CUBAN-U.S. TIES TERMED WORST IN DECADES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 19, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210001-0
WASHINGTON POST
19 April 1987
Cuban-U.S. Ties Termed Worst in Decades
Havana Cites Absence of Ranking Envoy, Booming Spy Flight
By Julia Preston-_
Washington Post Poreign Service
HAVANA-Relations between
the United States and Cuba are the
worst in more than two decades,
according to a senior Cuban official
and western diplomats.
The deep freeze that set in late
last year has, among other things,
dimmed the hopes of Cubans in both
countries for increased transit in
both directions, a hope that
flickered briefly in 1985.
Cuban officials contrast the im-
passe with Washington to gains in
breaking out of their diplomatic iso-
lation with democratic nations in
Latin America. Brazil, Argentina
and Uruguay have opened embas-
sies or bolstered their representa-
tion in Havana in recent months,
they point out.
No single incident brought on the
deterioration with the United
States, according to - both -asides.
Rather, differences accumulated
and attempts at dialogue collapsed
over the past two years, leaving
Cuban officials expressing bitter-
ness and frustration about the lack
of progress. During a weeklong vis-
it by this reporter, Cuban officials
repeatedly expressed such senti-
ments, asking why Washington was
ignoring bilateral issues.
"Our relations have dipped lower
than what we thought could be the
lowest point," said Ricardo Alarcon,
a senior Foreign Ministry official
who handles U.S.-Cuban affairs. He
characterized the chill as the worst
the aftermath of the 1962 crisis, in which
the Soviet Union sought to place missiles in
Cuba.
The events reached a nadir in early De-
cember, when the government ordered a
.nationwide military mobilization, called Bas-
tion '86, billed as a rehearsal for a U.S. at-
tack. In the midst of it, Alarcon recalled, on
Dec. 8, a U.S. SR71 spy plane flew the
length of the island, rattling windows with
sonic booms along the way.
Although aerial surveillance flights have
been frequent for more than two decades,
Alarcon said they usually skirted the island.
He charged the flight was "deliberately pro-
vocative."
Starting on Dec. 9, the government sum-
moned a marathon protest that was to last
for three days in front of the U.S. Interests
Section, in a seaside plaza dominated by a
flashy billboard saying, "Yankee imperial-
ists, we are not afraid of you at all!"
On Dec. 11, most Havana city buses were
commandeered to bring more than 400,000
chanting Cubans to the plaza for the largest
anti-U.S. demonstration here in at least a
decade.
Two days later, Cuba suspended charter
flights from Miami, which since 1977 had
been bringing U.S. diplomatic pouches and
household goods for the American staff of
20. Since then, at least 16 pouches have
been delayed or stopped, diplomats said.
Other Cuban measures further compli-
cated the U.S. mission's logistics and cur-
tailed American diplomats' access to events
and officials in Havana. Alarcon said the
measures put U.S. diplomats here on the
same footing as that of Cuba's envoys in
Washington. He said that since the early
days of the Reagan administration, no
Cuban diplomat has been invited to any of-
ficial function in the U.S. capital.
On Feb. 1, the Interests Section chief,
Curtis W. Kamman, was reassigned to
Washington. The Havana post remains va-
cant, for the first time since the section
opened in 1977.
Just before Kamman departed, he was
called to meet with President Fidel Castro,
diplomats said. News of the encounter
leaked through the diplomatic corps, but
both sides have remained tight-lipped about
the discussion.
A dramatic contribution to the frayed
relations came last August, when a Cuban
made a midday dash up the broad steps to
the door of the Interests Section in an ap-
parent desperate lunge for asylum. U.S.
diplomats reportedly watched as a Cuban
guard shot the man, beat him and led him
away.
The government has not revealed his
identity or fate, said the western sources,
who spoke on the condition that they not be
identified further.
Although U.S.-Cuban relations have been
strained or nonexistent since Castro came
to power in 1959, the current frustration
here seems based on a recognition that they
are unlikely to improve, at least during the
present U.S. administration.
"It's as though the United States learned
nothing in more than 25 years of coexis-
tence," said Alarcon. "We feel like we are
starting all over again at the beginning."
The United States broke relations in Jan-
uary 1961. The Interests Section, techni-
cally an adjunct of the Swiss Embassy, was
>/
opened 16 years later in the same, by then
dilapidated, U.S. Embassy building. A vig-
orously enforced U.S. trade embargo re-
mains in effect.
Three years ago, Castro responded to
U.S. demands that he negotiate a return to
Cuba of convicts and mentally ill persons
who were released to join the 1981 exodus
of refugees from the port of Mariel. It was
noted at the' time that a rapprochement
could affect trade issues and help Cuba al-
leviate its $4' billion debt to other western
nations.
But in May 1985, Castro scuttled the
talks when the U.S. government initiated
Radio Marti broadcasts beamed at Cuba. At
meetings in Mexico City in mid-1986 the
two countries failed to reach an accord that
might have allowed Cuba some access to
U.S. radio waves.
Cuban officials are especially indignant
about an unusual showdown that took place
in March in Geneva. U.S. United Nations
Ambassador Vernon Walters and an Amer-
ican delegation mounted an all-out drive for
a motion before the U.N. Human Rights
Commission to condemn Cuba for persecut-
ing political opponents.
The United States lost by one vote on
March 11. A crucial bloc of six Latin nations
sided with Cuba. All the major western
powers on the commission backed the Unit-
ed States.
European diplomats here said the United
States succeeded in convincing many del-
egates that there is a pressing human rights
problem in Cuba. But a number of Third
World countries were alienated by the Unit-
ed States' strong-arm diplomacy, which in-
cluded personal notes and calls from Pres-
ident Reagan, diplomats said.
Here, top Cuban officials threw a banquet
for diplomats of countries that favored them
and formally scolded those that did not.
On April 6, in his first public comments
about the Geneva debate, Castro called the
U.S. effort "dirty, rude and immodest." He
claimed that no prisoner had ever been "the
subject of physical abuse" in the history of
his government. The assertion was widely
disbelieved.
But the communist leader ended that
speech on an unexpected conciliatory note.
"We do not advocate eternal hostility be-
tween Cuba and the United States," he said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210001-0