On the one hand, there were those officials who believed that Castro always had been a communist and should therefore be destroyed as soon as possible. This group included Ambassador Gardner; his successor, Earl T. Smith, who was ambassador from to ; and Admiral Arleigh Burke, the U. Chief of Naval Operations. Gardner suggested to Batista in that he should try to have Castro secretly murdered in the hills, where the civil war already had begun. These friendly attitudes were shared by some officials within the CIA.
Indeed, the second-ranking representative of the CIA in Havana had an open row with Ambassador Smith on the subject of whether Castro was, or was not, a communist, in , and both J. The United States thus presented a divided front toward Castro. He, in turn, was able to employ, to good effect, these divisions among both American policymakers and various molders of public opinion.
A notable example was his use of the visit to Cuba of Herbert Matthews, a high-minded correspondent of the New York Times , in February, Castro saw Matthews in a remote part of the mountains and persuaded him that he was a moderate, nationalist reformer and that he had much more of a following than was really the case.
That sympathy, in March, , enabled Rubottom and his friends in the State Department to ensure an embargo on the sale of arms to Cuba, an action as important for its psychological effect upon Batista as for its actual disservice to the Cuban army. A week later, however, Ambassador Earl Smith, with the greatest personal reluctance, told Batista that the United States government judged he had no alternative save to leave, that the State Department thought he could now only be a hindrance to its hastily devised plans for a transition.
Before Batista finally left Cuba, one of his generals, Cantillo, tried to reach an armistice with Castro and even attempted to make himself the leader of a caretaker government. These and other last-minute plans all came to nothing. Batista left Cuba in the early morning hours of January 1, Castro himself was in Havana by January 8, A new, progressive government was formed. In the beginning, Castro did not figure in this.
Even when he did take over as prime minister, in February, the majority of the members of his government were well known to be liberals. American reactions continued to be ambiguous, but in the Eisenhower administration those willing to give Castro the benefit of the doubt were predominant. There was, of course, some expressed hostility to the new Cuba in the United States, and Castro exploited it to strengthen his position with the reawakened Cuban public opinion.
He also made the most of his visit to the United States in April, , as the guest of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, to arouse further support for himself among the American people. Many Americans were even angry that President Eisenhower refused to meet him on that occasion, preferring to leave the task to Vice President Nixon.
The transition in Cuba from an open to a closed society, after that visit, came fast. In May, , however, a classical agrarian reform, taking over large estates and giving land to squatters and peasants, was promulgated. This inspired a curt but polite U. The reform caused a political upheaval in the countryside, though accounts of what happened are hard to find.
Certainly it was then that the first resistance to Castro began to be organized by Cubans of the Right. Some politicians began to criticize Castro for failing to call elections.
But Castro himself was busy directing abortive expeditions against the dictatorships in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Haiti. In May, also, Castro dismissed several liberal ministers from his cabinet and had his first clash with the Cuban judiciary over a habeas corpus case.
A month later the chief of the Cuban air force fled to the United States and told the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate that communism was beginning to take over in Cuba.
A few weeks after that, in mid-July, Castro hounded out of office his own nominee as President of Cuba, Judge Manuel Urrutia, accusing him of treason and anticommunist expressions. Most of the other liberal cabinet members were then dismissed or were cowed into humiliating betrayals of their old faiths.
The attitude of those who remained in office, like that of many liberals caught up in other revolutionary circumstances, is easy to condemn but important to judge objectively. B bomber converted to a cargo carrier, dropping pamphlets on the city. Antiaircraft guns fired at his plane, and some of their shell fragments fell to the ground and killed a few Cubans—an event that heralded a several months exchange of insults between Cuba and the United States.
In February, , only a year after Castro had taken power, Anastas Mikoyan, Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, arrived in Havana to conclude the first commercial arrangement between Russia and Cuba, and in March, President Eisenhower gave his approval to the training of Cuban exiles by the CIA for a possible invasion of the island.
