The 50 year anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis is
approaching. In an introduction to the presentation of new documents on the
crisis the National Security Archives warned
that “the combination of nuclear weapons and human fallibility will
eventually result in nuclear destruction if these weapons are not abolished” (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/). The historical
record shows that the decisions leading to the crisis which almost brought
nuclear war have been repeated over and over again since the early 1960s.
Particularly, the Kennedy Administration pursued numerous policies
to forestall revolutionary ferment in the Western Hemisphere. These included
covert military action, economic assistance, and nuclear confrontation with the
Soviet Union. The next three blog essays address these policies. They are adapted
from my book on United States foreign policy during the Cold War (Strategy of
an Empire in Decline: Cold War II. 1986)
The United States Invades Cuba
Before Fidel Castro’s 26th of
July Movement seized power in Cuba in January, 1959, the United States had long
controlled the island nation ninety miles from its shores. The country was
ruled by dictator, Fulgencio Batista, a close ally of the United States, who,
through repression and corruption, generated large-scale opposition in the countryside
and the cities. In 1958 the State Department urged Batista to turn control over
to a caretaker government, to forestall the victory of Fidel Castro, Che
Guevara, and Camillo Cienfuegos, and their growing guerrilla armies, who were
on the verge of overthrowing the dictator. Batista rejected the pressure to
flee. His U.S. backed armies and police were defeated. The revolutionaries were
victorious.
Before the revolution, United States investors
controlled 80 percent of Cuba’s utilities, 90 percent of its mines, 90 percent
of its cattle ranches, its three oil refineries, half its railroads, and 40
percent of its sugar. In a land rich with human and natural resources and a
modern infrastructure and a tourist sector second to none in the Hemisphere, 600,000
Cubans were unemployed, more than half the population lived in slums, and
one-half the population had no access to electricity. Forty percent of the
Cuban population was illiterate, most Cubans spent much of their income on
rent, and among wealthy Cubans, 1.5 percent of landowners owned 46 percent of
the land.
When the Castro-led revolutionaries
assumed office, they began to develop a series of policies to alleviate the
worst features of Cuban poverty. The revolutionary government invested in
housing, schools, and public works. Salaries were raised, electrical rates were
cut, rents were reduced by half. On a visit to the United States in April,
1959, Castro, who had proposed a large-scale assistance program for the Western
Hemisphere to the Eisenhower Administration, was ignored by the President.
Returning from a hostile visit to
Washington, Castro announced a redistributive program of agrarian reform that
generated opposition from conservative Cuban and American landowners. These
policies involved transfers of land to the Cuban people from the huge estates
owned by the wealthy. The Eisenhower administration responded by reducing the
quantity of United States purchases of Cuban sugar. Cuba then nationalized the
industry.
In February, 1960 Cuba signed trade
agreements with the Soviet Union. The Soviets agreed to exchange their oil for sugar
no longer purchased by the U.S. When the
U.S. owned oil refineries refused to refine the Soviet oil, the Cuban
government nationalized them.
In July, 1960, the U.S. cut all sugar
purchases. Over the next several months the Cuban government nationalized U.S.
owned corporations and banks on the island. Therefore, between the spring of 1960
and January 1961 U.S. and Cuban economic ties came to a halt and the island
nation had established formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
Shortly before Eisenhower left office, the break was made symbolically complete
with the U.S. termination of formal diplomatic relations with Cuba.
As U.S./Cuban economic and diplomatic
tensions were escalating, President Eisenhower made a decision that in the
future would lead the world to the brink of nuclear war. In March, 1960, he
ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to create a Cuban exile force that
would invade the island and depose Fidel Castro. Even the State Department knew
at that time that Castro was enormously popular.
In April, 1961, the newly elected
President Kennedy was presented with an invasion plan by the CIA. The agency
claimed that the right-wing Cubans would be greeted as heroes when they landed
at the Bay of Pigs. After the Castro regime was overthrown, all private assets
would be returned, and a Batista-like government would be reestablished.
The Bay of Pigs invasion, April 17-19,
1961, was launched by fifteen hundred Cuban exiles. It was an immediate failure:
500 invaders were killed and the rest captured. No uprising against the
revolutionary government occurred. Kennedy was criticized in the United States
for not providing sufficient air support to protect the invading army. The
critics ignored the fact that the revolutionary government had the support of workers
and peasants who would fight to defend it.
After the invasion attempt failed,
President Kennedy warned of the danger of the “menace of external Communist
intervention and domination in Cuba.” He saw a need to respond to Communism,
whether in Cuba or South Vietnam. In the face of perceived Communist danger to
the Western Hemisphere he reserved the right to intervene as needed. The lesson
he drew from the Bay of Pigs was the need for escalated adventurism, not
caution.
(The
next blog essay will describe a desperate effort to challenge the influence of
the Cuban revolution by establishing an economic assistance program for the
Hemisphere. The final blog essay will describe the events that led the world to
the brink of nuclear war, the Cuban Missile Crisis).
