CUBA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85-00664R000700200001-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 41
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Content Type: PAPER

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Vi
CUBA
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
I ITS
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CUBA
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
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Contents
I. The Betrayal of the Cuban Revolution . 2
II. The Establishment of the Communist
Bridgehead 11
III. The Delivery of the Revolution to the
Sino-Soviet Bloc 19
IV. The Assault on the Hemisphere . 25
V. Conclusion 33
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CUBA
The present situation in Cuba confronts the
Western Hemisphere and the inter-American sys-
tem with a grave and urgent challenge.
This challenge does not result from the fact that
the Castro government in Cuba was established by
revolution. The hemisphere rejoiced at the over-
throw of the Batista tyranny, looked with sympathy
on the new regime, and welcomed its promises of
political freedom and social justice for the Cuban
people. The challenge results from the fact that
the leaders of the revolutionary regime betrayed
their own revolution, delivered that revolution into
the hands of powers alien to the hemisphere, and
transformed it into an instrument employed with
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calculated effect to suppress the rekindled hopes of
the Cuban people for democracy and to intervene
in the internal affairs of other American Republics.
What began as a movement to enlarge Cuban
democracy and freedom has been perverted, in
short, into a mechanism for the destruction of free
institutions in Cuba, for the seizure by international
communism of a base and bridgehead in the Amer-
icas, and for the disruption of the inter-American
system.
It is the considered judgment of the Government
of the United States of America that the Castro
regime in Cuba offers a clear and present danger
to the authentic and autonomous revolution of the
Americas?to the whole hope of spreading politi-
cal liberty, economic development, and social prog-
ress through all the republics of the hemisphere.
I. The Betrayal of the Cuban Revolution
The character of the Batista regime in Cuba
made a violent popular reaction almost inevitable.
The rapacity of the leadership, the corruption of
the government, the brutality of the police, the
regime's indifference to the needs of the people for
education, medical care, housing, for social justice
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and economic opportunity?all these, in Cuba
as elsewhere, constituted an open invitation to
revolution.
When word arrived from the Sierra Maestra of
the revolutionary movement headed by Dr. Fidel
Castro Ruz, the people of the hemisphere watched
its progress with feeling and with hope. The
Cuban Revolution could not, however, have suc-
ceeded on the basis of guerrilla action alone. It
succeeded because of the rejection of the regime
by thousands of civilians behind the lines?a rejec-
tion which undermined the morale of the superior
military forces of Batista and caused them to col-
lapse from within. This response of the Cuban
people was not just to the cruelty and oppression
of the Batista government but to the clear and
moving declarations repeatedly made by Dr.
Castro concerning his plans and purposes for post-
revolutionary Cuba.
As early as 1953 Dr. Castro promised that the
first revolutionary law would proclaim the Consti-
tution of 1940 as "the supreme law of the land."
In this and subsequent statements? Dr. Castro
promised "absolute guarantee of freedom of infor-
mation, both of newspapers and radio, and of all
the individual and political rights guaranteed by
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the Constitution," and a provisional government
that "will hold general elections . . . at the end
of one year under the norms of the Constitution
of 1940 and the Electoral Code of 1943 and will
deliver the power immediately to the candidate
elected." Dr. Castro, in short, promised a free and
democratic Cuba dedicated to social and economic
justice. It was to assure these goals that the Rebel
Army maintained itself in the hills, that the Cuban
people turned against Batista, and that all elements
of the revolution in the end supported the 26th of
July Movement. It was because of the belief in
the honesty of Dr. Castro's purposes that the ac-
cession of his regime to power on January 1, 1959,
was followed within a single week by its acceptance
in the hemisphere?a recognition freely accorded
by nearly all the American Republics, including the
United States.
For a moment the Castro regime seemed deter-
mined to make good on at least its social promises.
The positive programs initiated in the first months
of the Castro regime?the schools built, the medical
clinics established, the new housing, the early
projects of land reform, the opening up of beaches
and resorts to the people, the elimination of graft
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in government?were impressive in their concep-
tion; no future Cuban government can expect to
turn its back on such objectives. But so far as the
expressed political aims of the revolution were con-
cerned, the record of the Castro regime has been
a record of the steady and consistent betrayal of
Dr. Castro's prerevolutionary promises; and the re-
sult has been to corrupt the social achievements and
make them the means, not of liberation, but of
bondage.