In the course of the first half of , xthe independence of the judiciary, press, trade unions, and university was destroyed, and the flight of middle-class Cubans and liberals began in earnest. By then, a clash with the United States was inevitable. In June, , the Cubans asked U. They refused. Castro retaliated by nationalizing the refineries. Eisenhower then cut off the U. In return, Castro expropriated the U. Eisenhower responded with a ban on all U. The Cubans immediately took over all the remaining large private enterprises.
In January, , the U. Something like a new civil war had broken out by this time in the hills of Escambray in southern Cuba. The revolution, he announced, had given every Cuban a rifle, not a vote. From this summary of events, despite the unfolding drama of and , it will be seen that the real decisions concerning the direction the revolution would take were made in , between May and October, and probably in June or July.
Castro and Guevara on separate occasions mentioned that time as crucial, and it was then, also, that leading figures were first ousted or arrested for anticommunism. When the mere expression of anticommunism becomes a crime, it is a sure sign of what line a government wishes to pursue.
By that time, the possibilities of achieving a humane or open regime in Cuba were over. Marxism belittles the role of individuals in history. Some would say that this question presents no real problems. Earl Smith, Arthur Gardner, and some others thought that Castro had been a communist for years. This is a communist revolution. I always say, if our friends praise us and our enemies heap abuse on us, it means we are conducting policy along correct class lines.
From Sergei Khrushchev, ed. The Americans took an insulting attitude toward this delegation, and they did this the way they really know how to in America. The Cuban delegation was expelled from its hotel. Of course, it was supposedly the hotel owner who made this decision, as though it were simply a private matter, so that the government did not have to bear any responsibility, as though it had not interfered.
I was told that Castro was raging and thundering, threatening that if shelter was not found for his delegation, that as a former guerrilla fighter he would put up a tent out on the open square near the UN building and live there. Then the owner of a hotel in Harlem offered accommodations for the Cuban delegation. We were furious when we heard about this swinish behavior toward the Cuban delegation. No, not sympathy but indignation. He was a man of strong will and hardly needed sympathy, but he understood that this was a response by the American reactionaries to the policy being pursued by the revolutionary Cuban government.
He responded proudly because for him it was not a humiliation but a result of the fight he was putting up to oppose discrimination against his country. I asked our representatives to get in touch with Castro by phone and let him know that Khrushchev wanted to make a visit to him immediately. That was a common practice. Many delegations were visiting one another. I was told that Fidel was grateful for our concern, but he himself wanted to come visit us. He evidently thought that since the Soviet Union was a great country and Cuba a small revolutionary island, he should come visit us first and only after that should the representative of the USSR make a return visit to him.
Then I asked that he be informed that Khrushchev had already left, because we thought we should be the first to make a visit. This was to emphasize our solidarity with Cuba and our indignation at the discrimination with which Cuba was being treated. There was a second consideration. The Cuban delegation was now being housed in Harlem, a Black district, and the owner of the hotel was African American. The fact that the Cubans were living in Harlem was impressive to Black people, and a visit by Khrushchev to that predominantly Black part of the city for a visit to the Cuban delegation would in general be a demonstrative display of our position.
I informed our bodyguards that we were going. Our guards immediately got in touch with the head of the police detachment assigned to us. Police on motorcycles accompanied us with an extraordinary amount of noise. There were quite a few of them. Our comrades told me that the head of the American police guarding us, a man I knew personally because he had also been a guard when I was a guest of President Eisenhower [in September ] , was asking that I not go there, because unpleasant incidents could happen in that neighborhood, and he was talking against this visit in every possible way.
That convinced me more than ever of the necessity to make this visit; otherwise the journalists would be calling in their reports all over America that Khrushchev was afraid of Blacks or that supposedly there was going to be a demonstration there and perhaps he would suffer some physical injury.
