Passive Aggressive
Brenner, Philip & Landau, Saul
THE MORE THAT THE UNITED STATES changes relations with most of its old nemeses, the more its attitude toward Cuba appears eerily frozen in the past. Consider the following items that call...
...It was not until February 1960 that a high-level Soviet delegation travelled to the island...
...Attacks have been most vocal over the firing of Radio Marti director Ernesto Betancourt, who allegedly would not take direction from Mis Canosa, and fell into disfavor with the CANF board chairman.2 The White House may have been trying to quiet some of this criticism when it abruptly cancelled a CANF-sponsored south lawn Cuban independence day celebration in May, because "rain was forecast...
...The ITU declared that T.V...
...But the global political thaw has not reached U.S.-Cuban relations, and the elements of strategy invoked to use aggressive tactics to defeat a serious threat still apply...
...Ten days after Castro's return, on May 17, 1959, the regime issued the first agrarian reform law, which immediately provoked national and international opposition...
...interests in the regulation of international broadcasting...
...Cuba has remained a strategic worry for U.S...
...At the public meeting celebrating his return, Castro put some distance between himself and the more radical, pro-Marxist cadres...
...Caught between an active Cuba and an active CubanAmerican community, a passive policy is inherently dangerous...
...It has succeeded in making anti-Castro politics a litmus test of conservatism used by other right-wing organizations...
...Even when the policy has turned more bellicose than the Bush team would prefer, it has let Congress take the lead, in part because it is disposed toward hostility against Cuba...
...The bag is labelled, "The First Defeat of Imperialism in Latin America...
...Yet earlier in the year, President Bush had endured cold rain on the lawn for the national champion University of Miami football team...
...All that Cuba could offer were twenty-year bonds at 4.5% interest...
...Cubans tried on several occasions to challenge the Platt Amendment, but were unsuccessful even after it was formally abandoned in 1934...
...It was another year before the major nationalizations of U.S...
...President Kennedy's policy response to the defeat came seven months later when he authorized a covert war against Cuba...
...The doctrine declared that European powers, including Russia, were to refrain from recolonizing the portion of the Western Hemisphere Spain had abandoned...
...In order to secure Cuban independence from the United States, the Cuban leadership contracted with the Soviet Union to be a protective benefactor...
...Isolation was one of several means to that end...
...among some of his supporters...
...The missile crisis has become the stuff of legend...
...Yet this pragmatic and reactive approach is likely to make Cuba policy even more volatile than it was during the ideologically heated Reagan years...
...This indicates the first danger of U.S...
...citizens to purchase and receive information and artistic works from Cuba...
...strategy for "keeping order" in the Third World...
...subsidiaries, and by mandating that vessels be seized in U.S...
...In 1981, Cuba quickly became the focal point of their anticommunist crusade, as they pursued a "get tough" policy...
...Thus, conservative Cuban-Americans can credibly threaten electoral retaliation around the country through their links to nationwide conservative organizations...
...4 The Kennedy Administration's covert war developed out of a well-orchestrated, multifaceted plan named Operation Mongoose intended to "bring about the revolt of the Cuban people...[which] will overthrow the Communist regime and institute a new government with which the United States can live in peace...
...The incident was a harbinger of the reduced tension that marked much of the decade...
...2 2 Cuba responded by placing the country on full military alert...
...On June 25, the government seized three U.S.owned cattle ranches...
...Fidel was developing a cordial attitude toward the United States...
...Cuba saw the missiles as a way of deterring the impending U.S...
...And the longstanding tradition of cubania became closely identified with the revolution's brand of radical nationalism...
...embassies in Latin America, and it was leaked to the rabidly right-wing Washington Times even before it had reached the ambassadors...
...to counter the supposed danger...
...Washington's hostility could hardly be contained...
...view of itself as the regional power, as a superpower, and as the global policeman...
...officials say they do not understand Cuba's concern about the annual maneuvers, called Ocean Venture, because they are allegedly smaller this year than in the past...
...But at their 1990 summit, he raised the issue of Soviet aid to Cuba only privately, and sources indicate that he was less insistent on reduced Soviet aid this time...
...Nixon was far from friendly...
...His stature as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his long advocacy of negotiations with Cuba and eventual northe 1962 missile crisis...
...In effect, he has delegated Cuba policy to an active congressional group, inspired by domestic lobbies, that regularly pushes the administration into a position of aggressive posturing...
...Castro later denounced Washington's embargo-or the economic blockade, as it is called in Cuba-blaming it for many of the economic problems the revolution faced...
...relations ceased to be a bilateral or even a Hemispheric issue...
...4. New York Times, August 13, 1989...
...The invasion became the ill-fated Bay of Pigs episode of April 1719, 1961, in which the invading forces were routed in 72 hours...
...Thus on October 1, 1962, two weeks before the discovery of Soviet ballistic missiles on the island, President Kennedy ordered that a naval blockade of Cuba be NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 22was determined to avoid such excesses by bringing the criminals to trial...
...Passive Aggressive 1. U.S...
...The administration has received some criticism for its seeming compliance with any CANF demand...
...warships, and finally broke when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to the demands on October 28...
...2 Some part of the Reagan Administration's bravado toward Cuba may have been no more than bluff, a threat without the intention of accompanying action...
...On March 31 President Kennedy cut the Cuban sugar quota to zero...
...p. 153...
...Marti and Radio Marti, a propaganda radio station that went on the air in 1985...
...Claiborne Pell (D-RI) to flip his position on U.S...
...At that point, the United States shifted the basis of its hostility toward the Cuban Revolution from anti-revolution to the more acceptable rationale of Cold War anticommunism...
...Congress in 1971, and it gained force over the next four years...
...Ernest Hollings (D-SC...
...In September, three U.S...
...Cuba initially stayed quite distant from the Soviet Union, which had shown little interest in the revolution...
...Though the Reagan years ended on this positive tone, officials were quick to dispel any suggestion that the agreements could lead to normal relations...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASsensitivity to the views in Foggy Bottom...
...She succeeded Democrat Claude Pepper in a hotly contested race that featured an appearance by the President...
...And on April 12 it made public a pledge that no U.S...
...A U.S...
...While State, Treasury and Defense Department actions against Cuba reflect a bureaucratic imperative to continue thirty years of animosity, Bush's hostility toward Cuba is largely a reaction to domestic pressures...
...In the legislative domain, Cuba policy has fallen under the influence of conservatives for whom Cuba stands as the last Cold War hold-out, the reluctant domino that will not fall without the aggressive push of North American power...
...And, as long as the United States government encourages and appropriates exile organizations to do its bidding and uses immigration as a political tool, Cuba will continue to react defensively--even when such a reaction goes against its own interests...
...Although nothing beyond trade, cultural and commercial agreements had been signed with the Soviets, Cuba had become a Soviet client state, according to the policy dogma of the early 1960s, and ipso facto it was a pawn in the East-West struggle between communism and freedom...
...Under his direct command, Cuban forces defeated the CIA-sponsored, financed and directed invasion in less than 72 hours...
...Marti, a television station intended to beam propaganda broadcasts to Cuba...
...On January 7, 1959, a week after the rebels' triumphal entry into Havana, Washington recognized the new government, and 20 days later nine U.S...
...It failed when Latin American members of the Commission supported Cuba...
...In reality, the maneuvers are neither as benign as the Pentagon asserts nor are they the prelude to invasion that the Cubans suggest...
...New York Times, April 1, 1990...
...Two months later, U.S...
...During the Reagan Administration's first term, Cuba returned the verbal attacks with equivalent calumnies...
...Jamaica and Colombia, which had recently elected conservative governments and which were in great need of U.S...
...assistance, complied and broke relations in 1981...