The history of the Castro Revolution has been
the history of the calculated destruction of the free-
spirited Rebel Army and its supersession as the
main military instrumentality of the regime by the
new state militia. It has been the history of the
calculated destruction of the 26th of July Move-
ment and its supersession as the main political in-
strumentality of the regime by the Communist
Party (Partido Socialista Popular). It has been
the history of the disillusion, persecution, imprison-
ment, exile, and execution of men and women who
supported Dr. Castro?in many cases fought by his
side?and thereafter doomed themselves by trying
to make his regime live up to his own promises.
Thus Dr. Jose Mire) Cardona, a distinguished
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lawyer of IIabana, was in 1958 Coordinator of
Frente Civico Revolucionario, the coalition of
groups opposed to the Batista regime. Dr. Castro
made him the Prime Minister of the Revolutionary
Government. As the regime embarked on its Com-
munist course, Dr. Mire) Cardona went into exile.
Today he is chairman of the Revolutionary Coun-
cil, representing anti-Batista Cubans determined to
rescue the Revolution.
Dr. Manuel Urrutia y Ile& an eminent Cuban
judge, had asserted in defiance of Batista and in
defense of Castro the right of Cubans to resort to
arms to overthrow an unconstitutional govern-
ment. He became a hero of the Revolution and
served as Provisional President of the Revolution-
ary Government. When he protested the spread of
Communist influence, he was compelled to resign.
Today Dr. Urrutia is under house arrest in Habana.
Not only the first Prime Minister and the first
President of the Revolutionary Government but a
large proportion of the Revolution's original po-
litical and military leaders now reject Dr. Castro
and his course of betrayal. Of the 19 members of
the first cabinet of the Revolutionary Government,
nearly two-thirds arc today in prison, in exile, or in
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opposition. Manuel Ray River?, who organized
the anti-Batista underground in Habana and served
as Castro's Minister of Public Works, is now a
member of the Revolutionary Council. Humberto
Son i Marin, who as Castro's first Minister of Agri-
culture called for agrarian reform in the spirit of
the 1940 Constitution, returned to Cuba early this
year to resume his fight for the freedom of his peo-
ple; according to recent reports, he has been shot
and captured by the forces of Castro.
Men who fought with Dr. Castro in the hills are
today the hunted victims of his revolutionary re-
gime. Major Huber Matos Benitez, revolutionary
comandante of Camaguey Province, was a hero
of the Sierra Maestra. When Major Matos chal-
lenged the spread of Communist influence and re-
quested permission to resign from the Army, he
was put on trial for conspiracy, sedition, and trea-
son and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.
Major Matos is only one of the many foes of Ba-
tista who now protest Dr. Castro's perversion of
the revolution. There are many, many others:
Manuel Artime and Nino Diaz who fought val-
iantly in the Sierra Maestra; Justo Carrillo, a lead-
er of the Montecristi opposition in Habana and
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Castro's first choice for President of the National
Development Bank; Rai:iil Chibas, who raised much
of the funds for the revolution and fought with
Castro in the hills; Felipe Pazos, who represented
the 26th of July Movement on the Junta of Libera-
tion and was subsequently appointed by Castro as
President of the National Bank of Cuba; Major
Pedro Diaz Lanz, chief of the Cuban Air Force and
Castro's personal pilot; Ricardo Lone Vals, chief
of arms supply for the Rebel Army; Dr. Manuel
Antonio de Varona, leader of the Organizacion
Autentica, which was formed to oppose Batista
and which supported its own revolutionary group
in the Escambray Mountains; Evelio Duque and
Osvaldo Ramirez, fighters in the Sierra Escambray
first against Batista and today against Castro.
? David Salvador, the labor leader, went to jail
under Batista because of his work for Castro. After
the revolution he became the militantly pro-Castro
and "anti-Yanqui" secretary general of the Cuban
trade union federation. In November 1959, the
26th of July Movement swept the national con-
gress of the trade unions, defeated the Communist
slate, and confirmed David Salvador as secretary
general. But Dr. Castro, appearing in persol?. at
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the congress, demanded acceptance of the Com-
munist program of "unity." Salvador continued
his fight for a free labor movement. A year later
he was arrested as he tried to escape from Cuba.
Today David Salvador is back again in a Cuban
jail?this time not Batista's but Castro's.
Editors and commentators who had fought all
their lives for freedom of expression found less of
it under Castro even than under Batista. Miguel
Angel Quevedo, as editor of Bohemia, had freely
attacked Batista and backed Castro; the January
1959 issue of Bohemia hailing the new regime sold
nearly a million copies. But a year and a half later
Quevedo concluded that it was impossible to put
out an honest magazine in the new Cuba. When
he fled the country in July 1960, Castro described
it as "one of the hard blows which the Revolution
has received." Today Bohemia Libre's dateline is
Caracas. Luis Conte Agiiero, the radio and tele-
vision commentator, wrote the preface to Dr.
