CUBA'S FOREIGN POLICY AND OURS

...We refused to sell Cuba helicopters badly needed to dust her crops...

...government] argued that the grounds for essential assistance to Batista were sound, clearly in the interest of the United States and against that of Soviet Russia...

...Our embassy in Havana was almost ecstatic...

...the Planning Board, in fact, had just prepared a new corporation income tax schedule...

...the Chilean government, in particular, has disassociated itself from this latest move, in order to discredit charges by the Left opposition that the regime is politically subservient to the United States...

...By the end of the month, nearly all United States investments in Cuba were nationalized...

...An economist at Barnard College, Mr...

...First, a landing force would have to cope with a people's militia, 250,000 strong, together with a 50,000 man army...

...Stanley Meisler, a respected Washington newspaperman, said in The Nation, "Unofficially . . .there seems to be hope [in Washington] that the loss in revenues [following the reduction of the sugar quota] will hurt Castro by causing discontent among the 500,000 Cuban sugar cane workers who face a possible cut in wages, and among Cuban consumers . . ." Putting a strain on the Cuban economy is the real key to counter-revolution, since without the support of Cuba's workers and peasants, the middle-classes, few in number, disorganized, largely opportunistic, are helpless...

...In this way, we have indirectly impeded Cuba's economic reconstruction, evidently hoping thereby to win the Cuban masses over to counterrevolution...

...In reality, once the National Bank cut back imports of luxury goods (a policy to which the United States objects strongly), and once the sugar latifundia were expropriated, Castro was in a position to plough back into the Cuban economy dollar earnings from sugar, simultaneously raising the living standards of the Cuban masses...

...Not at all...

...Nowhere in the West were the commercial relations between two sovereign nations so close...

...How our government accounts for Castro's course of action is at last public knowledge...

...To date, this policy has been a costly failure...

...As a revolutionary, as a democrat, and as a humanist, his responsibility to liberals and radicals, peasants and workers, in all countries, transcends his temporary feud with the United States...

...Was it possible that an island rich in agricultural resources stood to gain by importing foods and raw materials...

...But if he is as great a man as ardent Fidelistas believe, then it is up to him to do just that...

...When, as a result, Castro invited eleven Congressmen and Senators to Cuba, only Representative Adam Clayton Powell accepted...

...What are some other interpretations that can be placed on Castro's actions...

...This, in my view, was both unnecessary and wrong...

...And, touching briefly on the Communism issue, it may be recalled that as late as last fall Cuba, on two major issues, voted against the Soviet Union in the United Nations...

...Was not Cuba, however, granted equivalent advantages by the United States...

...A week later, according to the Times, "State Department officials said . . . the United States has been reassured about the stability and direction of the new government because the cabinet represented a broad spectrum of anti-Bastista forces...

...What is most important in Cuba and Latin America now is that for the first time the impoverished masses are demanding a voice in their own destiny...

...From the United States Cuba obtained nearly all her capital equipment, a large proportion of her manufactured consumer goods, and roughly one-half of her population's food requirements...

...social revolutionaries, not reformers...

...A United States spokesman recently admitted the impossibility of invoking the Rio Treaty because "public opinion in Latin America is not prepared for such an action...

...House of Representatives, by a vote of 394 to 0, reduced the sugar quota...

...Authored by Americans for the benefit of domestic sugar growers, the quota system was detrimental to Cuba's economic development for two reasons...

...2, 1959, that "American concerns with Cuban interests generally did not expect the change in Cuba's government to hamper their operations...

...One American businessman summed up what seemed the general feeling when he said, "With an honest government this island could be an economic paradise...

...On the stock market, issues of mining, oil, and utility companies with Cuban subsidiaries showed strong gains...

...In Cuba itself, some firms were pre-paying taxes to help Castro consolidate his new government while others were planning to accelerate investment plans temporarily postponed during the revolution...

...prestige and influence in the area...

...Arthur Krock reported that "an influential group [in the U.S...

...The Organization of American States would withhold its backing from the United States...

...Unquestionably, by early 1959, our Latin American experts had been made aware by events in Cuba that Castro would not and could not channel the revolution into New Deal-type lines...

...It is instructive to contrast this forceful attitude with that toward the anti-Castro fire-bomb raiders...

...economic holdings in Latin America, but U.S...

...Furthermore, under the quota system, which can only artificially be separated from foreign domination of the industry, Cuba failed to utilize fully her dollar earnings for the development of the domestic economy...

...Had the State Department not been aware of the complementary nature of foreign economic and diplomatic policies, we would have long ago put an end to economic aid to Poland and Yugoslavia...

...According to Cuban Senator Chibas, a man not given to overstatement, Smith did his utmost (much as did Sumner Welles in the revolt of 1933) to divert the revolution into more conservative channels...

