Broadcast Wars
Nichols, John Spicer
FIDEL CASTRO ONCE CALLED IT "AN ELEC- tronic war between David and Goliath...that Biblical character [who] was defeated by his stupidity."I The Cuban leader was referring to T.V. Marti, the most...
...Its programming includes dubbed U.S...
...Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban-U.S...
...television screens is the business of the United States, not Canada, Mexico or Cuba...
...During the revolutionary war, he effectively used Radio Rebelde, a clandestine station operated from his mountain stronghold, to harass the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista...
...And in 1985, when the Reagan Administration launched Radio Marti, a Voice of America station aimed specifically at Cuba-with the highly visible participation of the right-wing Cuban American National Foundation-the Cuban government ended all travel by the community...
...The nationwide coordination of print and broadcast media in 1961 to help eliminate illiteracy was one of the revolution's finest moments...
...However, their arrival coincided with the ascendancy of the New Right, and their potential to create a political alternative was limited from the start...
...shores, that they were not the white middle-class exiles of the 1960s...
...What they do not want is U.S...
...They had been convinced that the Cuban Revolution enjoyed broad support...
...It routinely encouraged North American blacks to burn their cities and commit other violent, subversive acts...
...Cuba wanted Radio Marti removed from the air as a pre-condition...
...If the United States continues to be an uninvited guest on Cuban domestic airwaves, then Cuba promises to respond in kind...
...9. John S. Nichols, "The Problem of Radio Interference," in Wayne S. Smith and Esteban Morales Dominguez (eds...
...More than a radical escalation, it indicates business as usual in U.S...
...Any attempt by the federal government to clear just one AM channel for Cuban use would seriously disrupt the system, undoubtedly would be challenged in the courts, and would be intensely unpopular with large sectors of the political spectrum...
...Cuba defeated the U.S.-sponsored invasion force at the Bay of Pigs, survived numerous other covert actions of the Central Intelligence Agency, and resisted decades of U.S...
...Progressives were reduced to negotiating for their own entry visas.' 6 standard AM broadcast frequencies to the southern United States...
...If the U.S...
...programming forced on them as an intervention in their internal affairs...
...163-189...
...Many were dark-skinned and most of them were poor or working-class...
...6. For details, see Lawrence C. Soley and John S. Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting (New York: Praeger), pp...
...8 Not only did Castro use television as a tool of governance, he also felt the media were precious resources that must be used to solve the country's mammoth social and economic problems...
...After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the White House ordered an intensification of U.S...
...Relations (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988), pp...
...negotiators unable to grant Cuba a broadcasting quid pro quo, the talks stalled...
...A flow of media between the United States and Cuba is inevitable, they say, given advances in communication technologies and the proximity of the two countries...
...Broadcast Wars 1. Granma Weekly Review, April 22, 1990...
...Once the Right realized that people were going to Cuba anyway, they began encouraging travellers to bring back "intelligence" information about life in Cuba and to cause as much damage as they could while on the island-by flushing articles of clothing into hotel toilets, etc...
...4 Mufiiz, a 26-yearold father of two, was driving home from his job at a travel aggression...
...Growth of the USIA budget during this period far exceeded, on a percentage basis, the defense build-up for which the Reagan Administration is noted...
...The corruption they encountered in Cuba required them to hand out still more money, and further antagonized them...
...OR THE NEXT TWO DECADES, U.S...
...Herbert Matthews, the late New York Times editorialist and chronicler of the Cuban revolution, described the phenomenon...
...They say the Cuban government welcomes Western programming and Havana has sought to negotiate exchange agreements with public and commercial television in the United States...
...Carlos Mufiiz, a founder of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, and Eulalio Negrin, who participated in the dialogue with the Cuban government, were both assassinated...
...Broadcast Stations," testimony before U.S...
...Marti in order to forestall additional U.S...
...troops...
...efforts to influence domestic Cuban affairs...
...When the Peruvian government refused to turn them over to Cuban authorities, Cuba withdrew its guards and announced that anyone who wanted to leave the country should go to the Embassy...