...A passive administration could find itself being pushed to act with a degree of aggressiveness that even Bush would be inclined to avoid...
...policy...
...corporations in other countries.' President Bush has also flip-flopped on the linkage between U.S...
...Relations with Cuba (Westview...
...It was a humiliating defeat for the newly inaugurated Kennedy Administration...
...It turns on the problem of language...
...The United States previously had refused to attend any meeting about Angola with Cubans present...
...However, Cuba generally welcomed any possibility for negotiations with the United States, although it refused to discuss the return of 2,700 "excludable" exiles who had entered the United States during the Mariel boatlift...
...For seven years, Batista had brutally persecuted the political opposition, killing and imprisoning many innocent civilians...
...Many interpreted his speech as a rebuke to communism: "Not only do we offer people food," he declared, "but also offer them freedoms, and that is our clear and definite ideological position...
...But even without the missiles, the United States was concerned about the large Soviet military presence in Cuba because of its impact on the perception of U.S...
...Without a basis for resolving differences through non-military means, and for treating Cuba as a sovereign state, the administration may be forced to accede to domestic pressure to provoke Cuba...
...weekly landings in Cuba of arms, supplies, and mercenary soldiers for anti-government forces fighting largely in the Escambray Mountains...
...citizens had no intrinsic right to see the instant transmission of sports events that ABC would provide...
...From January 1959 to October 1960, in only 22 months, Cuba put an end to its initial "semi-dolonial" status and began "building socialism...
...interests...
...On April 3 the White House issued a white paper expressing support for a future democratic government in Cuba...
...hemispheric and global interests...
...investment in Cuba at the time totalled some $1 billion.' On October 19, 1960, Eisenhower imposed an economic embargo on all but medicines and foodstuffs...
...But it did become a base for the projection of Soviet power...
...Tension mounted as Soviet ships steamed toward Cuba and the waiting U.S...
...As reported by the CIA deputy director at the time, C.P...
...He was accompanied by some of his most moderate followers, mostly social democrats, including the well-known businessman and head of Bacardi Rum, Pepin Bosch...
...power and authority...
...Smith, for example, has been especially solicitous of CANF and chairman Mis Canosa during congressional hearings, and his foreign policy voting record shifted to the right after an weaponry vital for Cuba's defense against potential U.S...
...policy-makers focused on the first goal...
...UBA'S DIMINISHING NATIONAL SECURITY importance has had a curious effect on the way U.S...
...Upon presenting his credentials in Havana, Bonsai promised "increased cooperation in the economic field...
...oil companies in Cuba not to refine any crude from the Soviet Union...
...Hollings received $5,000 from the Free Cuba PAC, a political action committee with many of the same board members as CANF, and "sizable supplements from foundation directors" in his 1986 campaign...
...One official explained the seeming paradox by remarking that "the President is letting himself be pushed by external forces because he is comfortable about the direction in which they are pushing him...
...forces would take part in any military action against Castro...
...Though the confrontation ended peacefully, and included a noinvasion pledge, Cuban leaders did not believe the United States would adhere to its promise...
...An incident involving a Cuban merchant vessel in February might be seen in a similar light...
...In October 1976, terrorists-several of whom were Cuban-Americans previously on the CIA payroll-blew up a Cuban civilian airplane, killing the 73 passengers...
...According to chances for survival...
...Notably, the resolution was co-sponsored by Poland and Czechoslovakia-two non-voting Commission members-and supported by Hungary and Bulgaria...
...The appointment of Philip W. Bonsal, as the new U.S...
...Navy began extensive maneuvers in the Caribbean...
...Such electoral clout may have moved the usually unshakable Sen...
...But these exercises reportedly included a simulated air attack against Cuba's western provinces, and prompted Fidel Castro to order an island-wide civil defense practice...
...The rest of the world recognizes that Cuba may be isolated ideologically, but not politically...
...Cuban resistance to U.S...
...Elizabeth A. Palmer, "Exiles Talk of PACs," p. 1933...
...What probably impressed Castro most was how readily the United States identified any program for social change with communism...
...9, 1990...
...1204, August 2, 1989...
...Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America and Sorzano was a Latin American specialist on the NSC staff...
...Hollings in 1992 has faded since Hollings championed T.V...
...The jamming of Radio Marti began shortly after the United States started Caribbean naval maneuvers in April...
...embargo...
...Secretary of State Alexander Haig set the tone in a February 1981 declaration, saying that the United States must "deal with the immediate source of the problem [in El Salvador]-and that is Cuba...
...and the sabotage of Cuban agriculture and industry, including the destruction of machinery, the burning of fields, and the poisoning of harvested crops bound for export...
...It could barely do so amicably...
...A subsequent search of the boat by Mexican authorities turned up no drugs...
...This led to the historic accord at the end of the Reagan Administration in which Cuba agreed to withdraw troops from Angola, and South Africa agreed to withdraw from Namibia and allow free elections to occur there...
...The Cuban leadership seized the opportunity to continue with the radicalization process...
...He did meet with Vice President Richard Nixon on Capitol Hill, and he had lunch with Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, who lit Castro's cigar for a pack of thrilled photographers...
...surrogate, Castro gave to Cuban socialism a new and lasting legitimacy...
...The events confirmed Washington's worst fears...
...Career officials have had to work behind the scenes against TV Marti because President Bush has strongly supported it...
...In 1982, President Reagan effectively revoked permission for U.S...
...Notably, the most hostile efforts directed against Cuba have originated in Congress...
...By mid-1959, the administration clearly had opted for some form of antagonistic relationship...
...goals-the destruction or surrender of the revolution-remain the same...
...The United States also may have succeeded in delaying Chile's resumption of normal relations with Cuba...
...policy elite possessed a two-pronged discourse with which to attack the revolution...
...2 4 Reagan zealots, such as Secretary of State Alexander Haig, even thought that the policy offered a mandate for placing a naval quarantine on Cuba, the supposed "source" of terrorism in Central America...
...properties was passed...
...He claims Castro told him, "Look Rufo, I am letting all the Communists stick their heads out, so that I will know who they are...
...Che Guevara insisted it would have few serious consequences, and that the United States would be hurt even more than Cuba...
...In July, a law authorizing the nationalization of U.S...
...domestic broadcasts...
...Consider the following items that call forth Cold War d6jB vu: The Bush Administration has tightened the trade embargo against Cuba...
...public...
...I remember his words, his imposing attitude, and how our reactionary press received him almost as if the Savior had come...
...it has prosecuted a U.S...
...foreign policy interests, rather than from a narrow calculus of gains linked to Cuba or from an ideologically rooted posture...
...Connie Mack (R-FL) and Rep...
...319-323...
...ambassador in March 1959, to replace the pro-Batista Earl T. Smith, raised some positive expectations at home and abroad...
...Navy again demonstrated a show of force in the Caribbean...
...allies, as it did in the case of the Mack and Smith amendments, and diminishes U.S...
...That has provided an ongoing rationale for hostility, which has been buttressed by a bureaucratic imperative to resist change...
...and the complex definition of U.S...
...hegemony...
...animosity is rooted in three distinct concerns about Cuba, and removal of the Soviet threat would leave in place two of them: its role in the Americas, and its role in the rest of the Third World...
...In 1975, the Ford Administration relaxed its position on economic sanctions by voting to lift the OAS embargo...
...7 The nature of the revolution compelled the regime to terminate preponderant U.S...
...The Reagan Administration enforced the economic embargo more stringently by threatening to confiscate any imported goods that contained Cuban nickel...
...On October 22, President Kennedy announced that the U.S...
...3. The complete text of Baker's statement was published in Diario de las Americas, March 30, 1989...
...The world viewed from Havana could not be farther away from that viewed from Washington...