Castro's revolutionary exhortation History Will
Absolve Me. When Conte dared criticize Com-
munist infiltration into the regime, Castro turned
on him, angry crowds mobbed him, and he was
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forced to seek refuge in the Argentine Embassy.
Today he is in exile. Even Jose Pardo Llada,
notorious for his vitriolic daily attacks on the
United States over the Habana radio, recently fled
to Mexico City; he declared, "I am breaking with
Fidel Castro upon reaching the conviction that in
Cuba it is no longer possible to maintain a position
that is not in accord with the line of the Popular
Socialist [Communist] Party and that any expres-
sion of independence, even in defense of the social
program of the Revolution, is considered as devia-
tionist, divisive, or counterrevolutionary."
Never in history has any revolution so rapidly
devoured its children. The roster of Castro's vic-
tims is the litany of the Cuban Revolution. The
Rebel Army and the 26th of July Movement ex-
pressed the profound and passionate desire of the
Cuban people for democracy and freedom, a desire
sanctified in the comradeship and sacrifice of the
revolutionary struggle. When Dr. Castro decided
to betray the promises of the revolution, he had to
liquidate the instrumentalities which embodied
those promises and to destroy the men who took
the promises seriously.
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II. The Establishment of the Communist
Bridgehead
in place of the democratic spontaneity of the
Cuban Revolution, Dr. Castro placed his confi-
dence in the ruthless discipline of the Cuban Com-
munist Party. Today that party is the only political
party permitted to operate in Cuba. Today its
members and those responsive to its influence dom-
inate the government of Cuba, the commissions of
economic planning, the labor front, the press, the
educational system, and all the agencies of national
power.
The Cuban Communist Party has had a long
and intricate history. For years it had a working
arrangement with the Batista government; indeed,
Batista in 1943 appointed to his cabinet the first
avowed Communist ever to serve in any cabinet of
any American Republic. Later Batista and the
Communists fell out. But the Communists were
at first slow to grasp the potentialities of the Castro
movement. When Castro first went to the hills,
the Cuban Communist Party dismissed him as
"bourgeois" and "putschist." Only when they saw
that he had a chance of winning did they try to
take over his movement.
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Their initial opposition was quickly forgiven.
Dr. Castro's brother, Major Rai11 Castro, had him-
self been active in the international Communist
student movement and had made his pilgrimage to
the Communist world. Moreover, Major Ernesto
(Che) Guevara, a dominating influence on Dr.
Castro, was a professional revolutionary from Ar-
gentina who had worked with Communists in
Guatemala and Mexico. Through Ran! Castro
and Guevara, the Communists, though unable to
gain control either of the 26th of July Movement
or of the Rebel Army, won ready access to Dr.
Castro himself. What was perhaps even more im-
portant, the Communist Party could promise
Castro not only a clear-cut program but a tough
organization to put that program into execution.
The period since has seen a steady expansion of
Communist power within the regime. Dr. Osvaldo
Dortic6s Torrado, the present President of Cuba,
was regional organization secretary of the Commu-
nist Party in Cienfuegos as a law student and has
never publicly explained or repudiated his past
party membership. Anibal Escalante, secretary
general of the Cuban Communist Party, is a mem-
ber of the informal group which, under the chair-
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manship of Rai11 Castro, makes policy for the
Cuban Government. Raid Castro himself runs the
Ministry for the Revolutionary Armed Forces; and
his friend, Major Ramiro Valdes Menendez, who
accompanied him on a tour of the Soviet bloc in
1960, is chief of military intelligence. Major
Guevara is Minister of Industry and chief economic
planner. The National Agrarian Reform Institute
( INRA ) , with its vast power over the rural life of
Cuba, is headed by Major Antonio Naez Jimenez,
a longtime coworker in Communist-front groups
and another frequent pilgrim behind the Iron Cur-
tain. The Bank for Foreign Commerce, which un-
til recently controlled all exports and imports, had
as its director Jacinto Torras, an oldtime Commu-
nist, who served for many years as economic editor
of the Communist daily newspaper Noticias de
Hoy. All centers of economic power have been
taken over by the state and to a considerable de-
gree delivered to the Cuban Communist Party.
This process of consolidation has been extended
inexorably to every phase of Cuban national life.
Political opposition has been extinguished, and all
political parties, save the Communist, are effec-
tively denied political activity. In recent months
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the regime, by completing its purge of the judiciary,
has perfected its control over all organized institu-
tions of political power. Justice is now the instru-
ment of tyranny. Laws have been redefined in
such a way that any manifestation of disagreement
can be branded as "counterrevolutionary" and the
accused haled before military tribunals and sen-
tenced to long prison terms or to the firing squad.