Officially I had the right to make the trip, since Harlem was within the limits in which we were allowed free movement, and I asked that the head of the group of police be informed that I was exercising my rights and was going to make this trip, and if he did not want to go there, he did not have to. Of course, he did go. I was given a car and we set off for the hotel where Castro was staying. A huge crowd of people had gathered there, primarily journalists. They were present outside our residence, on constant duty, and they followed the police.
When I arrived in Harlem the whole area was jammed full of cars. And since so many photographers, movie cameramen, and journalists had arrived, other people also were drawn there. A huge number of the local Black population also gathered.
I will not talk here about the external appearance of that part of New York. It has been described perfectly well by others, and people who are interested in America have a clear picture of it. When we arrived at the hotel, Castro and his comrades were waiting for us by the entrance. This was the first time I had ever seen him in person, and he made a powerful impression on me: a man of great height with a black beard and a pleasant, stern face, which was lit up by a kind of goodness.
His face simply glowed with it and it sparkled in his eyes. We enclosed each other in an embrace. He bent over me as though covering my body with his.
Although my dimensions were somewhat wider, his height overpowered everything. Besides, he was a solidly built man for his height. Then we immediately went up to his hotel rooms. When I entered the hotel I became aware immediately that no one lived there but Blacks. It was an old, rundown building. The air was heavy and stale. Apparently the furniture and the bedclothes had not been aired out sufficiently, and perhaps they were not, as we say, of the first degree of freshness--or even the second.
We went into his rooms and exchanged a few remarks. He expressed his pleasure at my visit, and I spoke words of solidarity and approval of his policies. Our meeting was brief; actually, that was all there was to it.
I immediately returned to my residence. You can imagine what an uproar was raised in the American press! Not only the American press. The incident echoed widely throughout the world. The rudeness and discrimination toward the Cuban delegation was noted, as well as the demonstrative visit to Castro by the Soviet delegation. And of course our fraternal embrace. On the next day we arrived at the United Nations before the opening of the session.
Then the Cuban delegation arrived. It was seated a fairly good distance away from us. I suggested that we go over and say hello. We demonstratively walked across the entire meeting hall and greeted each other. Castro and I embraced again, showing that fraternal relations were being established between us and that we were treating Cuba as a friend. We emphasized our unity on questions of struggle against imperialism and colonialism and against aggression by the imperialist powers. This demonstrative action came off well.
It too was echoed in the press in an appropriate way. The press reactions varied. The democratic press welcomed this and the capitalist press picked us apart.
Blight, Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Let me start by saying that in analyzing a period such as this one, we must also analyze or review the participation of several personalities in it. Two of them are two very important personalities of our time: Khrushchev and Kennedy. They were two people for whom I feel great respect. I met him personally. I remember when, immediately after a meeting of heads of state in the United Nations, he went to visit me at the Theresa Hotel, where I had virtually been confined at the time due to the enormous hostility directed at me there.
I was practically ejected from my original hotel. I had two options: either to get and set up a tent on the United Nations patio, or to go to the Theresa Hotel. There I was welcomed, and I received the visits of many heads of state. Khrushchev among them. That was a great honor; he behaved toward us extremely well. Anytime or every time that we requested anything from him, he did everything possible to try to meet our requests.
I had the feeling that I was rather dealing with a peasant—a very wise peasant—but, more than that, an intelligent man—a very intelligent man—an audacious man, and a courageous man. Those were my personal impressions of Khrushchev.
To lay the groundwork for the Castro-Khrushchev encounter, the Soviet ambassador in Havana, Sergey Kudryavtsev, spoke with Cuban leaders in the days before the Cuban leader left for New York. The Cuban leader promised, in particular, to endorse Soviet positions on international affairs, especially disarmament and Berlin, in his own speech. Note: The documents were not fully transcribed, so only extensive excerpts are presented below. Kudryavtsev to A.
Obtained by James G. Hershberg and translated by Gary Goldberg. I told R. Roa that Cde. Khrushchev will of course be glad to meet with him in New York and to discuss any questions which are of interest to R. Then I said that the Soviet delegation will be in constant contact with the Cuban delegation on all the questions of the General Assembly agenda and [will] inform it of our position.