...National Association of Broadcasters, "Cuban Interference," p. 274...
...In his memo, Murrow counseled the President: "We should not use this equipment to place television in Cuba under other than Relatives reunite in Havana, 1981: Both Havana and Washington have played politics with family visits world that many problems existed, it raised doubts about whether the revolution was as irreversible as they had assumed...
...In other words, what appears on U.S...
...But, he added, "Some of those subversive plans [of the U.S...
...Even the Antonio Maceo Brigade was shut out...
...A month later, USIA Director Edward R. Murrow reported in a secret memo to President Kennedy that the United States had developed the capability to beam television programs to Cuba from airborne transmitters...
...government version of Cuban domestic news...
...government and its Latin American allies...
...That same year, over twenty bombs went off in the homes and businesses of supporters of an opening toward Cuba...
...21, 1987...
...Washington Post, July 10, 1986...
...H OSTILE BROADCASTING HAS LONG BEEN A primary tool of Washington's policy toward the Cuban regime...
...10, 1990...
...government propaganda stations directed at Cuba...
...Fidel Castro placed great importance on electronic media in the creation and consolidation of his regime...
...New York Times, Nov...
...Marti, the most recent in a long line of U.S...
...Joseph McCarthy helped stem the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950s, appreciated the political power of the medium and recognized its potential for abuse...
...2. Television is line-of-sight broadcasting...
...Therefore, TV Marti must transmit from very high altitude in order to reach Havana, which is beyond the horizon from any ground-level point in Florida...
...signals and might be tempted to retaliate against U.S...
...broadcasting to Cuba...
...The standard broadcasting band in the United States is jam-packed...
...the United States refused...
...The Cuban-American Right renewed its calls the most grave circumstances...
...The cost to taxpayers will be nearly $40 million during the first two years and approximately $15 million annually thereafter...
...A spiral of ever-more powerful, unregulated radio and television broadcasts across the Straits of Florida are in the long-term interests of neither side...
...After 30 years of socialism, these newer arrivals tended to be politically more heterogeneous and liberal than the immigrants of the 1960s, and-perhaps because their memories of the drop the demand in exchange fora U.S...
...America's bold plan to'invade' Cuba with television," TV Guide, Feb...
...It recently built a massive arsenal of high-powered radio transmitters whose signal could easily be heard throughout the continental United States...
...The release of prisoners also exacerbated tensions inside Cuba...
...government support...
...foreign policyde Cuba...
...At least a score of these stations agency in San Juan, Puerto Rico that arranged trips to Cuba for Cubans, when gunmen riddled his car with bullets...
...WITH THE ADVENT OF THE REAGAN ADministration in 1980, all hopes of better relations evaporated...
...Cuba responded to Reagan's threats and economic pressure by closing the doors to the CubanAmerican community...
...PROPAganda broadcasts to Cuba continued at a low ebb...
...President's Office Files, Departments and Agencies USIA, John F. Kennedy Library...
...Nevertheless, in the first year after the dialogue, more than 120,000 Cubans visited the island...
...Murrow and his aides expressed concern that Cuba could easily jam the T.V...
...Long live Christ, Hallelujah, and an end to the blockade of Cuba...
...The agreements reached allowed 3,000 political prisoners, former prisoners and members of divided families to emigrate, and permitted Cubans living abroad to visit the island-even many who had participated in military actions against Cuba...
...This prospect has prompted U.S...
...But the intrusive properties of radio waves cut both ways...
...C UBA, TOO, HAS A HISTORY OF HOSTILE broadcasting to the United States...
...television propaganda to Cuban audiences.' The project was part of Operation Mongoose, the infamous CIA campaign to unseat Castro...
...7 After the Bay of Pigs debacle, the station was renamed "Radio Americas" and moved to Florida, where it continued to urge the Cuban people to burn crops, sabotage public utilities, and rise up against Fidel Castro...
...a religious faith which came pouring over the radio waves and through the television screens in the words and presence of Fidel Castro...