Professional groups and civic institutions have
lost their autonomy and are systematically inte-
grated into the "revolutionary" discipline of the
regime. The remaining vestiges of opposition in
the trade unions, represented by union leaders from
the 26th of July Movement, have been destroyed.
Recently the hand of the dictatorship has been
reaching out beyond the middle class to strike down
elements in organized labor. When the electrical
workers of Habana marched last December from
union headquarters to the Presidential Palace to
protest against reductions in their standard of liv-
ing, Dr. Castro himself took an early occasion to
denounce them. A power failure in Habana led to
the arrest of three workers as suspected saboteurs;
on January 18, 1961, these men were executed by
the regime as "traitors." Protest demonstrations
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by workers' wives against the executions were
broken up by civilian strong-arm squads while
police and militiamen looked on.
In characteristic Communist manner the regime
has seized control of the nation's educational sys-
tem, introduced Communist propaganda into the
schools, destroyed academic freedom, and ended
the traditional autonomy of the universities. The
director of primary education in the Ministry of
Education is Dulce Maria Escalona Almeida, a
Communist. Secondary education is in the hands
of Pedro Callas Abril, long associated with pro-
Communist groups. The director of the Depart-
ment of Culture in the Ministry of Education is a
veteran Communist, Vicentina Antuiia. Well-
known Communists served on the committee
named by the Ministry of Education to rewrite the
textbooks for the public school system. Two-thirds
of the faculty of the University of Habana is today
in exile. Fermin Peinado, a former professor at
the University of the Oriente, recently published
the text of a statement issued last December by
faculty members and students of that university:
. . . In the realm of domestic politics we condemn Fidel
Castro as a traitor to the Revolution that this university
helped to organize and to win. . . . The objectives of corn-
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plete freedom, human rights, and constitutional order,
crystallized in the 26th of July Movement, have been
crushed by the Castro regime in open treason to the memory
of our martyrs Frank Pais, Pepito Tey, Eduardo Mesa, and
many others. . . . In the realm of university life we declare
Fidel Castro a traitor to the autonomy of the university,
defended to the death by a legion of student martyrs, from
Trejo to Ramirez and Jos?. Echevarria. . . . We de-
nounce the systematic subordination of the aims of scientific
investigation within the universities to the aim of consolidat-
ing and maintaining in power the totalitarian tyranny of
Castro.
In similar fashion the Castro regime has seized
control of the agencies of public communication?
the newspapers, the publishing houses, the radio
and television networks, the film industry. No
Cuban today, whether in field or factory, in school
or cafe or home by the radio, can hope to escape
the monotonous and implacable din of Communist
propaganda.
The Cuba of Castro, in short, offers the Western
Hemisphere a new experience?the experience of
a modern totalitarian state. Castro's power
touches the daily lives of the people of Cuba at
every point; governs their access to jobs, houses,
farms, schools, all the necessities of life; and sub-
jects opposition to quick and harsh reprisal. The
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Castro regime is far more drastic and comprehen-
sive in its control than even the most ruthless of
the oldtime military dictatorships which have too
long disfigured the hemisphere. On January 27
last, Major Nizriez Jimenez, the head of INRA,
summed up the inner logic of the Castro course.
The Cuban Government, Major Niniez threatened,
might have to replace its intended slogan for 1961,
"Year of Education," with a new slogan, "Afio del
ParedOn"?"Year of the Execution Wall" or, in
effect, "Year of the Firing Squad."
By every criterion, it is evident that the permea-
tion and penetration of political and intellectual
life by Communist influences and personalities have
reached the point of virtual domination. The
North American journalist I. F. Stone, initially
sympathetic with the Castro regime, reported after
a recent trip to Cuba: "For the first time, in talk-
ing with the Fidelist a intellectuals, I felt that Cuba
was on its way to becoming a Soviet-style Popular
Democracy."
It is for this reason that some of the most devoted
and authentic fighters for social and economic
democracy in Latin America?men who themselves
spent years in prison or in exile and who had hailed
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the Castro uprising for its promises of deliverance
for the Cuban people?have united in rejecting the
Communist conquest of Cuba. Victor Rani. Haya
de la Torre of Peru may stand as a symbol of this
whole tradition of the democratic left. "In the
history of Latin America," Haya de la Torre re-
cently said, "there has been a series of sell-outs.
Sell-outs are not new to our America. What is new
are sell-outs towards the left. Up until now they
were only to the political right. We cannot confuse
that which was idealistic, authentic and just in the
beginning of the Cuban Revolution with the sur-
render, submission, and homage to something
which is anti-American and totalitarian and which
is opposed to the traditional sense of our ideal of
bread with freedom."