...Yes I must acknowledge that I may have had some responsibility for our first divorce," he said...
...This limits Bush's possibilities for negotiating with Cuba...
...Bringing justice to a bereaved nation was paramount to the new regime...
...Kissinger perceived Cuba to be thwarting U.S...
...It is striking that the usually conservative deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, Stephen Rosenfeld, also came out against the project in a signed column...
...In March, the United States aggressively pursued passage of a resolution in the United Nations Human Rights Commission which accused Cuba of persecuting political dissenters...
...2 2 Current policy seems to follow this tradition...
...In January 1962, at U.S...
...This relatively unchanged policy over thirty years has generated what historian Thomas Paterson calls a "fixation with Cuba...
...Four months later, in August 1959, Eisenhower took Nixon's advice and authorized $13 million to recruit, arm and train an exile army.7 The communist issue was an obsession in the United States, but it was also a major concern in Cuba, as no one was sure what direction the revolution would take...
...This came shortly after an errant Soviet commander gave the order to shoot down a U-2 with a surface-toair missile, which nearly led to a U.S...
...diplomats the right to land cargo charter planes, thus making the shipment of cars, office equipment and similar large items more difficult...
...invasion was October 1962, when the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis occurred...
...interests there, and saw little reason to "reward" Cuba with relaxed tension...
...Early in the twentieth century the Monroe Doctrine was amended: Under the Roosevelt Corollary Latin America became a U.S...
...Initially, it seemed that things could have worked out...
...corporations to trade with Cuba...
...Claiborne Pell, "Time for Change in Cuba," June 28, 1990, mimeo...
...At first, the Eisenhower Administration watched the unfolding revolution without a clear determination about what course the United States would follow...
...House of Representatives, Subcommittees on International Operations and Western Hemisphere Affairs," "Foreign Policy Implications of TV Marti," 100th Cong...
...In July 1989, for example, when Fidel Castro offered to share information about drug operations that had been obtained from investigations of corrupt Cuban officials, Bush Administration officials refused to contemplate the offer...
...On top of these strains, the Mariel boatlift of April-May 1980 helped push United States-Cuban relations to the heights of tension they had reached in earlier years...
...Bush's passivity acts as a catalyst for congressional action, which, in turn, pressures him to take an irrational hard line...
...Philip Brenner, "Cuba and the Missile Crisis," Journal of Latin American Studies, Feb...
...In turn, Cuba permitted a large number of political prisoners to emigrate to the United States, and allowed the return in 1979 of more than 100,000 exiles for family visits.' 4 However, by then the warming trend had been reversed, largely because of the Carter Administration's reaction to Cuban support for Ethiopia in its 1977-1978 conflict with Somalia, and Cuba's alleged training of Katangese exiles who invaded the Shaba province of Zaire in 1978...
...Talking directly to people from different walks of life seemed to have impressed Castro favorably...
...From then on, until the end of the nineteenth century, presidents acted on the belief that the United States, not England, was destined to supersede Spain as the preeminent force in the Hemisphere...
...Congressional demagoguery harbors the third danger of the Bush approach to Cuba...
...4 AIPAC reportedly even trained CANF staff in tactics for transforming a foreign policy issue into a domestic one that would be susceptible to interest group pressure...
...tourists to travel to Cuba by banning the expenditure of dollars in Cuba except by scholars, journalists, and Cuban exiles who wished to see their families...
...companies from dealing with alleged Cuban "front" companies in third countries...
...Washington Post, March 13, 1990...
...Congress forced the administration to run the station as part of the Voice of America...
...no one wants to prolong its life policy principally as a domestic rather than a foreign policy issue...
...But the administration has allowed the policy ball to move into Congress's court...
...That same month, after Esso and Texaco refused to refine Soviet crude, the government took control of their refineries...
...corporations-the National Security Council discussed ways of bringing "another government to power in Cuba...
...and it has prohibited U.S...
...2 8 Yet in November 1987, the two countries restored the immigration agreement that Cuba had cancelled in 1985...
...officials assess that the Cuban revolution is in its waning days, and no one wants to take credit for having prolonged its life...
...Operation Mongoose involved the following: several attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro...
...See Azicri article above.] After the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, the strategic component of U.S.-Cuban relations became serious...
...hostility toward Cuba by the prevailing sentiment in Washington: the sense that history is on the side of the United States and against Cuba...
...Yet, as historian Hugh Thomas put it, "The constant and obsessive concern of North Americans, public and private, with the single question of communism irritated Castro and indeed others in his a war on communism...
...1990...
...Lawrence Smith (D-FL) that would void a 15-year-old relaxation of the embargo for subsidiaries of U.S...
...Yet most U.S...
...Alexander M. Haig, Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1984), pp...
...2 Cuba could have used economic aid after years of Batista's mismanagement and corruption...
...S PART OF PRESIDENT REAGAN'S STRATegy for confronting the Soviet Union, U.S...
...He added, "We still do not like what NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14we see of the Cuban reality...
...1 5 Pell is the CANF's biggest catch...
...Marti has been attacked by the National Association of Broadcasters and even some conservatives who see it undermining international broadcasting regulations that generally serve U.S...
...statesmen before the War for Independence...
...But it continues to stand as an enduring irritant in U.S.-Cuban relations...
...Privately, U.S...
...The assault began on April 15, with an air attack to destroy Cuba's minuscule air force...
...White House spin doctors found no domestic compulsions to alter the belligerent language used against a man and a revolution perceived as evil by the newsconsuming public...
...Then he proceeded to prove "to his companions that he had not made a single unworthy or submissive speech (which was true...
...policy toward Cuba...
...Although belligerent rhetoric makes the Bush Administration's policy seem similar to Reagan's, the White House today has less interest and concern than its predecessor in the revolution 90 miles from the Florida coast...
...The United States successfully blocked Cuban participation in major international conferences...
...2 0 Pragmatic foreign policy considerations may also have prompted Bush to overlook the Soviet Union's large listening post in Cuba in his most recent meeting with Gorbachev...
...The station received a rare rebuke in April from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an international regulatory agency of which the United States is a member...
...Sovereign self-government only became a reality in January 1959, when Fidel Castro and a radical guerrilla army triumphed...
...In mid-1960, the United States ordered U.S...
...Yet there are also seeming inconsistencies in Bush's approach...
...Perhaps most importantly, improved U.S.-Cuban relations would allow the winds of democratic reform to sweep through this side of the Florida Straits...
...Today, Cuban tourist shops sell small plastic bags containing sand from Playa Gir6n (Bay of Pigs...
...client states...
...Expropriation was extended to the remaining sugar mills and banks, and nearly all other large enterprises...
...Worst of all, Cuba's proximity makes it a pointed insult to supposed U.S...
...moves in the Iraq-Kuwait crisis, Bush Administration officials advocated aid to the Soviet Union without mentioning Cuba...
...Pell's turnabout undoubtedly will shift congressional debate to the right and enhance CANF's reputation...
...Elizabeth A. Palmer, "Exiles Talk of PACs and Power," p. 1933...
...aid to the Soviet Union and continued Soviet aid to Cuba...
...He pushed the goalposts of normalization further back by adding to the pre-conditions articulated by previous administrations...
...policy is determined...
...2 3 Though the missiles were removed, Soviet reconnaissance flights continue to emanate from Cuba, the Soviets maintain an advanced communications intercept facility there, and the Soviet and Cuban militaries have close ties...
...But there has been no significant Cuban-American opponent to challenge him, and CANF continues to praise him...
...2 6 By 1987, relations were at their lowest ebb since the 1962 missile crisis...
...Martins Press, 1983), chs...
...Unrelenting tension opens the way for a miscalculation on the part of either of these well-armed neighbors...
