FORTUITY FIDELITY, FALLIBILITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200340012-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 5, 2004
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: February 4, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WOI. LD '
Approved For Release 20015/pe1t13I_ pc A-RDP88-01350R000200340012 '~'1
.feuding with Peking,
C` v~ ll 4 7, G T
lip 1 t/
THE RISE AND` DECLINE OF
1 'III EL GAS TI i 0
An Essay in Contemporary history
By 31aurice Halperin
University 0/ California.
300 IT, $12.95
By LEE LOCKWOOD
MAURICE IIALPEIUN has had an un-
usually checkered career. According to
the dust jacket of his boot, he was
"twice forced out of teaching Positions
at American universities on account of
his political beliefs." Ile then spent three
years on the faculty of the USSR Acad-
emy of Sciences and nearly six years
(1062-68) at the University of Havana,
recruited by no less a personage than
Che Guevara. He is much-traveled not
only geograp' ieally (lie now teaches at
Simon Fraser University in British Co-
lulnbia) but also academically: having
begun with a doctorate in comparative
literature (Sorbonne), he has been, at
't'hus, says Ilalperin, when Fidel Cis-,
tro attacked the. Moncada b:)rrat.i;s in
C',astro'fs also a cr'ypto-royalist, accord-
ing to lialperin:
1953 .it was a "great stroke of luck to In his chance meeting with peasants
have failed" because the time wasn't ripe or factory workers during his con-
for his revolution. When Castro came to stout comings and goings, he would
Washington in 1959 "waving an olive always treat them with a great deal
branch," only to be given the cold sboul- of consideration. . . . This manner
der by Eisenhower, 'it was another one of quickly putting ,`little people" at
of those providential mishaps, like the ease and hearing them out has been
Moncada defeat, that paved the way for mistaken by some as a manifestation
his meteoric rise to faille." Likewise, it of Fidel's egalitarian spirit, but it is
was a "most extraordinary chronological ... the benevolence of the truly no-
coincidence" that. Fidel came to power ble ruler toward his most humble
"at almost the precise moment w-l :en the subjects.
Soviet Union acquired both the capability
and willingness to underl:rite t e surviv- I-Ialperia's book is riddled with this sort
al of a revolution 6000 miles from its bor- of fetnlant and completely undoctnnent-
der and 90 miles from the limited States"; cd assertion. If be is right, one would
and "a fortuitous development of decisive think that the Cubans would have caught
importance for the Cuban revolution" on after 14 years.
that Russian oil production had reached 1111 "nswel-consisiently implied but
an exportable surplus by July 1960, when never stated outright---is that the Cuban
Cub
ti
li
l
a na
ona
zed ta
l foreign refineries. masses are gullible, happy-go-lucky sent.
Since virtually WI of Cuban power is savages of the tropics who are so en-
derived from oil, Halperin states, the thralled by Fidel's oratory and so proud.
revolution would have been "throttled of the national identity and international
in its infancy" but for this lucky coinci- prominence to which he has Ice them
deuce, Etc,, etc. ']'his is history? that they are content to follow him- any-
Even lllore glaring is the complete as v,l'er'e--like lemmings to the sea, if
scnce of the Cuban people from this h e ?-i l?,o,
hook v rile Castro rim). c ii: is scab almost i
ll
ra
y, one wonders now 11 dpez'irt
o eusivcly from 11 per.sncctivC of intet~- ; =`'c1 his time din ii g his Si7 long years
national relations. To be sure, the author in Cuba, a.rich and exciting period for
Provides a useful, if not original, analysis any foreigner to have been lucky enough
Of the AM= events in Cuban-Anheri- to witness. From the evidence in his
can, Cuban-Russian and Cuban-Chinese book, he seems to have seen nothing of
helations, together with enoxnhousll,, de - the fascinating and volatile social forces
tiled exegesis of some of Castro" at work on the island. In(leed, he seems
;~~~hes (to one 1963 speech alone he scarcely to have ventured out of hIavana.
d votes three full chapte),-s). Xhi-ushchcv Though the book is scholarly and de-
10 1 1 d nnMy are describcd as "two high- tailed, there is practically nothing in it
Iv capable and essentially sober loaders" that could not We been researched and
TV "by sheet' good luck" were in the written in a good American library, with-
dri.vers' seats wvlwn the missile crisis took out his ever having visited Cuba. I'he
place--an evaluation to which other his- Cuban revolution, whatever its fluctua-
turians may take exception
ull it (ions
to
its difficulties and its shortco
i
,
,
p
m
n's,
rhikl]y. C