Meeting in Lima at the end of February 1961,
representatives of APRA of Peru, AcciOn Demo-
cratica of Venezuela, and similar political groups
in other Latin American Republics summed up the
situation when they said of Cuba that its "revolu-
tionary process, justified in the beginning, has been
deflected by its present agents, converting a brother
country into an instrument of the cold war, sepa-
rating it, with suicidal premeditation, from the
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community of interests of the Latin American
people."
III. The Delivery of the Revolution to the
Sino-Soviet Bloc
The official declarations of the Cuban Govern-
ment amply document the Lima resolution and
make clear the subservience of the Castro regime
to the world Communist bloc. The joint com-
munique issued in Moscow on December 19, 1960,
by Anastas Mikoyan, Deputy Chairman of the
Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., and Major
Guevara, as chief of the Economic Mission of the
Revolutionary Government of Cuba, outline the
terms of surrender. After announcing a series of
trade, technical assistance, and cultural agree-
ments, the communique noted, "During the talks,
the two parties discussed problems relating to the
present international situation, and they reaffirmed
their agreement in attitude toward the principal
problems of mankind today." The Cubans agreed
that the Soviet Union is "the most powerful nation
on earth" and that every Soviet proposal and policy
represented a magnificent contribution to world
peace. In return for a total acceptance of Soviet
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leadership, Cuba received pledges of Soviet eco-
nomic assistance and of "the Soviet Union's will-
ingness to lend Cuba full assistance in maintaining
its independence against unprovoked aggression."
The joint communique amounts in effect to an alli-
ance between Cuba and the Soviet Union.
Officials of the Castro government have repeat-
edly made clear their fidelity to this alliance.
Major Guevara, endorsing the conclusions of the
Moscow Congress of world Communist parties,
said "Cuba wants to tread the way of the Soviet
Union" and praised the "militant solidarity of the
Cuban and Soviet people." In the presence of Dr.
Castro, Faure Chom6n, the Cuban Ambassador
to Moscow, told an audience on March 13, 1961,
"Wc Communists together will continue forward
with our truth . . . and the students of today and
the students of tomorrow will be greatly interested
in seeing how a whole people made itself Commu-
nist, how even the children, deceived by religious
schools, have become Communists, and how this is
to follow that truth which unites the Cuban people.
Very soon we shall see all the peoples of Latin
America become Communists."
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On one issue after another, the Castro regime
has signified its unquestioning acceptance of the
Soviet line on international affairs. After the
termination of diplomatic relations with the United
States, the Cuban Government turned over its
diplomatic and consular representation to the
Embassy of Czechoslovakia in Washington. In the
United Nations, Cuba votes with the Communist
bloc on virtually all major issues.
Though in 1956 Raul Roa, the Cuban Foreign
Minister, attacked "the crimes, disasters and out-
rages perpetrated" by the Soviet "invaders" in
Hungary, the Hungarian revolution, as well as the
rebellion in Tibet, arc now "reactionary fascist
movements." In October 1960, Manuel Yepe,
chief of protocol for the Foreign Ministry, gave an
orientation lecture on the subject "Imperialist
Aggression and the Case of Hungary."
The last few months have seen the rapid con-
solidation of this relationship in all its aspects?
not only ideological, but military, political, eco-
nomic, and cultural. Sino-Soviet arms, equipment,
technicians, and money have moved into Cuba.
Diplomatic relations have been established with
every Communist country except East Germany;
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and economic agreements have been concluded
with many Communist countries including East
Germany. Cuban leaders have visited the Soviet
Union and Communist China as honored guests,
and a long list of leaders from the Soviet Union,
China, and the Communist satellite states have
visited Cuba.
It is important to understand the detail and the
magnitude of this process of takeover. Since the
middle of 1960, more than 30,000 tons of arms
with an estimated value of $50 million have
poured from beyond the Iron Curtain into Cuba in
an ever-rising flood. The 8-hour military parade
through Habana and the military maneuvers in
January 1961 displayed Soviet JS-2 51-ton tanks,
Soviet SU-100 assault guns, Soviet T-34 35-ton
tanks, Soviet 76 mm. field guns, Soviet 85 mm.
field guns, Soviet 122 mm. field guns. Except for
motorized equipment, the Cuban armed forces
have been reequipped by the Soviet bloc and are
now dependent on the bloc for the maintenance of
their armed power. Soviet and Czech military
advisers and technicians have accompanied the
flow of arms. And the Castro regime has sent
Cubans to Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union
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for training as jet pilots, ground maintenance
crews, and artillerymen.