...First, it restricted the number allowed to travel to Cuba per month...
...Opposition can not be built with lies and psychological warfare," Fidel Castro said of T.V...
...124-137 & 145-153...
...CubanAmerican progressives, who had defined their political agenda by defending their right to travel to Cuba, became further isolated in the community...
...The Marielitos added a new dimension to the already diverse Cuban-American community...
...efforts, Cuban counter-broadcasting has been sporadic, low-powered and financially modest...
...8. Herbert L. Matthews, Revolution in Cuba: An Essay in Understanding (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975), p. 126...
...Shortly after the CIA launched Radio Swan in 1960, Cuba responded with Radio Havana, a shortwave service which, particularly in the early years, broadcast virulent propaganda calling for the overthrow of the U.S...
...have broadcast to Cuba over the past three decades, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars...
...23, 1989...
...Within days more than 10,000 Cubans jammed the compound...
...Broadcasting, April 2, 1990...
...He died the next day...
...Describing the programs of the USIA as "the greatest weapon of all," President Reagan ordered the largest peacetime expansion of U.S...
...Despite the lack of an international enforcement mechanism, most countries do comply with these accords...
...But Murrow urged caution...
...Within months after Fidel Castro came to power, clandestine stations calling for the overthrow of the new government began operating from the United States or with U.S...
...But, in comparison to U.S...
...When the United States announced plans for T.V...
...4. Neil Hickey, "TV or not TV...
...In principle, the Cuban position was perfectly reasonable...
...Two months later, Radio Swan began operations from Swan Island, a tiny dot in the Caribbean claimed by the United States...
...commercial radio broadcasts as far away as Utah and Iowa as a "test and demonstration" of its ability to respond...
...2 With U.S...
...electronic assault...
...The Cuban government immediately lashed back by suspending an important immigration agreement with the United States, and it briefly disrupted U.S...
...Like the Camarioca incident in 1965, Cuban-Americans sailed from Miami to pick up relatives...
...negotiators insisted that the proposed Cuban station comply with the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission and international telecommunications regulations...
...National Association of Broadcasters, "Cuban Interference to United States A.M...
...Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasts into Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., July & Aug...
...Marti in 1988, they broke down completely...
...I coined a phrase at the time: VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) 31Cuba II The effect on the Cuban population was equally dramatic...
...Mariel not only proved to the government by television...
...In March, the U.S...
...This simple logic is the basis for the highly technical treaties that govern international telecommunications, which reserve standard radio and television frequencies for domestic use only and confine cross-national broadcasting to shortwave bands...
...Produced by anti-Castro exile groups in Miami, the broadcasts mixed traditional Cuban music, soap operas, and other entertainment with venomous attacks on the regime...
...broadcast frequencies...
...New York Times, Oct...
...FIDEL CASTRO ONCE CALLED IT "AN ELECtronic war between David and Goliath...that Biblical character [who] was defeated by his stupidity...
...Those calling for an invasion of Cuba expected that the Marielitos would join them in their plans, but they showed little interest...
...Describing it as "television aggression," the Cuban government immediately began jamming the signal, claiming its "legitimate right to reject any action against its sovereignty.'" After President Bush gave final approval to the project in August, Cuba stood poised to retaliate by transmitting its own radio broadcasts throughout the continental United States, and thereby causing serious disruption to the U.S...
...The legendary broadcast journalist, whose televised denunciation of Sen...
...Cuba also suspended the immigration accord which would have allowed 20,000 Cubans to emigrate to the United States each year...
...Martf like Sen...
...Marti constitutes an overt intervention in violation of international telecommunications regulations that recognize the sovereignty of national broadcasting systems...
...Granma Weekly Review, Nov...
...Those who did not have relatives in the United States or other countries did not receive the same benefits, and many objected to the uneven distribution this fostered...
...The Revolution came in a flood of talk, as Fidel exhorted, explained, reasoned with, and aroused Cuba's millions day after day, night after night, four, five, six hours at a time...