...Last summer, for example, Castro had for the time being no plans to nationalize American firms in Cuba...

...Step number two, consisting of United States economic policies toward Cuba, seems to have been designed in part to complement diplomatic moves to isolate Cuba from her neighbors, and in part to promote domestic counter-revolution by weakening the Cuban economy...

...The State Department ignored Smith's advice and quickly turned down Castro's request for a f 5 million loan and barter agreement...

...There is little doubt that his attacks on the United States have helped divert attention away from serious domestic problems...

...Yet, according to two sources, Cuban exiles in Guatemala are being trained in the use of United States military equipment by officers of the United States army...

...Socialism in Cuba was born somewhat earlier than Cubans expected...

...From 1950-58, for example, Cuba "exported" to the United States about $750 million in interest and dividends...

...Had the market been competitive, Cuba's dollar earnings from sugar exports would have risen...

...Unfortunately, few systems of economic controls are as little understood as the quota system...

...During Castro's first months in office, the State Department's line was less clear...

...it was 'impossible,' a spokesman said, to police such a large area...

...Or, as Castro has time and again charged, was Cuba's economic dependence imposed on the island by the United States...

...This is why the State Department publicly viewed Cuba's future as "uncertain...

...this list could be extended indefinitely...

...The Russian oil purchase could hardly be regarded as "politically" inspired since the Soviet price was nearly thirty per cent lower than that charged by the U.S...

...In the Premier's catalogue of charges against the United States, there is a great deal of make-believe...

...and reduction of our rice quota...

...Can we then, on this basis, expect the United States to support a military action against Cuba...

...Meanwhile, U.S...

...The Jones-Costigan Act of 1934 allotted Cuban sugar a fixed share, roughly one-third, of the protected market in this country...

...Seen in this light, the apparent contradiction becomes a realistic approach to a basic problem...

...In Cuba, commented the New York Times November 20, 1960, our economic "measures . . . have pushed the Castro regime closer to the Communist bloc...

...Yet one must be careful not to attribute to the force of Castro's personality too much significance...

...It would seem, therefore, that Castro's denunciations of the quota system as "imperialistic" were vicious displays of Soviet-inspired propaganda...

...Linked with conditions in other Latin American countries, the State Department no doubt saw the danger in this...

...We cannot expect even temper from a revolutionary, yet Castro's stubbornness has put off many liberals and radicals in Cuba, in this country, and in the rest of Latin America...

...Evidence that the Cuban revolution would be no ordinary coup had been accumulating throughout 1958...

...giants to their Cuban subsidiaries for Venezuelan crude...

...Shortly after, the Soviet Union agreed to purchase at the world market price the nearly one million tons of the unsold 1959-60 quota...

...The State Department then played a waiting game until the revolution gradually revealed its radical, anti-bourgeois nature...

...Yet our policy-makers were clearly encouraged by the liberal-bourgeois composition of Castro's first cabinet...

...What I am saying is that we have the right to expect more of a Fidel Castro, a great deal more, than of a Christian Herter or a Cabot Lodge...

...Business leaders in Cuba, said The Wall Street Journal January 8, 1959, who "as recently as one month ago were gravely concerned about the revolutionaries," apparently had undergone a radical shift in temper...

...fruit and vegetable shipments were "over-inspected" in our ports...

...Honduran Congressman Idelfonso Orellana Buesco reported in October, 1960, that thirty transport planes from this country had arrived in Guatemala with arms and Cuban counter-revolutionaries...

...Prior to taking power, Castro found little support in American business circles and less in the State Department...

...In the 60,000-odd anti-Castro Cuban "refugees from Communism," we have a sizable diplomatic bank account...

...This group was unquestionably laying down the main lines of our Cuban policy...

...And so he has in part betrayed those who placed faith in him...

...His tragedy is that temporarily at least he has undermined his own efforts for a free and prosperous Latin America...

...In August, then twice in October (the latter in retaliation against the export embargo), heavy counterblows were struck by Castro...

...Arising from special preferential duties favoring North American products (ranging from twenty to forty per cent under the Reciprocity Treaty of 1903 and augmented under the Trade Agreement of 1934 by as much as fifty per cent), Cuban-American trade patterns advanced the interests mainly of United States' exporters...

...Consider first the composition of Cuba's imports...

...The text accompanying last October's announcement of the embargo on exports to Cuba finally revealed the U. S. State Department's "official" theory of Cuban foreign policy...

...Directly after Batista's flight, Smith, an admirer of the dictator, apparently tried to thwart Castro's rise to power by throwing his support behind the ill-fated junta headed by Batista General Cantillo...

...First, had Cuba free and competitive access to the United States market, sugar prices would no doubt have fallen, yet because the island's soil is so well-suited to the cultivation of sugar, Cuban production and sales would have expanded on a large scale...