As a consequence of Soviet military aid, Cuba
has today, except for the United States, the largest
ground forces in the hemisphere?at least ten times
as large as the military forces maintained by previ-
ous Cuban Governments, including that of Batista.
Estimates of the size of the Cuban military estab-
lishment range from 250,000 to 400,000. On the
basis of the lower figure, one out of every 30
Cubans is today in the armed forces as against one
out of 50 in the Soviet Union and one out of 60
in the 'United States.
Soviet domination of economic relations has pro-
ceeded with similar speed and comprehensiveness.
A series of trade and financial agreements has in-
tegrated the Cuban economy with that of the Corn-
munist world. The extent of Cuban economic
dependence on the Communist world is shown by
the fact that approximately 75 percent of its trade
is now tied up in barter arrangements with Iron
Curtain countries. The artificiality of this devel-
opment is suggested by the fact that at the begin-
ning of 1960 only 2 percent of Cuba's total foreign
trade was with the Communist bloc. The Soviet
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Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland
have permanent technical assistance missions in
Cuba; and a Communist Chinese delegation will
soon arrive in pursuance of the Cuban-Chinese
agreement of December 1960. According to Major
Guevara, 2,700 Cubans will be receiving technical
training in bloc countries in 1961.
The same process is visible in the field of cultural
relations. What is involved is not just the visit of
concert artists, dance groups, or athletic teams but
the Communist conquest of all phases of cultural
activity. This is to be seen in the comprehensive
cultural agreements with bloc countries, in the re-
construction of the Cuban educational system to
serve Communist purposes, in the impediments
placed on students wishing to study anywhere ex-
cept beyond the Iron Curtain, in the ban on books
and magazines from the free states, in the affilia-
tion of Prensa Latina, the official Cuban press
agency, with Tass and other Communist-bloc news
agencies. It has meant a deliberate severing of
traditional cultural ties with countries of the hemi-
sphere and of Western Europe. It has meant a
massive attempt to impose an alien cultural pattern
on the Cuban people.
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In every area, the action of the Castro regime
is steadily and purposefully directed toward a single
goal?the transformation of Cuba into a Soviet
satellite state.
IV. The Assault on the Hemisphere
The transformation of Cuba into a Soviet satel-
lite is, from the viewpoint of the Cuban leaders, not
an end but a beginning. Dr. Castro's fondest
dream is a continent-wide upheaval which would
reconstruct all Latin America on the model of
Cuba. "We promise," he said on July 26, 1960,
"to continue making the nation the example that
can convert the Cordillera of the Andes into the
Sierra Maestra of the hemisphere." "If they want
to accuse us of wanting a revolution in all Amer-
ica," he added later, "let them accuse us."
Under Castro, Cuba has already become a base
and staging area for revolutionary activity through-
out the continent. In prosecuting the war against
the hemisphere, Cuban embassies in Latin Ameri-
can countries work in close collaboration with Iron
Curtain diplomatic missions and with the Soviet
intelligence services. In addition, Cuban expres-
sions of fealty to the Communist world have pro-
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vided the Soviet Government a long-sought pretext
for threats of direct interventions of its own in the
Western Hemisphere. "We shall do everything
to support Cuba in her struggle," Prime Minister
Khrushchev said on July 9, 1960, ". . . Speaking
figuratively, in case of necessity, Soviet artillery-
men can support with rocket fire the Cuban people
if aggressive forces in the Pentagon dare to start
intervention against Cuba."
As Dr. Castro's alliance with international com-
munism has grown closer, his determination to
export revolution to other American Republics?
a determination now affirmed, now denied?has
become more fervent. The Declaration of Ha-
bana of September 2, 1960, was an open attack on
the Organization of American States. Cuban
intervention, though couched in terms designed to
appeal to Latin American aspirations for freedom
and justice, has shown its readiness to do anything
necessary to extend the power of Fidelismo. In-
deed, Dr. Castro has plainly reached the conclu-
sion that his main enemy in Latin America is not
dictatorship but democracy?that he must, above
all, strive to discredit and destroy governments seek-
ing peaceful solutions to social and economic prob-
26
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ME
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lems. Thus in recent months the Cuban Govern-
ment has abandoned its aggressive campaign
against the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican
Republic and has accelerated its attacks on the
progressive democratic government of Romulo
Betancourt in Venezuela.