...A significant number had criminal records, and there were also many homosexuals--as unwelcome among Cuban-Americans in Miami as they had been at home...
...Since Radio Marti was announced in the early 1980s, however, Cuba has been preparing to take a dramatically more aggressive stance on the broadcasting battlefield...
...In 1985, the Reagan Administration launched Radio Marti to supplant the old VOA service that had broadcast to Cuba since the Missile Crisis...
...The Cuban government viewed visits by relatives as a source of foreign exchange...
...Some of these monster Cuban transmitters have 500 kilowatts of power-ten times that of any radio station licensed in the United States.' 4 A technical study by the National Association of Broadcasters concluded that such a Cuban action would "wreak interference havoc from New York to California...
...Any sign of official weakness in responding to this challenge, they believe, would invite domestic opposition and further U.S...
...broadcasters to lobby the White House and Capitol Hill to reconsider T.V...
...Much to the chagrin of the Cuban-American Left, visitors often came back more embittered than before...
...He recommended that the television system be used only if the United States invaded...
...Two years later, when the political winds in Washington changed, Espinosa denounced el didlogo in Soldier of Fortune magazine, claiming he had been recruited by Cuban intelligence to spy on the community...
...The government then opened the port of Mariel, west of Havana...
...By any measure, it has been the most concentrated propaganda blitz in hemispheric history...
...The mission of the station was to soften up Cuban audiences for the impending Bay of Pigs invasion...
...I Scores, perhaps hundreds, of U.S...
...Hollings claim that President Fidel Castro's angry response is indicative of his fear that U.S...
...promise to seek equal access for Cuba to U.S...
...6 The CIA plan for covert actions against Cuba which President Eisenhower approved in March 1960 included the establishment of a clandestine radio station...
...Castro likes to tout his revolutionary credentials," said un a riavana sireei: u.z...
...government] might be successful if we sit idly by and do nothing...
...Special stores were opened where visitors could pay top dollar for consumer goods in short supply, to give as presents...
...administration...
...4 Proponents of T.V...
...While sitcoms and news are unlikely to cause the unraveling of the Cuban Revolution, T.V...
...Marti earlier this year...
...Further, U.S...
...Edward R. Murrow, "Memorandum for The President, AirborneTelevision Capability," Dec...
...The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Suzanne K. Forbes, Foreign Policy Archivist at the JFK Library...
...Author's interview with Carlos Aldana Escalante, Cuba's chief negotiator at the Mexico meetings, Dec...
...people...
...economic and diplomatic pressure, but it has never been able to fully protect itself from a massive U.S...
...The declassified memo describes how two specially equipped DC-6 aircraft flying at a maximum of 18,000 feet just outside Cuban airspace could deliver U.S...
...Mariel was devastating for progressive Cuban-Americans...
...Of course, a primary target was Cuba...
...Many felt that the Cuban government was exploiting their desire to see relatives by charging outrageous prices, which at one point reached $1500 for a one-week trip from Miami, even if the traveller stayed with relatives...
...Rumors spread that the Marielitos were not really Cubans...
...With visitors bringing in consumer goods, the black market surged...
...In practice, a Cuban station comparable to Radio Marti would be an engineering, legal, and political nightmare for any U.S...
...propaganda activities ever...
...escalation, Cuban officials now believe they must stand fast against T.V...
...Marti is, in essence, an electronic version of the Platt Amendment, which Cuba was forced to incorporate into its constitution in 1901 as a condition for the withdrawal of U.S...
...Yet Radio Marti operates without approval of the Cuban Ministry of Communications and in apparent violation of international agreements...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS John Spicer Nichols teaches at Pennsylvania State University and writes frequently on communications and U.S...
...sitcoms ("Kate and Allie"), sporting events, music videos and other seemingly innocuous entertainment, intertwined with the U.S...
...Cuba and the United States soon realized that the lack of an immigration agreement hurt both sides, and in 1986 they began secret negotiations in Mexico...
...Marti differs little in basic concept from its numerous predecessors...
