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

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Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP88-01314R000100190087-0
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RIFPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 16, 2016
Document Release Date: 
September 2, 2004
Sequence Number: 
87
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
December 26, 1971
Content Type: 
NSPR
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PDF icon CIA-RDP88-01314R000100190087-0.pdf152.18 KB
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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