...2 6 By pushing Cuba, the United States is not likely to topple the regime...
...2 4 However, within hours of Radio Martf's first broadcast in partners are likely to object strongly to the extraterritorial application of U.S...
...But the Cubans could never be sure and took each threat quite seriously...
...Undeniably, better U.S.-Cuban relations would help create an atmosphere in which the community could begin to face its own problems with less rancor and intolerance...
...One could safely predict that even if the Soviet Union announced tomorrow its intention to immediately withdraw its troops and military advisors from Cuba and abandon its intelligence facilities there, hostility toward the revolutionary regime would continue...
...In 1964 the United States persuaded the Organization of American States to institute a hemispheric embargo against Cuba...
...In 1990, the containment doctrine no longer applies to the Soviet Union...
...6 Operation Mongoose planners recognized that to succeed in destabilizing the Cuban governVOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) 17RCubaeo o AmIeia Cuba II in interviews that the policy has been taken out of their hands and is being made in the White House...
...But the summary nature of the trials, which resulted in some 200 executions in January 1959 and over 600 by year's end, upset the United States, even though many of the accused received light sentences or were absolved...
...and Cuban representatives met for the first time to discuss the war in Angola...
...12 AMBASSADOR BONSAL RECEIVED CASTRO AT the airport on his return, and had a long chat with him...
...actions to be true...
...invasion...
...allies and trading Free Europe, and was to be housed in their agency--the Board for International Broadcasting...
...The Carter Administration moved quickly to reduce the renewed tension with Cuba...
...9. Washington Post, March 7, 1990...
...By April 1977, the United States had signed a fishing and maritime boundary agreement with Cuba, and in September the two countries exchanged diplomats, though without formal recognition...
...Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Argentina are major allies likely to protest...
...Cuba has sent military missions to more than 20 countries, and at one point had more than 50,000 troops in Ethiopia and Angola...
...treaty compliance...
...How could Fidel Castro receive U.S...
...The U.S...
...Smith's South Florida district was considered to be a closely contested one in the mid1980s, partly because of the increasing number of CubanAmericans moving into it...
...From then on, the administration reverted to the traditional posture that Cuba was a major enemy of the United States...
...In 1974, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger named William Rogers--an advocate of negotiations with Cuba-as Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs...
...Saul Landau ia a seniorfellow at the Institutefor Policy Studies...
...The diminished Soviet threat, the settlements in Angola and Namibia, and the elections in Nicaragua, removed sources of U.S...
...Ten months earlier he had authorized preparations for an invasion of the island by 1,500 Cuban exiles, who were trained and supplied by the CIA...
...9 At the same time, the administration was discouraging Latin American countries from readmitting Cuba to the Organization of American States, a subject which had been raised in 1988 by Brazil, Argentina and Mexico...
...CANF's greatest achievement is its ability, like AIPAC, to move beyond a narrow constituency...
...To have global peace ensured by U.S...
...Cuba's ideology and political economy contain the last remnants of Soviet-style socialism...
...Carter railed against Cuba over the Shaba incident, though his charges proved unconvincing to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...
...As it turned out, the United States could not accept the revolution's radical program ofsocial change-and the revoMax Azicri is a professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, and is the author of numerous works on Cuba and Cuban-Americans...
...To keep the revolution moving forward, they could not start blaming themselves for U.S...
...Jesds Yanes Pelletier, who acted as Castro's military attach6 during the trip] and I had more or less expected something of the sort, and Yanes had brought along several friends of his with the objective of guarding Fidel closely...
...Since Congress appeared unwilling to grant Soviet aid without untenable conditions, the President in effect had no aid to offer...
...It was a confrontation that gave the United States an unprecedented sense of vulnerability, and Cuba was the locus of this threat...
...Indeed, as increased military spending and anti-Sovietism lose their third country subsidiaries of U.S...
...action violated international law, a Cuban official charged...
...The policy elite has sipped from the Cold War cup of "victory" and has extended its linguistic displays of euphoria to the Caribbean as though the imminent fall of Fidel Castro and the revolution were a foregone conclusion...
...The Bush Administration also was the first to prosecute an individual for violating the embargo, in the case of Dan Snow, a Texas bass fisherman who chartered fishing cruises to Cuba...
...Approximately 120,000 Cubans emigrated from the port of Mariel when the Cuban government permitted essentially unrestricted exodus from the island-the United States welcomed them...
...Following the downfall of Gerardo Machado in 1933, people had wrought their own form of justice, brutally lynching many former members of the security forces...
...The visit looked like a sincere effort to win over the U.S...
...The United States charged that the Cuban government forced some prisoners and mental health patients to emigrate...
...While the United States chose to continue its bilateral embargo, it did begin to allow NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASinitial pattern of liberalism...
...Similarly, State and Commerce Department officials have worked quietly to oppose propaganda television broadcasts to Cuba because these challenge the legitimacy of international law, a key to restructuring postCold War relationships with U.S...
...The subtlety of the last distinction was lost on Cuba, and it did not go over well in the United States either...
...But thus far Cuba has only jammed T.V...
...Indeed, the United States used clandestine radio stations (Radio Swan and Radio Americas) to support pre-invasion operations in 1961 and 1962...
...6 Castro scoffed at the U.S.embargo, claiming Cubans could obtain all they needed and wanted from the socialist countries and "neutrals...
...The cancellation came too late to notify the nearly 1,500 Cuban-Americans who had travelled to Washington from all parts of the country...
...Security Council, with more votes than any previous nominee...
...Despite Kennedy's pledge, the United States maintained some support for the counter-revolutionaries who actively fought inside Cuba until 1966...
...Whatever support Fidel Castro had won inside the United States for overthrowing a brutal dictator Fidel Castro directs Cuban forces at the Bay of Pigs, 1961: The CIA's exile army was routed in 72 hours lution could not achieve that program without challenging U.S...
...The United States signed an anti-hijacking treaty with Cuba in February 1973...
...He added, "Let me say with certainty that even in Cuba, the dream of democracy can only be pushed back a little, only deferred...
...On October 24 alone, Cuba nationalized 166 properties wholly or partially owned by North Americans...
...He spoke of a "humanist democracy" characterized by "liberty with bread and without terror...
...The pragmatism that the administration displayed in response to the Mack and Smith amendments may prove to be an aberration not easily repeated when re-election looms up before the President...
...Castro retaliated by nationalizing the refineries, and soon thereafter the United States cancelled the quota on how much Cuban sugar could enter the United States...
...See, for example, U.S...
...But these officials also say that inside the White House, little attention is being given to Cuba...
...Though the total U.S...
...Philip Brenner, The Limits and Possibilities of Congress (New York: St...
...Another Cuban defector, Rufo L6pez-Fresquet, who was then minister of the treasury and travelled with Castro, confirms the thrust of Betancourt's story...
...Soviet aid may be cut, but the level of aid has been vastly overestimated...
...While congresspeople acted independently, the administration signaled its support for their activities at key junctures...
...In his report to President Eisenhower (who would have liked to refuse Castro a visa and was conveniently out of town during the visit), Nixon recommended that he form a brigade of Cuban exiles to fight Castro...
...The United States had dominated us too long...
...The more radical Ratil Castro (who paid his brother a surprise visit in Texas during the trip) and Che Guevara were not part of the entourage...
...The administration might have interpreted the case in light of a recent law mandating the right of U.S...
...dominance was a anal that could not be avoided ("nunrn" in cann linunrl Cuba aggressiveness attractive for domestic political reasons...
...ABC's contract called for a $9 million payment to Cuba...
...The community could rid itself of the old obsession which blinds it to its real interests and allies...
