FORMER U.S. ENVOY HITS EARLY WASHINGTON ANTI-CASTRO STAND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100190087-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2004
• Sequence Number: 87
• Publication Date: December 26, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

u.SiII G l~..0.11 gqP779/~'8~: Q3.
Approved For ReleasJ hp4/H CIA-RDP88-01314R000101Q't9tQ8 5A ~ ~ 1~cu? s ~ ~
c c A - C_ , W -L- -
; 3y Lewis H. Dinguld
washineton Post Foreign Service
fI.UENOS AIRES-The
last. American ambassador
tocCuba has just written a'
bopk on the collapse of U.S.
relations with Fidel Castro,
anti' the ,present ambassador
to,thile has asked the State
De iartnient to send him a
copy forthwith.
Retired Ambassador
Philip W. Bonsal argues, in
"Cuba, Castro and the
United States," that Castro's
ear~y provocations triggered
unl'tistifiably harsh U S re-
. The decision to deny Ex-
port-Import Bank financing
for Chilean purchase of
Boeing jets is considered by
some observes to have
driven Chile to the Russians
in the same way that, Bonsai
shows, the 1960 oil decision
did the Cubans.
More militant Commu-
nists and Socialists backing
Allende assume that the
z a
E rt
as
not to Intervene in Cuban Cuba. A month later, InSec. k-o t.
Cc1s }~"
affairs. July, came the next step In
Soviet-Cublan Sugar Deal the attempt to close out Cas- I l r : --ec~ 5~... s'
As late as January, 1060, tro - suspension of the all- ?
President Eisenhower made Important Cuban quota for (j
just a public pledge. The t f 4 o v~ 5 a
c
th
" '-' o sugar o
e
next month, Soviet Vice Pre-
niter Anastas Mikoyan, vi sit- United' States at preferen- l4
ing Havana, signed a deal tial prices.
for Cuban sugar. According Congress authorized the
to Bonsai, the agreement, suspension, Bonsai recalls
,
other key decision-making did not endanger the tradi- after 'secret hearings, on the
center outside the Treasury tional U.S.-Cuban sugar basis that the step was "a
is the CIA, as Bonasi inr? trade. necessary weapon to over-
d t
b
an agree
fhen Cu
o throw Castro and defeat
plies was the case in 1960.
ke Soviet oil in part pay- C
t
i
t
i
prilals, beginning with a Nixon's Role
crucial decision imple- Of course, today the ulti-
me?rited by the Secretary of mate decisions lie with Pres?
thq-!'reasury. ident Nixon. By his own ac-
The decision was that the count, then Vice President
twb' American oil companies Nixon was the prime advo-
opi ?ating in Cuba should re- cate of the 1960 decision to
fusq to refine Soviet crude arm Cuban exiles for their
eventual invasion which was
oil that the Ca
tr
o govern-
s
melt imported, and Bonsai carried out, in April, 1961, ited him, at the request of thorized to start recruiting
says that the American gov- tinder President Kennedy. Assistant Secretary of State and training the exile army.
errlinent informed him of While Bonsai's spare, 225- Roy Rubottom. Bonsai re- "It became common knowl-
thit critical' turn in policy page chronicle makes it calls: edge in Havana that sum-
only by way of an oil coin. clear that Cuba and Castro mer that the CIA was help-
were far different from Al- "My visitor went on to tell ing the anti-Castro guerrilla
excutive.
gaily This re
me that on the previous da
risal aainst Cas- lende and Chile, the main day 'fighters who appeared spor.
_i_ re
p
g
p
tro'S dealing with the Soviet events are worth recalling representatives of the two
Union was the first overt act for their possible pert!- American companies .. .
J in, '6n unannounced policy hence-the more so since had been summoned to the
that climaxed with the Bay thgi?e is mounting pressure office of the. Secretary of
of figs invasion, in the hemisphere to end the Treasury, Robert Ander-
" . We in the Havana against Cuba. son, and had been informed
Bonsai was named Ambas- by the Secretary that a re-
embassy became aware only sador to Cuba in January, fusal to accede to the Cuban
gradually and imperfectly, 1959, to replace Earl E. T. government's request would
and without real opportu- Smith, who had been deeply be in accord with the policy
nit f t d d! . committed to the Batista
or
om
on an s
adically in a number of rur-
al areas."
With the oil and sugar de-
cisions, Castro began whole.
sale expropriation of Ameri.
can holdings. He drew
closer to the Soviets, and by
October, Bonsai was perma-
nently recalled to Washing-
ton.
y
c
m
of the United States govern- Bonsai concludes that ad-
cussion of the new policy of ciictatorshop^ that Castro meat toward Cuba and that
our government," says Bon, month.
sal. Davis was named early in
Eerie Similarities Allende's term to replace
Although the career diplo. Edward Al. Korry, whose
mat makes no comparisons, analysis of Allende's elec-
.there are some eerie similar- toral victory supported
itics between the events of those in Washington who
11 years ago and the uneasy consider Chile to be "lust."
state of present U.S. rela- Korry stayed at his post
tions with Chile's socialist through the first year of ne-
government.
it is gener- gotiations over the fate of
For Instance
,
ally assumed in Santiago nationalized American cop-
that U.S. policies unfavora- per investments.
ble to President Salvador By Bonsai's account, his
Allende's government are counsel against what he saw
generated by Treasury Sec- as Castro's efforts to use the
retary John Connally rather United States as a whipping
p
than by the State Depart- boy was to negotiate quietly ~$ipy~
ment. Apip4e~a~3~1FtRle$er D(aZi0e `r~tfr3ft~8'I
a
ommun
s
penetrat
on of
meat for the sugar-enrag- the territory of American's
ing traditional suppliers former staunch friend and
Texaco and Esso, whose ally." The ambassador says
profit remittances Castro he saw no basis for such a
had already frozen. contention.
Bonsai says that the com- Bonsai later learned that
panics had decided to refine the decision to do in Castro,
the Soviet. oil under protest. had been made in March,
Then an oil executive vis- aI d the CIA had been au-
incur any penalties under
American antitrust laws
should they take a joint
stand in this matter."
Bonsai adds that State
Department authorities do
not seem to have been con-
sulted on Anderson's move.
The ambassador then
warned Rubottom that
"What we were doing was to
present a situation to the
Cuban revolutionaries and
their presumably then reluc-
tant Russian friends which
involved the fate of the
Cuban government."
anies re-
But the oil com
must be the basis of present
U.S. approaches to Cuba,
and of any revival of Ameri-
can influence and integrity
In the hemisphere as a
whole.
For all his travails under
a U.S. policy on which he
had little influence, Bon-
sai's major thesis is that
Castro was able to establish
a dictatorship in Cuba be-
cause the country's tradi-
tional rulership classes ab-
dicated - believing that the ?
United States would step in
latt ifa CAB =Fist