...Because the sugar industry was highly centralized, and in large part owned by foreign—chiefly American—interests, foreign, exchange earnings were either squandered on luxury imports, or transferred to this country as profits...

...Once it was certain that Cuba's socialism threatened United States property and political hegemony in the hemisphere, once Fidel Castro dramatized himself as the savior of the Latin American masses, the State Department dropped its "neutralist" mask and took the offensive...

...The Editors...

...It is true that in any negotiations with a hostile United States, Castro would be compelled to offer more compromises than his adversaries, who have conceded little or nothing...

...It is clear that Smith aimed to prevent more than token social reforms by buying favors from the new regime with United States assistance...

...The United States thus depicted Castro as a victim or a tool of a Soviet conspiracy to subvert democracy in the Western Hemisphere and deliver the Cuban people into Communist bondage...

...Justo Carillo of the Cuban Development Bank...

...surcharges on foreign exchange remittances...

...There have been reports of United States military aid to Cuban exiles, yet so long as Castro enjoys the support of the Cuban masses, even a large-scale invasion would end in tragedy...

...It is true that in recognition of their services to the revolution the bourgeoisie were well represented in the first revolutionary cabinet...

...Yet the monopolies put up their backs, and Castro had no choice but to compel them to comply by intervening the refineries, which is preliminary to expropriation...

...Unquestionably he has been all of these things...

...Among the "politically" motivated trade policies denounced were the special taxes Cuba has placed on flour, cigarets, and other commodity imports...

...Yet Undersecretary Rubottom explicitly denied that the revolution was Communist-inspired or influenced...

...In this the State Department has triumphed...

...In effect, the State Department accused Fidel Castro's government of severing ties with this country in favor of the Soviet Union for political reasons...

...for this reason alone, any invasion authorized by this country would be political suicide...

...The government has turned down requests for an investigation made by opposition deputies on grounds of military secrecy...

...economic policies have hastened the collectivization of the island's economy...

...Formal severance of relations would seem to pave the way for closer informal ties between the United States government and the counter-revolution in exile...

...Turning to Soviet-Cuban commercial relations, it can further be demonstrated that the "conspiracy" theory of Cuban foreign policy is designed to discredit Castro's accomplishments and humiliate his regime, and, for that reason, is devoid of real meaning...

...Real wages of sugar workers responded only imperceptibly during boom periods, fell to starvation levels when the demand for sugar was sluggish...

...United States diplomatic policy may yet backfire...

...A member of the revolutionary committee assigned to the American and Foreign Power Company, for instance, said as early as January 8, 1959 that "we are running the company...

...It has been said that he is disingenuous, intemperate, sometimes hysterical...

...What is more, the quota price has in most years been considerably in excess of the world market price...

...In December, the Castro regime was publicly labeled by the United States as "Communist-controlled...

...In Eastern Europe, we have attempted through economic assistance to drive a wedge between Russia and her satellites...

...Was this the outgrowth of a mutually beneficial "natural" pattern of trade, as the United States has implied...

...Once Castro assumed power, a split evidently developed between the American business community and its spokesman, Ambassador Earl Smith, on the one hand, and the State Department on the other...

...For the business community, in the United States and Cuba, the future seemed promising...

...Surveying the origins of Cuban-American tensions, one would be naive to hold Fidel Castro wholly blameless...

...There was, for example, no doubt that Castro planned an immediate and dramatic improvement in the material conditions of the Cuban peasants, making far-reaching alterations in the structure of Cuban agriculture necessary...

...The New York Times said a few months ago, "Cuban policies (Washington thinks) imperil not only vast U.S...

...Ronald Hilton, director of the Institute of Hispanic-American Studies at Stanford University, pointed to reports that a tract of land in Guatemala, reportedly acquired by the Central Intelligence Agency for $1 million, was being used to train exiles preparing to invade Cuba...

...Step number one appeared to be an unceasing diplomatic warfare against Cuba, aiming ultimately to fix a Communist label on the revolutionary government...

...Three military missions, for example, established in Cuba for "hemispheric defense," were retained until Castro himself asked them to leave...

...But our experts surely had acquired intimations of what would eventually be in store for the Cuban middle-classes...

...What in 1958 was most conspicuous (but least publicized) in Castro-occupied territory was the voluntary collectivization of the peasants...

...Lastly, there is the possibility, however remote, of Russian intervention...

...Moreover, it was known that Castro's lieutenants, his brother, Guevara, Hart, Jimenez, and others, were radicals, not liberals...

...Representative Wayne Hays demanded a trade embargo against Cuba if Castro persisted in prosecuting Batista's henchmen...

...Guatemalan President Ydigoras has denied the allegation, stating that Guatemalans are being taught defensive warfare in the area...

...Closing our embassy, however, has evidently revived and intensified the struggle between Left and Right in other Latin American countries...