...5. Michael G. Kozak, "Cuba: A Threat to Peace and Security in Our Hemisphere," U.S...
...The Cuban Revolution was determined to end that domination...
...Cuba's history of frustrated'nationalism seemed finally redeemed...
...Narrowly framed measures NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24official statements and local press reports, Cuba almost seemed to welcome it...
...4 The first public clash came soon enough...
...But it was not that simple...
...Then in July, following the Houston economic summit, Bush announced that the United States could not consider aiding the Soviets as long as Moscow furnished aid to Cuba...
...Although forced by world events to change practical priorities when he assumed office in 1989, he did not make corresponding changes in the way he talked about the Bay of Pigs went down in history as another U.S...
...Marti undermines enduring U.S...
...1930-31...
...senator to use their good offices to help reach a more rational relationship with Cuba...
...Marti...
...T HE UNITED STATES TERMINATED RELATIONS with Havana in the waning hours of the Eisenhower Administration on January 3, 1961...
...EVEN A PRESIDENT INCLINED TOWARD THE normalization of relations would be restricted by three decades of institutionally encrusted anti-Castro hostility...
...2 Nonetheless, President Bush certified that the initial 90-day test was a success...
...5 Still, last year the administration's public rhetoric was not always matched by officials' private comments...
...N 1970, THE UNITED STATES CONFRONTED THE Soviet Union again, in a mini-missile crisis, over the construction of a submarine base at Cienfuegos...
...EVERAL REAGAN OFFICIALS HAD ADVOCATED harsh measures against Cuba long before they assumed office...
...embarao has worsened the crunch VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) who testified during a 1988 Commission fact-finding trip...
...In Cuba, one man exercises decisive control over his country's destiny, and he has never been a friend of the United States or of free men anywhere....[O]urpolicy must remain aconstant one until such time as Cuba begins to act as a responsible member of the international community...
...No Elliott Abrams in the State Department or Jos6 Sorzano in the National Security Council revels in attacking Cuba, or sees the overthrow of the Cuban government as a personal mission...
...Foreign Policy, No...
...The Coast Guard responded by firing hundreds of rounds at the freighter's engine and rudder...
...When asked if he had come to seek foreign aid (which Washington was reportedly willing to grant), he replied, "No, we are proud to be independent and have no intention of asking anyone for anything...
...The night before Castro addressed an audience of mostly Latin Americans in New York's Central Park, he received a call from his brother Rail...
...State Department, Current Policy No...
...In August, Castro announced the nationalization of U.S.-owned sugar mills and lands, the oil refineries, and the telephone and power companies...
...ports if they had docked in Cuba within six months, were initiated by Sen...
...Yet after the Soviets supported U.S...
...military might, the United States cannot cross swords with a small, upstart country and lose, as it did in Angola...
...Although never confirmed, estimates of the number of victims run as high as 20,000...
...interests...
...Carter also eased currency restrictions and permitted charter flights, which facilitated tourist travel to Cuba...
...U.S...
...Miami Herald, June 10, 1990...
...trip was reassuring to moderates...
...Like the "Martf" operations, the maneuvers fit under tactical categories ranging from propaganda to psychological warfare...
...President Carter demanded that the Soviets withdraw the brigade, and he ordered the creation of the Caribbean Joint Task Force, a small military unit on Key West...
...The OAS contended that Cuba had become a member of the "Sino-Soviet bloc of countries," and in fact Cuba had turned to the Soviet Union, China, and other socialist countries when the United States cut off trade and aid...
...allies...
...and to reduce the Soviet presence in Cuba...
...But when he took office in March, he announced that Chile would maintain the existing non-relationship with Cuba...
...The final danger emanates from the likelihood that Cuban foreign policy will continue to be activist and to run afoul of both U.S...
...In its original form, it was to be akin to Radio Liberty and Radio VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) 19RCet bn td Am4eAL4a Cuba II malization of relations, had effectively provided legitimacy for others who supported a moderate stance...
...Fidel Castro has threatened to retaliate by disrupting U.S...
...According to Casuso, after hearing this news "Fidel almost wept...
...which gave the United States the right to intervene in internal Cuban affairs...
...The measure also kept Cuba on the Commission's agenda by requiring the U.N...
...These efforts were focal points for the Cuban American National Foundation, a tax-exempt organization, and its lobbying arm, the Cuban American Foundation...
...to isolate and "contain" Cuba...
...It had to do with the trials of Batista officers which began in January 1959...
...sphere of influence, free from European intruders and from revolutionary nationalism as well...
...In June 1960, the government took over four U.S.-owned hotels...
...Notably, planning for the revolt began before either the Cubans or Soviets ever discussed missiles...
...An element of low-intensity warfare is "perception management...
...In June, he joined 27 senators in demanding that President Bush ask Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to terminate Soviet military aid to Cuba...
...ambiguity of exile...
...Cuban-U.S...
...retaliation.'" Reacting in kind, Cuba appeared eager to sever ties...
...Now Cuba has won freedom of trade with every country in the world...
...To underscore that view, the president issued a policy statement-Presidential Directive 52 in October 1979-that ordered national security agencies "to devise strategies for curbing Cuba's activities [in the Third World] and isolating it politically...
...Even as conservative historians credit Reagan's policies for precipitating the collapse of Soviet-backed socialism, they point to Cuba as the ultimate symbol of unfinished Cold War business...
...Yanes [Lt...
...Shortly after his election in December 1989, Patricio Aylwin said that normalization would be one of his first acts...
...In fact, talk of a strong conservative opponent facing Sen...
...As the revolution unveiled the extent of its radical reforms, U.S...
...In response, Reagan issued a decree barring virtually any Cuban from the United States, thereby closing the door on contact in the United States between Cubans and U.S...
...Containment of Soviet communism coincided with the existing anti-revolutionary tradition, and provided a more popular appeal...
...John Spicer Nichols, "The Power of the Anti-Fidel Lobby," The Nation, Oct...
...Cuba policy...
...This was the legacy handed to the Bush Adminstration as it began to chart U.S...
...That would suggest Bush has attached great importance to the policy...
...Once Cuba invited the Soviets to come into the Western Hemisphere, the U.S...
...Bush's policies are less rooted in a clear strategic framework than were Reagan's...
...See "Broadcast Wars," page 30.] Cuba argues that T.V...
...2 7 No one is certain how many drowned...
...Proposals to expand the embargo against ment, the United States would likely have to use its own military forces...
...concern about Cuba...
...Baker's 1989 statement came in the form of a cable to U.S...
...2 ' Six months later, in April 1982, the U.S...
...Marti violates its sovereignty, and views the station as a serious military threat...
...property took place...
...Traditionally, Congress has had little influence on policy towards Cuba unless the administration has wanted it to...
...SINCE 1959, AS CUBA HAS PURSUED ITS OWN agenda for stability and independence, it has undermined the projection of U.S...
...A movement to relax the hostility between the two countries began in the U.S...
...By this time U.S...
...6 This followed on the heels of the U.S.-Cuban confrontation overan alleged 3,000-member Soviet combat brigade in Cuba, which turned out to be a Soviet training group that had been stationed in Cuba since potency for arousing conservative ire, anti-Castroism has become an even readier vehicle for these groups...
...In March 1989, Secretary of State James Baker pointedly rejected the possibility of improved relations after Cuba had made major concessions on troops in Angola.' U.S...
...aid to the Soviet Union on a reduction in Soviet aid to Cuba...
...He rarely challenges State, unless there is significant dissent within...
...influence...
...This came shortly after Pell, who is in a tough re-election fight against Republican Congresswoman Claudine Schneider, met in Miami with Mis Canosa...
...As we now know, Castro was not mistaken to accuse the United States of complicity...
