonaligned Movement's summit in 1979--have been
alienated by the Castro regime's heavyhanded efforts to use them
as windowdressing for Cuba's pro-Soviet foreign policy
activities.
The huge investment Castro has made in his empire of radio
stations, news agencies, publishing houses, and other publicity
vehicles attests to the high regard he has for propaganda as a
political weapon. We believe it also explains his great concern
over the prospects for US broadcasts to Cuba. He understands
clearly that propaganda is a two-edged sword.
The Cuban propaganda machine, enjoying close association
with its Soviet counterpart, ample funding, and competent
personnel, will remain an important negative factor working
against US interests throughout the world.
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Methodology of Cuban Ideological Penetration
The following description of how Cuba
ideological penetration was developed through interviews with
several knowledgeable sources:
1. Fidel Castro, alon'or in consultation with one or more of
his closest advisers, designates a particular country or
region as a target and calls for an ideological penetration
plan.
2. Next, a meeting of top foreign policy officials is held;
Fidel, Raul Castro, Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez,
and--depending on the geographical location of the target--
America Department Chief Manuel Pineira or General Department
of Foreign Relations Chief Jesus Montane are the usual
principals. Either Pineiro-or Montane usually is designated
as the overall coordinator of the planning, and is tasked
with collecting all pertinent information available on 'the
target.
3. The. planning coordinator then meets with other key officials,
namely:
(a) Interior Minister Ramiro Valdes, who gets an area
analysis -of the target from his chief of intelligence
and a list of the target country's nationals living in
Cuba from his counterintelligence chief.
(b) Foreign Minister Isidoro Malmierca, who tasks the Cuban
Embassy in the target for a country analysis (if there
is no resident Cuban diplomatic mission, the tasking is
levied on the Ministry's resources At home and
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abroad). The country analysis focuses on the target's
intellectual community, classifying key people according
to political leanings; provides a study of all cultural
areas, especially music and theater; provides a separate
study on the universities; lists the best actors,
musicians, and other performers and analyzes local
cultural tastes to identify which Cuban cultural figures
would be well received.
(c) Culture Minister Armando Hart, who provides a list of
Cuban cultural figures who could play a role in the
penetration plan.
(d) Orlando Fundora, chief of the party's Revolutionary
Orientation Department, who provides information
obtained through Prensa Latina and other organizations
and publications under his department's control.
4. Upon receiving the contributions from these key individuals,
the coordinator collates the reporting into a general
ideological penentration plan which he submits to the
Political Bureau for approval. A member of, the Political
Bureau is then named to supervise all subsequent activity;
this frequently is Armando Hart because cultural activity
plays such a major role.
5. The designated Political Bureau member and the coordinator
then oversee the drafting of a specific penetration plan--a
task that can take as much as six months--that includes
specific names, dates, itineraries, and costs. Various party
and government offices are directly involved:
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(a) The Culture Ministry sends a representative to the
target country to identify contacts there and find out
what cultural events have been scheduled in which Cuban
performers or intellectuals can take part. The ministry
also begins inviting intellectuals and performers from
the target country to participate in various activities
in Cuba.
(b) The party's America Department pursues its own direct
contacts with the target country's intellectuals.
(c) The Foreign Ministry focuses on identifying political
contacts in the target country that Havana can use to
gain support for--or reduce -opposition to--Cuban
cultural initiatives. The Ministry--in conjunction with
the State Committee for Economic Cooperation--also
develops specific plans. for. offering economic assistance
to the country.
(d) The Revolutionary Orientation Department begins
preparing articles on.the target country's culture for
publication in Cuban outlets and develops\ media contacts
who can arrange for the placement of articles on Cuban
performers and intellectuals who will be visiting the
country. _
(e) Virtually any Cuban entity can be tasked. The Cuban
Journalists Union may be called upon to identify foreign
newsmen who would be willing to cooperate. The Cuban
Women's Federation-may draw up a list of prominent women.
or women's organizations in the target. country that
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could be exploited. The Cuban National Assembly may
prepare a roster of the target's legislators who are
favorably disposed toward Cuba. The Cuban Public Health
Ministry may identify physicians or medical associations
in the target country that seem susceptible to Cuban
cultivation. The Central Organization of Cuban Trade
Unions may pinpoint labor leaders and unions that could
help. The resources of any organization that has
contacts or information on potential contacts in the
target country--the National Association of Cuban
Economists, the National Association of Small Farmers,
the Cuban Academy of Sciences, the National Union of
Cuban Writers and Artists, the Movement for Peace and
Solidarity Among Peoples, the Cuban Institute of Motion
Picture Art and. Industry, and others--can be drawn into
the process.
6. In the final stage, a budget is prepared and, after approval
or modification by Fidel, funds are dispersed to the various
offices charged with implementing the plan. The Political
Bureau regularly reviews the plan and its accomplishments.
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STAT
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SPECIAL ADVISOR TO
THE SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20520
UNCLASSIFIED with
SECRET enclosure
March 14, 1985
The Honorable
William J. Casey
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D. C. 20505
1,6 lo A00
I'm returning this document that you sent me"
some time ago. In looking at it again, I wonder if
it's possible to declassify as much as possible. It
would make a wonderful brochure for the right organi-
zation to put out and to publish. I'd like to help
on this if you think it can be declassified.
Sincerely,
Gil Jrt. Robinson
P.S. - Your next communication from me will be from
the private sector.
UNCLASSIFIED with
SECRET enclosure
c3rS
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