...propaganda seeKs Io neigmen discontent with images of "development" Sen...
...1982, p. 274...
...Cuban officials interviewed over the past six months, however, argue that sovereignty, not the content of the broadcasts, is the central issue...
...the United States dragged its feet processing visas, in effect creating a bottleneck of discontented people.' 5 On April 6, 1980, a group of Cubans in search of asylum crashed their car into the Peruvian Embassy in Havana, killing a guard...
...news and entertainment will facilitate the downfall of his regime...
...Some claimed that sending the Marielitos was a Castro plot to tarnish the image of the community...
...From 1962 to 1966, Cuba beamed Radio Free Dixie on homeland were fresher--they wanted closer ties to Cuba...
...3. "TV Marti takes off but will it fly...
...The Cuban-American Left's hopes that the trips would encourage good will were dashed...
...Voice of America reduced its Cuban programming transmitted from Florida, and most of the clandestine stations disappeared as the CIA redirected its attention and resources elsewhere...
...radio stations would lose large chunks of their coverage areas to invading Cuban signals...
...they had left the island for reasons other than clearly defined anticommunism...
...There were not that many Blacks in Cuba," was an oft-heard remark, "These are Angolans...
...A well-developed body of international law grants each country the right and responsibility to decide, free from outside interference, how its electronic media are organized, financed, programmed and regulated...
...5, 1981...
...Kennedy took his advice...
...Now it was Cuba who was denying entrance to the island...
...broadcast system...
...Initially, right-wing groups tried to intimidate people by bombing travel agencies that arrapged family visits, threatening to bomb planes, and harassing those who did travel...
...5. Granma Weekly Review, April 22, 1990...
...immigration officials...
...government could broadcast to the Cuban people, the Cuban government should be able to broadcast to the U.S...
...Information Agency began experimental television transmissions to Cuba from a blimp floating over South Florida.' The new station, named after Jos6 Marti, nineteenth-century hero of Cuban independence, broadcasts on a standard Cuban television channel each night that weather permits the blimp to be sent aloft...
...29, 1987...
...3, 1962...
...see also, John Spicer Nichols, "Video Invasion," The Nation, April 2, 1990...
...Finally, in 1987, Cuban negotiators agreed to NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS - -"---for invasion...
...Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC) early this year, "but he cannot begin to match the revolutionary potential of television...
...The new station, operating on both shortwave and a standard AM broadcasting frequencies, beams 24 hours of programming to Cuba daily, at an annual cost of approximately $12 million...
...7. David Wise and Thomas Ross, The Invisible Government (New York: Random House, 1964), p. 334...
...Over the next few months, over 120,000 Cubans were processed by U.S...
...The world was amused...
...For example, in 1979 Rosario Moreno, head of a Los Angeles travel agency that arranged trips to Cuba, came home to find her two children cowering in a corner after shots were fired through her living room window...
...tests of Cuba's sovereignty...
...Many Cuban-Americans began distancing themselves from the new immigrants...
...It immediately became apparent when the boatlift immigrants (dubbed "Marielitos") landed on U.S...
...The United States and Cuba are notable exceptions...
...Overt radio broadcasts under the auspices of the USIA's Voice of America began in November 1962, while planning for additional covert broadcasting continued...
...broadcasters...
...But in the 1980s, the means and ends of the 1960s were revived...
...Because their efforts at negotiation were rewarded with U.S...
...It gave the United States the right to intervene at will in Cuban affairs...
...After Batista fell, Castro capitalized on Cuba's relatively well-developed radio and television system to mobilize support for his revolutionary government...
...Cubans listened enthralled...
...The inability to maintain complete control over its domestic airwaves has been a major source of aggravation to the Cuban revolutionary leadership...
...Edward G. Lansdale, chief of the operation and the United States' premier psychological warrior, was eager to deploy the airborne television system...
...Radio Swan is not a radio station but a cage of hysterical parrots," Cuban government radio responded...
Vol. 24 • November 1990 • No. 3