...Morris H. Morley, Imperial State and Revolution: The United States and Cuba, 1952-1986 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp...
...Eisenhower then cancelled the Cuban sugar quota...
...It also requested more military aid from the Soviet Union and began to reorganize the island's defenses with a new militia...
...Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1990...
...But instead, officials argued that U.S...
...Since Fidel had not yet become prime minister, his visit was unofficial...
...Whether U.S...
...officials told him they considered the isolation of Cuba a high priority...
...companies advanced it tax payments totalling $2,560,000...
...Marti is governed by a separate board headed by Jorge MdsCuba II Canosa, the chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), a hard-line anti-Castro organization...
...pressure and attacks has made Cuba a threat to U.S...
...Cuba then abrogated the anti-hijacking agreement, which included provisions that mandated each country to try to prevent such attacks...
...The remainder of the decade after the missile crisis was a period of cold war between the United States and Cuba...
...They are the kind of military pressure Fidel Castro (r...
...citizens...
...Mack and Rep...
...4 Instead of picking up on Castro's initiative for antidrug cooperation, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michael Kozak cast doubt on Cuban sincerity...
...military intervention in Latin America...
...We agreed that none of those Communists must be allowed to slip into Fidel's public appearances or photographs...
...credibility...
...The second danger comes from a different sort of miscalculation, one about the revolutionary regime's entourage: It was as if the United States did not care what Cuba was, provided it was not communist...
...This refusal surprised Felipe Pazos, then president of Cuba's National Bank...
...As long as Cubans on the island have no avenue for dissent short of leaving the country, relations between Cuba and the community abroad will be relegated to national security interests...
...79 (Summer 1990), p. 136...
...planners...
...By 1960 attitudes favoring the Cuban revolution, or even those calling for "hands off Cuba," acquired unpatriotic if not downright subversive connotations...
...Cuban bravado was more than just posturing-it was an expression of their guerrilla approach to politics...
...Coast Guard officials demanded the right to board and search the Hermann, a Cuban-owned ship operated by a Cuban crew but registered to Panama, on the grounds that it fit "the profile" of a narcotics-carrying vessel...
...2 ) On January 3, 1961, President Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations with Cuba...
...Washington asked for "prompt, adequate and effective compensation...
...This frustrates U.S...
...The roots of this disposition lie in the relationship that has developed between the United States and Cuba over the last 31 years...
...Castro was at his most charming throughout the visit-conciliatory, gracious, often forcing himself to speak in English...
...During the intervening months, there were numerous attempts at armed counterrevolution, including bombings in Havana...
...Marti did not emerge from the White House...
...Kozak said, "If we become convinced that the Cuban government has had a change of heart and genuinely intends to stamp out trafficking by Cuban officials and citizens, we can consider mutually beneficial information exchanges...
...From the Cuban perspective, the crisis began when Mongoose was approved in 1961...
...Then in July, Cuba aired a television documentary which detailed in an unprecedented fashion espionage activities by personnel in the U.S...
...State Dept., "Pros and Cons of the 1990 Supplemental Authorization...
...He also promised that the controversial revolutionary tribunals would soon cease since they had "already fulfilled their essential function...
...Cuba recently secured the Latin American seat on the U.N...
...the generally passive and reactive nature of the administration's approach to foreign policy...
...It took less than three years to complete the radicalization of the revolution...
...And the removal of Soviet Cuba by including third country U.S...
...And when I know them, I will do away with them...
...As the year began, Cuba denied U.S...
...It reviles Fidel Castro and adamantly rejects any movement toward normalization while he remains as Cuba's leader...
...At their meeting he complained about the execution of Batista officers and showed the Cuban leader files proving communist backgrounds readied because of the Soviet military buildup there...
...20...
...diplomats in New York...
...Conservative Cuban-Americans also have used campaign financing to gain footholds outside of their Florida base.' Sen...
...military response, which in turn might generate a spiral of confrontation...
...A thirty-year-old policy would be difficult to change under any circumstances," one policy official remarked in an interview...
...The Cuban government would not feel compelled to treat emigration as treason, but to consider it a natural outgrowth of an engaged and constructive economic relationship...
...BY MAX AZICRI IN 1978 FIDEL CASTRO DISCUSSED WITH A U.S...
...policy-makers view Cuba as the next domino...
...Hostilities became inevitable...
...Marti violates rules governing international television transmissions...
...naval base at Guantinamo...
...At the same time, Baker privately encouraged a foreign leader and a former U.S...
...Cuba has a high standing in Africa because of its support for Angola and its defeat of the South African military there in 1988...
...It would not be difficult to imagine how Cuban retaliation against T.V...
...There was, then, an inherent conflict of interests...
...It also pressured European allies not to renegotiate Cuba's outstanding loans...
...banks were nationalized...
...Whether the order to fire at the Hermann emanated from the "highest levels" of the U.S...
...Washington Post, May 18, 1990...
...Similarly, President Bush told a small group of CubanAmericans in May that "in all of Latin America, only Cuba remains, Castro's island, isolated...
...The Cubans could not comprehend the U.S...
...122, 127...
...Contrary to the "proper" sequence of events laid out in Marxist-Leninist theory, the revolution moved rapidly from an initial bourgeois-progressive phase to a Marxist-socialist one...
...The State Department had recalled Bonsai a year earlier for consultations...
...Communist leader BIas Roca declared, "Now Cuba has freed her foreign commerce from the monopoly of an imperialist power...
...In Cuba's case this was codified in the Platt Amendment, VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) I I 1I 21Cuba II COULD THE WAR HAVE BEEN AVOIDED...
...Characterizing Cuba as "the Albania or the North Korea of the Caribbean," he also endorsed the Mack amendment...
...A week later, the New York Times reported that Secretary of State Haig "has been pressing the Pentagon to examine a series of options for possible military action in El Salvador and against Cuba and Nicaragua," including with respect to Cuba, '"an invasion by American and possibly Latin American forces...
...The revolutionary leadership was not of one mind about the United States in the early days, and neither was the Eisenhower administration about the revolution...
...Cuba's agenda has thus clashed with the U.S...
...Marti...
...Miami Herald, July 7, 1990...
...public opinion had begun to shift against the new Cuban government, because of the "show" trials of former Batista soldiers and press reports that Cuba might become socialist...
...In 1989, prior to his summit meeting with Soviet President Gorbachev, Bush announced that he would press the Soviets to reduce their aid to Cuba...
...He had begun to formulate a humanistic policy that threatened to upset the design which the Communists had been tracing [all along...
...2nd sess., Sept...
...At presidential inaugurations in Brazil and Ecuador, Fidel Castro was accorded great deference...
...2 0 First proposed by the arch-conservative Committee of Santa Fe as Radio Free Cuba, Radio Marti was embraced by the Reagan Administration in 1981 as a means of exacerbating tensions within Cuba through propaganda broadcasts...
...interests-in 1976, David Rockefeller called Cuba a "stabilizing force in Angola" -but they have undermined the 1940s vision of a Pax Americana...
...Regino Boti, minister in charge of the economy, told him, "We have no intention of asking now, during Castro's visit, but you, Pazos, will return in a fortnight to make a request.'" As it turned out, the request was never made...
...The signal intelligence facility at the town of Lourdes may actually facilitate U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements, because it is essential for the Soviet's ability to monitor U.S...
...Soviet military aid, in part, has enabled Cuba to pursue foreign policy aims in the Third World by military means...
...Though Cuba is hurting from the loss of Eastern European trade, that trade accounted for only about 15% of Cuba's total, and some of it can be made up elsewhere...
...It was spearheaded by Sen...
...On December 2, 1961, Castro declared "I am a Marxist-Leninist and will be a Marxist-Leninist until the last day of my life...