Cuban interventionism has taken a variety of
forms. During 1959 the Castro government aided
or supported armed invasions of Panama, Nica-
ragua, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. These
projects all failed and all invited action by the
Organization of American States. In conse-
quence, after 1959 the Castro regime began in-
creasingly to resort to indirect methods. The
present strategy of Fidelismo is to provoke revolu-
tionary situations in other republics through the
indoctrination of selected individuals from other
countries, through assistance to revolutionary exiles,
through incitement to mass agitation, and through
the political and propaganda operations of Cuban
embassies. Cuban diplomats have encouraged lo-
cal opposition groups, harangued political rallies,
distributed inflammatory propaganda, and in-
dulged in a multitude of political assignments be-
yond the usual call of diplomatic duty. Papers
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seized in a raid on the Cuban Embassy in Lima in
November 1960 display, for example, the extent
and variety of clandestine Fidelista activities
within Peru. Documents made public by the
Government of El Salvador on March 12, 1961,
appear to establish that large sums of money have
been coming into El Salvador through the Cuban
Embassy for the purpose of financing pro-Com-
munist student groups plotting the overthrow of
the government. The regime is now completing
construction of a 100,000-watt radio transmitter to
facilitate its propaganda assault on the hemisphere.'
Most instances of serious civil disturbance in ,
Latin America in recent months exhibit Cuban in-
fluence, if not direct intervention. At the time of
the November riots in Venezuela, the government
announced the discovery of high-powered trans-
mitting and receiving sets in the possession of
Cubans in Caracas. In the following weeks about
50 Cubans were expelled from the country. Simi-
lar patterns appear to have existed in troubles in
El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia,,
Bolivia, and Paraguay.
To such covert activities have been joined open
and direct attacks on the duly elected leaders of the.
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American states. Thus the Cuban Foreign Min-
ister has applied unprintable language to President
Frondizi of Argentina. Government broadcasts
have denounced President Lopez Mateos as "the
betrayer of thc Mexican Revolution," President
Alessandri as "thc corrupter of the faith of the
Chilean people," President Llcras Camargo of
Colombia as "thc intimate friend of exploiting im-
perialism," President Betancourt of Venezuela as
the "revolutionary of Mercurochrome Bandaids,"
President Eisenhower of thc United States as "de-
crepit" and "bottle-fed," and so on.
In consequence of Dr. Castro's campaign against
thc hemisphere, seven American states no longer
have diplomatic relations with Cuba. Of the states
which retain formal relations, several have found
it necessary to ask that Cuban Ambassadors and
other official representatives be recalled because of
their flagrant intervention into domestic affairs. A
number of governments have withdrawn their own
ambassadors from Habana.
The nations of the hemisphere, including the
United States, have made repeated attempts to
dissuade Cuba from thus turning its back on its
brother Republics. Though the Cuban Govern-
089680- 01-- 5
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ment has tried to portray the United States as the
sworn and unrelenting enemy of the Cuban Revo-
lution, Dr. Castro was in fact cordially received
when he visited the United States in the spring of
1959. American officials made clear to him the
willingness of the United States Government to
discuss his country's economic needs. For many
months thereafter, the United States sought direct
consultations with the Castro government. The
United States took the initiative in suggesting nego-
tiations as early as the summer of 1959. That
offer and many others made subsequently were not
accepted. For a long time the United States Am-
bassador in Habana was unable even to obtain an
audience with Dr. Castro.
Dr. Castro had already made clear his contempt
for the Organization of American States and for
the entire inter-American system. Early in his
regime he declared, "I have no faith in the
OAS . . . it decides nothing, the whole thing is a
lie." Though Cuba signed the Santiago Decla-
ration of August 1959, with its enunciation of free
elections, human rights, due process, freedom of
information and expression, and hemisphere eco-
nomic collaboration, it has systematically disre-
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garded and violated each item in the Declaration.
In March 1960 Castro publicly stated that the
Cuban Government did .not regard itself as obli-
gated by the Rio Treaty, the keystone of hemi-
spheric cooperation for defense, because "the revo-
lution" did not sign the document.
In August 1960 the Foreign Ministers of the
hemisphere, meeting at San Jose, Costa Rica,
adopted a declaration condemning the threat of
extracontinental intervention in the affairs of the
hemisphere and condemning also the acceptance
of any such threat by an American Republic; re-
jecting the attempt of the Sino-Soviet powers to
exploit the political, economic, or social situation
of any American State; and declaring that the
inter-American system was incompatible with any
form of totalitarianism and that democracy would
achieve its full scope only as all American Repub-
lics lived up to the Santiago Declaration.
After the San Jose Declaration the Cuban
regime, identifying itself as the object of these
pronouncements, launched an all-out attack on
the inter-American system. The Declaration of
Habana condemned the Declaration of San Jose.