Thanking me, Roa said that he would immediately inform Fidel Castro, who is outside Havana right now, of what [I] had said. Roa continued, F. Castro and the entire Cuban delegation intend to arrive in New York on 18 September. Castro will not delay in meeting N. Khrushchev as soon as this is possible for the head of the Soviet government. The Cuban delegation will maintain the closest contact with the Soviet delegation on all the questions and he, Raul Roa, would like to meet A.
Gromyko as soon as he arrives in New York. In reply to this I said that, of course, this could be done both through our UN Mission as well as through the Soviet delegation at the General Assembly. I further told Raul Roa that our position on the question of disarmament is based on the same positions which were presented by N.
Khrushchev in speeches at the UN General Assembly in , and those proposals which were submitted by the Soviet government at the Committee of 10 Countries in Geneva.
Roa said in reply that the information I had reported to him about the position of the Soviet delegation on disarmament would help the Cuban government develop its own position on this question.
Right now, continued R. Roa, we are preparing a draft of a speech for F. Castro and therefore your information will give us substantial assistance. Castro intends to limit his stay in New York as much as possible. He prefers to leave New York immediately after he makes his speech there. It seems to me, R. Roa stressed, that the speech is not the main thing, although an important place.
In my view, it would be important if F. Castro did not limit himself to just making the speech and used his stay in New York to establish contacts with the heads of government of other countries, and to inform them in more detail about the development of the Cuban revolution and the problems which Cuba encounters today. We have tried to convince F. Castro of this, but it seems to me that this was not exactly successful. Roa stressed, I personally think that F.
In any event, F. For F. Castro this trip will be a unique experience [ shkola ] for the formation of an important state figure. Roa noted, F. Castro is very hot-tempered and mercurial, like all Cubans, and it is often necessary to give him advice so that he acts more discreetly and cautiously. From the Journal of S. In accordance with instructions I had I visited F.
Castro and informed him that N. I told Fidel Castro that Cde. Khrushchev would of course be glad to meet with him in New York and discuss any questions of interest to F. Then I said that the Soviet delegation would be in constant contact with the Cuban delegation about all questions of the General Assembly agenda and would inform it of our position.
Castro said in reply that he would be very glad to meet with N. Khrushchev and was quite thankful for our readiness to help him during the UN General Assembly session. Castro continued, it is the first time I have had to go to such an Assembly, and I still do not know how to act. Therefore N. I would like to know how [I] can meet N. Khrushchev in such a situation where there might be the opportunity to talk about all questions of interest to Cuba.
Personally, F. I said in reply that he ought not worry about this. A more convenient place for a meeting with N. Khrushchev can be arranged between the delegations as soon as he, F. Castro, arrives in New York.
Considering the questions of F. Castro about the work of the General Assembly, I told him in detail about the procedure and means of establishing the necessary working contacts on questions being discussed between the delegations. Castro stressed that he attaches very great importance to the current session of the General Assembly. Khrushchev gave this session a completely unusual nature.
Castro continued, I am personally very grateful to him that, as a result of the initiative he has exhibited to me, a representative of a small country fighting to preserve its independence, an opportunity has been presented to this high forum to expose to the entire world the aggressive designs of the American imperialists.
You know that I am not able to speak from a written text. Therefore I am thinking out the plan of a speech, and I am selecting individual facts and arguments. Castro noted further, I want to devote the main attention in my speech to exposing the aggressive nature of American imperialism and address an appeal to the peoples of the world to protect Cuba from the threat of aggression from the USA.
Having said that he would like to support the proposals of the Soviet Union on the main international problems in his speech, F. Castro asked me in what terms the Soviet delegation would raise the question of disarmament. I said in reply to this that our position on the question of disarmament is based on the same positions which were described by N. So that our position on the question is clearer for you, I continued, I would like to pass [you] necessary materials about the position of the Soviet Union on this question in Spanish.