...While not synonymous, Cuban nationalism remained closely identified with socialism...
...One element of the war was diplomatic pressure to undermine the legitimacy of the Cuban government...
...General Accounting Office, "Broadcasts to Cuba: T.V...
...Manley concluded that Washington would not look kindly on a rapid and warm renewal of relations between the two countries, and he waited more than a year to restore ties with Havana...
...diplomat what had happened between their countries...
...These efforts to reduce tension were dashed by the war in Angola...
...For example, Cuba no longer receives a subsidy on its oil imports, and recently has paid the Soviet Union more than the world market price, though the exchanges are in the form of barter for sugar, nickel and citrus fruits...
...The U.S...
...Che Guevara explained Castro's conversion to MarxismLeninism, and his own, in terms of United States hostility to Cuba: "I knew [Castro] was not a communist but I believe I Cuba...
...power in three spheres: in the Western Hemisphere, strategically vis-A-vis the Soviet Union, and globally in relation to the Third World...
...See: Washington Post, April 3, 1990...
...Still, even adversaries find it useful to maintain bridges between them...
...The administration opposed amendments sponsored by Sen...
...Gillian Gunn, "Will Castro Fall...
...22, 1988...
...With the Cold War against the Soviets nearly over, and ideological zealots replaced by pragmatic "realists" in the White House, Cuba's importance on the grand strategy board has diminished...
...Castro insisted on talking about Cuba's socio-economic problems (which he compared to Latin America's), and the revolution's social programs, especially the agrarian reform...
...The missile crisis may have chastened the superpowers about the danger of nuclear war...
...Thus, the administration successfully pushed the Panamanian government to close down alleged Cuban companies that supposedly enabled Cuba to circumvent the U.S...
...Most officials see Cuba struggling: It faces not only the loss of support from Eastern European countries and perhaps reduced aid from the Soviet Union, but the loss of political allies in Latin America as a result of the Panama invasion and Sandinista electoral defeat...
...In addition, the deck is stacked in favor of U.S...
...In retrospect, I can see a number of things I wish I had done differently...
...CANF's greatest influence lies with the Florida congressional delegation because of the large Cuban-American and conservative Latino population there...
...When the authors of the Monroe Doctrine penned their unilateral proclamation in 1823, they were following precedents that originated with U.S...
...and fellow revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos in 1959: The revolution was on an early collision course with the United States NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 16that the United States has applied to Cuba since 1965, as a way of keeping Cuba off balance...
...Cuba was a special object of attack, and it became the focus of a considerable effort to arouse the public to the need for VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) 23Cuba on AmericA4 Cuba II According to Ernesto Betancourt (who was an economic adviser at the time but defected and most recently was head of Radio Marti), Castro said in an offhand remark after meeting Nixon, "What we have to do is stop the executions and the infiltrado[s]"-that is, the infiltration of Communists...
...public liked Fidel Castro and he even enjoyed some support in the State Department...
...The invasion proved Castro's warnings of forthcoming U.S...
...Marti Surveys Are Flawed," (GAO/NSIAD-90-252), Aug...
...Until this year, Radio Marti's broadcasts usually had not been jammed...
...Indeed, Canada has already contacted us...
...the events confirmed the validity of his anti-U.S...
...citizen for violating it...
...This was most evident in the 1962 missile crisis...
...He further suggested that the interdiction was a THE THIRTY-YEAR WAR BY PHILIP BRENNER U S. POLICY TOWARD CUBA HAD A REMARK. able consistency over the span of seven presidencies from Eisenhower to Reagan...
...enmity became a foregone conclusion...
...Cuba's stature, and Castro's own, grew to new heights in Latin America and the world...
...Such a climate would allow the community to develop its politics in a more organic fashion, outside the clutches of national security states...
...By restricting the behavior of a foreign company (even a U.S...
...Prior to joining the NSC in 1986, Sorzano was president of the Cuban American National Foundation...
...However, this pragmatic approach is the exception rather than the rule, because for the most part the foreign policy rationale underpinning Cuba policy has been vitiated...
...In March, the United States succeeded in passing a mild resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that expressed "concern" over alleged Cuban harassment of witnesses Cuban dockworkers are prepared to unload ships by hand: A tiahter U.S...
...On October 30, 1981 the U.S...
...posture...
...officials waged low-intensity wars against what it perceived as Soviet client states and allies in the Third World...
...Elizabeth A. Palmer, "Exiles Talk of PACs and Power, Not Another Bay of Pigs," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, June 23, 1990, p. 1929...
...Nominally under the aegis of the Voice of America, T.V...
...Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1990...
...How could he achieve self-determination without breaking economic dependency...
...This sort of rhetoric shaped public debate about Cuba, but Reagan Administration policy depended on time-worn techniques that included economic pressure, propaganda broadcasts, military intimidation and diplomatic isolation...
...presidents have imposed on Cuba since 1959...
...economic embargo was instituted on February 6, 1962, nearly all trade calculated attempt at military intimidation...
...Secretary General to maintain and report on "ongoing contacts with the Government of Cuba...
...senator and a congressman asked for punitive actions against Cuba on January 12 and 13, less than two weeks after the revolution came to power.' In hindsight, almost a decade later, the memory of Ambassador Bonsai evoked anger in Castro: "...he came with the demeanor of a proconsul...
...Few are as giddy as the conservative Florida Cuban community, which seriously talks about "next year in Havana...
...2. Ibid...
...The Cuban captain refused, claiming he was carrying mineral ore, the customary cargo the Hermann carries from the Cuban port of Moa...
...Interests Section...
...It included an exercise to evacuate non-combatants from the U.S...
...Their activities have not necessarily been antagonistic to immediate U.S...
...The crew vowed to fight the North Americans with machetes should they attempt to board, and the Coast Guard vessel ultimately retreated...
...Prominent in Florida Republican politics, the younger Bush has worked closely with CANF in promoting T.V...
...This misunderstanding had all the ingredients of future ones...
...3, 4. 23...
...7 Administration officials also were unyielding when ABC sought the right to broadcast the Pan-American games from Cuba next year...
...2 3 Only in 1984 did Cuba indicate a willingness to discuss this issue...
...his latest film is The Uncompromising Revolution...
...Castro responded to the OAS vote with the Second Declaration of Havana on February 4, 1962, saying, "The duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution...
...As aid ceased to be a real foreign policy option, Bush sought to salvage at least some domestic political capital from the circumstances by appearing to be tough on Cuba...
...The following day, at the funeral of those killed, Castro declared the Cuban Revolution to be socialist...
...corporate subsidiary) in another country, the proposed law would challenge the sovereignty of that country...
...He is well known for his close contact with the State Department and for his May 1985, Castro suspended the immigration agreement, and he announced Cuba would no longerpermit exiles to visit the country...
...It was because of this foreign policy vacuum that the CANF was able to gain such a strong grip on policy and to make antiPre-revolutionary Cuba: Ending U.S...
...In return for Khrushchev's concession, President Kennedy promised not to invade Cuba.' But the crisis actually ended a month later, after Cuba agreed to allow the Soviet Union to remove IL-28 bombers from the island as well as the missiles...
...7 In an incredible historical irony, the target date set for the revolt and possible U.S...
...By declaring the revolution socialist when the country was under attack by a U.S...
...8. Donna Rich, "Embargo Economics Keeping Cuba at Bay," Multinational Monitor, April 1989...
...It will, however, hurt innocent victims: The United States often dawdles in processing visas, in order to build up pressure inside Cuba, driving desperate islanders to flee however they can...
...7. Washington Post, April 3, 1990...
...8 The current menu of political pressure against Cuba is largely a carry-over from the Reagan Administration and it shares the same goal: to isolate Cuba from the international community and to undermine the Cuban government's legitimacy internally...