The United States twice proposed that factfinding
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and good-offices procedures created by the OAS
be used as an approach to resolving differences;
these proposals were ignored by Cuba. Cuba
refused to join with the other American Republics
in the effort to bring about economic and social
advance through the continent in the spirit of the
Bogota economic meeting of 1960. It refused to
support the recommendations made by the Novem-
ber 1960 Special Meeting of Senior Representa-
tives to strengthen the Inter-American Economic
and Social Council. It has hurled insults on the
whole conception of Alianza para el Progreso. It
stands today in defiance not only of the Declara-
tions of Santiago and San Jose and the Treaty of
Rio but also of the Charter of the Organization of
American States.
No one contends that the Organization of Amer-
ican States is a perfect institution. But it does
represent the collective purpose of the American
Republics to work together for democracy, eco-
nomic development, and peace. The OAS has
established the machinery to guarantee the safety
and integrity of every American Republic, to pre-
serve the principle of nonintervention by any Amer-
ican State in the internal or external affairs of the
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other American States, and to assure each nation
the right to develop its cultural, political, and eco-
nomic life freely and naturally, respecting the
rights of the individual and the principles of uni-
versal morality.
The Organization of American States is the
expression of the moral and political unity of the
Western Hemisphere. In rejecting the OAS, the
Castro regime has rejected the hemisphere and
has established itself as the outpost in the Americas
for forces determined to wreck the inter-American
system. Under Castro, Cuba has become the
agency to destroy the Bolivarian vision of the Amer-
icas as the greatest region in the world, "greatest
not so much by virtue of her area and wealth, as
by her freedom and glory."
V. Conclusion
It is not clear whether Dr. Castro intended from
the start to betray his pledges of a free and
democratic Cuba, to deliver his country to the
Sino-Soviet bloc, and to mount an attack on the
inter-American system; or whether he made his
original pledges in all sincerity but, on assuming
his new responsibilities, found himself increasingly
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dependent on ruthless men around him with clear
ideas and the disciplined organization to carry
those ideas into action. What is important is not
the motive but the result.
The first result has been the institution of a
repressive dictatorship in Cuba.
The existence of a regime dedicated to so calcu-
lated an attack on human decencies would by itself
be a sufficient occasion for intense concern within
the hemisphere. In recent years the American
family of nations has moved steadily toward the
conclusion that the safety and welfare of all the
American Republics will be best protected by the
establishment and guarantee within each republic
of what the OAS Charter calls "the essential rights
of man."
But Dr. Castro has done more than establish a
dictatorship in Cuba; he has committed that dic-
tatorship to a totalitarian movement outside the
hemisphere.
Just as the American Republics over 20 years
ago, in conferences beginning at Lima in 1938 and
culminating at Rio de Janeiro in 1942, proclaimed
that they could not tolerate the invasion of the hemi-
sphere and the seizure of the American States by
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Nati movements, serving the interests of the Ger-
outt Reich. so today they reject such invasion and
teirurc by Communist movements serving the in-
terest% of the Sino-Soviet bloc.
The people of Cuba remain our brothers. We
arktxtwirdge past omissions and errors in our re-
4ot:ship to them. The I 7t i Cd States, along with
thr other nations of the hemisphere, expresses a pro-
higintl determination to assure future democratic
?t..sertottents in Cuba full and positive support in
their effort% to help the Cuban people achieve free-
ttitur, tirmociacy, and social justice.
We call once again on the Castro regime to sever
rt% [mkt ith the international Communist move-
Mrin. to Urttlill to the original purposes which
botught so many gallant men together in the Sierra
Nfaritta, and to restore the integrity of the Cuban
Reutlution.
If thi% unheeded, we are confident that the
Cohan people, with their passion for liberty, will
4t1tiour to N(I ire for a free Cuba; that they will
retwo to the %plendid vision of inter-American
toot% and pi o;.:i ess; and that in the spirit of Jos?
Marti the ?sill join hands with the other republics
UI the herni%plirre in the struggle to Will freedom.
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Because the Castro regime has become the spear-
head of attack on the inter-American system, that
regime represents a fateful challenge to the inter-
American system. For freedom is the common
destiny of our hemisphere?freedom from domestic
tyranny and foreign intervention, from hunger and
poverty and illiteracy, freedom for each person and
nation in the Americas to realize the high poten-
tialities of life in the twentieth century.
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DEPARTMENT OF STATE PUBLICATION 7171
Inter-American Series 66
Released April 1961
Office of Public Services
BUREAU OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office, Washington 25, D.C. - Price 20 cents
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lac
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THIS DOCTROTT IS
A SOURC7 Iff
A III L_CLI, PAPER
DO NOT DESTROY
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