Castro expressed gratitude for the information and the materials, stressing that he would support the proposal of the Soviet Union about disarmament without fail and devote a proper place to this question in his speech. Undoubtedly, I will stress the reluctance of the USA to disarm with sharp criticism, and I will explain the reasons why the American government takes such a position.
Castro said further that tonight he would read N. Then F. Castro said that along with criticism of the USA government for its complicity in the revival of German militarism he would stress the just nature of the Soviet proposals on the German question and the question of Berlin, and also favor the elimination of all foreign bases on foreign territory. Castro continued, in my speech I intend to also declare that military bases on foreign territory not only present a threat to peace, but are also impermissible interference in the internal affairs of these countries, inasmuch as the presence of such bases in itself limits their sovereignty.
In the course of further conversation F. Castro expressed a desire to speak at the General Assembly after N. Khrushchev in order to support the main proposals of the speech of the head of the Soviet government with greater effectiveness. Castro said that during his stay in New York he intended to establish contact with the heads of the governments of other countries, and especially with the representatives of the countries of Africa.
In conclusion F. Castro asked me again to pass his gratitude to N. Khrushchev for the aid. He personally intends to spend days in New York, regardless of when he will be given an opportunity to speak.
Record of Conversation between N. Fidel Castro said he was very happy to hear that N. Khrushchev would come for a visit, despite all obstacles.
Such an important person as the head of the Soviet government would be the first to visit the Prime Minister of such a small country as Cuba. This is very important for the Cubans and for public opinion as a whole.
Khrushchev replied that he has been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, and it is a great pleasure to meet with Fidel Castro. We are cheerful and inspired when our enemies are raging in anger. They do stupid things and all sensible people condemn their behavior. Next, N. Khrushchev said that he would like to use this opportunity to express his deep respect for Fidel Castro personally and through him for the heroic Cuban people as a whole.
Castro noted that the poorest people in New York are the Hispanics and Blacks. Despite the anti-Cuban, anti-revolutionary propaganda in TV, film, and print media in the United States, they understand the truth and are sympathetic to the revolution in Cuba. The Hispanics enthusiastically greeted the Cuban delegation at the airport.
The US authorities tried to deceive them, claiming that the plane with the delegation would land at another airport. He noted further that [Adlai E. It was very well received here. Castro noted that they relocated to the hotel at night, and still at that late hour a big crowd gathered and shouted welcoming slogans. Enemies of the revolution will not come to this neighborhood. The Blacks said they will protect the delegation from ill-wishers and they will do it without the help of police.
They also favorably received N. I read the statement you made upon arriving to the US and I must say you are very aware of the needs of ordinary people. You speak their language. I am sure that after a second visit to the US, they will have an even better opinion of you.
Further, Fidel Castro said he decided to lead the Cuban delegation only because it was announced that N. This is a very important session and it is very good that N. Khrushchev will take part in its work. If imperialist countries do not change their position, they have no future. People all over the world will regard us more and more favorably.
The imperialists are trying to create a coalition against us in the UN, but they will not be able to. They have nothing to counter the compelling and persuasive arguments of Chairman Khrushchev. People do not want war; consequently the peaceful aspirations and efforts of the Soviet government are recognized worldwide. The struggle for peace is a very strong argument. Khrushchev replied that imperialist powers think they still have control over us, that they can do whatever they want.
However, the imperialists can no longer dictate their terms to us, either militarily or economically. We are not dependent on them for anything. We are developing our economy and technology completely independently, and this is the most important thing. Our ideas have always been stronger, and now they are backed by material and technical factors.
Our politics, our slogans are clear and relevant to all people — peace, friendship, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other states.
Castro said that this is the most persuasive argument. People understand this very well and that is why they have a high regard for us, despite the position of the US State Department. Further, N. Khrushchev said he hopes this is not the last meeting, and when Fidel Castro comes to visit the Soviet government at any time that is convenient for him, they will be able to have a more detailed discussion with no outsiders listening in.
