BLASTING REAGAN'S CUBA POLICIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606250006-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: September 13, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606250006-8
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGEV,;-/
NEWSWEEK
13 SEPT'EI BER 1982
DIPLOMACY
Blasting Reagan's
Cuba Policies
A former top State Department employ-
ee has publicly criticized the Reagan admin-
istration for its "intellectual sclerosis" and
"hackneyed" policies toward Cuba. In an
article to be published this week in Foreign
Policy magazine, Wayne Smith, chief of the
U.S. interests section in Havana from 1979
to August 1982, says the policies are based
on the outdated fantasy that Fidel Castro
can be easily gotten rid of. Smith describes
how Reagan's attempts to intimidate Cas-
tro over the issue of arms shipments to El
Salvador only provoked the Cuban leader to
seek new weapons from the Soviets and to
launch a massive mobilization of the Peo-
ple's Militia. The episode, Smith believes,
illustrates a fundamental lesson for U.S.
policy: "The Castro regime is there to stay
... To reduce it by fire and sword would
cost far more in blood, treasure and world
opprobrium than the problem warrants."
Smith excoriates the administration for
ignoring Castro's calls for U.S.-Cuban ne-
gotiation. Both former Secretary of State
Alexander Haig and special envoy Vernon
Walters did contact the Cubans about El
Salvador. But afterward, Smith charges, the
administration deliberately misrepresented
Castro as "uncompromising." In fact, he
writes, the Cubans reacted positively with
statements that they had ceased shipping
arms first to El Salvador and then to
Nicaragua.
Petty: Smith did not recommend that the
Cuban pronouncements be accepted at face
value. But he did believe that they were
worth discussing. Instead of sitting down
with the Cubans, however, the administra-
tion responded with what Smith charges
were phony statistics and petty measures
designed to scuttle any further talk. The
administration insisted that the Cubans had
not reduced their shipments of arms to Cen-
tral America; but "if the guerrillas had re-
ceived all the arms reported by U.S. intelli-
gence," he writes, "the Salvadoran army
would be outgunned 20 to 1." Reagan also
allowed a 1977 U.S.-Cuban fishing agree-
ment to lapse and prohibited any U.S. finan-
cial transactions related to Cuban tourism.
In Smith's view, those moves sent a, clear
signal to Cuba: "The United States had no
further interest in better relations."
In response, the Si.ate Department de-
nies Smith's major charge: "We never
closed the door to dialogue," insists one
official, who nonetheless defends the ad-
ministration's hard line. "[But] we do not
believe there is any evidence to support
the thesis that negotiating with Castro, un-
der current circumstances, would advance
[relations]. A change in Cuban behavior,
not just a change in rhetoric, is what is
required." Reagan's men doubt Smith's
view that the Cubans are now ready for
such a change.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606250006-8