...Of rebel activity along the Florida coast, he said that "it was anticipated . . . early in the year, and [our] force there was augmented...

...On January 2, 1959, the United States Immigration Commissioner disclosed that smashing "attempts to smuggle arms to Cuba" (for Castro) was one of his main pursuits in 1958...

...What is most striking about this policy is its economic, as opposed to political, rationale...

...The first major offensive of "economic war" between Cuba and the United States was mounted in June bv the oil giants, Standard, Texaco, and Shell, when thev refused to refine Cuban-purchased Soviet oil...

...The State Department said it had no reliable information as to what Castro stood for," reported the New York Times January 1, 1959...

...As a pre-condition of Cuba's economic development, Castro swept away the special advantages formerly extended to North American exporters and producers so that the new regime might draw more fully upon the island's resource potential...

...What we feared in Cuba, it seems to me, was socialism, not Communism...

...Because our commodities were in this sense "subsidized," Cuban importers were deprived of the opportunity to buy in the most favorable markets...

...The United States alleged that the "measures taken by the government of Cuba aimed at reducing the movement of goods and services from the United States to Cuba . . . [cannot] be justified by a need to conserve foreign exchange reserves . . . rather . . . [they] are the result of a deliberate political policy to divert trade away from the United States" (emphasis added...

...Ironically, in its eagerness to acquit the United States of charges of aggression in Cuba, the State Department betrayed its own true motives...

...Similarly, the United States refused aid to a subsequent mission, headed by Dr...

...The Communist Party in Cuba fell in behind Castro only reluctantly and rather late in the game...

...moreover, Cuban farmers and manufacturers, unable to compete on this basis, were plunged into a state of inefficiency and technological backwardness...

...It was in this context, in this climate of economic warfare, that Cuba was blanketed with nationalization decrees...

...export licenses for tractors and machinery were mysteriously held up...

...And recently Dr...

...The Wall Street Journal reported Jan...

...Long term, the outlook for American investment in Cuba is terrific...

...And while the Immigration Service assured Cuba that it would take a "long, hard look" before admitting to this country the most vicious of Batista's murderers, Rolando Mesferrer, he now resides within our borders...

...What is more, he seems to have used this country's hostility to Cuba as a pretext for denying civil liberties to the "liberal" bourgeoisie, who might have served the revolution well...

...The drive to quarantine Castro culminated in the complete diplomatic rupture between the two countries— partly the effect of Castro's own impatience...

...Samuel Shapiro put it well when he wrote in The New Republic, "When small planes based on Florida made repeated raids on Cuban cities and cane fields [in 1959], the State Department was slow to admit the fact, slower still to apologize for it, and slowest of all to take measures against such flights...

...To the casual observer Castro might appear to have contradicted himself...

...The direct outcome of a foolish and offensive piece of United States legislation, this Soviet-Cuban agreement can hardly be labeled "politically" motivated...

...A few weeks later, the U.S...

...It seems clear, however, that the State Department's expressed theory of Cuban foreign policy is both incorrect and insincere...

...O'Connor has written for a number of professional and general publications...

...Why, then, did Castro accuse the United States of "economic aggression" when Congress slashed the sugar quota in July...

...The giant international lending agencies turned a deaf ear to Cuba, and reportedly credits from the big European investment banks suddenly became impossible to obtain...

...Sooner or later, according to his own line of thinking, the United States will come around to his way of viewing social problems and social evils, his humane and uncompromising concern about the health, education, and material and social well-being of a nation's people...

...Meanwhile, Congress vehemently denounced the trials of war criminals as "blood baths...

...To begin with, in 1958, Batista's last year in power, the United States purchased fifty-eight per cent of the island's exports and sold Cuba seventy-one per cent of her imports...

...according to a friend employed as a high-ranking economist by the Cuban government, Cuban engineers and scientists have been offered fabulous salaries by certain Latin American governments whose identities are carefully concealed...

...This impression is strengthened by the $1 million appropriation for the relief of Cuban refugees in Florida, an appropriation authorized by the Mutual Security Act "to encourage the hopes and aspirations of peoples who have been enslaved by Communism...

...Thus for twenty-five years, the quota system, together with the pattern of monopoly control, retarded Cuba's economic growth...

...When this policy failed, Smith reversed field, fell in behind Castro, praised the conduct of the revolutionary army, and, on January 7, 1959, he recommended American aid to the new government...

...Jose Guer-ra, Cuba's foremost sugar expert, asserts the increase in sales would have more than offset the decline in price...

...The United States has not confined itself to major acts of economic aggression...

...we advised tourists to stay away from Havana and North Americans residing in Cuba to leave the country...

...Beneath the adoration of Castro by the peasant masses ran a powerful undercurrent of radicalism, a kind of homegrown, pragmatic, inarticulate socialism...