...In addition, the technical feasibility of the project is in serious doubt: signals are beamed from a balloon tethered above the Florida Keys that at times directs broadcasts back to the United States, and the programs have been easily jammed...
...The revolutionary leadership was eroded by national security posturing...
...Evidently there was very little room in which to maneuver...
...0 The action of greatest concern to Cuban officials has been the inauguration of T.V...
...State Department, "Pros and Cons of the 1990 Supplemental Authorization," Communication to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs...
...Career foreign policy officials said with Cuba ended shortly after the United States set the Cuban sugar quota at zero, in July 1960...
...urging, the OAS suspended Cuba's membership...
...The Cuban challenge threatens the perception of U.S...
...Robert L. Dennison, CICLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis 1962, Serial: 000119/JO9H, April 29, 1963, The Atlantic Command, Norfolk, Virginia (available at National Security Archive, Washington, D.C...
...With this statement, he gave official notice of the existence of the first socialist regime in the Western Hemisphere...
...The agreement reached in December 1984 specified that 2,746 exiles would be repatriated to Cuba, and 20,000 Cubans would be allowed to emigrate to the United States annually...
...6. The foreign leader and senator reported Baker's overtures in private interviews and wish to remain anonymous...
...The attempts on Fidel Castro's life also continued until at least 1965...
...When Senate and House members respond to special interests, they rarely take into account overall U.S...
...Departments of State and Defense, The Soviet-Cuban Connection in Central America and the Caribbean (March, 1985...
...interests...
...Two down and one to go," State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler told the media after the victory of the U.S.backed slate in the 1990 Nicaraguan elections, referring to Noriega and Ortega as the two and Castro as the one...
...On the contrary, the rule of thumb in the administration is to enforce existing anti-Cuban regulations consistently, and to seize opportunities when they arise to apply a little more pressure, as a way of nudging the forces of history...
...President Bush's son, Jeb Bush, also figures into the equation of CANF influence...
...The Bush Administration's approach to Cuba coincides with its overall foreign policy style: It tends to respond to momentary pressures...
...had initiated a naval quarantine to prevent completion of the missile sites, and he demanded the facilities be dismantled...
...It was easy to see what they were up to...
...the creation and maintenance of a large CIA base in Florida to support the war...
...National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger "quietly" demanded that the base be dismantled, and the Soviets complied...
...But even as early as March 10, 1959-at a point when Cuba had not yet nationalized the holdings of any U.S...
...By the end of 1974, Rogers was meeting with Cuban U.N...
...Last year, he was the campaign manager for Ileana Ros-Lehtinin (R-FL), who became the first Cuban-American member of Congress...
...aggression envisioned in Mongoose...
...But this year the public and private statements have been consistent...
...Three forces are at work in Bush's apparently contradictory discourse: the reduction of Cuba's strategic importance, which has allowed pressure groups to define Cuba VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) 13RCuba v4 Americas Cuba II Workers in Havana: U.S...
...officials also closed off opportunities for joint efforts with Cuba to control drug trafficking...
...military omnipotence, and perception is the key to U.S...
...He is also a stalwart supporter of aid to Israel...
...14...
...Havana and Washington became entrenched in the Cold War...
...By 1971 isolation and containment had become ends in and of themselves, apart from the objective of overthrowing the Cuban govemment, and Cuban ties to the Soviet Union became a primary consideration...
...Called "Ocean Venture 82," the three-week set of maneuvers involved 45,000 troops, 350 airplanes, and 60 ships...
...T HE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEWSPAPER EDItors invited Fidel Castro to visit the United States in April 1959...
...State Department officials asserted that such a high seas interdiction is routine, and that State had received permission from Panama (the country of registry) to board the boat...
...Marti, or a Cuban provocation to reciprocate a high seas caper like the Hermann interdiction, could lead to bombastic calls in Congress for a U.S...
...Smith...
...Nixon was baffled by Castro's lack of interest in the files...
...Initially, U.S...
...But Operation Mongoose is usually missing from the legend...
...We would not in any event have ended up as close friends...
...Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley said in an interview that U.S...
...reaction: Where was their outrage during the seven years of Batista's crimes...
...Some 150 exiles were killed and almost 1,200 were arrested...
...And the revolutionary leaders had to put on their best possible face in public...
...The United States encouraged Latin American countries to break the ties they had developed with Cuba in the 1970s...
...Through his rhetoric, Bush has begun to paint himself into a comer on Cuba...
...A growing number of Latin American countries were breaking the trade embargo and calling for a change in the OAS prohibition on trade with Cuba...
...power...
...Elizabeth A. Palmer, "TV Marti Wins Its First Test in House...But Broadcasters Fear Castro's Fury," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, June 23, 1990, pp...
...The State Department opposed the Mack and Smith amendments, for example, by arguing that "U.S...
...It was rooted in three objectives: to overthrow the Cuban government...
...troops participated directly in the invasion of April 17, 1961, often work at cross purposes with higher priority needs of the United States...
...There was a troubling rumor in Cuba that he had "sold out to the Americans...
...7 Of the $165,897 total contributions given during the 1987-1988 electoral cycle, the Free Cuba PAC donated only $46,350 to Florida candidates.'" ONLY WHEN THE ADMINISTRATION SEES real foreign policy interests at stake in dealing with Cuba, has it eschewed ideological posturing and tried to regain control over policy from Congress...
...In effect, the State Department appears to have developed its position from a practical consideration of U.S...
...There was little direct contact, and the contact that did occur only served to deepen antagonisms...
...According to a close associate of Castro during the years of exile in Mexico, Teresa (Tete) Casuso, who defected in 1960, opposing factions fought for Castro's attention and for controlling access to him: "Our arrival in New York coincided with that of several Cuban Communists from the press and radio....They were sent by Vilma Esp(n, Rail Castro's wife...
...Between January and July, 198 people were rescued from crude rafts in the Florida Straits...
...aid and also end Washington's domination of Cuba...
...interests that eight U.S...
...That attraction explains why, after the June summit in Houston, Bush conditioned U.S...
...Philip Brenner teaches at American University and is the authorofFrom Confrontation to Negotiation: U.S...
...Cabell, "The Communists were concerned when, at the time of his trip to the United States, he [Castro] showed evidence of a friendly attitude toward the United States...
...The leaders of the old communist party (Partido Socialista Popular) and others on the Left viewed it with suspicion...
...Fast-moving events were soon to leave behind the conciliatory mood of the trip...
...Created in 1981, CANF modelled itself on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), by establishing local chapters throughout the country and developing active ties to Congress...
...aggression exposed their own vulnerability...
...24, 1988...
...6 This suggests that the purpose of the cable was to mollify conservatives, not to define policy...
...The United States appeared isolated, while the intent of the policy had been the reverse--to isolate Cuba...
...Rosenfeld argued, as career officials do privately, that T.V...
...Meanwhile, Cuba supported revolutionaries in Latin America who were attempting to overthrow U.S...
...2 The administration's hostile stance toward Cuba has been evident from its opening days...
...U.S...
...government, as one Cuban official said in an interview, or whether it was a routine interdiction as the State Department claimed, the incident illustrates what is striking about the Bush Administration's Cuba policy in general: a lack of rancor...
...By itself, Cuba was not a strategic threat to the United States...
...Denunciations now are made with an almost ritualistic banality that reflects both bureaucratic inertia and the routine nature of hostility toward Cuba...
...Most accounts exclude Cuba and begin the confrontation between the superpowers on October 14, 1962, when a U-2 spy flight confirmed reports that the Soviet Union was building a facility for Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles at San Crist6bal...
Vol. 24 • November 1990 • No. 3