Castro said that N. Khrushchev is highly respected by the Cuban people, who are very grateful to the Soviet government for its assistance. When N. Khrushchev comes to Cuba, Fidel Castro will personally make sure that the Cuban people give him a heartfelt reception. The conversation lasted 40 minutes. Present at the conversation were: F. Lebedev, A. Adzhubei, P. In a series of conversations with Soviet ambassador to Cuba Sergey M. Kudryavtsev, Fidel Castro and his top aides, from January to April , considered the prospects for an assault on Cuba by anti-Castro exiles, supported by the US government and organized by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Since the ostensibly clandestine preparations including training camps in Guatemala and Florida , were widely reported on by the media, ranging from The Nation magazine to The New York Times and Miami Herald , and the subject of loud gossip among emigres in Florida and elsewhere, the topic frequently came up—as did the question of whether the new US President, John F.
Kennedy, would follow through on an operation evidently begun under Eisenhower. In the first document, Kudryavtsev describes a talk with Fidel Castro from 21 January, , the evening after John F. Kennedy took office and gave his inaugural address. Fondly recalling his meetings with Khrushchev in New York four months earlier, Castro also raised his ideas for a visit to the Soviet Union, possibly later that year it would not happen until the spring of In the conversation which passed in a warm and friendly atmosphere, I touched on several questions of the domestic political situation and the foreign policy situation of Cuba.
Fidel Castro talked much about how he was quite satisfied with the results of the mobilization of the Cuban people held on days when the threat of possible direct intervention from the US hung over Cuba. This mobilization, stressed Fidel Castro, again showed the readiness of the Cubans to defend their homeland, and helped the revolutionary government rally all the people together to repel possible American aggression.
Fidel Castro said, the counterrevolutionary breeding grounds in Escambray do not present any serious danger either to the revolutionary government or the domestic situation of the country as a whole. A decision was made just now to conclude agrarian reform in this region more quickly and to first of all undermine the economic base of the rich peasants, who are as a matter of fact supporting these counterrevolutionary groups, supplying them with food. The most dangerous elements of the rich peasants will be exiled from this region and hauled into court in the event that their ties with the counterrevolutionaries are detected.
Fidel Castro continued, on the whole the activity of the internal counterrevolutionaries fell somewhat after the adoption of a stricter law by the government.
However, this does not mean that internal counterrevolutionaries have been done away with. On the contrary, a long and difficult struggle lies ahead, but we are all confident that the internal counterrevolution will be brought to an end in Then the conversation turned on the economic situation of the country. Fidel Castro noted in this connection that, in his opinion, the state of the economy does not arouse any serious worries, although of course there will be some difficulties in in supplying the population with individual goods.
At the same time unemployment in agriculture will probably be ended, and this fact will strengthen the revolution even more. In order to continually supply the population of the country with food the government intends to somewhat reduce the amount of land occupied by sugar cane. Food consumption decreased. Telephones and televisions were harder to come by. With no way to import American cars, Cubans watched their pre-embargo sedans rust into jalopies.
The early s were marked by a number of subversive, top-secret U. Between and there were at least five plots to kill, maim or humiliate the Cuban leader using everything from exploding seashells to shoes dusted with chemicals to make his beard fall out. The darkest moment in the countries' relationship came on the morning of October 15, when U. President Kennedy learned of the threat the following morning, while still in pajamas, and for the next 12 days the U.
The Soviet missiles were gone within six months, but it would take a long time for America to forgive the nation that allowed them to be placed so close to the American mainland. Read about the lessons learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In April , a downtown in the economy caused thousands of dissatisfied Cubans to seek political asylum in foreign countries. Anyone who wanted to leave, Castro announced, could do so through its northwestern port, Mariel Harbor. Over the next six months , Cubans clambered onto boats and made their way to the U.
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